Latest / The You Project / #2226 Patting the Shark - Tim Baker

Transcript

#2226 Patting the Shark - Tim Baker · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: G'day, team.
0:02
Speaker 2: It's Harps, it's Tiff, and it's a new bloke, brand new,
0:05
Speaker 2: brand new after nearly 2,500 episodes. Who knew that there
0:09
Speaker 2: was a person left, Tiff, that we hadn't actually fucking
0:13
Speaker 2: pulled into the studio, so to speak, the virtual studio?
0:18
Speaker 3: Look out, we've dug him up. Here he is.
0:20
Speaker 1: And also, by the.
0:21
Speaker 2: Way, by the way, if you want to know what
0:24
Speaker 2: Tiff's bloke is like, just listen to this bloke because
0:26
Speaker 2: they're basically doppelgangers and kindred spirits. Before we go to Tim,
0:32
Speaker 2: how are you, Tiff? How's your day?
0:35
Speaker 1: It's 3.05. It's mid-afternoon. How are you?
0:37
Speaker 3: I'm very fabulous. Thank you for asking. Walked my dog
0:40
Speaker 3: to the gym this morning. That was excellent.
0:44
Speaker 2: I got accosted by a lady, speaking of dogs. I
0:48
Speaker 2: didn't get accosted at all. I wish I got accosted. Hey,
0:52
Speaker 2: if you want to accost me, I'm in Hampton a lot.
0:54
Speaker 2: Just fucking accost me, will you? My self-esteem could do
0:57
Speaker 2: with an accosting.
1:00
Speaker 1: She had a big Alaskan Malamute.
1:02
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
1:03
Speaker 2: That thing, how cute are those little fuckers, hey, with
1:06
Speaker 2: his big fucking feet and stuff?
1:09
Speaker 1: I don't think I'd want one, but I'd like to
1:11
Speaker 1: cuddle one.
1:12
Speaker 3: When's Harper getting his puppy dog?
1:15
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny you say that. Tim, we'll get to you.
1:21
Speaker 1: What about me, you dickheads? I'm the star of the show. Well,
1:26
Speaker 1: I started looking today.
1:27
Speaker 2: I was looking at golden retriever puppies, and I don't
1:32
Speaker 2: know whether I'm going to get a lab or a retriever.
1:34
Speaker 1: But anyway, Tim Baker, do you like animals?
1:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I do. Just a bit of garlic, pepper
1:41
Speaker 4: and salt, like saute, you know, that sort of thing. Sorry,
1:46
Speaker 4: wrong answer.
1:48
Speaker 2: Is he telling us he eats animals, Tiff?
1:50
Speaker 1: Yes. Oh, I see. I see. Okay, domestic. Let's get
1:55
Speaker 1: more specific. Domestic animals, Tim.
1:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've had a dog. I've had a couple of
2:01
Speaker 4: dogs and, yeah, but I don't currently have a pet
2:04
Speaker 4: and I kind of prefer it that way at this
2:06
Speaker 4: point in my life.
2:07
Speaker 3: Is that because you ate it?
2:12
Speaker 4: That's right. I've never eaten a pet. I've never eaten
2:14
Speaker 4: a pet.
2:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure you haven't. Labrador sandwich with a bit of
2:18
Speaker 1: fucking a little spread, a.
2:22
Speaker 2: Little sauce, a little dead horse on top of a
2:24
Speaker 2: dead dog. Tim, welcome to the show. We appreciate you
2:29
Speaker 2: coming along. And where do we find you?
2:33
Speaker 1: Where are you at?
2:34
Speaker 4: You find me in leafy North Melbourne. Having relocated back
2:39
Speaker 4: to Melbourne, my old hometown from northern New South Wales
2:43
Speaker 4: about a year ago.
2:46
Speaker 2: And how did you find that transition? Did you love it,
2:49
Speaker 2: hate it? Did it take a minute or did you
2:51
Speaker 2: just step into it like an old slipper?
2:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it's been good. It was a bit of
2:56
Speaker 4: a gradual thing. I started spending more time down here
2:58
Speaker 4: because all my family's here, my family of origin, and
3:03
Speaker 4: it's a bit of a long story. I went through
3:04
Speaker 4: a marriage breakup. My daughter was down here, had gone
3:07
Speaker 4: to uni. Yeah, I wanted to go to Peter McCallum
3:12
Speaker 4: Cancer Centre for treatment. So, yeah, a whole lot of things.
3:16
Speaker 4: just started pointing me home so a bit of a
3:19
Speaker 4: homing pigeon.
3:19
Speaker 2: Really lovely we'll get to your cancer stuff soon but
3:23
Speaker 2: um you told us before the show which i'm sure
3:26
Speaker 2: you said in complete kind of anonymity but fuck i'm
3:30
Speaker 2: gonna shine a light on it that you love getting
3:32
Speaker 2: in a pool with post-menopausal women Please explain.
3:36
Speaker 4: Oh, no, no, no, no. You've conflated two separate events here.
3:38
Speaker 4: I go to a senior's exercise class. Right. After the
3:42
Speaker 4: exercise class, I go to a recovery centre to do
3:45
Speaker 4: sauna hot and cold plunge. But the exercise class is
3:48
Speaker 4: called Prime. It's for over 60s. And, yeah, look, I'm
3:52
Speaker 4: ageing myself. But, look, I have to share this anecdote.
3:56
Speaker 4: The first time I went to one of these classes,
3:58
Speaker 4: the instructor was kind enough to say to me, do
4:00
Speaker 4: you meet the age criteria?
4:02
Speaker 2: Yeah.
4:02
Speaker 4: And I said, thank you so much for asking me that.
4:05
Speaker 4: That's a very long time since I've been ID'd by anyone,
4:08
Speaker 4: but I do.
4:09
Speaker 1: That's right.
4:10
Speaker 4: The age criteria.
4:11
Speaker 1: Did she want to see your license or something?
4:13
Speaker 4: No, she think she, she took me up on more word.
4:16
Speaker 4: So that was nice.
4:18
Speaker 2: Well, I will, I will reinforce her thoughts. You don't look,
4:23
Speaker 2: I would have picked fifties, but anyway, well done, mate,
4:27
Speaker 2: whatever you're doing, despite some of the tribulation.
4:30
Speaker 1: You've had, you seem to be doing well.
4:32
Speaker 4: Thank you.
4:33
Speaker 1: Where'd you grow up?
4:34
Speaker 4: Grew up in Melbourne in the eastern suburbs. Blackburn, pretty
4:38
Speaker 4: unremarkable sort of middle class suburb. Played a lot of footy.
4:44
Speaker 4: Discovered surfing. Yeah, had a pretty nice suburban sort of childhood, adolescence.
4:50
Speaker 2: When did you first get on a board? When did
4:53
Speaker 2: you first fall in love a little bit with the ocean?
4:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can remember it really clearly as most surfers can.
4:59
Speaker 4: It was on summer holidays in Perth because my sort
5:03
Speaker 4: of extended family are all from Perth, grandparents and stuff.
5:07
Speaker 4: And I had a surf at Cottesloe. I got one
5:09
Speaker 4: of those foam polystyrene boards for Christmas when I was
5:12
Speaker 4: about 11. And we were in Perth and I went
5:14
Speaker 4: down to Cottesloe and I surfed a tiny little wave
5:18
Speaker 4: that's called Slimy Reef. Just like a mad possessed kid,
5:24
Speaker 4: you know, just going in and out of the ocean
5:26
Speaker 4: all day, just getting spat up on the sand and
5:28
Speaker 4: running after your board and retrieving it and paddling back out.
5:32
Speaker 4: It just completely took me. And I didn't know how
5:37
Speaker 4: I was going to be a surfer in suburban Blackburn,
5:39
Speaker 4: but I found a way. Yeah.
5:42
Speaker 1: Good for you.
5:42
Speaker 2: I feel like, did you ever surf TIF? I mean,
5:45
Speaker 2: I don't think you're a surfer, but did you ever
5:47
Speaker 2: get out on a board?
5:49
Speaker 3: Negative i wasn't a fan to get my hair.
5:51
Speaker 2: Wet oh god that seems way too princessy for you i.
5:56
Speaker 3: Know it does sound a bit weird i mean it
5:58
Speaker 3: doesn't sound like it got covered in blood when i
6:00
Speaker 3: was sparring in boxing at times but never never got
6:04
Speaker 3: it yeah.
6:04
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah you let someone punch you in the face
6:07
Speaker 2: but you wouldn't want to get your hair wet in the.
6:09
Speaker 1: Ocean what's that about oh.
6:11
Speaker 4: My god over blood but anyway he's to their own.
6:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too. Me too.
6:17
Speaker 2: And so tell us a little bit about your story.
6:21
Speaker 1: So you got in the Ocean Eleven, you kind of
6:23
Speaker 1: thought it was awesome.
6:25
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then you've like, you and surf and the
6:29
Speaker 2: ocean and surfing on all sorts of levels, from the
6:33
Speaker 2: best in the world down to... the average bloke out
6:36
Speaker 2: on the waves, you've been intertwined ever since.
6:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was kind of remarkable as a kid from
6:43
Speaker 4: Blackburn to just be able to pursue surfing and then,
6:47
Speaker 4: you know, it sort of become central to my career.
6:50
Speaker 4: So I did an old-fashioned newspaper cadetship at the Old
6:53
Speaker 4: Melbourne Sun. I was destined for the life of an
6:57
Speaker 4: Aussie Rules footy writer. One of my jobs there as
7:01
Speaker 4: a cadet was to ghostwrite Lou Richards' column, the old
7:04
Speaker 4: footy legend.
7:04
Speaker 2: Really?
7:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then I ran away to work for a
7:08
Speaker 4: surfing magazine, a magazine called Tracks in Sydney. Yeah, massive.
7:13
Speaker 4: It was considered the Bible of surfing, and the fact
7:17
Speaker 4: that I got a job there just seemed ridiculous. And
7:21
Speaker 4: that was like, yeah, a bit of a dream come true.
