Latest / The You Project / #1723 No Sight But Great Vision - Matt De Gruchy

Transcript

#1723 No Sight But Great Vision - Matt De Gruchy · The You Project

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I'll get a welcome to another installment of the show.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I hope you're bloody great. It's it's Monday. It's Monday Vo.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: It's just hit the AVO. It's thirty three past the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: point where it becomes the AARVO. Tiffany and Cook and
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Matt are on the call. We'll get to mad in
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: a moment. But the girl over there with the biceps
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: who likes punching people in the face and was quite
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: chuffed on the weekend because someone asked her if she
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: was about to go in a bodybuilding show. So the ego,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: So the whole Dalai Lama thing, the whole kind of
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: serenity humility thing from India, that's well and truly gone.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Hey, I think it's the della alarmaed biceps. He'd give
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: them a little flex as well. I reckon he give
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: them a little flex.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Imagine that if the Delai Lama got on the fucking
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: on the gear to get.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: It on the gear, settle down down.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I didn't say you were anyone, but imagine if you
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: got on and yeah, imagine. I don't think that's going
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: to happen, though. I think he's a little bit more
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: evolved than you and I. How are you? Tiffany?
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Very very well, thank you.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: How's your Monday morning been?
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: It's been good.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Monday morning's always busier morning with clients, but I had
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: a little gap this morning, so I got to do
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: a little bit of training, a little bit of fun
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: training myself in between, and I like Mondays.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: They're busy, but they're good. I don't know.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, good, that's good. What about you, Matt, how's
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: your morning been?
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: Sunshine? Yeah, a heartskit A. Tiffany, my morning's been great.
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: It's sunny here in Horsham, so it's a hot one. Yeah,
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: being busy, a couple of zoom calls this morning, but
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: I actually had some time to go for a little
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: walk before it heats up too much, so that was great.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: So I loven't it And just on the bysets, Tiffany.
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: When I met you in person for the first time
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: at the mine Ash Health goer, you know, I've got
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: four percent vision in one life six percent of the
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: other eye, and I could see your bysets, So yeah,
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: you're kicking goals.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: I feel validated. Wow, wow, you do. So the guy
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: who can hardly see has seen your biceps and been impressed.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: She'll be out of control all day. Now, mate, you
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: shouldn't have told her that. Now.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: I saw a tiff, and I'm like, this is a
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: woman you don't want to mess with.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: That is you're not totally wrong with that. But she
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: can be either intimidating or a big basket case in
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: the corner just sucking her thumb. I mean she alternates
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: between those two.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Well, that was that was a red carpet event, so
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: I was I was very much the second option there.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: I was a bit, you know, out of my comfort zone.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, did you wear how exciting?
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: What did you well? What did both of you? I
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: can't imagine. Sorry, man, I mean, you know, like you're
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: an impressive young man, but red carpet? What did you both?
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: What did you both wear? Tiff? Did you have to
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: rent something or did you look right in the back
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: of the cupboard.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: I had to go out shopping. I bought myself a
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: silky black jumpsuit, so it was you know, I mean,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: you can get away with a jumpsuit. I did have
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: a mini breakdown about frocking up, so I met in
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: the middle and I think I threw some red lippyon.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: If I remember correctly, red lippy.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like a grown up. And what about you, Sunshine,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: just a black suit, just like a straight up pembe.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I went and bought it.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: A new tuxedo for myself, so I treated myself. I thought, Oh,
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: first event Crown Casino got to look the part. So no,
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: I got the full tucks, the shiny shoes, the whole
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: kitten kaboodle.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: I felt like I was at the brown Low Medal.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: So it was a great night.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: That's hilarious. Has anyone ever told you you'd be quite
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: good on radio? You've got a good voice, Matt.
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: I have been told I've had a great face for
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: radio for many years, so who knows. I actually did
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: a radio course with Vision Australia earlier this year, so
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: that was really exciting. And yeah, jumped on a few
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: podcasts over the years. Me and a mate used to
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: do a podcast years ago, so I have done the
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: speaking for quite a while.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I have heard that in the past, for sure, but.
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: It's usually always been the term you've got a good
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: face for radio.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Tell them to fuck off. Man, you're a good look
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I wish I wish I looked as good as you look.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Sun't worry, Oh.
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: So.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Do we call you Matt, Mattie, Matthew, is it just Matt?
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: Just call me Matt. Yeah, you can call me Matt,
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: you can call me whatever.
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: Really, but yeah, I do double trouble to tease, but yeah,
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: anything but late for dinner.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: You can call me and tell us give my audience
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit about the Matt de Grucci story, like
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: just to give them an insight into who you are
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: and a little bit of your backstory.
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: Mate, Yeah, for sure, So get everyone. And my name
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: is Matt de Gricci. I'm currently twenty eight years of age,
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: and I am a blindness and disability advocate. I also
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: do some subcontracts consulting with lived experience experts, so that's
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: really exciting and it's all in the disability and inclusion space.
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: But how I got there was when I was about
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: six to seven. It was probably just in the early
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: ages of grade three grade four at school. My parents
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: first started noticing I was bringing my school work back
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: home and I didn't complete it in class. So I
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: wasn't completing my assignments in class, and I also was
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: looking a.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: Lot closer at it than what my peers were.
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: So that was met with a little bit of skepticism,
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: but we went to some appointments. I was given bifocal glasses,
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: misdiagnosed with dyslexia, you name it, I had the work.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: So this went on for probably about the best part
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: of two years, maybe around eight eight months, and this
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: was lots of different appointments. So in a nutshell, the
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: disease that I have is stargarts, which I'll get to
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: in a sec but at the time when I was diagnosed,
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: it was quite hard for the standard optometrists just to
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: have a look in the back of someone's eye and go, okay,
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: that's Stargart's disease. So it was quite hard to sort
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: of pinpoint. So that's where I had a few misdiagnosises.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: But anyway, going on, about a few months later, we
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: went to this appointment and there was this optometrist and
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: he goes, nah, nah, I reckon, you're just faking it.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: You're a bit of an attention seeker.
