Latest / Thick No More / I Lost Everything at 56... Then Discovered I Had ADHD | John O'Shea

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I Lost Everything at 56... Then Discovered I Had ADHD | John O'Shea · Thick No More

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Where voices rise, stories connect.
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Hey everyone, welcome back to Think No More.
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This is a podcast where we openly talk about what it means
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to grow up feeling different and finally realise actually you
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were never broken in the 1st place.
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I'm really excited about today's guest.
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First of all, we're doing this on video so that's a bit scary
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for me. I literally met John day before
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yesterday and we just kind of hit it off like that.
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So I'll probably refer to him as mate and a friend, but genuinely
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he's just someone that I've come across in the mire and we just
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seem to have this amazing connection.
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So John is the founder of Neuro Spicy and the author of a brand
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new book called Neuro Spicy. It's kind of had to describe it.
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It's raw, messy, but brutally honest.
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And I think it's probably going to change the way you think
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about ADHD, dyslexia in life itself.
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John has lived. Bear in mind I told you, I only
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met him a couple of days ago and we had like a 30 minute chat.
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In my opinion, he's lived a life of chaos, humour, heartbreak,
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redemption. I'm really looking forward to
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digging into this. It's going to be brilliant.
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John, my friend, welcome to Thickman More mate, it's great
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to have you on. Thank you and I'm proud to
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announce you're the first on the video on this is the first
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podcast. So for the book went live only
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yesterday. So very exciting for both of us.
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Yeah, well, what we'll do at the end as well, I'm going to give
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people the opportunity to, to, to get your book.
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So I'm going to put all the links on there.
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So anyone's interested in this? I mean, honestly, I, I, I, I've,
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I've got quite a bit into it and it's, it's absolutely brilliant.
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Like I say, that's why I kind of said raw and messy.
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It's really like what that that's what this is going to be.
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I think this video, I'm not going to edit this.
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I am going to leave it as it is, so whatever happens, happens.
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If we make mistakes, we make mistakes.
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We'll both learn as we. Go human, buddy.
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We're human. That's the line for sure.
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So first question, everyone gets asked this, right?
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Picture the scene my friend. You walk through a door, door
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flings open. Soon as you walk through any
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door, a theme tune starts. What's your song that's in your
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head, mate? Well, what are you thinking of?
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I'm a James Taylor Rodriguez, Bob Marley, Billy Joel.
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But this song is completely nothing like that.
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And probably my daughter would say, how in the hell?
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You mentioned this, but it's Miley Cyrus Flowers and the
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great tune. Yeah, it's a great tune, but
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it's sort of because I went through that divorce and I spent
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a lot of time on my own. It was a really difficult thing
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to grasp being on your own and but then how cool it can be
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really sometimes you know, that you get to do things in your own
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space in your own time. So that's sort of my theme song.
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So I'm probably a bit old to be saying Miley Cyrus, but that
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that's it. Flowers.
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Brilliant. Love it.
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Great tune. And yeah, it's probably a guilty
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pleasure for me. Miley Cyrus, she's just bought a
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song out. I love Fleetwood Mac Show my age
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now. But she's just bought a song out
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with Mick Fleetwood and Lindsay Buckingham.
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Oh, wow. And if you like Fleetwood Mac,
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listen to that because you've got that that Mari Silas really
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distinctive voice, but you can tell it's the Fleetwood, you
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know, the Fleetwood Mac behind the back of it.
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She's also. Really bad.
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Really bad. She's she's been naughty in her
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life, so. And I'm, you know, she's young,
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so I like her. Yeah.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, haven't we all mate?
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Yeah. Haven't we all all?
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Right. So I'm going to pull out, this
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is going to, I'm going to go all over the place for this.
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Normally I kind of like go back and then we'll, we'll talk about
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it. But I, I really want to kind of
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like dig into what my brain's thinking and whatever you Chuck
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at me, then that's, that's, that's what go with this.
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But I want to talk about like a bit that I've picked out.
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And you mentioned this when we spoke the other day and I've
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kind of like tapped into it a bit and I kind of described it
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as a breaking point. So you just touched on it there
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with, with your Music Choice. So you're sitting alone in a
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borrowed car, marriage over 33 years, job gone, home gone.
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Now that for me, that's just, I, I can't even imagine like,
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what's going on at your mind at that point, my friend, I mean.
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Oh, I just how could you be such a loser?
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Like, how could you be? You know, how could you have
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given it all away and, and why would you be so reckless to be
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put into this situation? And I think that some of the
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things that we're going to talk about in this is because failure
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had been such a part of my life. I was actually really
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comfortable with failure, but I didn't realise I was going to
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ripple through all of my life so sincerely since succinctly.
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And I, I, I was pretty close and I'm a really strong person and
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I've dealt with a lot of trauma from a young age right through
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and, and, and obviously with my wife leaving me was massively
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traumatic. And I, I must say that I had
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thought about, you know, ending things and, you know, jumping in
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front of a tram. I was probably too strong to do
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that and didn't run it. But I now know how how that
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feeling of desperation and despair and get you there.
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And that's where I was. And so I guess I had to do two
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things. I'd either turn into my shell
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and become very hollow and self absorbing and you know, oh, look
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at the world's done to me or I got up and I started fighting
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and that's what I did. And I just, I just fought as
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hard as I possibly could. I didn't want to get out of bed
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some days. But you just had to force
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yourself. And then I got into a routine of
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really self-care. I got into a routine of looking
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after my diet. But you know, you go from a
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family life to being on your own, you know, you've got to do
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your own washing, your own cooking, you're cooking for
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yourself, you're cleaning it. It, it was really very difficult
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situation. And so I just started with the
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little things and I just started making my bed, doing my washing,
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making sure I put the dishes away.
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Made my environment really comfortable and friendly for
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myself. Started doing meditation, going
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to the gym every day regardless of whether I felt like it or
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not. So it wasn't motivation, it was
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just discipline. And I just started being really
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disciplined and that was sort of the trigger it's into.
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Yeah, you know, something, something I've really picked up
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on like, and it's only when you speak to other neurodivergent,
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I'm going to talk about your ADHD in a second.
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But the one thing that's really, really apparent right over all
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of these episodes, and we've had dyslexics, epileptics, ADHD, is
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people with trauma. There seems to be a defining
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moment, a point where they've literally brick wall crash.
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And I think that's for some people particularly.
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And we're really resilient. That's one thing about neuro
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Divergent. We have to be right.
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But obviously that feud was the real flick of the switch.
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And you thought, well, this is either going to go one way or
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the other. And it's testament to you at the
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end of the day, my friend, the fact that you've turned your
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life around like that, you know? Well, I remember saying in the
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book, you know, this is either going to make me stronger or,
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you know, a whole person and I didn't wish to be here, but I
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just fought. And that fighting became then a
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journey of self, self understanding.
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And so I went to all the counsellors.
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I did all the staff. I, I got diagnosed with ADHD,
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you know, six months later. But The thing is that none of it
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was helping. It was not solving the problems.
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It was just giving the information back.
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So I did a lot of research. I delved into, you know, the
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issues related to it. I, I looked at a whole lot of
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motivation on in the back of the book, I list all the books that
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I read that helped me get through where I was.