7:23
Speaker 4: And then moved to the Gold Coast, kind of got
7:26
Speaker 4: poached by the opposition and went to work for a
7:28
Speaker 4: magazine called Surfing Life on the Gold Coast where– my
7:32
Speaker 4: desk had a view of burly heads out the window.
7:35
Speaker 4: It's tough. Yeah. Which was really nice. And yeah, surfing
7:39
Speaker 4: just kind of took over my life, my work, my
7:42
Speaker 4: main source of recreation, the reason I travel. Yeah. Pretty
7:47
Speaker 4: all consuming really.
7:48
Speaker 2: This is a question that interests me. I don't know
7:53
Speaker 2: how many other people will interest, but like we didn't
7:56
Speaker 2: chat long before we went live.
7:58
Speaker 1: So one of my, areas.
8:01
Speaker 2: Of training and education is exercise, science, physiology. And so
8:04
Speaker 2: I've worked with lots of athletes and teams and Olympians
8:08
Speaker 2: and general public and over the last ever 40 years.
8:12
Speaker 2: And I'm fascinated with the physical requirements of different sports,
8:18
Speaker 2: everything from surfing to shot put, you know, or running
8:22
Speaker 2: a hundred meters in 9.2, five nine seconds like usain
8:26
Speaker 2: bolt to a bloody two-hour marathon and what are the
8:29
Speaker 2: phys like what apart from the talent and just the
8:33
Speaker 2: apart from the skill and the talent which is obviously
8:36
Speaker 2: paramount what are the physical attributes of most good surfers
8:42
Speaker 2: like if you said oh most good surfers are like
8:46
Speaker 2: got long limbs or short limbs or amazing cardio or
8:50
Speaker 2: incredible balance. And like, what are the physical physical components
8:54
Speaker 2: that make a good surfer?
8:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure. I mean, there's a lot of great surfers
8:58
Speaker 4: who aren't especially tall. So that kind of lower center
9:01
Speaker 4: of gravity, but then at the same time, a lot
9:03
Speaker 4: of them got that kind of swimmers build, you know,
9:06
Speaker 4: real sort of V back, broad shoulders, long arms. Balance
9:11
Speaker 4: is obviously really important, you know, good cardio and, And
9:15
Speaker 4: then I just think there's some real intangibles. You watch
9:18
Speaker 4: a great surfer and there's a real artistry to it.
9:23
Speaker 4: It's almost a kind of form of dance in some ways.
9:26
Speaker 4: I think that's part of its appeal. Surfers have these
9:30
Speaker 4: kind of ludicrous arguments about what surfing is. Is it
9:33
Speaker 4: a sport? Is it an art form, you know? Yeah.
9:37
Speaker 4: Which I don't think you can really, I can't think
9:39
Speaker 4: of too many other sports that have that sort of
9:41
Speaker 4: internal debate about what they are.
9:43
Speaker 2: Yes.
9:43
Speaker 4: And I think that was part of what fascinated me.
9:46
Speaker 4: I came to surfing at just the tail end of
9:48
Speaker 4: the hippie era. And I think all those cultural accoutrements,
9:53
Speaker 4: you know, of the sort of that imagery really um
9:56
Speaker 4: mesmerized me you know just the decals on surfboards and
10:00
Speaker 4: the clothes and the music and fashion everything really um
10:06
Speaker 4: for me for a kid from the suburbs it was
10:07
Speaker 4: all pretty um intoxicating i guess.
10:12
Speaker 1: Now, Tiff, cultural accoutrements. Accoutrements.
10:16
Speaker 4: Fucking hell.
10:18
Speaker 1: I know what it means. I just can't say it.
10:20
Speaker 2: Let's say that's the first time that's been used on,
10:22
Speaker 2: probably the last time as well.
10:24
Speaker 1: What a great term. What a fucking great, you can
10:27
Speaker 1: tell he's a writer, right? He's so good.
10:31
Speaker 2: Um unlike myself who's clearly verbally handicapped but anyway uh
10:37
Speaker 2: did you have a sandman at any stage this is
10:40
Speaker 2: i mean this is a cultural icon of the surfing era.
10:44
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah no i had i did have an old
10:46
Speaker 4: like toyota corolla panel van um That wasn't nearly as
10:51
Speaker 4: impressive as the old Sandmans with the airbrushed murals on
10:55
Speaker 4: the side.
10:55
Speaker 1: 100%.
10:56
Speaker 4: Yeah.
10:56
Speaker 1: And every now and then one of them had a
10:59
Speaker 1: teardrop window, mate, which was.
11:00
Speaker 4: Just the show stealer.
11:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
11:03
Speaker 4: And every parent's worst nightmare, you know, there was always
11:06
Speaker 4: the great anxiety amongst parents of the girlfriends of surfers
11:11
Speaker 4: if they rocked up in a Sandman panel van, you know.
11:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think that would go down well. Well,
11:18
Speaker 1: I don't think that would even be a thing now. Tiff,
11:20
Speaker 1: do you actually know what a Sandman is? Holden Sandman?
11:24
Speaker 3: Can't you see me Googling it as we speak?
11:26
Speaker 1: Are you Googling it?
11:27
Speaker 2: Just go images, Holden panel van Sandman, and you'll see
11:32
Speaker 2: what about 60% of the surfers in the 70s.
11:36
Speaker 1: Got around in. It's the required vehicle. It's almost compulsory.
11:41
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
11:44
Speaker 1: How cool are they?
11:44
Speaker 2: Yeah.
11:45
Speaker 1: They're good, aren't they?
11:46
Speaker 2: And listeners, all of my older listeners are going, of
11:50
Speaker 2: course we fucking know what they are. That's where my
11:53
Speaker 2: first child came from.
11:54
Speaker 4: There was a famous bumper sticker that used to say,
12:01
Speaker 4: if the van's rocking, don't bother knocking.
12:03
Speaker 2: 100%.
12:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was on pretty much every van, I think.
12:07
Speaker 4: Yeah.
12:08
Speaker 2: I got asked once on radio, I used to do
12:10
Speaker 2: a show on, A few shows, in fact, on SEN
12:13
Speaker 2: in Melbourne here, which is the sports station, which you
12:16
Speaker 2: may never have listened to, mate. But anyway, it's called
12:19
Speaker 2: The Science of Sport. And I got asked, what do
12:24
Speaker 2: you think is the best all-round sport and why?
12:29
Speaker 1: And I said, I don't want to answer now. Give me.
12:32
Speaker 1: And then we went to a break.
12:33
Speaker 2: I said, give me like 30 minutes because I don't
12:36
Speaker 2: want to just say something. And to everyone's shock and amazement,
12:40
Speaker 2: I came up with surfing.
12:41
Speaker 4: Wow.
12:42
Speaker 2: And the reason I came up with surfing is because
12:46
Speaker 2: you need upper and lower body strength, muscular endurance. You
12:52
Speaker 2: need power and speed to catch the wave. You need
12:57
Speaker 2: aerobic endurance. You need balance. You need coordination. You need
13:02
Speaker 2: spatial awareness, situational awareness. There's almost every physical attribute or
13:08
Speaker 2: requirement for athletes is captured or required by surfers. Also,
13:14
Speaker 2: what a fucking great environment to do your sport.
13:18
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
13:18
Speaker 4: And, you know, someone once said to me, surfing is
13:21
Speaker 4: pretty unique. Well, in the world of sports, really, because...
13:26
Speaker 4: you're standing on, you're riding something that's moving, the surfboard,
13:30
Speaker 4: which is also travelling on something that's moving, which is
13:33
Speaker 4: the wave. And if you think about it, there aren't
13:35
Speaker 4: too many other activities like that in the world.
13:38
Speaker 1: Which is on top of something else that's moving, which
13:41
Speaker 1: is the earth.
13:42
Speaker 4: Yeah.
13:44
Speaker 1: It's rotating, you know.
13:46
Speaker 4: But, yeah, you can't sort of think your way through
13:49
Speaker 4: all the challenges of surfing. So I think it puts
13:52
Speaker 4: you into that really intuitive, instinctive state where you're just,
13:55
Speaker 4: You're reading the wave and you're responding to it, but
13:58
Speaker 4: you can't be kind of consciously thinking through that. You've
14:02
Speaker 4: just got to do it in the moment, and I
14:04
Speaker 4: think that's a really healthy sort of brain space to
14:07
Speaker 4: be in too.
14:09
Speaker 2: You can't be too strategic because by the time you
14:12
Speaker 2: figure out what the fuck you've got to do, the
14:14
Speaker 2: wave is gone and you've just been eliminated, I would imagine.
14:18
Speaker 4: It hits you in the head and takes you out.
14:21
Speaker 2: Yeah. talking before about the debate over whether or not
14:25
Speaker 2: it's like an art form or it's a sport or
14:27
Speaker 2: it's this or that like there is a real creative
14:30
Speaker 2: expression component to it Because once you get on a wave,
14:35
Speaker 2: then it's up to you what you do next.
14:37
Speaker 1: And you might give 10.
14:39
Speaker 2: Guys the same wave and they make 10 different choices
14:43
Speaker 2: about what they do from then.
14:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely. I remember the great Hawaiian surfer musician Jack
14:49
Speaker 4: Johnson saying, you know, what are we doing out there
14:53
Speaker 4: other than dancing, really? You know, just look at it
14:57
Speaker 4: as a dance. And I've always thought the competitive side
14:59
Speaker 4: of surfing was kind of like It's kind of like
15:02
Speaker 4: an ill-fitting suit that surfing puts on to try and
15:04
Speaker 4: make itself respectable. But in essence, you know, most surfers
15:10
Speaker 4: don't compete. You know, no one's scoring their waves. Most sports, tennis, golf,
15:15
Speaker 4: even the recreational people will keep score. You know, suburban cricket, footy, whatever.