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: Wouldn't really take me seriously, didn't want to do a
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: half assed test in his opinion.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: I don't know where he got that from.
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: And yeah, he turned and he looked at my mum
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: and he said, well, if your son can't read this,
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: he must be a retard. I was about eight years old,
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: and I've just been labeled there a retide by someone
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: that you kind of look up to, someone that's going
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: to help you and you fix this vision. Because at
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: the time, I kind of thought, yeah, i'd have a
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: few appointments, I'll get this eye problem sorted out, and
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: then I'll go about my way. I'll keep watching the Simpsons,
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: I'll keep living me life. I didn't really actually think
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: that there would be any weight to what would actually
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: happen in the future, so that was a pretty confronting experience.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: But I still hadn't had my diagnosis yet.
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: And then I did meet a lovely fresh Outer University ophthalmologist.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: She had just studied Stargarts disease, which is the disease
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: that I have. So that is how I actually found
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: or got my diagnosis. I went to an optometrist and
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: she found that the yellow like flaky specks in the
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: back of my eye, which is a build up of
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: vitamin A. So, in very simple terms, my Stargars disease
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: is affected by the build up of vitamin A. So
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: I'm sure we've all heard over the years the expression
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: your carrots are really good for your eyes.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: I'm sure we've all heard that one. Well, actually not
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: in my situation.
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: So my eyes can't break down vitamin A that builds up,
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: it turns into this yellow like bugger substance in the
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: back of my eye, and that's what kills off the cells.
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: But anyway, got the diagnosis eventually, and it was really
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: like at that time a switch turning off. That's when
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: the visual degeneration started to happen quite rapidly. And I
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: really did shut down because I saw around me in
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: the very early days when I did go to a
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: few different excursions and experiences that were meant to kind
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: of get you prepared for losing vision, and I noticed
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: there was this bubble wrapp or a gold star approach.
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: It was kind of like, oh, here's your gold staff
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: for participation, but not really getting the real go at things.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: And that really scared me because I just wanted to
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: have a normal crack at things. I just wanted to
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: do what I wanted to do and not sort of
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: be sugarcoated.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: So I actually, yeah, really doubled down and hid my disabilities.
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: So throughout my school schooling years up until the age
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: of probably sixteen, when I couldn't really hide my disability anymore.
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: It was the age where everyone's getting their license, like
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: getting a taste of that freedom and go and driving.
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: And here I was and people are asking me, well,
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: why don't you have your l plates matter? Why aren't
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: you doing this? And initially I'm not ashamed and saying it.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: Initially I would actually just make up white lives. I'd
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: just say, oh, I just haven't got any l plates yet,
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: or I just haven't done.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: It yet, or you know, I'll get there eventually.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: But it all stemmed from shame, Like I felt really
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: guilty and shameful for having something ute wrong with me.
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: But I didn't actually put on myself. But that's how
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: I felt at the time. I really had this victim
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: mindset that I was a bad person, having something wrong
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: with me that was never my first, like my choice
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: in the beginning in the first place. And that was
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: really my mindset. Really was like a light's on, but
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: no one's home kind of deal.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: And it really was. It was sugarcoated, it was the
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: bubble wrap. It was all that sort of stereotypical stuff
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: that really scared me. And yeah, it shut down.
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: It was kind of like the I guess in a way,
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: it's like the five stages of grief, like get into
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: the acceptance of my blindness, because early on I was
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: very very much in denial, so I would not believe
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: that I was going blind. And you know, I would
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: pick up a can of you know, I could be
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: a can of soft drink, or it could be a
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: bottle of water, and I would turn it over to
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: the back of the label, and I.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: Would really strain my eyes, almost to the point where
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: I'd give myself a migrain and like tears in my eyes.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: I would strain that much.
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: And it was kind of to trick myself into thinking
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: that if I could strain enough and be able to
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: see one of the words, oh, yep, I'm fine, I
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: don't have Stargut's disease, and then this big bad dream
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: would be over. That's how my brain functioned at the time.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: So I went through the denial and then you know,
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: obviously you kind of realize, wow, I am still losing
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: my vision, Like this isn't going away. So you go through,
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: you know, the angry stage. You're really angry and resentful
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: and feel like the woe is me, this happened to me,
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: This is so unfair, and then you kind of, you know,
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: you do go into the bargaining stage where you kind
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: of try and like trick yourself and you're like, Okay, well,
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: if I do this, then I'm still independent, or if
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: I do that, and then I would kind of then
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: actually not ask for the supports that I needed. So
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: in turn of still made me struggle a bit because
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: I couldn't actually absorb or take in the information on
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: the whiteboard or the blackboard at school. And that was
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: so bad that even a teacher on my last day
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: of school didn't even know that I was legally blind
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: and losing my vision. That's how good I wasn't hiding
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: my disability. So I got through all those stages very
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: very poor mental health.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: So it actually led us to it.
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: It was a family style intervention that around the age
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: of yeah, getting your license, saying a load of freedom.
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: I was really, yeah, a shell of the person that
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: I was as a kid, and yeah, it was a
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: family style intervention. I got the canceling sessions. I think
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: I got ten free canceling sessions that was at the time,
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: which you could get through your GPS and honestly, that
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: was that was such a shift in mindset. One of
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: the things I remember from that time, and it's funny
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: because I don't actually drive a car, but my cancelor
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: got me to draw a picture of me in the
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: driver's seat, taking the power back the steering wheel and
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: taking control of my own life and what.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: I wanted to do. And it was all a metaphor,
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: but it was so powerful.