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And I would read them. I wouldn't read them, but get
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them, you know, audio to me, you know, 3 or 4 times over and over
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and over, you know, whether I was in a car when I was riding
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my bike to the gym, wherever I was, that's what I was listening
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to, not music. Now I'm very much into the
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music, but the writing the book was not about writing the book.
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It was about me understanding the problem and saying the
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problem's mine, you need to fix it.
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No one else is going to fix it for you.
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And that was basically where we went through.
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And it was interesting because the co-author that helped me
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write the book, I would send her paragraphs or send her stuff.
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She would then interview me like this and then basically write it
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exactly the way that I spoke it. And you'll see that that
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there's. It's in, it's all in here, isn't
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it? It for me, I, I, I appear, I
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have the most beautiful, beautiful pictures.
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I mean, Van Goghs, you know, you know, they were, they were
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amazing. But the moment it comes out of
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here and I try and get these things to work, to write it
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down, that's when it all goes to put.
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Also the onto. Slide so.
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When you're reading it, it's crazy.
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You sort of think you're reading it.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't remember anything
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you've read. Yeah.
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So. No, no, no.
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I, I mentioned to you the day about like when I type emails,
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like the greatest thing for me, like you mentioned the lady
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helping you, the greatest thing for me is I have a sanity check
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on my emails now. Yes, it's AI, but it's sanity
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checks what I'm sending. And the reason that's good is
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because people used to say to me, are you really annoyed of
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me? And I'm like, no, well, that
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e-mail you sent sounded really angry.
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And I'm like. Yeah.
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It wasn't, I mean, I'm not, I'm not stomping on the keyboard
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while I'm typing. It's just, it just doesn't come
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out right. And it's funny because it's all
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locked up there and it's so you were like, what did you say 56
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when you when you were diagnosed with?
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With yeah, about 5656, yeah. And I look, I probably always
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knew I was diagnosed as a very young child for being dyslexic.
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And that was, you know, all it was, was putting a label on.
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It didn't really do anything. There was nothing changed in the
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system. They just put you into.
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You're either in a class or G class.
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And I was in the GS and I just slowed everything down.
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They didn't teach you any different way.
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There was no, you still had to do the AEIU, you still had to
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learn by phonics. You know, it was all the same
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stuff. So just you're labeled.
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But getting like, I remember going to the psychiatrist, it
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took six months and I just remembered feeling, you know, I
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needed to see you 6 months ago. By the time I got to him, I was
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like 200 times better than what I was.
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And he said, we're going to do all these testing.
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We're going to do all this sort of stuff.
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And I said, mate, you don't have to do any tests.
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I'll just tell you my story. So I sat there for 15 minutes.
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He just said you are so ADD it's it's I don't have to do the
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tests on you. You're the most ADD person on
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it. That's a great $600.00 I've just
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spent you. Know it's as you said, like 6
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months, I mean, did it when you finally realized when he said
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them words to you, I mean, he'd had six months to kind of think
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about it anyway. But because it, you know, we get
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a lot of people listening, a lot of parents with, with young
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children or young adults which have been diagnosed and they
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kind of reach out after them and go, oh, you know, we've, we've
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been diagnosed. We don't know.
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How did it make you feel when you finally knew was it was?
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It sort of look to a degree, it's a little bit writing the
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book. It's sort of an oxymoron because
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I've spent my whole life not being able to read and write.
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And so writing the books that are like, OK, a lot of people
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would love to be an author. I'm really not overly excited
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about being an author. I'm excited about the message in
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the book and if I can help others.
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So it was a little bit like that.
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It was sort of like a, it wasn't a relief to me.
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It wasn't a relief. It was just a step in the next
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direction of me solving some of the problems that I needed to
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solve to recognise that I need to do it.
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And I went on to the Ritalin and I've, and I've no longer on
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Ritalin regularly. I, I find that meditation and
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the gym are just as good for me. But sometimes when I've got like
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a big week ahead of me, I, I might start taking a little bit
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of it. But I was diagnosed, I was meant
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to be on 2 tablets. I found I couldn't take one
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tablet after 3 o'clock otherwise I couldn't sleep.
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I've gone back to 1 tablet and I spoke to the psychiatrist about
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it and he said that's fine, better to self regulate it than
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just do it and just take it. I've got mates that are on it
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and they just pop them Willy nilly.
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And so I'm now very much more of the line of saying if I can
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meditate and go to the gym and I can have that time, that quality
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time and eat well, then I'm so much better as a person.
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So if I don't do that then I find myself going back into old
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ways and old patterns. And so I think that's one of the
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things that I've really learned is doing really basic things and
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getting them as part of your daily routine.
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You don't have to think about them because ADD people and
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dyslexia people are not very good at continually doing the
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same stuff over and over. And, and so we go off on these
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tangents and we've got all this amazing stuff happening and we
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do this and then we're halfway through digging that hole and we
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go over here and we want to do something else or we're off to
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the hardware and we forget what we're going to have to do.
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And we're at the chemist and we don't even know why we're at the
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chemist. And So what I've found is that
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if I just do these things every. It's crazy.
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And, you know, and the people around us, you know, that's one
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of the things that I want to talk about.
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But the, that discipline of doing these things regularly or
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at least five times a week, really important, especially
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when you don't want to do it. That's when it's really
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important to do it. They're the ones, they're the
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winning day. Yeah.
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And so I. I agree with you.
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I mean, I, I'm, I'm recording this in my gym, right?
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So my, my podcast room is my gym.
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I've got some bows in the background of things that are
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important to me and my focus point and, and you're dead,
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right? There are days I get up and I
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think it's, it's the whole digging day, right?
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It's I've started it and I'm like, yeah, I'll just leave
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that, that can wait another day. So I come down here and I'm
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like, don't really want to do this, but it's having, it's
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having that little thing when you when you realize, when
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you've completed it, I'm not saying it makes you feel better,
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but it just makes me feel a bit more.
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I feel like I can concentrate for the rest of the day.
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Then it's just giving me that focus of I've completed that
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task. Well done.
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You, you know, you haven't. You haven't left.
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It till tomorrow, it's the same thing as you know, I heard this
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Army guy speaking, he said doing the little things like making a
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bed. So when you get back at the end
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of the day, you can say, look, I achieved that.
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Yeah. Where, you know, a lot of us,
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especially Myles, like, you know, especially when I was, you
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know, my wife used to leave and go away on holidays and stuff,
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you know, as we pizzas and never make the bed and, you know, you
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didn't really care where. Now I find that that's totally
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not me. That's not what I want to be.
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So the person I want to be. So.
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Yeah. So the books, you know, the
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books got a lot of. Yeah, Yeah.
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I want to talk about that, right?
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So we're diagnosed, right? We, we know where we are.
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We know, we know we've got dyslexia and we now know we're
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ADHD as well, right? For me, at that point, I'm like,
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well, OK, now I know what I need to do.
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I know I've got medication. I need to look after myself a
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bit more, be a bit more, be a bit bit kinder to myself.
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But no. So you could have just at that
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point, my friend, you could have gone, right?
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There's the level I need to swim to keep above that level.
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But now you decide just to start writing a book, right?
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So you know, tell me, tell me, tell me why, tell me.
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You know the the thing as well. You said the other day I made a
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note of this in my amazing handwriting.