15:20
Speaker 4: Surfing exists as a completely non-competitive sport for the vast
15:24
Speaker 4: majority of people who do it. And it's a tiny,
15:27
Speaker 4: tiny elite who do it competitively.
15:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it is a little bit of a cult though, right?
15:33
Speaker 2: So I've got mates who are surfers and if I
15:36
Speaker 2: hang out with them, I do not know what the
15:38
Speaker 2: fuck they're talking about.
15:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's a wonderful sort of common language
15:43
Speaker 4: of surfing too. Anywhere you go in the world, you
15:45
Speaker 4: can talk to other surfers about the surf, what the
15:48
Speaker 4: surf's doing, the swell forecast. You can look out at
15:51
Speaker 4: the ocean and just, you know, talk endlessly about all
15:54
Speaker 4: the nuances of the way the swell's behaving and the
15:57
Speaker 4: tide and, yeah, it does become pretty all-consuming.
16:02
Speaker 2: And did you get up on that foam board at 11?
16:05
Speaker 2: Did you get up on it or did you just
16:07
Speaker 2: lie on your tummy all day?
16:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, it's funny that you ask because I sort
16:10
Speaker 4: of started off kneeboarding because they're pretty little, those foam boards. Yes.
16:14
Speaker 4: The balance is the big, I guess, hurdle for most
16:20
Speaker 4: beginner surfers, you know, that pop up to your feet.
16:23
Speaker 4: they're really short waves too. They're kind of just really
16:26
Speaker 4: close to shore. Then they sort of spit you up
16:28
Speaker 4: on the sand really quickly. So initially I was just
16:31
Speaker 4: sort of kneeling on it. And then I think, I
16:34
Speaker 4: think it wasn't until I got back to Melbourne and
16:37
Speaker 4: got a fiberglass board and we started going down the
16:39
Speaker 4: coast that I sort of managed to scramble to my feet.
16:43
Speaker 4: And then I think that first time you're standing on
16:45
Speaker 4: a board on a green wave that hasn't already broken
16:48
Speaker 4: and you've got a peeling wave of in front of
16:51
Speaker 4: you that you're angling along, then you're gone. It's like
16:56
Speaker 4: you're gone for the rest of your life, pretty much.
17:00
Speaker 2: And was going from tracks to surfing life a promotion,
17:04
Speaker 2: a demotion, or a sidestep?
17:08
Speaker 4: Well, I got a pay rise.
17:11
Speaker 1: It's a promotion.
17:12
Speaker 4: Yeah.
17:13
Speaker 1: And you got an office looking at the water.
17:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, the boss was a surfer and had an office,
17:20
Speaker 4: you know, close to the beach. I could surf before work,
17:23
Speaker 4: after work, lunchtime. So, yeah, I regarded it as a promotion.
17:28
Speaker 4: Although Trax was the sort of pinnacle and I was
17:31
Speaker 4: leaving to work for this new sort of upstart magazine
17:34
Speaker 4: trying to take on the established opposition. So it was
17:38
Speaker 4: a bit of a leap of faith really. But I
17:40
Speaker 4: think it turned out pretty well. Did you get any
17:43
Speaker 4: blowback for that when you left? I'm sure you were
17:46
Speaker 4: quite popular and quite entrenched at Trax. A little. I mean,
17:50
Speaker 4: my boss, my old boss was telling me I was
17:52
Speaker 4: making a terrible mistake, but we'd had a bit of
17:55
Speaker 4: a falling out and I wasn't about to take advice
17:58
Speaker 4: from him. So it was a really positive move in
18:01
Speaker 4: lots of ways. Yeah.
18:04
Speaker 2: I think unlike a lot of other sports or hobbies,
18:07
Speaker 2: I mean for some people they're more hobby or pastime
18:10
Speaker 2: or whatever than sport per se, there can't be, I
18:14
Speaker 2: don't know, Tiff, can you think of any hobby or
18:17
Speaker 2: sport or pastime like that that is more suited for
18:24
Speaker 2: calm and relaxation? There's not many sports that you'd come
18:29
Speaker 2: away from playing, in inverted commas, where you feel totally chilled.
18:35
Speaker 2: I'd imagine that's maybe not always the case, but it
18:37
Speaker 2: would seem like it. There aren't too many guys that
18:41
Speaker 2: come out of the water looking or girls for that matter,
18:44
Speaker 2: looking particularly stressed.
18:46
Speaker 4: No, it is a lovely thing. Just sitting out the back,
18:49
Speaker 4: staring at the horizon, you know, just it is quite,
18:52
Speaker 4: and I think it gets back to your point about,
18:54
Speaker 4: you know, everything that is combined within the act of
18:57
Speaker 4: surfing and that time out the back, which is what
19:00
Speaker 4: you're doing probably 90% of the time, just sitting, bobbing,
19:03
Speaker 4: looking out of the horizon, trying to, or there's all
19:06
Speaker 4: these sort of subtle undulations and nuances in the color
19:10
Speaker 4: of the ocean that help you see an incoming swell.
19:13
Speaker 4: And that's quite a meditative thing. And then when waves come,
19:17
Speaker 4: it's suddenly it's all happening. And it's this very dramatic
19:20
Speaker 4: sort of moment of trying to catch a wave and
19:22
Speaker 4: get to your feet. And then there's the beautiful glide
19:25
Speaker 4: and dance of riding a wave and, And then paddling
19:28
Speaker 4: back out is this really kind of brisk cardio workout,
19:31
Speaker 4: you know, duck diving and trying to use the currents
19:34
Speaker 4: to get out through the breaking waves. So, yeah, it
19:37
Speaker 4: combines a lot of really nice elements in one activity.
19:41
Speaker 2: We probably can't have a surfing conversation, which I'm very
19:44
Speaker 2: unqualified to have, but without talking about archery, I don't
19:50
Speaker 2: know if it's arguably or it's flat out, the goat
19:52
Speaker 2: Kelly Slater at 54 or something ridiculous. 92 he is, Tiff, 92,
19:58
Speaker 2: and he's still out there winning heats and getting into finals.
20:03
Speaker 1: Tell me about him.
20:05
Speaker 4: What he did at? In Tahiti at a wave called
20:08
Speaker 4: Chopu recently, if anyone saw that event, was just unbelievable.
20:12
Speaker 4: I think probably one of the great sporting feats I've
20:15
Speaker 4: seen in my lifetime. The guy's 54. He's been off
20:18
Speaker 4: tour for a while now. He's been dealing with some injuries.
20:22
Speaker 4: Chopu's pretty much the most dangerous wave in the world.
20:24
Speaker 4: He paddled out for a heat and just got completely
20:27
Speaker 4: annihilated by this wave, fell out of the sky on,
20:31
Speaker 4: you know, a 10- or 12-foot wave. popped up, got
20:34
Speaker 4: back on his board, did it again, just pin dropped
20:37
Speaker 4: out of the lip, snapped his board, had to swim
20:40
Speaker 4: back to the boat to get another board. And at
20:42
Speaker 4: this point, people are going, oh, Kelly's kind of lost it,
20:46
Speaker 4: you know. And then he paddled back out, did the
20:48
Speaker 4: same thing again and pulled it, this incredibly late critical drop,
20:52
Speaker 4: pulled into the, you know, the hollow tube of the wave,
20:55
Speaker 4: got spat out, got like a 9.6 out of 10,
20:59
Speaker 4: and then just paddled back out and did it again,
21:01
Speaker 4: highest heat score of the day. Everyone's just going, this
21:04
Speaker 4: guy is unbelievable. He's just a complete freak and unanimously
21:09
Speaker 4: regarded as the goat in surfing.
21:12
Speaker 1: Who would come?
21:13
Speaker 2: I'm sure this is debatable and I know that you've
21:15
Speaker 2: got probably lots of friends that are either– ex-pro surfers
21:20
Speaker 2: or current pro surfers, who would be number two? Because
21:23
Speaker 2: I don't know the conversations.
21:25
Speaker 4: That's way more open to debate. I think there's a
21:29
Speaker 4: group that all have a claim to it. Tom Curran,
21:31
Speaker 4: American three-time world surfing champion, really uncanny natural ability. Mark Ocalupo,
21:37
Speaker 4: the Australian goofy footer who had this just raw animal
21:41
Speaker 4: talent and a remarkable personal story as well. Mark Richards,
21:47
Speaker 4: Australian world champion from Newcastle.
21:49
Speaker 2: Is he the one that looked like a straighty 180?
21:52
Speaker 2: He looked like he should be an accountant or something?
21:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They used to call him the wounded seagull.
21:57
Speaker 4: He had this quite unusual style with his arms really
21:59
Speaker 4: wide but really effective. And then, of course, Mick Fanning,
22:04
Speaker 4: three-time world champ, who really you'd find interesting, I think,
22:08
Speaker 4: because he just took preparation and training and physical conditioning
22:12
Speaker 4: and mental preparation to a whole new level. Yeah.
22:16
Speaker 2: Was there a time, like a point in time where,
22:21
Speaker 2: like it seems like with a lot of these sports
22:24
Speaker 2: that are really kind of not alternate, but, you know,
22:29
Speaker 2: not your mainstream football, tennis, bloody baseball, where people just,
22:34
Speaker 2: it was just pure talent.
22:37
Speaker 1: They didn't train much.
22:39
Speaker 2: Per se, you know, they went out and got in
22:41
Speaker 2: the water, but there was no physical conditioning. They weren't
22:45
Speaker 2: doing strength or balance work or endurance work or they
22:48
Speaker 2: weren't going for runs. They weren't climbing rock walls and
22:51
Speaker 2: all that stuff. They just surfed and then got awesome
22:54
Speaker 2: at that. Was there a time when it started to
22:56
Speaker 2: become more, I don't know, professional in the sense that
23:01
Speaker 2: they began to adopt conditioning programs?
23:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think Tom Carroll was probably the first in
23:07
Speaker 4: the 80s. You know, before then, and even through the
23:10
Speaker 4: 80s into the 90s, there was a bit of a
23:12
Speaker 4: tradition of a real larrikin kind of party streak. And
23:16
Speaker 4: if guys could stay out all night partying and turn
23:19
Speaker 4: up for their heat and get through a heat, that
23:21
Speaker 4: was like maximum kudos. from their peers, you know. And, yeah, Tom,
23:27
Speaker 4: I mean, there was a time if you were stretching
23:29
Speaker 4: on the beach before you paddled out for a surf,
23:31
Speaker 4: people thought that was really poor form. It would sort
23:33
Speaker 4: of call your sexuality into question, you know.
23:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's embarrassing. What are you stretching for?
23:40
Speaker 4: But now everyone does it, and guys like Mick Fanning
23:43
Speaker 4: have taken it to a whole new level, and, you know,
23:45
Speaker 4: he overcame incredible– and hardships and just, yeah.
23:51
Speaker 1: Shark attacks.
23:52
Speaker 4: Shark attacks, yeah, exactly.
23:54
Speaker 1: You know that story, Tiff?
23:57
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
23:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, amazing.
23:59
Speaker 2: It was the bloke that punched a fucking shark in
24:01
Speaker 2: the mouth. If he's not the toughest bloke on the planet.
24:04
Speaker 1: Yeah.
24:05
Speaker 4: Well, he sort of inspired the title of my book,
24:07
Speaker 4: Patting the Shark, because... Yeah. Anyway, that's another story. We
24:11
Speaker 4: might get to that.
24:12
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that. That's about your, is that the
24:14
Speaker 1: one that's about your cancer journey?
24:15
Speaker 4: That's the cancer memoir. Yeah. And it was, it was
24:18
Speaker 4: originally going to be punching the shark after Mick famously,
24:22
Speaker 4: I was diagnosed around the same time. Mick had that
24:25
Speaker 4: shark interaction in Jeffrey's Bay. Wow. Wow. One last one.
24:29
Speaker 2: Then I want to talk about your, cancer stuff and
24:36
Speaker 2: recovery and all the insight into that.
24:39
Speaker 1: Do I remember this right? I could be fucking it up.
24:41
Speaker 1: Did Mark Okolupo, a.k.a. Occy, do I remember at one
24:46
Speaker 1: stage he.
24:46
Speaker 2: Was like 100 kilos and eating all the cheeseburgers and
24:51
Speaker 2: just sitting on the couch and just goofing right off
24:55
Speaker 2: and then went, essentially, I'm going to become world champion?
24:58
Speaker 1: Everyone went, mate, you couldn't run to the letterbox.
25:01
Speaker 4: Yeah.
25:03
Speaker 1: Is that right? And then he came back and won
25:05
Speaker 1: the world title.
25:06
Speaker 4: It's an incredible story. I feel, I still think it's
25:09
Speaker 4: one of the great sporting comebacks really. Yeah. He was
25:13
Speaker 4: a child star who kind of crashed and burned, had
25:16
Speaker 4: some mental health issues, some substance abuse issues. He talks
25:22
Speaker 4: about his Elvis period where he kind of just went
25:24
Speaker 4: home to Cronulla and just ate fried chicken and drank
25:28
Speaker 4: beer in front of the daytime television and became a recluse,
25:32
Speaker 4: didn't leave the house for about a year. And then
25:35
Speaker 4: he got back in the surf just to kind of
25:37
Speaker 4: feel better and to try and lose weight and have
25:40
Speaker 4: a life again and kind of discovered that all his
25:44
Speaker 4: talent was still entirely intact and came back and made
25:49
Speaker 4: this incredible return to the pro tour and won the
25:54
Speaker 4: world title in 1999 at the age of 33, which
25:58
Speaker 4: at the time was considered really old for a pro surfer,
26:01
Speaker 4: but He kind of extended the use by date of
26:05
Speaker 4: surfers with that performance and went on to compete for
26:09
Speaker 4: many years after that really successfully. Still surfs at a
26:13
Speaker 4: really high level at 60 and, yeah, really fit and
26:18
Speaker 4: a great inspiration for lots of people.
26:22
Speaker 2: Isn't it amazing, mate, how much things change when one
26:26
Speaker 2: person does one thing in a sport that people thought
26:30
Speaker 2: was not possible or extremely unlikely? And then, you know,
26:35
Speaker 2: the fat guy, well, he was probably, I mean.
26:37
Speaker 1: This respectfully, everyone, he's spoken about it many times.
26:41
Speaker 2: So at like 31 or two, he was, you know, borderline, well,
26:45
Speaker 2: he wasn't borderline, he was obese. And then at 33... Like,
26:50
Speaker 2: it seems like not a long time later.
26:53
Speaker 1: Like, it wasn't five years. It was like one or
26:55
Speaker 1: two years.
26:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a couple of false starts. I mean,
26:58
Speaker 4: it was really big. I remember because I was a
27:01
Speaker 4: magazine editor and I'd profiled him at the time when
27:04
Speaker 4: he was sort of trying to come back and he
27:05
Speaker 4: was massive, you know. There's some surfing footage of him
27:08
Speaker 4: and he still managed to surf pretty well with his
27:11
Speaker 4: big body. But when he came back, he'd just been
27:14
Speaker 4: training kind of secretly and suddenly he turned up in
27:17
Speaker 4: Hawaii at the Pipeline Masters and he just looked like
27:21
Speaker 4: a triathlete. You know, he was just cut and fit
27:23
Speaker 4: and everyone just did a double take because everyone knew
27:27
Speaker 4: this cautionary tale of the child star who crashed and burned.
27:31
Speaker 4: And it was remarkable. People couldn't believe it. And I
27:36
Speaker 4: think he came second to Kelly Slater at that Pipemasters event.
27:40
Speaker 4: And then, yeah, returned to the tour full time. That
27:43
Speaker 4: was 95 and then won the world title in 99.
27:46
Speaker 4: So there was a few years build up. That's incredible.
27:51
Speaker 2: It's a cautionary tale to the bloody world champion. And
27:55
Speaker 2: he's not really looked back, hasn't he?
27:58
Speaker 4: No. He's just– well, one of the really nice things
28:02
Speaker 4: about that is, He really put Billabong on the map,
28:06
Speaker 4: the surfwear company, and they've stood by him through all
28:10
Speaker 4: his dark days. He's still sponsored at age 60. The
28:13
Speaker 4: idea that a pro surfer would be sponsored at 60
28:15
Speaker 4: was once laughable, you know?
28:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes.
28:19
Speaker 4: And I think they know how much they owe him, really.
28:23
Speaker 4: And so he's been able to continue to surf as
28:27
Speaker 4: a professional surfer and travel and just be this sort
28:30
Speaker 4: of ambassador for And people love him. He's got such
28:34
Speaker 4: goodwill and affection amongst the surfing community. He's quite childlike and,
28:39
Speaker 4: you know, a bit clumsy. People just adore him. Yeah. Yeah.
28:44
Speaker 1: He's a bit goofy. He's a big kitty. Yeah.
28:47
Speaker 2: Tiff, well, there's clearly an opportunity for you to make
28:50
Speaker 2: a comeback. I mean, you're a sprightly 42. You look about–
28:54
Speaker 2: your biological age is probably 27. I'm 43 for a start.
28:57
Speaker 1: Maybe if you cut out– And.
29:00
Speaker 3: I only know that because I had to check sometime
29:03
Speaker 3: this week because I couldn't remember.
29:04
Speaker 2: So the cognitive decline has started. So it's a good
29:10
Speaker 2: thing you don't need to be able to think to box.
29:12
Speaker 1: So that's okay.
29:13
Speaker 3: Taking a lot of hits though, so it's understandable.
29:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe that's not a great idea for you to
29:18
Speaker 2: get punched in the face anymore. Mate, tell us about
29:23
Speaker 2: as much or as little as you want on beginning
29:28
Speaker 2: in 2015 when you got a diagnosis.
29:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure. I mean, I'm really happy or comfortable talking
29:35
Speaker 4: about it. I've done a fair bit of talking about
29:37
Speaker 4: it over the years. But yeah, I'd recently turned 50.
29:39
Speaker 4: I had a pretty dream life. I was married with
29:42
Speaker 4: a couple of beautiful kids. You know, 2011, we'd pulled
29:46
Speaker 4: the kids out of school and traveled around Australia for
29:49
Speaker 4: a year, you know, towing a caravan, like life was
29:52
Speaker 4: really good. I made a living writing about surfing, you know,
29:55
Speaker 4: live close to the beach and then just out of
29:59
Speaker 4: the blue, I remember I was in California and I
30:01
Speaker 4: was doing some work for Red Bull. I'd been working
30:03
Speaker 4: on a series of sort of action sports documentaries for
30:06
Speaker 4: Red Bull. And we're at the offices of a company
30:09
Speaker 4: called Surfline who are like a surf forecasting business. And
30:12
Speaker 4: I just was like having to go to the bathroom
30:15
Speaker 4: all the time. It kind of got embarrassing because it
30:18
Speaker 4: was one of those buildings where you've got to go
30:19
Speaker 4: to the receptionist and go, can I get the key
30:21
Speaker 4: to the men's room? And I was like, every half
30:24
Speaker 4: an hour, it's like, can I get that key again? Yeah.
30:27
Speaker 4: And I knew something was wrong and I got home and,
30:29
Speaker 4: you know, my wife at the time had commented, you know,
30:32
Speaker 4: that I was kind of getting up during the night,
30:33
Speaker 4: which is a classic symptom. Went to my GP thinking,
30:38
Speaker 4: you know, I'm a pretty fit, healthy 50-year-old. I don't smoke.
30:41
Speaker 4: I'm not a heavy drinker. I surf. And just got
30:44
Speaker 4: the worst possible news, a diagnosis of stage four metastatic
30:50
Speaker 4: prostate cancer that had already spread to the bone, which is,
30:54
Speaker 4: you know, the worst possible sort of diagnosis and prognosis.