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: And I actually even got back into drawing because that
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: was a skill that I guess I hadn't lost. I
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: was still quite artistic and creative, but I just stopped
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: doing it once I started to lose my vision because yeah,
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: prior to diagnosis as a youngster, very very very active,
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: very creative arts and crafts, all that stuff, and I
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: really shut down and just stopped doing all of the
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: things that I enjoyed as in my teenage years. So
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: getting to that step of acceptance was probably the biggest
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: thing for me, being able to accept my disability, because
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: then that gave me the power to not have the fear,
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: not have the anxiety of thinking almost holding on to
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: that hope of a cure, because that really was the
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: that yet shut me down.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: I would google Stargart's disease.
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: I would be google and research and it was all
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: with the sort of mindset of denial. It was me
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: wanting to get rid of this so then I could
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: go back to living my old life, rather than just
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: accepting it and being like, Okay, this is a deck
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: of cars. I've gotten life, and this is what I
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: want to do with it. So yeah, in a nutshell
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: getting myself to a place like that. I've started to
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: share my story. I do keynote presentations at schools and
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: stuff like that, and it's all happened pretty unconsciously because
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: I never thought I would ever do speaking.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: I never thought that.
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: I never put myself out there like that. It was
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: actually a teacher in It might have been year eleven
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: at school and we were doing a high school musical
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: and he goes, you need to be the MC in
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: this musical. You need to be the disc jockey, and
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: I pushed back. I didn't want to do it. I remember,
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: right up to the last training sessions before we went
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: live with the musical, I even was full of anxiety.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: I hadn't really learnt my lines and stuff. But I
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: went ahead and I did the musical and I did
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: really well, and I thought, oh wow, I might be
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: able to do a bit of speaking. And then this
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: was still when I hadn't told anyone about my blindness.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: No one knew accept me initial family and made him
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: best made Ben. Apart from that, yeah, no one, So
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: kept going on with that, and then it was actually
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: Foundation Fighting Blindness that reached out wanted me to make
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: a short video. I did it, not really thinking that
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: it would have the impact that it did at the time.
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: So this has going back quite a few years ago.
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: This is before TikTok. This is back in the blog
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: post days of the early Facebook. So at the time
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: I did a video for the how You See a
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: campaign where I explained my condition, just the little tips
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: and tricks that I'm using in my life to get by,
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: and it kind of went viral at the time or
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: for what it was, And yeah, before I knew it,
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: I was going over to America and meeting the two
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: blind brothers who also have Stargarts disease, which was awesome
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: because apart from meeting one other person in Australia with
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: Stargarts and my sister who has been diagnosed in recent years,
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: I haven't actually met too many people with the same
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: disease that I've got. So to go over there and
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: meet two people that I look up to, that you know,
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: have just kicked goals in life. They've been on the
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: Ellen DeGeneres Show, and now you know, I'm doing a
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: presentation sort of thing alongside them. That was an incredible
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: experience and it really launched what I do now. So
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: MDV that's what I do now, that's my brand. It's
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: Matt de Bridge Vision and we hyphenated it. And it
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: started out just as a blog post.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: I was on the way.
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: I was on the way to an ac DC concert
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: back in twenty sixteen, and I was still working at
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: a retail shop at that time. So I'd worked in
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: retail for about ten years. So I never let my
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: blinder stop me. I was always working. I was always hustling.
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: But I just wanted something more. I didn't want to
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: just be, you know, to check out chicks, so to speak.
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: I wanted to.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: Do something more and real, non tokenistic.
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: Disability and inclusion training is my vibe, that's my niche.
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: So that's the direction that I headed in. And yeah,
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: it started off as a clothing brand. It really did,
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: selling a few t shirts, and you know, I would
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: pack all the orders up, and before I knew it, it
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: did start a little bit of a movement. I started
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: the campaign what makes You Visionary coincided with the ability
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: not disability, and everything centered around Yeah, taking the power
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: back and the focus away from putting all that energy
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: onto a disability and instead focusing on ability, because that's
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: where I've achieved the best things in my life is
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: when I haven't really focused about my blindness.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: I don't wake up in the morning and.
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: Think, oh wow, I'm blind or I can't see, and yeah,
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: I might bump into a wall or make my morning
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: cup of coffee with orange juice instead of milk. But
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: like I still go, I do that quite often. I
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: do that more than I'd like to admit, I'll tell you.
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: But yeah, that's where the biggest achievements have happened in
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: my life is not yet not living my life conducted
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: by the thought and the label of oh I'm disabled
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: or I'm blind, and it's all focused on yet the ability.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: And that's not to say that it takes away from equity.
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: Like we all need the supports to be able to
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: thrive in life. It's not to take away from anything,
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: because I still use heaps of technology. I'd be lost
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: without it. I use triple tag zoom on any computer device.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: I use screen readers. I've recently partnered with a company
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: in the US called iris Vision, and they do headset
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: technology with screens really close to your eyes. And because
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: I'm so close to my eyeballs, I can actually see
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: quite well. So I use technology. I use so many
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: devices so I can be able to do the things
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: that my peers do. But yeah, it's all with a
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: focus on ability, and you get that, you get the
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: job done. So in a nutshell, a very drawn out nutshell,
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: that's sort of what I do.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think you know what. I
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: don't think you know what a fucking nutshell is. Mane,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: let's be honest, but no, that's amazing, that's no, honestly
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: all silliness. Guide. You're an inspiration. It's great, it's great.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: And then yeah, I had the privilege of meaning Tiffany
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: back in May, so that's been fantastic.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Got to be the highlight, doesn't it.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: Oh, definitely one of them for sure.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well mate, well mate, you are indeed in inspiration,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: all right. Let me circle back and ask you a
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: few things. Thank you for that synopsis, that overview that.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: It was great though, because I love it when I
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: can sit back and somebody can just share their story very,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: very efficiently and effectively. All right, So tell me about
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: tell me about the intervention. So like when we think
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: of interventions, we often think of somebody who's struggling with
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: addiction and the family comes in and goes, listen, Champ,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: this is not working. You need to get your shit together,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: or we need to get you in rehab or some
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: kind of therapy. What tell me about the intervention. What
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: led your family to do that, What was happening, and
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: how did you feel about that and respond to that?