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I didn't. It did on the computer, but
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otherwise I've got to read it. You said it's not how it's not a
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self help book. It's a mirror.
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Who? Who?
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So for people to see themselves in it.
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So tell me a bit about the book. Tell me why.
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Tell me why you decided to do. It and it's pretty it's pretty
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raw there's some stuff in there that's pretty, you know, open
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talking about, you know, as a young kid wetting the bed till I
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was 10. There's an e-mail there from my
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partner who basically just lists all the things that you're bad
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at. And it's, it's when I, I know
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when I read it the first time, I didn't read it.
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I didn't, I didn't hear it. I read it, but I didn't hear it
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because I was in denial. And you know it.
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You know, it's OK. It's like the roller coaster
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you're on is OK because I'm driving the car.
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And that's the, that's the real issue with some of the people
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like us is we don't recognize the carnage that's happening
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with all the people around us. If that makes sense.
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I'm just going to go turn the light on you 2 set.
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Yeah, no problem mate. I didn't.
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It's getting down, see? I told.
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You it was going to be raw. That's it.
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It's it's. Yeah, exactly.
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So what? Time is it with you now?
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It's about, it was about 8, we started, so probably about 8:15
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at night PM. All credits are, you see, I'm
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normally in bed by then. Sorry, it is.
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So carry on, sorry. No, that's fine.
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So that, that rawness means you really have to be honest and to
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be honest, you have to face yourself with all the shit that
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you're no good at. Now, I've been very successful.
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I, I've, I've had an enormous amount of success, but I've also
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had an enormous amount of failures.
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And that, that is very difficult.
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You know, if if, you know, I sold one of my businesses to a
18:34
bank and was a senior executive at the bank and hated every
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minute of it. But if I'd have stayed in that
18:40
position, you know, I would have had a normal comfortable life
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and today would have been completely different to what it
18:48
has been. But I also wouldn't have written
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this. That's not us, right?
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No, Well, that's. That's not, that's not you,
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that's not us, that's not an early divergent.
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No, I know, but sometimes I wish I was that person.
18:58
But at the same time is that we're, we're lucky that we have
19:03
this and, and I do see it as a, as a, a superpower, but it's
19:06
also very, very dangerous superpower.
19:09
So it's something that needs to be managed and it needs to be
19:12
understood. And so people need to do
19:14
education about it, The parents, the boyfriends, the girlfriends,
19:18
the husbands, the wives, the kids to understand it is, is
19:23
also important because that's part of the journey.
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And there is some amazing stuff that happens and there are
19:29
amazing people out there, but for every one person that we
19:33
know of that's very successful, there's hundreds of thousands
19:36
that you don't see. I was struggling every day going
19:39
to work every day. Like going to school for me was
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an absolute nightmare every day. So every day I knew I was going
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to an environment that I was going to fail.
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Every day I knew that I was going to be called a name.
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Every day I knew the teachers were going to say something
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stupid to me. That was demoralizing.
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Then I'd get home, there were school reports would be there.
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It it it was just a never ending fail cycle.
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And that's that becomes you. You as a caboter, you, you, you,
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I mean, we were a similar age bracket, right And I know that
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which is the whole reason this is called thick.
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No more those those words like those teachers now they're
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they're long gone, right? They're long gone, but they
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probably, they probably at the time thought they were saying
20:26
them as a motivational tactic to try and drive me and drive you
20:31
to do the right thing, but didn't realize the impact that
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it has on you as an individual. Even now, if I hear certain
20:39
words, it's a trigger and I'm like, come on, you know, not
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good. Yeah, now look.
20:46
John. Yeah, yeah, that must have just
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paused. But yeah, look, I, I and look,
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I, I know one of the things you want to ask is, you know, what
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would you say to them today? And, and The thing is that I
21:00
don't know that there is anything you can say.
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I think that they were naive. I don't think that they were
21:04
educated. I think that the education
21:06
system is its worth its own worst enemy.
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And the fact is you've got a system built by educators that
21:14
then have people go back into the system that are doing the
21:17
same thing that those educators are doing, you know, from the
21:20
very, very onset. And so it, it, they're, they're
21:23
not really expanding on anything they're doing.
21:26
They're not like building software and expanding it and
21:29
doing all these amazing things. They're just doing the same
21:31
stuff that they'll be doing since inception.
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And I just don't understand why they fight so much against the
21:39
system. If you look at the stats, 30% of
21:42
people basically come out of the education system illiterate when
21:46
I was one of them. And so why wouldn't you?
21:49
Then it's. Horrendous.
21:50
It's horrendous. It makes sense.
21:54
You said about being. Well, you said about, you said
21:56
about a label. You used the word label earlier.
21:59
You know, that's the other thing as well, is the fact that even
22:01
when you do get diagnosed, like we, I had a parent reach out to
22:06
me the other week saying she'd be given a leaflet.
22:09
Yeah. And she's like, that's it.
22:11
What do I do? I'm like even now, even now
22:15
2025, like, and I agree with you.
22:18
They didn't know. They did naivety.
22:21
They didn't know what dyslexia was.
22:23
There was no understanding of it.
22:24
So, yeah, and. And you've got 30 kids in your
22:26
class, right? And, and, and these are the kids
22:29
that are just causing enormous disruption.
22:33
Can't every time I try and get them to do something.
22:35
Yesterday you could spell the word, now you can't.
22:38
Yesterday you could do it, now you can't like that.
22:41
That must be also massively frustrating to them because
22:45
they're trying to take everyone on this.
22:47
I called the train track and basically we all got on the
22:50
train track together in the train.
22:52
We're on the same car, not, you know, a little difference.
22:54
And then eventually the train stopped at certain stations and
22:57
I got off, but I never got really to get back on the train.
23:00
It's just to try and keep going. And I just got left behind.
23:04
And the more I got left behind, the more that train was gone and
23:08
there was no catch up. But the train drivers, the
23:10
teacher and all they know is to go forward on the track.
23:13
They can't vary off that track and they don't have the skills
23:17
it. It's pretty much the same today.
23:19
The brochure's different. Yeah, it is.
23:21
Right. And I've had.
23:22
Four. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's let it.
23:25
Yeah. It's labeled pretty Now we we
23:27
have nice, pretty brochures. You're right.
23:29
And you know, there's, there's some nice literature in there.
23:32
Yeah, but tell me how many hours?
23:34
Like my son's becoming a teacher at the moment and I speak to him
23:37
and said what, what, what have you done for diversity?
23:40
So we haven't done anything. There's nothing being done.
23:44
Now he may do some course, but if he only does, let's say you
23:49
know, a few units on it over a four year course or a three-year
23:53
course. It's, it's, it's insignificant
23:56
where they'll do all these units on maths and science and English
23:59
and whatever it may be. What they should be doing is, is
24:01
a whole unit on diversification. And one of the things that I
24:05
want to do as part of my next journey from the book is 1 is
24:08
that we've, I've got a section in there where people can write
24:11
their own story and I'll publish the story for them, which then
24:15
will give them the royalties in the book.
24:18
But the real thing that I want to do is I want to do a lateral
24:20
thinking course for schools to basically teach them how to turn
24:25
on the superpower, how to make that a real benefit to them at a
24:30
young age. So they're taught how to
24:32
actually use it. Now, if you look at that and you
24:34
go, well, what's the benefit of that?