30:59
Speaker 4: And it was just, it was like a baseball bat
31:01
Speaker 4: to the face. I just can't think of any thing
31:05
Speaker 4: that could quite, you know, upend your life like that to,
31:09
Speaker 4: to sit in this urologist's office and get that news
31:12
Speaker 4: and look at this bone scan and where my right
31:16
Speaker 4: thigh or femur should be was just this big smudge,
31:19
Speaker 4: which was just, the bone was just full of cancer.
31:23
Speaker 4: And I just thought I was, my life was over.
31:26
Speaker 4: I just thought, yeah, it was pretty great.
31:32
Speaker 2: So you walked in really expecting nothing in particular or
31:35
Speaker 2: definitely nothing in that kind of territory?
31:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I'm a bit of an optimist by nature.
31:40
Speaker 4: And I thought, oh, look, it's just going to be
31:41
Speaker 4: some benign infection. I'd done a bit of reading. Some
31:46
Speaker 4: of the testing they do is sort of The PSA test,
31:49
Speaker 4: which they use as a biomarker, is notoriously unreliable. You know,
31:55
Speaker 4: you get false positives and stuff like that. And then
31:57
Speaker 4: it can be just a benign enlargement of the prostate
32:01
Speaker 4: or an infection. But no, that wasn't the case. It was, yeah, metastatic.
32:08
Speaker 4: They measured the aggressiveness of the cancer by something called
32:11
Speaker 4: a Gleason score. And I got a nine out of
32:14
Speaker 4: 10 for my Gleason score. That was pretty bad. A
32:18
Speaker 4: normal PSA is under three. Mine was 120 at the time.
32:23
Speaker 4: So everything just pointing to this being a really serious,
32:27
Speaker 4: aggressive cancer with a really grim prognosis.
32:32
Speaker 3: All right.
32:33
Speaker 1: So you find that out, you go home?
32:35
Speaker 3: Yeah.
32:36
Speaker 1: Or did you just go for a drive and sit
32:38
Speaker 1: and look at the trees?
32:39
Speaker 4: I remember my then wife and I sat in the
32:42
Speaker 4: car and just kind of bawled our eyes out for
32:44
Speaker 4: a while and then tried to think about how to
32:46
Speaker 4: go and talk to our two kids about it. And
32:51
Speaker 4: my father-in-law came and picked up the grandkids and said
32:55
Speaker 4: they were going to have an afternoon with him. So
32:59
Speaker 4: Kirsten and I could sort of figure out what we
33:01
Speaker 4: were going to tell them and what we were going
33:02
Speaker 4: to do. And I remember the kids came back later
33:06
Speaker 4: that afternoon and they must have overheard something because I
33:10
Speaker 4: was still kind of agonizing about how to deliver this news.
33:14
Speaker 4: And my nine-year-old son, Alex, I was sitting on the
33:17
Speaker 4: couch and he walks up and at age nine, he's
33:20
Speaker 4: pretty much eye to eye with me standing in front
33:22
Speaker 4: of me. I just went, have you got cancer, dad?
33:24
Speaker 4: And I went, yeah, mate. Yeah, I do. So he
33:28
Speaker 4: kind of solved that problem for me.
33:32
Speaker 1: Wow.
33:33
Speaker 4: Wow. You know, it's hard to articulate just how devastating
33:37
Speaker 4: that was and how it just upends everyone's lives in
33:44
Speaker 4: your family and even your sort of inner circle. You know,
33:46
Speaker 4: there was so much just terror and fear. Yeah, those
33:53
Speaker 4: early days were pretty dark in lots of ways.
33:57
Speaker 2: Wow.
33:58
Speaker 1: And so.
34:00
Speaker 2: How long did it take you mentally and emotionally to
34:07
Speaker 2: be out of that kind of panic state and start
34:09
Speaker 2: to think strategically and logically?
34:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it took a while, but probably only
34:18
Speaker 4: a matter of weeks, you know. I was so determined, like,
34:23
Speaker 4: I'm just going to do whatever it takes. Just someone
34:25
Speaker 4: tell me what to do and I'll do it, you know.
34:28
Speaker 4: And the doctors are pretty bad at that sort of thing.
34:31
Speaker 4: They basically say, look, there's nothing that you can do
34:33
Speaker 4: that's going to make a difference. Or you, all you
34:36
Speaker 4: can do is sort of hand yourself over to our
34:38
Speaker 4: kind of really toxic range of treatments and hope for
34:42
Speaker 4: the best. You know, they don't, give you much sense
34:47
Speaker 4: of agency or empowerment, you know? I guess being a journalist,
34:51
Speaker 4: I kind of trusted my own research skills and started
34:54
Speaker 4: doing a lot of reading and my then wife helped
35:00
Speaker 4: sort of assemble a bit of a team. So we
35:02
Speaker 4: found a naturopath and a nutritionist and an exercise physiologist
35:07
Speaker 4: and found some really good research about the role of
35:10
Speaker 4: exercise in managing particularly prostate cancer diagnosis. And I just
35:16
Speaker 4: overhauled my life pretty much overnight. Started going to the gym,
35:21
Speaker 4: going to Pilates, yoga. I went vegetarian, then kind of
35:25
Speaker 4: hardcore vegan. I'd already done a bit of meditation. I
35:30
Speaker 4: became a really dedicated meditator and had some pretty amazing
35:36
Speaker 4: experiences on the meditation cushion. A few 10-day silent Vipassana
35:42
Speaker 4: meditation retreats. And I just threw everything at it. And
35:48
Speaker 4: I did everything my doctors told me to do. You know,
35:51
Speaker 4: some people sort of have told me they didn't read
35:54
Speaker 4: my books. They thought I was one of those people
35:56
Speaker 4: banging on about healing crystals and carrot juice and not
35:59
Speaker 4: doing the chemo. And I have to tell people I'm
36:02
Speaker 4: alive today because I took the most aggressive treatment options
36:05
Speaker 4: available to me. But then I just did everything I
36:08
Speaker 4: could to kind of support my own health as well. Yeah.
36:11
Speaker 1: But you kind of fuck your immune system, right?
36:14
Speaker 2: But then with the drugs, but then you've got to
36:17
Speaker 2: try and reestablish a healthy immune system with your food
36:21
Speaker 2: and your lifestyle and your behaviors to offset some of
36:25
Speaker 2: that damage.
36:26
Speaker 1: Yeah.
36:27
Speaker 4: So I had done all this reading and I was
36:30
Speaker 4: kind of suffering a kind of information overload. And You know,
36:33
Speaker 4: well-meaning friends are coming up with all these wacky folk
36:36
Speaker 4: remedies like drink poor, poor leaf tea or eat apricot kernels,
36:41
Speaker 4: which is a bad idea because apparently apricot kernels contain cyanide,
36:45
Speaker 4: so don't eat apricot kernels. But I came up with
36:48
Speaker 4: this little mantra, which was I've just got to take
36:50
Speaker 4: my meds, M-E-D-S, and that stands for meditation, exercise, diet
36:55
Speaker 4: and sleep. And those four things became the pillar of
36:59
Speaker 4: my self-care. And so I just tried to tick those
37:03
Speaker 4: boxes every day. And as long as I did that,
37:07
Speaker 4: I felt really well. And I kind of came to
37:10
Speaker 4: think of it like I was sort of in my
37:12
Speaker 4: healing zone if I was doing those things every day.
37:15
Speaker 4: And as much as chemotherapy kicks your ass, like I
37:23
Speaker 4: came out of it pretty well. I came through it
37:25
Speaker 4: pretty well and I bounced back pretty strong.
37:30
Speaker 1: Well, there are some similarities, Tiff, aren't there?
37:33
Speaker 3: Oh, my God.
37:34
Speaker 1: Are you sitting listening?
37:36
Speaker 3: Yeah.
37:36
Speaker 2: Give Tim a quick snapshot because he's spoken about it,
37:41
Speaker 2: about Scott.
37:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Scott was diagnosed with prostate cancer back in 2020.
37:47
Speaker 3: He was a paramedic. But so much of how he...
37:53
Speaker 3: went through his treatment was becoming hardcore vegan and getting
37:57
Speaker 3: in the water every day, swimming and, yeah, yeah.
38:00
Speaker 1: Wow.
38:01
Speaker 4: He's doing well?
38:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
38:03
Speaker 4: Fantastic. I love hearing those stories. Yeah.
38:06
Speaker 1: I told you, they're bloody peas in a pod, these.
38:08
Speaker 2: I told you, they need to meet because they've essentially
38:11
Speaker 2: got each other's story.
38:14
Speaker 1: Sorry, mate. Carry on.
38:16
Speaker 2: So you're creating your own protocol that seemed to be
38:19
Speaker 2: doing the work?
38:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.
38:21
Speaker 4: But then like the other treatment for prostate cancer, which
38:24
Speaker 4: I don't know if Scott suffered because I had advanced
38:28
Speaker 4: prostate cancer. If you've got localized prostate cancer, it's a
38:31
Speaker 4: very different scenario. But I was put on hormone therapy,
38:34
Speaker 4: which when they explained to me what hormone therapy was,
38:38
Speaker 4: I was just shocked. Like I had never heard this discussed.
38:43
Speaker 4: You know, we all know someone who's had cancer and
38:45
Speaker 4: gone through chemo or radiation or surgery. But the quick
38:49
Speaker 4: layperson's explanation is prostate cancer feeds on testosterone. So hormone
38:54
Speaker 4: therapy blocks or suppresses testosterone to starve the cancer, which
39:00
Speaker 4: is really effective in stopping the cancer from spreading. But
39:04
Speaker 4: you can imagine as a bloke without testosterone, it has
39:07
Speaker 4: some really awful effects. emasculating side effects which just play
39:15
Speaker 4: havoc with your life and your relationship and you know
39:20
Speaker 4: there's some you know statistics that suggest hormone therapy quadruples
39:26
Speaker 4: your risk of suicide quite apart from anything else that
39:29
Speaker 4: affects your cardiovascular health. increases your risk of diabetes. It
39:35
Speaker 4: affects muscle mass, bone density. Like this is the treatment.