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And what did the intervention? I mean, you told us
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: a bit about sessions, but tell us about that point
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: in time.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, for sure.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: So the reason that started it is my mental health
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: was just bottom of the barrel. It was full depression,
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: full anxiety, and probably also OCD mixed in with that.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: So I was very anxious and just very depressed. And
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: I also.
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: Really turned to food at that time as a coping mechanism.
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: I really sort of ate myself almost towards an early grave.
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: So at the time when the family intervention style thing
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: did happen, I was almost one hundred and fifty key lies.
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: In fact, I'd stopped weighing myself because the scale wouldn't
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: even weigh me.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: So that's something I'm quite proud of.
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: Over recent years, I've really changed my lifestyle in health ways,
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: because yeah, throughout my teenage years I was very moraly obese,
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: and at that point I was just I was very sick.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: I was living on three different pills a day just
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: to slow down my heart rate. So that's pretty scary
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: to be, you know, eighteen years old or seventeen years
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: old and to be on three.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: Medications just to slow your heartbeat.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: Was also taking i think two medications at the time
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: for blood pressure, which is just not a life to
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: be living. So I was incredibly anxious. I was incredibly depressed,
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: and the sort of well is me mentality about my blindness,
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: and then I guess, yeah, the comfort.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: The comfort for that was the food.
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: So it was the overeating. So it was a combination
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: of so many things. It was definitely, yeah, some health
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: struggles and definitely mental health. But the conversation initially looked
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: like a conversation around the dinner table, and of course
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: when you know my parents, when my family voiced their
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: concerns and they wanted the best for me, of course
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: I pushed back. I didn't want to have the call
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: with the cancer. I didn't want to you know, I'm
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: fine all this and that everyone else is the issue.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: I'm not the problem. Everyone else is the issue. That's
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: very much how I saw it.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: But anyway, I.
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: Did persevere, and it wasn't It wasn't straight away. It
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: probably took me three or four weeks of me pushing
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: back and then maybe letting them in a little bit,
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: and then.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: Pushing back a little bit more.
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: But event actually I did go to my first appointment,
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: and quite instantly I did feel very comfortable with the counselor.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: She's an amazing woman, and even to this day I
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: still do have conversations and catch up, so probably more
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: so as a friend now in sort of the similar
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: fields and careers that we were in, but definitely an
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: incredible experience and the ten free sessions that worked out,
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: and I definitely I couldn't recommend it more. If it's
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: still a thing that is offered to people. It really
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: just allowed me to unpack some of the mindset shifts.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: So you know, I didn't have the knowledge or the
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: skills to even understand that some of the reasons I
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: was acting was because of my anxiety or maybe some
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: of the thoughts and the opinions that I had for
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: possibly even been called a retard, or the four eyes,
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: or being bullied in school, like, there were so many
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: different things that I didn't even have knowledge or ways
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: to unpack. So being able to sit there and go, hmm,
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: I don't actually have to believe that, I don't have.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: To assign meaning to that thought. I can just let
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: it pass.
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: Go about my dad because I guess, yeah, definitely definitely.
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: Back in my early teenage years and leading up to
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: my crisis, essentially, I would get latched on to every
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: thought and it would snowball and I would Yeah, I
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: was a hypochondriac. I was always concerned that I was
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: dying too. Yeah. I would always tell myself that I
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: was dying of lakemia, dying of a brain shreamer.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: There were so many things that it was really.
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: Bad, that was so bad that I actually there was
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: one day I just had a little bit of dirt
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: on my arm. Now, obviously I do have low vision too,
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: so I might not seeing it as much. But I
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: went up to someone and I was like, look at
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: this bruise on my arm.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: I've got cancer. I'm gonna die. Like that's how hysterical
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: I was. And someone just whiting the dirt off my
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: arm and they go, Matt, that's dirt.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: So I was really, like I said earlier, it was
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: really like lights were on but no one was home,
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: Like I was just on autopilot of fight and flight
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: mode for sure.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: That Matt, do you think thank you? Do you think that?
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Because like you're a fucking may communicator dude, Like, I'm
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: sure you've been told that, and yeah, you can talk
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: well and you've got a good voice, but your ability
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure you've refined it over time, But for
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: a twenty eight year old navigating the world with a
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: disability and doing what you do and also with lots
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: of great abilities on top of your one disability, but
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: like you're an amazing communicator and share of thoughts and
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: ideas and storyteller. Do you think the fact that your
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: vision is so limited that all your other senses and
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: skills have kind of become better than Like I'm thinking
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I wonder if this bloke could see normally, if it'd
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: be such a great communicator, because you have to rely
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: so much on listening, whereas we can. I always say
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: to people, and this is an indictment on me, I say,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: pay attention to a little bit of what people say
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and all of what they do. You know, like, I'm
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: more interested in what I see than what I hear sometimes,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: But you don't have that luxury now. I feel like
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the fact that you can't see what TIF and I
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: and most of our listeners can see. You've had developed
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: this like almost auditory superpower where you can hear but
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: also see with your ears, if you know what I mean, No,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent.
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: And I love that you said that, because, in all honesty,
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: if I did have twenty twenty vision, I don't think
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: I would be as an effective as a communicator. I
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: don't even think I would be doing anything in the
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: sort of what I'm doing right now. So I actually
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: love that I've got Stargus's disease. I think it makes
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: me the person that I am today. I would never
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: change it for the world. So that's definitely a contrast
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: to years and years ago.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: For sure. But as although it does.
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: It is meant to be a myth on paper that
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: you know, any other sense is enhanced because you lose one.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: But for the people that I've spoken to and from
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: my own experience, I do think that it is true.
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: Like I definitely pick up on energy so much more
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: than I get I think other people do. Like so
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: when I walk into a room or if I'm doing
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: a presentation, I'm not seeing the facial expressions, I'm not
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: seeing the audience, so I'm picking up on vibe ships
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: and then I'm thinking, Okay, well this is where I
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: need to go with my story or this is where
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: I need to go now. So I'm a big believer,
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: and people will forget what you said, people will forget
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: what you tell them, but they'll never forget how you
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: made them feel.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: So I'm a big believer in that, and I guess
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: as far as.