24:38
If if in the research that I've got, if 30 odd percent of CEOs
24:43
of major corporations are dyslexic or ADD.
24:47
Most entrepreneurial people, I think it's up to 45 to 50% of
24:51
entrepreneurial people are dyslexic or ADD This is the real
24:55
kicker. 50% of NASA's staff, this is NASA.
24:59
This is the people at the top of sending people into outer space
25:02
are dyslexic. Why?
25:04
They want these people because they think outside the box.
25:07
So where's the course to teach them how to think outside the
25:10
box? They've actually doing that
25:12
under complete self governance. Not one course, not one hour,
25:16
not one minute. That's where I want to take this
25:19
book and journey and get people's inputs and things on
25:23
that. So really good idea and and I
25:25
think anyone wants to what I say, I'm going to put all the
25:28
details at the end. I love the fact and I'm
25:30
definitely going to go on and write something.
25:32
I I think it's I think it's, it's brilliant, mate.
25:35
And you spot on with what you say.
25:36
There's, there's a, there's a massive gap like in the UK we
25:41
have schools which are in really deprived areas and they can't
25:45
afford the technology to help these kids because there's
25:48
technology available, but they just can't afford it.
25:50
So then it falls on the parents. The parents are in a deprived
25:52
area, they can't afford the technology.
25:55
Then you've got the kids that do get the technology.
25:57
So they've got the technology at school, they've got the
25:59
technology at college, they've got the technology at
26:02
university. They leave the university and
26:03
they can get a job. And then there's no technology
26:05
in the job. Like there's a, there's a,
26:07
there's a real break is a real break.
26:09
It's the, the, the, the, the, the chains aren't linked.
26:13
And you're right. You, you, you talked about your
26:15
children now your family. Am I right to say that one of
26:17
your children designed to cover the book?
26:19
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's on, he's on.
26:21
He he's, he's an artist, musician, rock climber,
26:26
skateboarder. Lives very, very holistic life.
26:31
They were very lucky. They all.
26:32
We packed them all up when, when they were from I think 14 down
26:37
to about 5. We packed them all up and took
26:39
them to the, to the Green School in Indonesia, which is the most
26:42
insane school. That's what school should be.
26:45
If anyone wants to see how a school should run, look up the
26:48
Green School in Indonesia. It is, it's education on
26:51
steroids. It is fantastic.
26:53
And so he has you. So he he did the book cover for
26:57
me and I just described what I felt like the book was
27:01
originally going to be called jigsaw.
27:02
Because, you know, you have these thoughts and you know, as
27:05
you know, it's like thousand thoughts.
27:07
And so sometimes I got I get an idea and it's like, you know,
27:10
when you tip the jigsaw puzzle out under the table that first
27:13
time and the pieces are everywhere.
27:15
Well, that's a good way to describe our brains, I reckon
27:19
that there's like, and then you got to sort of start putting
27:21
them together to get a sentence going or get a concept going,
27:25
right. There's always a piece missing.
27:27
You know, there's all that piece on the floor, you know, that's,
27:29
that's so he painted that. Yeah, which I'm pretty proud.
27:33
That must be nice, mate. That must be, yeah.
27:35
I'm saying that's got to be beautiful for you to see that as
27:38
well, you know? So I want to tell you a sort of
27:40
a dyslexic story from the UK, which I think is interesting.
27:44
I, I travelled from Nepal through India, Pakistan, Iran,
27:49
Syria, Jordan, Israel, Turkey, and then all through Europe.
27:53
We don't need to label the Europe ones.
27:55
They're all pretty much the same, but they're going through
27:58
Iran. And those sorts of places were,
28:00
were, was amazing. And it was back in the, in the
28:03
80s and, and I was doing that with a tent.
28:07
I got to the UK and I, I'd worked at a department store in
28:12
Australia when I was at uni and I thought, I'm going to go to
28:16
Harrods, I'll get a job at Harrods.
28:19
So I bought myself a suit and probably from an op shop or
28:23
wherever I go into Harrods, I go down, get, get sitting in the
28:26
job interview and the first thing the person says is I'll
28:30
write a paragraph about why you should get a job.
28:34
I just got up and walked down. I got, I just, what am I going
28:38
to write? You know, I can't write it.
28:41
I can't do this. And it's just like inside.
28:45
So I, I went through this magazine called TNT, which is a,
28:49
a magazine in the UK for foreigners to get jobs.
28:54
And there was a job description in there.
28:56
And I thought the job description was for a 14 year
28:59
old boy which was disabled and wanted to have someone to look
29:03
after them from time to time, take them on adventures.
29:05
That's what I read. That's what I thought I'd read
29:08
when I went to the job interview.
29:12
When I went for the job interview it was actually Mike
29:14
Nemesferi who was the ex British ski champion of the world and
29:19
was a James Bond stuntman who did the the the James Bond film
29:24
where they ski through the the fire.
29:26
Skiing. Yeah, and he had broken his neck
29:30
at C4, so here. So he is really paralysed and
29:34
I've never seen a paralysed person up close before that.
29:37
And he wheeled himself out. He was 24.
29:40
He had two nurses and we, we sat there, got drunk, got a little
29:45
bit stoned. I missed my train to go back to
29:48
London. Anyway, next went back, staying
29:52
in a youth hostel or wherever I was staying.
29:53
He tracks me down, he rings me up, he goes, I want you to come
29:56
to Spain with me. And I said fine.
30:00
I thought I was going as a mate. And he said no, no.
30:02
When I got there he said no, I'm going to train you to be my
30:05
nurse. Would you be my nurse?
30:08
I'm believing I only had first aid experience and I was a
30:12
skiing instructor, rock climbing structor, paddling.
30:14
So I was adventurous. We knew some ski people together
30:18
jointly. I ended up being his nurse for
30:20
six months and we travelled all around the world.
30:24
Now that was all because I couldn't read and write.
30:28
I was dyslexic and read the story wrong.
30:30
But I because of that abstract feeling, I just thought why
30:34
can't we do this? You know, I was doing catheters.
30:37
I. Also.
30:38
It was, it was. Oh my God.
30:40
It was tough, but I loved it. Yeah, there's, there's another
30:44
thing that you've just highlighted there which is
30:46
interesting, right. So you said you went to Harrods
30:49
to give you an application form. You couldn't fill in, right?
30:52
You had to write a paragraph about yourself.
30:54
Imagine if you'd been able to speak that paragraph to someone
30:59
and describe you and like, as in, you know, this is this is
31:03
where we all kind of like falls over a bit like both you and I,
31:08
We can talk right, We can explain things quite vividly and
31:12
but but it all, like I say, it falls down for me.
31:14
I made you laugh a good day when I said there's no put me in
31:17
making notes because I can't read them.
31:19
I can't read them right then. It's just a scorny.
31:21
Mess, you know, I think comes from this is what, what makes it
31:24
so exciting, especially the dyslexia side of it is you are
31:29
very abstract and you do think outside the box.
31:32
And to me, it wasn't unusual to say yes to that.
31:36
You know, I remember that when I wrote the first book back in in
31:39
the 80s. Think dyslexia.
31:41
How do we think that was? Because I've been thrown in jail
31:45
in Hawaii because I couldn't tell us.
31:48
A. Story.
31:49
I've read this story like come on, tell us, tell us the story.