39:42
Speaker 4: It kills your.
39:43
Speaker 1: Sex drive, zero sex drive.
39:46
Speaker 4: Zero libido or sexual function. It's awful. It's an awful treatment.
39:53
Speaker 4: And Um, and they do this to men and then don't, well,
39:57
Speaker 4: in my case, just don't give you any, any tools
39:59
Speaker 4: or strategies to manage the side effects. I was, I
40:01
Speaker 4: was really angry about the way I'd been sort of
40:06
Speaker 4: treated and advised and I had to figure out for
40:09
Speaker 4: myself what was going to help and make a difference.
40:12
Speaker 4: And that's become a bit of a mission of mine too,
40:13
Speaker 4: to share that. And, and fortunately the medical mainstream have
40:17
Speaker 4: been pretty receptive to my messaging and um yeah i've
40:22
Speaker 4: had some really key people in that medical world help
40:26
Speaker 4: amplify my message and give me a platform and it's
40:30
Speaker 4: helped me have a sense of mission and purpose around
40:34
Speaker 4: the diagnosis and feel like i could try and do
40:37
Speaker 4: some good in the world out of what was a
40:39
Speaker 4: really shitty situation and.
40:42
Speaker 2: Tell us about the the recovery from there mate so
40:47
Speaker 2: you get all this news you're on the drugs you're
40:48
Speaker 2: trying to mitigate the the effects of the drugs, the necessary,
40:53
Speaker 2: but also toxic drugs. So you're trying to mitigate that
40:56
Speaker 2: with lifestyle and your meds protocol.
41:01
Speaker 4: You get through chemo and, you know, it's not too
41:03
Speaker 4: hard to sort of rebuild your health after chemo. Hormone
41:06
Speaker 4: therapy is ongoing. And like a lot of people see
41:08
Speaker 4: me and I look reasonably well, I think, and assume
41:11
Speaker 4: that that's all behind me. Like I still have prostate cancer.
41:14
Speaker 4: In fact, I've just recently in a scan had some
41:17
Speaker 4: progression of disease and And I'm starting another course of
41:21
Speaker 4: chemotherapy in a couple of weeks. So I'm not out
41:24
Speaker 4: of the woods by any stretch. And now I've got
41:28
Speaker 4: so much more knowledge and I'm just kind of at
41:32
Speaker 4: peace with it. You know, like it doesn't freak me out.
41:36
Speaker 4: And it's led to some incredible opportunities. Like I'm also
41:41
Speaker 4: a research fellow at Monash University's prostate cancer research group.
41:45
Speaker 4: So I'm going to treat my chemotherapy as a research
41:49
Speaker 4: project and try and make the case for the role
41:54
Speaker 4: of exercise throughout chemotherapy. Not just while you're having chemotherapy,
42:00
Speaker 4: like literally right before you go into the chemo ward,
42:03
Speaker 4: this is the latest research on exercise and oncology exercise
42:08
Speaker 4: right before chemo, even during the chemo infusion. like you
42:13
Speaker 4: can manage. There's a famous exercise physiologist named Professor Rob Newton,
42:18
Speaker 4: who's done more research than anyone on this. And he's
42:22
Speaker 4: written this book, My Exercise Medicine for Cancer. And I
42:26
Speaker 4: met him at a few cancer conferences where I'd been
42:28
Speaker 4: presenting and he and I now, I've sort of engaged
42:33
Speaker 4: him as a collaborator on this and he's designing my
42:37
Speaker 4: exercise program all through chemo and he's going to monitor
42:41
Speaker 4: everything i'll have a wearable device and we'll hopefully produce
42:45
Speaker 4: a case study and make the case for what i
42:48
Speaker 4: like to call active chemo rather than passive chemo because
42:52
Speaker 4: the evidence is really strong that exercise throughout chemo can
42:57
Speaker 4: increase its efficacy and reduce side effects so if i'm
43:02
Speaker 4: going to do it i want to make it count
43:04
Speaker 4: and i want to um I guess, you know, challenge
43:08
Speaker 4: the medical mainstream that if they're going to force these
43:10
Speaker 4: toxic treatments on patients that they've got to develop some
43:15
Speaker 4: strategies to help make them more bearable, you know, because
43:20
Speaker 4: it's the fear of things like chemotherapy that send people
43:24
Speaker 4: running into the arms of the charlatans and the snake
43:27
Speaker 4: oil salesmen who try to, you know, take advantage of
43:31
Speaker 4: vulnerable people with cancer and sell them you know, expensive
43:35
Speaker 4: alternative remedies that have no evidence. So, yeah, I don't
43:40
Speaker 4: mind challenging, I guess, the medical mainstream a bit to
43:45
Speaker 4: do better when it comes to sort of allied health
43:48
Speaker 4: support and that kind of thing.
43:49
Speaker 2: A friend of mine reached out to me about 15
43:52
Speaker 2: years ago. Her name is Robin Vincent and she's a
43:56
Speaker 2: trainer and ex-competitive athlete and And she was talking to
44:02
Speaker 2: me about this lady that she was working with who
44:05
Speaker 2: was going through chemo and strength training with her three
44:10
Speaker 2: times a week, but like proper, not, not Namby Pamby,
44:15
Speaker 2: but not, not, you know, not over the top, but,
44:19
Speaker 2: and the, yeah, it really, really mitigated the typical kind
44:25
Speaker 2: of negative side effects. And Yeah, she started an organisation
44:34
Speaker 2: called Strength Over Cancer.
44:36
Speaker 4: Oh, fantastic.
44:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's literally working with people and I helped her.
44:41
Speaker 2: We created this kind of group where people, trainers, qualified trainers,
44:48
Speaker 2: exercise scientists, et cetera, could volunteer their time. Yeah. And
44:54
Speaker 2: I haven't seen it for a couple of years. I
44:56
Speaker 2: should really stick my head back in and see what's happening.
44:59
Speaker 2: But essentially, so they were qualified. insured, experienced trainers all
45:06
Speaker 2: around Australia who would get matched with people who wanted
45:09
Speaker 2: somebody to work with them, and it was all free.
45:13
Speaker 2: So the trainers got the opportunity to do some good
45:17
Speaker 2: and use their knowledge and skills and experience, and the
45:19
Speaker 2: people who were in need got somebody with all that
45:23
Speaker 2: at no cost. So, yeah, I mean, it's not an
45:27
Speaker 2: area of expertise of.
45:28
Speaker 4: Mine, but also.
45:31
Speaker 1: I've been involved and worked with a few people in
45:33
Speaker 1: that space myself. It seems almost.
45:36
Speaker 2: Counterintuitive that you take a body that's stressed and then
45:40
Speaker 2: stress it, but it works.
45:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, the old attitude was you kind of wrap the
45:47
Speaker 4: cancer patient in cotton wool and have them rest and recover,
45:51
Speaker 4: and it's been a revolution in oncology probably over the
45:54
Speaker 4: course of the 11 years of my diagnosis. Yeah. the
45:58
Speaker 4: evidence for exercise has become overwhelming. There was a big
46:02
Speaker 4: study called the challenge trial that was released recently for
46:05
Speaker 4: colorectal cancer. And it made the case that exercise was
46:10
Speaker 4: as effective as chemotherapy in extending life.
46:14
Speaker 2: Wow.
46:15
Speaker 4: I was at a cancer conference with a table full
46:17
Speaker 4: of oncologists when they were talking about this news and
46:20
Speaker 4: they were all shocked and But as a patient, I'm like,
46:24
Speaker 4: that makes complete sense to me. Like I think of
46:27
Speaker 4: it in real simple terms, like the stronger I am,
46:29
Speaker 4: the harder I'm going to be to kill, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
46:33
Speaker 2: And also it shows you, and there's no disrespect here,
46:36
Speaker 2: but it shows you like 15 years ago, none of
46:41
Speaker 2: these cancer experts, oncologists, surgeons knew, had a clue that
46:49
Speaker 2: that was a potential treatment intervention option whatever which is
46:54
Speaker 2: no fault of theirs because the research hadn't been done
46:57
Speaker 2: but then all of a sudden.
46:59
Speaker 1: These new uh.
47:02
Speaker 2: Studies are done and this information is pumped out into
47:05
Speaker 2: the world and we had a guy on that.
47:07
Speaker 1: You'd be interested in i.
47:10
Speaker 2: Think it's tim fineman someone fineman tiff can you check
47:14
Speaker 2: the metabolic psychiatry guy so his this is related but
47:20
Speaker 2: it's in the ballpark so he works because when a
47:24
Speaker 2: lot of people are going through psychiatric conditions or psychosis
47:29
Speaker 2: they can obviously put on all of these heavy duty
47:31
Speaker 2: meds which really somewhat mitigate the symptoms but don't treat
47:35
Speaker 2: the problems right so the underlying problem often remains and
47:41
Speaker 2: and often people who get diagnosed with you know, a
47:45
Speaker 2: severe mental illness are medicated for the rest of their life.
47:48
Speaker 1: And, of course, not saying they should or shouldn't be.
47:52
Speaker 2: But the amount of people who go through a psychotic
47:54
Speaker 2: breakdown and end up completely functionally normal sometime in the
48:00
Speaker 2: future is not a big percentage.
48:01
Speaker 1: And so he uses.
48:03
Speaker 2: All the lifestyle stuff, food, exercise, sleep, sunlight, you know,
48:07
Speaker 2: all the stuff as the treatment.
48:11
Speaker 4: Yeah.
48:11
Speaker 1: Fantastic.
48:12
Speaker 4: Fantastic.
48:13
Speaker 2: And it's, yeah, it's called metabolic psychiatry and there's still
48:16
Speaker 2: a bit of pushback, but.
48:18
Speaker 1: He's a Harvard qualified doctor and blah, blah, blah.