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: The communication goes, it would be yeah, me ten thousand hours.
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: I'm a big believer in that. You've got a craft
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: that put your ten thousand hours in. I've been doing
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: this since twenty sixteen, probably on a professional scale since
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty. So yeah, working towards you always got more
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: to learn. I'll never ever leave a talk or I'll
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: never have a conversation with someone and think, oh wow,
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: I nailed that. If anything, I'm always going through and
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: thinking how can I make that better or how can
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: I learn more with that? Like I'm always wanted to
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: get better. I never sit back and think, oh, yeah,
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: that was bloody awesome. So I feel like that's a
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: good quality to have, probably as well, because I'm always
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: thinking and I'm maybe not like, not that great, So
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: then I'm trying to even become better, which is a
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: good still skill. But yeah, definitely, I definitely have what's
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: it cold? When it's hearing, but you can kind of
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: hear what you want to not hear. There's a word
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: for it, what's the cold. Selective hearing good one tip. Yeah,
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: I definitely have selective hearing. Don't get me wrong, but
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: I can definitely hear conversations that happening in other rooms
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: where other people would just go completely off the top
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: of their head. A few years ago, I was actually
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: on a trip with a bunch of friends and I
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: could just yeah, hear the conversation in the other room,
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: and I just made a funny joke and they were
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: blown away. To think that how did you hear that?
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: Are you like ears drop?
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, no, honestly, I'm just sitting here, but
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: I can hear it. And I just think that's because
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: I'm not giving much energy to my eyes. I really
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: it's hard to explain because people do think I still
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: really use my vision and what I can see, but
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: a lot of the time I am so on autopilot.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: We're just getting from A to B, and I kind
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: of my bearings and I really do switch my eyes off.
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: I'm not really paying much attention to anything that's coming through,
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: and it is. It's all on sound and vibes, honestly,
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: sound and energy.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: I think also, like you said that, maybe technically your
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: hearing doesn't get literally better, but I think what you
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: do with your hearing changes because you're not distracted by
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: seeing shits that like you are hanging. It's like if
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: I go I had this epiphany a few years ago, mate,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: because I sit in front of a lot of people
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: and talk to a lot of people, and I realized that,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a difference between being a good talker
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: and a great communicator. Right, A lot of people can talk,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: but they're terrible at connection. And communication and creating a
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: great interpersonal experience. And I realized that I wasn't terrible
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: at my job, but I don't think I was great,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: And I probably over talked a little bit, like I
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: think for me, if I'm coaching someone, if I'm one
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: on one, it should be about ten percent me ninety
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: percent them in terms of the talk time, right, But
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: it was probably more like thirty seventy, so too much.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: But also I realized that I wasn't always fully present.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: And I can't remember what precipitated it, but I had
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: this moment where I went, how I'm become going to
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: become much better at this is by you know when
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: that hour starts or whatever the session is. You know,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: it's like done over two thousand podcasts, right with this
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: show and some other shows that I did.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: It's amazing effort, your kicking girls, many.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Thanks man, thanks, but just being able to go all right,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: And I'm talking with Matt at twelve thirty, and at
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: twelve thirty, I'm fully present. I'm not looking at my phone,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not thinking about other things. I'm not distracted like
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: you do your twelve or fifteen minute monologue at the start,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: which I fucking loved. But I'm fully present, I'm writing notes,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: I'm listening. And I think when you whatever it is,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: whether it's with your hearing or your vision or some
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: other sense, but you you you can kind of fine
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: tune that, you can develop that and you block out
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: the shit that you don't need to hear or pay
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: attention to, and then like really focus and even though
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: you're technically you're hearing is not better, but you're actually
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: hearing a lot more because of what you're paying attention to.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Is that right? Or is that in the ballpark?
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: No, that's one hundred percent right, harps.
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: And also I'd like to elaborate that when I'm listening
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: to people talking, right, rather than my eyes catching the
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: visual cues, I'm actually app so, if anything, rather than
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: using my eyes, I'm also painting a picture to make
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: the story that that individual is telling me even clearer.
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: So I do think I sort of subconsciously, extremely actively
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: listen and I am painting a picture of the sort
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: of missing pieces of that puzzle, so to speak, in
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: my brain. But because yeah, I definitely believe when I
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: am in a lot of situations, I'm just there. I'm
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: in the room, I'm with the person, I'm not really
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: seeing too much, and for what I can see, it's
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: nothing to really even Yeah, because it's so blurry, I'm
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: not really going to put my.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: Energy towards that.
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: So I do think that allows me to be with
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: people or to kind of absorb more information than others,
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: because sometimes it might be a little bit overstimulating, so
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: a little bit of the information just goes over top
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: of people's heads that.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what how can I ask you? Just I'm an
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: exercise scientist. I'm interested in the height and the physical
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: health and all that shit. Right, So how tall are you?
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: I think I would be like maybe one seventy centimeters.
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: I would have to like measure myself.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: Okay, so yeah.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: At one round one, at one at one fifty, you're
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: at one hundred and fifty kilos. You're a very big boy, right.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I was. I would have been.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: I classed myself, and definitely the doctor's classed me at
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: that time. Is more but the obese.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and what did you get down to? Because you
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: look healthy and fit and strong like, well.
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: I'm actually I'm probably about currently right now, I'm probably
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: about ten kilos heavier than what I would love to be.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: I have been about ten.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: Kilos lighter than I am now, which was around about
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: eighty kilos. That was the fittest I've been, So that was, yeah,
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: probably my biggest weight loss. And now I do hover
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: around the ninety mark. My body is comfortable there. But
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: I did love it a few years back when I
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: did get down to eighty because you know, I felt
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: the rip this I'd ever been. I was going to
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: the beach without the shirt on, and it was that
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: was the first That was such a big experience for
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: me too, being going to a beach without me top on. Wow,
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: that was massive for me because I'd like never done
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: that before. I was always so self conscious of taking
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: my shirt off. So yeah, to be able to kind
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: of be fit and feel normal, just like, you know,
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: in a normal body, that was amazing. So yeah, but yeah,
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: around eighty to ninety I sawt of whole now, but.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd like to get back there for sure.