31:52
I was going to come on to that about the travelling.
31:54
So tell us the story about Hawaii, because this is normally
31:57
I want to understand you. You mentioned exploding, so
32:00
yeah, come on. Yeah, yeah.
32:01
So normally I'd the person next to me, because I'm quite social
32:05
and can talk, I get them to help me fill in the car.
32:08
That didn't happen. I fell asleep, I woke up,
32:10
everyone was unloading on the plane.
32:12
So I got off the plane. I filled in the French side the
32:16
first time, right? That's how bad I was.
32:18
And I was 24 and I'm coming back from a a helicopter skiing trip
32:22
that I've been out to pay for on my own.
32:25
So I was quite successful already at a young age.
32:28
Anyway, they put me to the back of the line.
32:30
I'm back of the line and you're tired.
32:31
I'm in Hawaii. I wanted to go to Hawaii to go
32:33
surfing and I went to the next immigration person and she was
32:39
obviously having a bad day but it was about to get a hell of a
32:42
lot worse. So she when she handed back the
32:46
card after correcting it with a big black pen, which was just
32:49
reminded me of school, she said my 4 year old son could fill
32:53
this in better than you and I just exploded.
32:57
I just went completely nuts. I was yelling and screaming and
33:02
swearing and Kelly, how dare you could say that to me?
33:05
So I got arrested and I got locked up and I got 11 hours in,
33:10
hot in and they demand an apology and I said I'm not
33:13
apologising, she has to apologise to me.
33:16
And so there was this years of frustration that, you know, that
33:21
I was normally very calm. I've never been in a fight and
33:24
just exploded. And when I got back to
33:27
Australia, I met a lady who was doing some really lateral things
33:33
with reading and writing. And I thought, I've got to be
33:35
able to fix this problem. I can't be in that situation
33:38
again. I've got to do something about
33:40
this. If everyone else can learn to
33:41
read and write, why can't I? I can do all these other things.
33:44
So I sat down with this lady and I said, if you're going to teach
33:47
me the same way that everyone else has done, forget about it.
33:49
She said, I want to ask you a couple of questions.
33:52
And she said, tell me what it's like to ski.
33:55
You're a good skier. And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:56
So I said told her how to ski. She said, well tell me what it's
33:59
like to ski in a whiteout. So I described it and she said,
34:02
well that's pretty amazing. You can actually see through
34:04
your feet and you can feel the bumps and you know, you know how
34:08
you can skate, you know, and you can hardly see.
34:09
She said, OK, now describe hanging off a chairlift with one
34:13
arm. I can't really.
34:16
She said it's really simple. You learn by doing.
34:19
So you have to cook the cake to learn how to cook the cake.
34:23
And you can make 5 or 6 mistakes cooking the cake.
34:25
But once you've learned to cook the cake, you don't need to read
34:27
it. You'll learn it that way.
34:29
So we learned. Kines kinesthetic learning,
34:33
right? Kinesthetic learning, but I know
34:35
back then it was really early on.
34:36
So we learned that we did kinesthetic testing.
34:40
I was allergic to pencil lead, pencil in a jar as you couldn't
34:44
see where you do the test, where you put your arm out.
34:46
Like you're so affected by this damage that you have as a
34:49
student, this negative roller coaster.
34:52
You don't realize that you're carrying that with you through
34:55
life. And that's why I find a lot of
34:57
people that are very successful don't want to admit that they're
35:00
dyslexic or in workplaces. They don't want to admit because
35:03
they're labeled, oh, you can't read and write?
35:05
Yeah, what the hell? This is a simple task.
35:09
I, I listen, I told you the day. I told you the day.
35:12
And I've told people on this podcast, there's a guy that
35:14
listens to this podcast every week and he's, he's, he's, he's
35:16
in work. He's probably in work right now
35:19
and he's dyslexic and he's too scared to say to his manager I'm
35:24
dyslexic, he said. Because I think I'll lose my
35:26
job, he said. And if I lose my job, how am I
35:29
going to get another job? You're so right.
35:31
Everything you say is so right. And yeah, but The thing is, and
35:35
maybe that's he's not the right person to tell, but maybe
35:37
there's someone else in the organization to tell.
35:39
Maybe, maybe it's, you know, you need to get other tools around
35:43
you so you don't have it with chat TPT and all the stuff you
35:46
do. I, you know, use all those
35:48
shortcuts as much as you possibly can.
35:50
But then what happened was I took, I was disappointed about
35:52
writing the book and I, and I took the book to a very, very
35:56
famous entrepreneur here in Australia, 1 of the wealthiest
36:01
people in Victoria. I won't mention his name, but
36:04
he, I got an opportunity to pitch him the book, but I wanted
36:10
to turn the book into an animation film to give to
36:12
schools. And I pitched this thing to him
36:16
and I remember him stopping and looking at me.
36:18
He goes, John, that's a great idea.
36:20
I really like it. But I don't give a shit about
36:22
dyslexic people. But could you do it for the
36:24
environment? And I just said yes, why not?
36:28
Straight away the entrepreneurial or the dyslexic
36:32
brain kicked in and he said I want you to do for teaching
36:35
people about the three Rs recycling we're using and so
36:39
forth. And what's your cost?
36:41
And I made-up some stupid number anyway, we built Ollie Recycles.
36:46
It was an animation film, which is and it's in schools today,
36:50
it's in the UK today and it's being taught.
36:53
And my son who's doing teaching, they brought it up as one of the
36:57
the units to say this is the sort of thing you could use and
37:00
we gave it away. So there's an opportunity of
37:03
failure, being thrown in jail, fixing the problem, writing a
37:08
book, going not happy with that. This the ADHD craziness, you
37:13
know, forget about. I want to go and do a movie now.
37:16
And that movie becomes then a recycling thing.
37:19
And that's the start of my entrepreneurial businesses.
37:21
That's how it all started, because of that.
37:24
And some for people, for people like you and I and and other
37:28
than your own divergent it's, it's it's having that, that that
37:32
almost pinpoint focus where someone goes, oh, what about
37:37
that? And your brain just goes, yeah,
37:40
you know, you, you wrote, I've wrote this down and it's typed
37:44
out for me. So you wrote I don't have a
37:46
deficit of attention. I have an overload of thoughts
37:49
firing like AV8 with no. Brakes.
37:52
Yeah, yeah. Unbelievable.
37:54
Statement and and it is. It is the totally wrong label.
37:59
It is attention deficit to disorder.
38:01
Well, because you're disruptive in class, because you can't
38:04
focus, because you, no, if I gave you 1000 thoughts
38:07
simultaneously, what would you do?
38:09
You would close down, You would just go, oh, that's all too
38:12
much. That's what we're doing.
38:14
So being able to learn how to control that and understand that
38:17
those thoughts are coming through.
38:19
And that's why meditation is so good because it allows you to,
38:22
you may only get a minute out of 30 minutes sitting there of
38:26
quietness, you know, there might be 10 second lots, but that
38:29
that's very, very important. And then understanding, you've
38:31
got all these wild thoughts and going, that's fantastic.
38:34
How can we control it? So even this conversation we're
38:37
having now, I'm really having to concentrate and focus on staying
38:41
on point because there's so many things that we could talk about.