48:21
Speaker 4: So. Yeah, no, that's highly relevant to my story as well.
48:27
Speaker 4: Because I mean, well, surfing, I call it saltwater therapy,
48:30
Speaker 4: you know, it's so good for your mind as well
48:33
Speaker 4: as your body. But then when I became quite depressed
48:36
Speaker 4: about three years into my diagnosis, I kind of hit
48:39
Speaker 4: a sort of rock bottom and, I was suffering suicidal ideation.
48:43
Speaker 4: My GP prescribed me antidepressants. And I just, you know,
48:48
Speaker 4: I don't think there should be stigma around, you know,
48:51
Speaker 4: mental health and needing medication, but it just didn't make
48:54
Speaker 4: sense to me. Like it was a drug that was
48:56
Speaker 4: making me depressed. And then they're going to give me
48:58
Speaker 4: another drug to kind of make me not depressed. And
49:02
Speaker 4: I just had a bit of resistance to kind of
49:04
Speaker 4: having to take another pill every day because I'd been
49:07
Speaker 4: pretty heavily medicalized. And then I heard this guy, Michael Pollan,
49:12
Speaker 4: talking about psychedelic therapy, American writer. And so, yeah, I managed.
49:18
Speaker 4: This is before the therapeutic goods. Administration had rescheduled MDMA
49:24
Speaker 4: and psilocybin for very specific mental health conditions. And, you know,
49:31
Speaker 4: as you would expect in northern New South Wales, it's
49:33
Speaker 4: not a hard place to find an underground psychedelic therapist
49:37
Speaker 4: and psychedelic therapy. And that was amazing. That was really life-changing.
49:43
Speaker 4: And I think was really critical in helping me manage
49:47
Speaker 4: all the stress and anxiety of my diagnosis. And, you know,
49:50
Speaker 4: I'm facing another course of chemo and I feel pretty
49:53
Speaker 4: upbeat and happy and relaxed and life's good. And yeah,
49:58
Speaker 4: I've got a real sense of mission and purpose in life.
50:01
Speaker 4: And I think a lot of that was due to
50:04
Speaker 4: my experience with psychedelics as well.
50:07
Speaker 1: Good for you, man. I've got a question about that. Tiff,
50:09
Speaker 1: did you find out, was it Tim?
50:12
Speaker 2: Dr.
50:12
Speaker 3: Matthew Bernstein. Bernstein.
50:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly what I said. So close. I've interviewed a
50:22
Speaker 1: lot of people.
50:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
50:24
Speaker 2: And it's almost four o'clock. My brain only works till five.
50:29
Speaker 1: Give me a break. Hey, Tim, have you heard about Ibogaine?
50:36
Speaker 4: Ibogaine, I have not heard about Ibogaine, no.
50:39
Speaker 2: So you should, I hate it when people say, you
50:42
Speaker 2: might want to take a look at that. So Ibogaine
50:45
Speaker 2: is a psychedelic that's being used to treat, especially in
50:52
Speaker 2: the States, a huge amount of veterans.
50:54
Speaker 1: Who have got- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
50:56
Speaker 4: Right?
50:57
Speaker 2: And it's just they're pushing it for legalisation in Texas
51:01
Speaker 2: and the- People are having complete recovery with one, what
51:11
Speaker 2: do you.
51:11
Speaker 1: Call it, trip, journey, whatever.
51:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
51:14
Speaker 1: Yep, yep.
51:15
Speaker 2: So they're getting it done in, I don't know, like
51:17
Speaker 2: Peru or whatever because it's not legal in the States.
51:20
Speaker 2: But there's, Tiff, could you do this? I think it's
51:25
Speaker 2: on Netflix. There's a documentary about Ibogaine. Could you just
51:30
Speaker 2: find out? Because this doco, I think you would love it, Tim. But, yeah,
51:35
Speaker 2: these got like out of 100 mainly guys that are
51:38
Speaker 2: getting treated because they're return servicemen who are all suffering
51:42
Speaker 2: from all kinds of psychological and psychiatric and emotional shit.
51:48
Speaker 2: It's something like 85% are totally fixed, have no medication
51:53
Speaker 2: when they come back.
51:54
Speaker 1: What did you get?
51:55
Speaker 3: In waves and war.
51:57
Speaker 1: That's it.
51:57
Speaker 4: In waves and war.
51:59
Speaker 1: In waves and war. Yeah.
52:00
Speaker 4: The research that really caught my eye was psilocybin for
52:05
Speaker 4: terminal cancer patients. And in about 80% of cases, a
52:09
Speaker 4: single dose of psilocybin just completely removed any fear of
52:16
Speaker 4: death that these people were suffering from. It doesn't cure cancer.
52:21
Speaker 4: They've still got cancer, but they can live out their
52:23
Speaker 4: days completely at peace, you know, having all the conversations
52:28
Speaker 4: with loved ones that you'd want to have, you know,
52:31
Speaker 4: feeling completely calm and having kind of made peace with
52:35
Speaker 4: your mortality. And there's a couple of great documentaries on
52:39
Speaker 4: that topic. And, yeah, I've had some pretty powerful experiences
52:44
Speaker 4: in that realm that have really helped me. just come
52:47
Speaker 4: to terms with my circumstances.
52:50
Speaker 1: In the middle of all of the medical stuff and the,
52:52
Speaker 1: you know, getting your diet right and getting.
52:56
Speaker 2: Your, exercise happening, all the practical strategic interventions, was there
53:02
Speaker 2: a kind of a spiritual element to this journey?
53:05
Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm not a religious man,
53:08
Speaker 4: but I don't think that means you can't be spiritual.
53:13
Speaker 4: And in the midst of one of these 10-day Vipassana retreats,
53:19
Speaker 4: I can remember sitting in meditation and And it's about
53:23
Speaker 4: on the third day, they kind of lead you through
53:25
Speaker 4: your whole body. It's kind of spreading awareness and breath
53:28
Speaker 4: and light through your body. And I got to my
53:30
Speaker 4: right femur where the cancer was in the bone. And
53:35
Speaker 4: I just had this incredible pain in my leg. And
53:39
Speaker 4: it felt like there was like a python in my thigh,
53:41
Speaker 4: just kind of thrashing around. And I was really freaked out.
53:47
Speaker 4: And it felt like I don't know if I should
53:50
Speaker 4: be doing this. Like, you know, I'm a great believer
53:52
Speaker 4: in meditation, but if I'm spreading awareness through my body,
53:55
Speaker 4: am I spreading cancer through my body? Like it was,
53:58
Speaker 4: and you're not talking to anyone. So you're just in
54:01
Speaker 4: your own head having these thoughts. And I made an
54:03
Speaker 4: appointment to speak to the teacher privately and said, look,
54:06
Speaker 4: this is what I'm going through. Do you think this
54:09
Speaker 4: is okay? And he said, yes, it's perfectly okay. And
54:12
Speaker 4: in fact, it will be very beneficial to you. And
54:15
Speaker 4: there was, something about his reassurance that completely convinced me.
54:19
Speaker 4: And by the end of the 10 days, I was
54:22
Speaker 4: just completely relaxed and had no further pain in my leg.
54:27
Speaker 4: And at one point, I remember sitting in the forest
54:30
Speaker 4: on the outskirts of the retreat, just looking out into
54:33
Speaker 4: the trees, and I just started crying. And I just
54:36
Speaker 4: was struck with this thought that you were going to
54:40
Speaker 4: meet your grandchildren and I feel a bit emotional even
54:45
Speaker 4: remembering it. But it was this really powerful moment. And
54:48
Speaker 4: then I came back and I had a scan and
54:51
Speaker 4: my leg was completely clear and the cancer was gone.
54:54
Speaker 1: Oh, my God. How long after that, dude?
55:00
Speaker 4: I mean, I've got to add, like, you know, I'd
55:02
Speaker 4: done the chemotherapy. I'd done the hormone therapy. The oncologist
55:05
Speaker 4: would say that that had contributed, which I'm sure it
55:08
Speaker 4: had contributed. But when I wanted to get this particular
55:10
Speaker 4: sort of scan done, which was a new sort of scan,
55:13
Speaker 4: a PSMA PET. Again, it's a long story. I'll try
55:16
Speaker 4: and cut it short. But he said, oh, I don't
55:18
Speaker 4: know if you want to get that scan. It catches
55:21
Speaker 4: every bit of cancer in your body. You know, some
55:23
Speaker 4: men light up like a Christmas tree and it can
55:25
Speaker 4: be really confronting. Are you sure you want to do
55:27
Speaker 4: this scan? And I said, yeah, I do want to
55:30
Speaker 4: know what I'm dealing with. And so we got the
55:31
Speaker 4: scan back and it was clear apart from the prostate itself.
55:37
Speaker 4: And that leg was completely clear, no other cancer there.
55:40
Speaker 4: apart from there was one little spot in my left
55:44
Speaker 4: seventh rib. And I remember going, well, that sounds like
55:48
Speaker 4: good news. And the first words out of my oncologist's mouth,
55:53
Speaker 4: because he could see I was kind of visibly excited
55:55
Speaker 4: by this, first words out of his mouth were, you know,
55:58
Speaker 4: this doesn't mean you're cured, you know.
56:00
Speaker 2: Yeah.
56:01
Speaker 4: And I went, you bastard, you fucking bastard. And I
56:04
Speaker 4: sacked him. I sacked my oncologist.
56:08
Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah, it's hard because they, like my dad died
56:16
Speaker 2: a few weeks ago, right?
56:17
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm proud to hear that.
56:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and thank you.
56:21
Speaker 2: And having these conversations about how long this might be
56:26
Speaker 2: or what, they're very, very non-committal. Yeah, yeah.
56:30
Speaker 1: They don't, like they want to give you worst-case scenario.
56:34
Speaker 4: Yeah.
56:35
Speaker 1: And I would say to them, Like whatever you tell me,
56:40
Speaker 1: it's okay. If you get it wrong, it's okay.