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: I've got to we we figure out, so to speak,
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: get me ars in the gear and get running. Because
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: I actually am planning to do run Melbourne next year
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: as well.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: So I did the five k last year.
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: I want to do the ten k this year coming,
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: So yeah, I got to get back into running for sure.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Well, and so when you're running, like, how does that work?
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: How does that work? Do you run with a partner?
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Do you just bump into shit constantly?
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: So I when I'm in locally, so when I'm back
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: home in Horsham, I know the surrounds of Horsham.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: I've lived in my entire life, and I've had.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: The luxury also growing up in town when I did
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: have twenty twenty vision, so I have great muscle memory
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: of kind of where things are. So I can quite
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: comfortably go for a run or go for a walk
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: around our river.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: Because it's got a nice pathway. It's quite nice and
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: I can get myself from A to B pretty well.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: They're unassisted. If I was to go for a walk
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: or a run somewhere in the city or a suburb
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: in Melbourne, I yeah, especially if I was going for
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: a run, I would want to.
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: Go with someone, Especially the first few times I wouldn't
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: just sort of will anally just go for a run
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: and see where I get to. And I definitely still could,
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: but I feel like, yeah, if you wanted to do
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: it on like a professional level kind of thing and
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: actually do it consistently. I would like to set up
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: a routine with someone. But yeah, around locally, Yeah, I
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: know my bearings pretty well. That's not to say I
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: don't get lost.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: Every now and then.
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: Occasionally I kind of go off path and I'm sort
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: of in amongst the sticks and I think, oh, hold on,
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: I think I'm a little bit shrew with here. It
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: was actually funny too, because earlier this year I was
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: going for a run. Back when I did, it was
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: one hundred k away for Vision Australia, so it was April,
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: and I was running.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: Up towards and I thought there was this big stick on.
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: The ground and then as I ran over the top
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: of it, I saw it move, so it was actually
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: a brown snake.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: So that kind of wigged me out a little bit.
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: That was the first time I'd seen a snake that
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: close in the sort of wild.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: But yeah, or more specifically, hadn't seen a snake's us
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: seen a sticky mate like in the old days. I
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: don't know if this is still a term, so excuse
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: my ignorance. I've got l plates on for this conversation
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: because I don't know is the term legally blind. Is
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: that still a term? Yes, yeah, I still use it.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: That's how I refer to myself quite often. So what
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: qualifies somebody to be legally blind? Like what percentage of
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: vision or how does that work?
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: Yes, So depending if you're in America or Australia, there's
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: different eye charts and different signals depend on.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: What you are.
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: But essentially it's if you look at the eye chart
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: at an optometrist and you can't see the very big
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: top number. So if you can't see that sitting in
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: the optometris chair from the distance you're sitting, that means
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: that you have lost significant vision and you're class legally blind.
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: So that essentially means you have twenty two hundred vision.
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: So that means that what someone could see often to
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: the distance from two hundred meters away, you would only
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: be able to see from twenty meters away, and it
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: would be a lot blurrier than what someone with twenty
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: twenty vision would see. In America, they actually go by
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: twenty sixty vision, so they would say that sixty meters away,
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: someone that could see something off into the distance sixty
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: meters you would only be able to see from about
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: twenty meters, So that's the very baseline of legal blindness,
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: and then yeah, you can still definitely continue to lose
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: more vision after that. But yeah, very few people are
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: considered completely blind, which that isn't actually the term. It's
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: called NLP, so no light perception, and that's when you
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: have no vision whatsoever.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: But yeah, that's probably.
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, less than ten percent of people that are considered
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: yeah blind or legally blind would have no light perception.
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: So yeah, quite a lot of us will still see
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: some colors, some light. But for me personally, if I'm outside,
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: I have to wear pretty dark sunglasses because yeah, it
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: look like I watched like a romcom or some mighty
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: sad movie for two hours.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: My eyes just start crying in the sun.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: If you and I were let's say, I don't know,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: if we're in a room and I'm in front of you,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I'm three meters away from you, and it's a pretty
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: well lit room, what are you going to see?
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: So I would be able to see the color of
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: your shirt and pants, probably, I don't know if I
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: would be able to differentiate, say, if you're wearing a
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: blue pair of jeans and a black shirt, my eyes
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: just might pick it up as a dark navy color
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: mixed together. So I might be able to see sort
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: of the shape of your body kind of thing. I
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: would be able to see the shape of your head,
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: But most people, when I look at their their face,
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: it usually is just sort of a mix of their yeah,
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: their skin color sort of mixed in. I can't see
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: sort of eyeballs or facial features.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: Nose, mouth, that sort of thing.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: I do see a little bit better out of my
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: peripheral vision. So something that is worth mentioning is that
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: the bulk of my blindness is my central vision.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: So when I look directly on at.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: People right in the face, so you know, respectfully, we
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: make eye contact with people when we speak to them.
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: So I still actually do that to this day. I
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: will look at people in the eye, but it's only
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: for the other person's benefits, so they think that I'm
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: respectful because I can't actually see when I look at
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: them in the eye that way direct on. I would
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: actually be better off kind of looking side on, and
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: I do see a little bit clearer out of my
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: peripheral vision.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: It's still not super clear.
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: It's not like twenty twenty or I wouldn't be able
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: to probably tell someone.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: Oh, you've got green eyes or you've got blue eyes.