38:45
But it is and understanding, that's education to understand
38:49
that it's not attention deficit disorder, it's an overload of
38:51
information. And when you start to
38:54
understand, oh OK, now I understand why I'm always over
38:59
the shop. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you do.
39:01
And, and you know, what I try to do when I'm doing these podcasts
39:07
is, yeah, I have some prompts to help me, keep me on track.
39:11
But what I tried to do is I tried to pick a word out that
39:13
someone said. I tried to plant it.
39:15
And then instead someone taught me a few weeks ago, it's a lady
39:19
that's coming on in a few weeks time.
39:20
She said whatever's up there, try and push it down there.
39:24
So I'll take a word that you've said and you mentioned education
39:27
there a second ago. So I push it down there and I
39:30
know it's locked down there for me to use because if I don't,
39:33
and this is, it's a really good piece of advice we've just given
39:36
there. There is so much you, you just
39:39
it's just words like like you see these info grams of loads
39:44
and loads of words. Other way to describe it is that
39:48
your brain's like a car park. So a normal person is like a
39:52
road and I think very linear. Ours is like a car park and you
39:56
are lifting and going from one level to another depending on
40:00
what's being said. And you're driving up and down
40:03
this car park trying to stay on a road.
40:06
Very, very difficult. So if we said I'm wearing a red
40:09
jacket and I'm going down the street and I'm going to be in a
40:11
car, you're going straight Rd. Track.
40:15
Footpath, car, truck, motorbike so you do it every conceivable
40:20
pattern that's related to that conversation and you've got to
40:23
stay focused and that's you know my.
40:31
Yeah, you go off. Here's here's one for you.
40:33
Right here's one for you. So I I don't if I do a test.
40:37
So let's say I did a course, that's how I did a a six week
40:40
course. And I know there's a test at the
40:43
end of the course. The moment I see at the
40:46
beginning, So someone says right, welcome to ABC course.
40:52
It's a six week course. The end of the six week course,
40:54
you're going to be tested. I, I automatically think I'm
40:57
screwed. I'm done here because I am not
41:00
going to remember. I am not going to remember what
41:02
this lady or what this gentleman is done period, what you just
41:05
said. At the end of each each day,
41:07
you'd probably get an I, you know, and so you.
41:13
Don't put you play a record for me, you play a record for me and
41:18
I can remember every word. I can remember every single word
41:21
that's in that record or to straight away now.
41:24
So I don't know what that is. I don't know why that is.
41:26
Yeah. Right.
41:27
But if we take life and you take the education system, the
41:31
education system doesn't train you.
41:33
Anything that you're doing in life, there's nothing you don't
41:37
necessarily stop and alarm and have lunch.
41:41
You don't, you don't sit there and have a time load on you to
41:45
do exams, to do a Business Report.
41:48
You might have a, you know, a window, but you've got a lot of
41:51
time. And it's not all if you don't
41:53
get to this point, you're a failure.
41:55
It's just crazy. Nothing mirrors what you then go
41:59
as soon as you walk out of that university or this education
42:01
system, it's all completely different.
42:04
And so you never trained. It's a bit like the thing I used
42:07
to remember when, you know, having having the children, we
42:11
would spend, you know, six months training on the birth,
42:15
which is very, very important. And I understand it's very
42:18
stressful, but there was not one minute of training after the
42:21
baby was born. You just sort of backed up, left
42:25
the hospital and you go, what the hell would I do with this
42:27
thing now? Like the training?
42:30
Was just. It's like, OK, give us a few
42:33
hours on that bit, which is very important, but what about, you
42:35
know, when we get home and how do we then get the damn thing to
42:38
sleep? And how do we try?
42:40
You know it was. That's what life's like.
42:43
Yes, well, so, so tell me, tell me.
42:45
I want to talk a bit about I've got so much I want to say to
42:48
you. Honestly probably going to need
42:49
about 20 podcasts to get through.
42:51
I think so. Well, I'd love to yes and have
42:53
other people on. To tell me about like, because
42:59
I'm really interested on your thoughts on school.
43:01
I know what mine are, right? But in a nutshell, if you can,
43:04
if you could redesign schools, if you could go in and go right.
43:08
I mean, you've just come up with a really valid point of I'm
43:10
being tested at the end of each day.
43:12
I mean that for me, I was like, bloody hell, you just, I, I
43:17
would have done so well at school if I'd have been tested
43:19
every day. So if you could redesign
43:21
something from scratch or like if you could go into a school
43:24
now or a uni and go right, we need to try and there's you've
43:28
got some hiders in there, there's some neurodivergence and
43:31
some kids that are using tech or whatever it might be.
43:33
What would you do different? You know what?
43:34
Your thoughts? Are the first thing is the
43:36
education system needs to reflect society.
43:40
So the first thing we need to do is that everything should be
43:43
based around community. The next thing it should be
43:45
based around social impact, the environment and business.
43:51
Now business doesn't mean it has to be a business business, but
43:54
business can be cooking, you know, at home, that's a
43:57
business. So act you train yourself to be
44:01
the CEO of your life, not the CEO of school and class.
44:05
Now that's not going to fit everyone, but the majority of
44:07
people. You still do it Also change all
44:10
the names of all the subjects so they actually reflect real world
44:15
learning. So you and break everything down
44:19
into very, very small compartments.
44:22
So you're not doing mass all year.
44:26
You do, you're doing this little project and then you're doing
44:28
this little project, which is all still the same stuff, but it
44:30
breaks it down into very bite sized pieces.
44:33
You don't climb Everest and go, I'm going to get to the top.
44:37
It's three days before you get to base camp.
44:39
It's a it's it's a whole process, right, to get to that
44:42
end result. You don't always get to the top,
44:44
but that doesn't matter. It's the journey.
44:46
It's like the book. I may never finished it OK.
44:50
And that was not the end goal anyway.
44:52
It was about the learning and I would do that.
44:55
The next thing is that it has to be individualized and this is
44:58
where it becomes very, very difficult.
44:59
And this is something that we did with one of my sons.
45:02
He was he was struggling socially in class.
45:07
He was fine with everything. Lovely kid, but was just a bit
45:12
shy and wouldn't, wouldn't say anything in class.
45:16
And we were living in Indonesia, Bali, and he was at the Green
45:19
School. So he's at the best school that
45:20
I've ever been to. And our kids have been to, you
45:22
know, all private schools have, you know, lots of experiences,
45:25
public and private at all the gamuts.
45:28
So I, I feel like I can say that the Green School was without a
45:31
doubt the best, but it still was not suiting him.
45:35
So what we did was I said to the Green School, I want to pull him
45:38
out and I want to set up a school specifically dedicated to
45:42
him around surfing. Everything has to be related to
45:47
surfing. So we did maths and surfing,
45:50
science, surfing English, everything was surfing.
45:53
So I hired A windsurfing instructor who was a a teacher
45:58
from from Victoria who was a qualified teacher, but he was a
46:02
surfer and that's what they would do.
46:05
So if you think about it, designing, designing A
46:07
surfboard, the shapes, the size, the dimensions got, the
46:11
environment, going to the beach, understanding waves, understand
46:15
how it worked. So they did this one thing we
46:17
started off with with two kids. By the time we finished it after
46:21
a year, we had six kids in the class.