56:43
Speaker 2: But you've done this a thousand times with people like
56:46
Speaker 2: my dad who have got, you know, similar if not
56:49
Speaker 2: identical issues. So just as a human, just go, yeah, well, look,
56:54
Speaker 2: typically it's this and that.
56:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
56:58
Speaker 1: And they're like, nope, nope. Well, we can't– and I
57:02
Speaker 1: get it.
57:03
Speaker 2: But, you know, just because you're trying to get some
57:05
Speaker 2: idea of, well, what does this mean or what's the timeline.
57:10
Speaker 1: Or is this good, is this bad, is this– and
57:13
Speaker 1: if you're a doctor or a nurse, I understand everything.
57:16
Speaker 1: But it's like sometimes you just want them to go, well, listen, champ,
57:19
Speaker 1: I reckon.
57:21
Speaker 4: You know.
57:23
Speaker 1: Sorry, go on.
57:24
Speaker 4: I was just going to say, you know, they do
57:27
Speaker 4: get accused of like kind of pointing the bone, you know,
57:30
Speaker 4: like seeding the self-fulfilling prophecy. If they tell you five years, amazingly,
57:34
Speaker 4: a lot of patients will just obediently die at the
57:37
Speaker 4: five-year mark. My oncologist today is really good and he'll
57:41
Speaker 4: talk about best-case scenario, worst-case scenario, reasonable expectations. So my
57:47
Speaker 4: most recent conversation was I'd be very surprised if you
57:51
Speaker 4: weren't still here in two years. Ten is probably a
57:54
Speaker 4: bit ambitious. I think five is a reasonable expectation. But
57:57
Speaker 4: they told me five years, 11 years ago, so I
58:01
Speaker 4: take it all with a pinch of salt these days.
58:04
Speaker 1: Well, you're doing good, mate. Yeah, it's that.
58:07
Speaker 2: And also this– I don't know why this came up
58:10
Speaker 2: in my head, but it did– So we've had a
58:14
Speaker 2: guy on here two or three times. His name is
58:17
Speaker 2: Professor Jeffrey Rediker. I got that one right, Tiff.
58:21
Speaker 3: I thought of him the moment you did.
58:24
Speaker 1: Yeah. So he's from Harvard.
58:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. And his area of research is in placebos and
58:30
Speaker 2: spontaneous healing.
58:31
Speaker 1: Thank you, Tiff.
58:34
Speaker 2: And it's like he goes, we don't know.
58:37
Speaker 1: We don't know.
58:38
Speaker 2: But there are cases where people 100% There is no
58:43
Speaker 2: chance medically, according to what we know and understand about
58:47
Speaker 2: the body and science and research, they have zero chance
58:51
Speaker 2: of recovery and some of them fully recover, never to
58:55
Speaker 2: have whatever it was return. That gives me hope because
58:59
Speaker 2: I just think with everything, like I just finished my, well,
59:04
Speaker 2: I'm still waiting on the reviewers to get it back
59:06
Speaker 2: to me, but my PhD in psychology and even in
59:10
Speaker 2: that field, it's like, we're guessing, like we know a
59:13
Speaker 2: fair bit, but we don't, we definitely don't know everything.
59:17
Speaker 1: And even with the brain in neuropsych and neuroscience.
59:22
Speaker 2: We know a lot, but what they're Because the problem
59:26
Speaker 2: is we don't know what we don't know. We don't
59:28
Speaker 2: know how much there is, right? So there's a fair
59:31
Speaker 2: chance that we understand the brain 2%. And it used
59:35
Speaker 2: to be one. So we've had 100% in increase in
59:38
Speaker 2: understanding and knowledge, which sounds amazing. But in the context
59:42
Speaker 2: of what is maybe possible.
59:45
Speaker 1: For us, because I think, like you said, some of.
59:49
Speaker 2: Some people obediently die five years later when they've been
59:53
Speaker 2: told five years. You wonder if that almost sounds like
59:56
Speaker 2: a self-created experience or at least there's a relationship there
1:00:01
Speaker 2: between that thought that's been implanted, which becomes a belief,
1:00:05
Speaker 2: which becomes an expectation.
1:00:08
Speaker 1: And oh, four months, four years and 10 months, I
1:00:11
Speaker 1: better die soon.
1:00:12
Speaker 4: Yeah.
1:00:13
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:00:13
Speaker 4: I think there's definitely something in that. And there is
1:00:16
Speaker 4: a mystery around all this, you know, and I think
1:00:18
Speaker 4: I sort of embrace the mystery. You know, I do
1:00:22
Speaker 4: what my oncologists recommend by and large. I'm not afraid
1:00:25
Speaker 4: to push back and sort of ask questions and argue
1:00:29
Speaker 4: the case if something doesn't make sense. But beyond that,
1:00:32
Speaker 4: I'll really trust my own instincts and intuition about what's
1:00:36
Speaker 4: working for me and just understand a feeling of a
1:00:39
Speaker 4: sense of wellbeing, you know, I have a few other
1:00:41
Speaker 4: little kind of self self care mantras. Like, um, I
1:00:46
Speaker 4: just think, you know, in when I meditate, I am
1:00:50
Speaker 4: spreading light and breath and awareness through my body. And
1:00:53
Speaker 4: I can just feel like on a cellular level, my
1:00:56
Speaker 4: whole body is humming. And in those moments, it just
1:00:59
Speaker 4: doesn't feel like there's any space for disease in my body,
1:01:02
Speaker 4: you know?
1:01:02
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:01:03
Speaker 1: Beautiful. Hey, do you ever, do you ever get out
1:01:05
Speaker 1: on the waves now?
1:01:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, not as much as I did. I mean, hormone
1:01:09
Speaker 4: therapy affects your strength. And after 11 years, I find
1:01:12
Speaker 4: my paddling strength has suffered. My pop-up has suffered, but
1:01:15
Speaker 4: I still go. It's pretty humbling. I don't surf as
1:01:18
Speaker 4: well as I used to. In fact, I had a
1:01:20
Speaker 4: surf on the Gold Coast with my son recently when
1:01:23
Speaker 4: I was up visiting him and he's 20 and a
1:01:25
Speaker 4: professional surf instructor. And I spent years pushing him into
1:01:29
Speaker 4: waves and And suddenly the roles were reversed and he
1:01:32
Speaker 4: wanted to push me into waves to help me catch
1:01:34
Speaker 4: a wave in a fairly crowded, you know, surf spot.
1:01:37
Speaker 4: Cause I'm not great in crowds these days.
1:01:40
Speaker 2: Is that Tim Baker? Didn't, wasn't he, didn't he used to, what, mate,
1:01:46
Speaker 2: what are you doing?
1:01:47
Speaker 4: I know I couldn't, I couldn't cope. I'm like, I'm
1:01:49
Speaker 4: not ready for this moment. I'm not, I don't want
1:01:51
Speaker 4: to have to rely on my son to push me
1:01:53
Speaker 4: into waves. And, it was really confronting but um he's
1:01:58
Speaker 4: a beautiful young man we've had some great surf trips
1:02:00
Speaker 4: together and um i always say he was one of
1:02:03
Speaker 4: my most powerful healers you know he was um the
1:02:06
Speaker 4: one who got me out in the surf during chemo
1:02:08
Speaker 4: and those moments in the ocean with him were just
1:02:12
Speaker 4: real high points of that really difficult time yeah yeah.
1:02:17
Speaker 1: Mate, you're a champ. I'd love to get you back.
1:02:21
Speaker 2: If people want to connect with you, find your books,
1:02:26
Speaker 2: send you a whatever, even if it's just a little
1:02:28
Speaker 2: bit of love, what's the best way to find you,
1:02:30
Speaker 2: follow you, connect with you?
1:02:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. My website's bytimbaker.com. It's pretty neglected. I haven't
1:02:37
Speaker 4: updated it for a while. My handle on socials, Instagram,
1:02:40
Speaker 4: is really the only one I use regularly is bytimbaker, B-Y-T-I-M-B-A-K-E-R.
1:02:46
Speaker 4: If you don't mind, it'll be back to front, but
1:02:48
Speaker 4: there's the book, Patting the Shark.
1:02:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, Patting the Shark.
1:02:53
Speaker 4: Patting the Shark, yeah. So obviously it's a metaphor for,
1:02:57
Speaker 4: you know, making peace with this existential threat. And the
1:03:00
Speaker 4: funny thing was when I decided to change the name
1:03:03
Speaker 4: from Punching the Shark to Patting the Shark because I thought,
1:03:08
Speaker 4: you know, I just can't be at war with my
1:03:11
Speaker 4: own body, you know. I've got to make peace with this.
1:03:14
Speaker 4: I've got to call a truce rather than be engaged
1:03:16
Speaker 4: in a battle. I went on Instagram and I saw
1:03:19
Speaker 4: Mick Fanning and he was diving with this woman called
1:03:23
Speaker 4: the Shark Whisperer to get over his own fear of sharks.
1:03:27
Speaker 4: And he was literally patting sharks in the ocean. And
1:03:31
Speaker 4: I thought, well, there's a little sign from the universe
1:03:34
Speaker 4: to tell me I'm on the right track. So there's
1:03:36
Speaker 4: been some beautiful... yeah, uncanny bits of serendipity like that,
1:03:40
Speaker 4: that I call them sort of cosmic confirmation that I'm
1:03:43
Speaker 4: on the right path, you know.
1:03:44
Speaker 1: I believe you are. And you're helping lots of other
1:03:47
Speaker 1: people too, mate. So that's great.
1:03:49
Speaker 2: We'll say goodbye off air, but thanks so much for
1:03:53
Speaker 2: joining us and having a chat.
1:03:55
Speaker 1: And it's really nice to get to know you a bit.
1:03:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks, Craig. A pleasure. And Tiff, yeah, I really
1:03:59
Speaker 4: enjoyed it. Love the rapport you guys have.
1:04:03
Speaker 3: Thank you.