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't be able to do that, but yeah, it's
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: a little bit better than looking dead on.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Well, if I want to give you any shit, I'm
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: going to stand straight in front of.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: You for sure.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Thanks, thanks, thanks for the heads up. So let's just
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: wheel back to the first time you went. I don't
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: know if it was the first time you went to
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: an optometrist, but I don't know what on earth would
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: I mean. I know you're not lying, I know it's true,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: but I can't I almost can't believe that a medical professional,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: an optomologist would say, would call you, would tell your
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: mum that you're a retard, because when you have a legitimate,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: like serious issue with your eyes, not only do they
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: not figure that out, they insult you. I mean, apart
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: from how that was for you, which was fucking horrible,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: and like, I don't even understand how that happened. Was
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: there any firstly, well, tell us about how that was
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: for you in a minute. But before we get there,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: was there any consequences, because I would to punch that
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: person in the face.
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: Definitely, there was definitely a few stern words you know
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: from your mother's and definitely I was probably yes seven
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: at the time, so I didn't really understand the weight
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: of the words that were said.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: It really kind of affected me a few years after.
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: I really feel like that's when it started to affect me,
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: those couple of experiences getting my diagnosis.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: But yeah, it was probably six months before that.
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: We'd had multiple different diagnosises and dyslexir and then you
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: get the bifocal glasses, and then you know, you get
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: all these different tests and they were all pretty fine
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: but didn't lead to any answers, and then yeah, we
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: had the sort of the specialist appointment, and I can
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: say that he is no longer practicing. It wasn't I
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: didn't personally or our family didn't personally put in a
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: complaint or anything like that. But yeah, it wasn't the
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: since learning otherwise, it's not the first experience of being
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: called retarded, Like I wasn't the first person where who's
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: had that experience with that particular optometrist. So really, yeah,
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: this is back in two thousand and six too, so
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: it was a bit of a different time.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: People really did feed into the stereotype.
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: So I rocked up at the optometrist a pointment, and
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: I didn't. I guess I didn't look blind. I didn't
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: have a cane, I didn't have a guide dog or
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: the real dark sunnies at the time, And because I
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: could still be quite independent, it was like they couldn't understand,
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: like you, if you're saying you can't see, well, how
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: are you doing this? So then I guess it really
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: frustrated them. And it was also a combination of it. Yes,
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: stargarts not having much research or not being easily detectable,
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: that really, I guess, yeah, infuriated him. It kind of
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: reminds me of I tell people, especially when I'm I
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: guess at younger school groups, I say, you know the
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: movie inside out with all the different characters. You've got happiness,
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: you've got joy, you've got sadness, and finger well, he
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: reminded me of anger that day, like I really felt
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: like you could feel the steam coming out of his ears.
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: And yeah, I feel like it probably did affect my
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: mother and my family more at the time that experience
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: than it did personally me. I have found out in
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: later years that that was quite challenging for mum and
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: she was very upset and so with my grandparents at
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: the time, and so you do learn after the fact hindsight,
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: it's a beautiful thing.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: I guess.
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, my family, I suppose tried to protect me or
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: shield me a bit from that side of things, and
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: I guess they were so shocked to think that I'd
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: been cold, a retard or it was directed at mum,
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: but I was there present. I feel like they did
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: that really did sort of scare them into the next
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: steps of Okay, well, how do we get a diagnosis?
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: But yeah, we were lucky enough that we did find
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: the amazing fresh out of Uni passionate ophthalmologist, and yeah,
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: we got the diagnosis. And it is important to note
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: that Stargut's disease, the gene that is connected to Stargus's disease,
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: was only discovered in nineteen ninety six, so they hadn't
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: had a hell of a lot of time to really
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: research it in a heap of detail. And when I
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: was diagnosed yet, it was in two thousand and five.
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: Two thousand and six was that period of the diagnosis journey,
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: So it was only yeah, nine or ten years since
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: they'd really understood what Stargus's disease is.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: So you know, what I think is, what I think
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: is ironic is that that he I don't even want
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: to say the word right, but he laid you that right.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: But ironically I would have I think you were probably
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: much smarter than average, not even average, but way smarter
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: than average because people couldn't even tell that you had
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: a disability, Like you navigated life without this incredibly important
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: ability that nearly everyone has, and you were so good
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: at faking it for one of a better word and
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: problem solving, Like you're navigating the world not being able
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: to fucking see and people don't even know. I mean,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: that's a whole different kind of intelligence, Like that's social intelligence,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: that's emotional intelligence, communication like that is that is so
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: the fact that you figured out how to do that
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: so that people couldn't even tell you how to disability
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: at such a young age, it's kind of amazing.
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I really do. Actually, Like, in hindsight, I look
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: back and I think, you know, the mental health side
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: of things and the depression and that side of things
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: that was you know, a byproduct of my experiences that
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: you know, it definitely shaped.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: Me into the person I am. But I wouldn't go
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: back and wish it upon any young person, because it
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: was a horrible time in my life.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: But you know, that's why I do what I do now,
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: is that so I can bring others out of their
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: shell and then still confidence in others. But yeah, definitely
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: at the time, I look back now and I do
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: think that because I didn't want people to know that
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: I was going blind, in a way, it did really
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: allow me to almost be like I sort of referred
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: to it as like, you know, the undercover blind person
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: or the you know, the Bruce Wayne of blindness.
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I don't regret it at all, because you know,
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: I just lived.
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: I just woke up every day in my family will
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: I was never treated as someone who was blind. So
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: that was also a really good benefit because I just
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: lived normally. So there was none of that sort of
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: bubble rap gold star approach. But it was because I
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: didn't let it happen. And in a way, it did
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: take away from sort of me being able to connect
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: with certain people, and you know, it did turn into
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: that victimhood mentality. But now I'm in a place where
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: I am today, I actually kind of redefined that a
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: chapter in my life, and I actually think that it had.
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: It gave me the skills. To this day, I still
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: navigate very well. I'm still very independent and very confident,
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: and I really do feel like it. It's so hard
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: to describe, but yeah, there's so many things that you
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: just learn how to adapt, and I don't get it
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: right all the time. Sometimes I'll see a blob and
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: I'll think, oh, that's the fridge door and then it
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: turns out to be a microwave or something. So there's
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: definitely things that I completely mess up. But for the
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: most part, all those years of really trying to yeah,
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: not be known as the person that was losing their vision, Yeah,
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: it really helped me to be able to navigate around
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: pretty much undercover, even.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: To this day.