46:24
OK. And I would do things like, OK,
46:26
how many paddle strokes would it take to get from this part of
46:29
the beach to this part of the beach?
46:31
And they had to physically work it out.
46:33
And I came back into the villa one day and they're all just
46:36
absolutely, you know, so excited and they're all wet.
46:40
And I said, oh, what have you guys been doing?
46:41
He said, oh, we've been testing our mass to see if we're a rot
46:45
and how many paddle strokes it was.
46:46
They'd physically gone and done it.
46:49
But I bet they remembered so much more They.
46:51
Were just so good. So when he went back into the
46:53
education system, he was fine, but he was confident.
46:57
So every morning he would get up at 6:00, he'd go down to the
47:00
beach and surf, and we had a surf coach that would video them
47:04
and do interactive videos with them to teach them about health,
47:07
fitness, their body, which is now really resignated.
47:11
When they come back 10:00, they'd work from 1:50.
47:15
That's it. And that have lunch at their
47:17
desks, they'd be just doing their stuff.
47:19
And so not a long class. None of these, all these breaks
47:22
and stuff like that. Just get into it.
47:24
And it was all very, very basic stuff as in the way.
47:27
And then after that they go surfing, they have another surf
47:29
coach and now we're fantastic. It's crazy.
47:32
Now we can do that. The education systems thinks it
47:37
can't. It can part mentalize the
47:39
education system into things that people want to do and learn
47:42
and study. Why are we all studying the same
47:47
staff, the same boring book that doesn't resonate with one kid
47:51
and resonates with another? There could be 10 or. 15 But
47:54
kind of, yeah. And that kind of touches on what
47:57
I just said about how is it I can listen to music and remember
48:01
all the remember all the lyrics, Probably because it's of
48:05
interest to me. You just said about the surfing.
48:08
You took the thing that he was interested in, put that as the
48:11
main, as the main focus. So he's thinking, oh, I'm really
48:14
learning about surfing here, but then added all the elements to
48:17
that that you would normally learn in school, but made it
48:19
about surfing. Yeah, it's really, it's pretty.
48:23
You might be. Yeah, we call it, we call it
48:25
brain wave. I caught a brain wave and we
48:28
were going to send it and turn it into a whole thing.
48:30
And anyway, we ended up having to leave Indonesia because we
48:34
all started becoming a bit too feral and, you know, hadn't worn
48:38
shoes in four years, you know, drivers and all that sort of
48:41
stuff. So it was like my wife at the
48:44
time said, if we don't go home, we're never leaving here.
48:47
And, and the kids won't know what a traffic light is.
48:49
And, you know, they're driving motorbikes, cars.
48:52
It was pretty wild time. But, you know, they were global.
48:55
And, you know, it's been the best thing that's ever happened
48:57
to them, really having that opportunity.
48:59
So, yeah, exciting. You got to do these things.
49:02
You got to do these things right.
49:04
But that leads to these things, other questions that I think you
49:06
had about me taking them to jail.
49:08
Yeah. And it was out there, this was a
49:11
really out there thing to do. And one of my sons writes about
49:16
it in the book. And after we talked about that
49:19
surfing thing and, and what happened was because in
49:23
Indonesia, it's OK, you can do whatever you want to do, but you
49:26
just can't have drugs. And now getting to that age,
49:29
15/16/17, where I knew that that was something that I was
49:33
sneaking off and doing at people's villas or whatever.
49:35
And I'm not judgmental on that. And, and my kids are very, very
49:41
open and we talk about all that sort of stuff.
49:42
So what I was trying to do is do sort of like the car accident,
49:46
you know, take you to the hospital and show you what it's
49:48
like if you don't wear a seat belt.
49:50
So at that time, Bali 9, there was nine people that had been
49:54
arrested at the Bali airport smuggling drugs.
49:57
And they're all on life sentences.
49:59
And three of them are on death row.
50:02
And I went down there, no passports, no dress code, no
50:08
appointment, nothing from the Australian government and went
50:12
up to the went up to the gate and said I want to take my kid,
50:16
just ADD full steroids. Not thought of it, hadn't
50:21
thought about the whole process whatsoever.
50:23
Got up there and anyway I eventually got them in.
50:27
Now when we went through the gate, I then realized what I had
50:31
done. This is a self governing prison.
50:33
There is no guards inside. Jeez.
50:36
So it was really scary. And we sat down and and Michael
50:40
Chan came out, who was on death row and three months after it
50:44
was executed by bullets and he sat down and he articulated to
50:49
these kids what an amazing opportunity your father's giving
50:53
you to come into this thing. The hairs on the back of my neck
50:56
were still flying up. What have I done?
50:59
But he talked about making decisions and that he was not
51:02
sad about why he was in jail and that he was on death row and
51:06
he's most likely going to die. He was.
51:08
He'd taken that responsibility. But what he talked about the
51:11
kids was I had a choice. I could go left or right.
51:16
And every time I made the wrong choice.
51:18
And he said I knew I was making the wrong choice, but I kept
51:20
making that choice. He said don't make the wrong
51:23
choice. You can make him every now and
51:25
then but don't keep making them. He also every second word was a
51:29
swear word. He had a bald head and it looks
51:32
like he'd had an axe cut mark in his head.
51:35
I read my son part about. I still still think that he's
51:41
just. The most crazy thing you could
51:42
do is take your children into a jail.
51:44
But that's the ADHD and dyslexia.
51:47
That's the right. I think, I think it's, I think
51:50
it's, I think it's crazy that you did that.
51:53
But I think it's probably also like on reflection now you've
52:01
probably given your kids an opportunity to see the other
52:04
side. It's all well and good saying,
52:06
oh, don't do that. You don't want to do that.
52:08
You get in trouble if you do that.
52:09
I think for him to sell those stories that those words like
52:13
probably it's probably sat right there in their memory.
52:16
They're never going to forget. That oh, they're never going to
52:19
forget that, no. And and you know it as a kid,
52:26
when we grew up, really, I remember my mum always used to
52:29
say, oh, you know, sticks and stones will break your bones.
52:31
Names will never hurt you. I only ever had to worry about
52:35
like avoiding a fight been a name calling.
52:38
That was probably it. When the sun went down, I went
52:41
home. Life was pretty easy that kids,
52:45
kids, kids now mobile phones, technology.
52:47
I, I said this to the other day. I've got a couple more questions
52:50
for you, but but yeah, I'd love to get your thoughts on this.
52:53
I said this to the other day. I, I worry about the generation,
52:57
probably my youngest son's generation, because I don't know
53:02
how AI don't know how they're going to.
53:03
I don't know how they're going to get a relationship because
53:05
their face is always in their phone.
53:06
They don't go out. So how are they going to meet a
53:08
lady or a guy and go, Hey, where are you from?
53:10
What do you, you know, cheesy chow blind?
53:12
I don't know how that's even going to happen.
53:15
You know, so I was not, you know, I was an ad to read kid.
53:19
All my kids can rock climb, they can all ski, they can all surf,
53:22
they can all skateboard, they can camp, hunt, all that stuff.
53:26
But one, once I was listening to my third oldest, he was probably
53:31
about 12 and I was a bit frustrated that he was in
53:34
playing games and then the headphones on and stuff like
53:36
that. Anyway, he said, dad, but you
53:39
don't understand. I've got friends all over the
53:42
world. And he explained it to me like
53:45
this. He said when you were younger
53:47
you used to go to the park and you play with your mates, OK,
53:50
and you turned up at the park. He said this is me turning up to
53:53
the park, except on global. I have kids from all around the
53:57
world. And he said I know them, I know
54:00
their personalities, I know their nicknames.
54:02
We tease each other. You know, when one of them come
54:06
into the country, they're going to come and visit me.
54:08
And it really resonated with me that one, I was old and I was
54:11
out of touch. And two, is that's it.
54:15
They are fine. They are, they're playing in a
54:17
different world, a different pace.
54:18
So they're actually meeting people.
54:20
So now, like my daughter were up the coast, she goes, oh, I'm
54:23
just want to check with my friends are here.
54:25
She goes online and goes, oh, so and so's here and then goes and
54:29
rings her and goes, well, we would never have been able to do
54:31
that in our day. You would never, unless you
54:34
actually physically knew they were there or you ran into them,
54:37
you would never have known that they were there.
54:38
So you see that technology is actually playing a really I
54:41
think a global playground for them.
54:44
So I wouldn't be overly. I think it also, no, I, I, I'm
54:48
not, I think, I think, I think it, you know, we talked about
54:52
school and we talked about the gaps and, and workplace and I
54:56
like some of the stuff we talked about.
54:57
I think is, is, is crazy. But technology, I think if it's
55:02
used in the right way, can really, really help.
55:05
And, and I'd like to see it, I'd like to see it put to its best
55:09
uses. I really would, particularly
55:11
with people like like our community, you know, you
55:14
mentioned NASA, Imagine if, if a kid was, imagine if a child in a
55:19
class of 22 was dyslexic and ADHD like we are, and that was
55:24
identified and they were nurtured and they were given the
55:28
same opportunities every other kid in that class.
55:32
That you have NASA ringing, You'd have NASA kidding, hunting
55:35
these kids down, right? And this is that's part of that.
55:39
Journey that we've got to do. We're going to get this
55:41
community to help build that lateral thinking game and put it
55:45
into schools. And whether we can do it,
55:47
whether it's, you know, free or whatever it is, it doesn't
55:50
matter. We've we've got to take control
55:52
of it and basically deliver it because the education system
55:56
will not do it. Not because they don't want to
55:59
do it, they just don't know how to do it because they're not
56:01
lateral, they're linear and so you can't expect them to do it.
56:05
No, no, no. It's almost like you can't
56:07
expect them to do it. They're never going to do it, so
56:09
we have to do it on their behalf.
56:10
There should be a lateral thinking university.
56:13
Something else? That's your next project.
56:14
Might have to but two more things.
56:18
There's two more I'm going. To sell one company of the book
56:20
first. OK, well, there you go.
56:23
That's the first thing then. So I, I do, I do get people
56:27
reach out to me after the podcast and anyone that comes
56:30
on, I encourage them to, to be open.
56:32
So are you OK with the audience reaching out to you directly?
56:35
How can they find the book? How can they get into?
56:37
You if you want to. Find more.
56:39
About you the book is and I've got it written down because my
56:42
spelling is no good. It's neuro spicy.
56:44
So it's NAURO spicy, SPICY dot life and you'll see some photos
56:53
in there when I live with the aboriginals that my son painting
56:56
the painting. You know, some of the statistics
56:59
we talk about here. There's a, there's a free
57:01
section of the book if you don't want to buy the whole thing.
57:04
The book I think retails for 2999 Aussie.
57:08
So it's, you know, it's almost free if you're paying in pound.
57:12
I'll get it. I'll give you a code.
57:14
So it's ABC 25 and that gives you a 15% discount.
57:21
But yeah. And I think that in time, I
57:23
build a community. I'm not, I don't necessarily
57:25
want to do what you're doing, but I, I would love to be
57:28
involved with your community and, and be coming in and out,
57:31
but I, I don't see myself as a as a conduit like you, because
57:36
there's everyone has their own roles and responsibilities in
57:39
it. And, but I'm definitely a keen
57:41
supporter. You know, we've met each other
57:43
twice. This has been so much fun.
57:46
I, I've really, you know, you've, you've allowed me to
57:48
feel very positive and confident and, and inspired and you've
57:53
done that by asking these questions and, and as chewing
57:56
and froing and it's so I, I can't thank you enough because
57:59
I'm going on this journey. It's all out there.
58:03
It's like a painting. And is anyone going to buy this
58:05
thing? You know well.
58:07
No, they will. I'm, I'm telling you they will.
58:09
It's brilliant. So I've got one more question
58:11
for you, right? Yeah.
58:12
And I asked this to everybody and everyone I've ever asked, I
58:16
think I am so excited to how you're going to answer this
58:19
question. So bearing in mind everything
58:22
you've lived through, right, and what you've been through, what
58:26
does thick no more mean to you? I think it has two meanings.
58:31
I think it has superpower and that you're like Superman and
58:36
you need to find your superpower, but at the same
58:39
time, it's also your kryptonite. So it can be the best being in
58:46
the world. It can also be your enemy.
58:49
You've got to learn how to balance that.
58:51
And once you've learned to balance it, you become very,
58:54
very powerful in whatever you're doing.
58:56
Don't know what it is. So it's, it's, it's, it's both
58:59
sides of that Ledger I find. And it's my, my role in
59:04
responsibility now is to be balanced and still allowed to go
59:08
transit. Like we've talked about
59:09
education, we've talked about all these crazy stuff, but if I
59:12
don't be balanced and get there, then the kryptonite comes in and
59:16
none of it's going to happen. Amazing.
59:18
That's a really good way of describing it actually.
59:22
We've had some, we've had some lovely statements, but I like
59:25
that and that's easy for to someone for a parent to kind of
59:28
comprehend as well. Think about Superman, think
59:31
about think about how strong he is, but he also can be super
59:34
weak. So great analogy.
59:36
Listen, John, thank you, my friend.
59:41
Spider Man. You see, now you're talking
59:42
about it. So listen, I want to thank you
59:46
because yeah, it's no, only because my one of my sons is a
59:49
proper spider man. And you can tell you every every
59:53
statement and every sentence from every film.
59:56
So fantastic. I want to thank you mate because
1:00:01
I say we only met you a couple of days ago and I really hid it
1:00:03
off of you and and. I think what what you've bought
1:00:07
is is everything about you. I can see the book.
1:00:12
So the roar, the honesty, the truth, and I I, I, I I'd love
1:00:17
people to go out and buy it. I'm going to reiterate it so
1:00:20
it's neuro spicy dot life. You can also follow John if I'm
1:00:24
right on Instagram at neuro spicy 66 and listen if if any of
1:00:29
them of conversation has hit home today, you know, and you
1:00:33
know someone if there's someone sat next to you at work or
1:00:36
there's someone you know, you know someone's child or a
1:00:39
friend, you know they they you just need to tell them run.
1:00:42
They're not broken right. They're not broken at all.
1:00:46
OK, there is look at us too. It is possible.
1:00:50
There are possibilities. Just needs that guidance and
1:00:53
that like pin for the ultra focus and you can make it.
1:00:57
John listen, thanks so much, really appreciate you.
1:00:59
Thanks for being I think no more.
1:01:00
Oh. Thank you, my friend, thank you.