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: A lot of people, if I walked past someone down
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: the main street, if I didn't tell them that I was,
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: you know, losing vision or something, or if they didn't
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: see me try to get my phone out and read
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: a menu with my screen or eater on, they would
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: have no idea.
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, what do you what's the This is
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: a selfish question, what's the what's the what's the deal
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: with guide dogs?
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: When do we get a puppy? Is there is there like,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: do you qualify for a guide dog or.
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: I've got I've got currently a little guide dog at
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: home that's not actually a proper guy dog. I call
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: him Boris the Bastard. He's a chru Hour. So my
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: sister got a dog a few years back at the
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: start of COVID and it latched onto me. So now
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: I'm the owner of a four year old Chiu Hour.
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: So I'm stuck with him until I'm probably blenty forty,
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: but definitely in the definitely in the future, when I'm
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: older or my next dog, I will definitely look into
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: getting a guide dog.
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: How it works is so you first.
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: Do cane training, so you do accessibility training and you
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: learn how to.
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: Use a cane. Now I did that years and years ago,
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: and I.
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: Only to this day still only use a cane in
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: situations where I'm very unfamiliar. So maybe like an airport
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: or when I arrive at Melbourne at Southern Cross station,
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: I'll get my cane out that sort of thing. But
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: for the most part, I even to this day, still
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: don't use a cane a hell of a lot. But
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: definitely you first start with the cane training and then
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: you can if you want to.
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: Look in to get in a guide dog.
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: There are sort of characteristics or credentials to get a
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: guide dog. You have to be significantly visually impaired. But
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: I would definitely fit that crieteria. But I just haven't
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: looked into it personally myself. But definitely in the future, Yeah,
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: I'll definitely get a guide dog in some chapter of
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: my life. But yeah, currently at the moment, I've got
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: a two hour.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah that seems more like a problem than a fucking assistance.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it seems like they're going to add work
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: to your day.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: I never would have like, I love him now, of
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: course because he's my but I would have never personally
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: like more how I used always want like a corgy
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: or a pug or something. But yeah, definitely, though in
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: the future I want to guide dog. And as my
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: vision does progress, because it is a progressive disease, So
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: you know, when I am forty and when I am fifty,
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: my starguts disease, there is a high chance it's quite
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: stable at the moment, which I'm very grateful for. It's
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: been quite stable for many years, but it will continue.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: To degenerate and then as I do age, my vision.
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: Naturally will get a little bit, a little bit shot
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: over the years as well. So in the future, I
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: think it will definitely be one hundred percent beneficial for
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: me to have a guide dog.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: But I can't see it happening. Yeah, in the next.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: Few years, while I've got my hands full with Yeah,
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: boris the bastard, that's for sure.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: Well, boris the bastard. Now, speaking of speaking of relationships,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: can I be cheeky and ask you about relationships? Are
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: you track? Are you tracking steady as the old people
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: say with anyone?
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: No, I'm single as a ringle at the moment, But
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: over the years I've had a few sort of friends
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: and benefits kind of deal and a few nice but yeah,
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: at the moment, yeah, single as a pringle.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Friends with benefits, you heard it here first, friends with well,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: I think we're looking for more than that, Matt. I
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: think we're looking for some kind of you know, Hey, mate,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: you're a gun. It's fucking so nice meeting you. You're funny,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: you're clever, you're an inspiration. Tell my audience about how
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: they can connect with you or if they want to
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: book you for an event or to work with their
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: team or their company. Or their school. How do they
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: go about that?
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: Oh, one hundred percent.
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: Well, you can find me by typing into Google Matt
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: de Grucci Vision or you can type in MDV. I'm
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: also on the social so Instagram and Facebook, YouTube LinkedIn
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: all that stuff. I do also post my stuff on TikTok.
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: I don't personally use it because I personally a bias
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: against it.
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: I think that app is the devil.
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: But that's the day and age we live, so I've
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: got to post my content on there, so you can
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: find me across all the platforms at Matt de Grucci
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: Vision and on my website at Mattdgrouccivision dot com.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: But I just I should also say I have the
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: I suppose the.
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: Unprivilege of having sharing the same name as another person
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: whose name is Matt de Grucci, who is a serial
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: killer who murdered his family. So I have had the
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: battle over the past eight years since doing my own
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: disability and blindness advocacy. That. Yeah, the Google results when
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: you type in Matt de Grucci, you will probably be
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: met with a few pages of the.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: Serial killer version that's not me.
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: Please don't get it confused, because you would be surprised
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: how many dms and our website messages I get saying
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: you're going to hell, You've you've committed crimes against humanity.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, oh, that's the wrong Matt. It's the
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: wrong Matt. But you can find me for sure.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: I know I did the exact same thing. He's absolutely everyone.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Because I had a bit of you know what happens
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: is because I do a podcast every day, Melissa or
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Tiff sends me through some info and I just read
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: a bit of an overview or a bio or a synopsis,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: and then it was quite short. I'm like, okay, cool,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: And then I thought I'd just jump into you know,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: doctor Google, and then this fucking person who killed his family.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what have we got this bloke for. It's
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: not the thank god, it's not the same.
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: I'm working on it.
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to get my name to repear higher on
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: Google than the serial killer version of my name.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: So that's a work in progress.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is. That is kind of terrifying but funny
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: all at the same time. Hey, Mabel, well say goodbye
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: fair but for the moment, thanks so much, Matt. We
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: appreciate you and you're genuinely an inspiration and thanks so
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: much for what you're doing and all the work that
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: you're doing and sharing insights and stories and information and
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: helping people with disability as well. It's amazing.
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: No, thank you for having me Harts, and thank you
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: TIF it's been great.
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you,