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#2015 Life After War - Heston Russell · The You Project

0:01
Speaker 1: Good a team. I hope you're bloody terrific. Welcome to
0:03
Speaker 1: another installment of the Youth Project. Tiffany and Cook over
0:06
Speaker 1: there at typ Central and Craig Anthony Harper here at
0:11
Speaker 1: the other branch in Hampton, doing the very best that
0:14
Speaker 1: I can. Just a shitkicker, trying to make ends meat.
0:17
Speaker 1: I do what I can, tip, don't.
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Speaker 2: I It's been a while, So I h it's been
0:20
Speaker 2: a while, hasn't it.
0:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you and I haven't got together since the
0:24
Speaker 1: podcast we did all two hours ago. Have you been good?
0:28
Speaker 2: I've been good. I squeezed in a little twenty minute
0:30
Speaker 2: stroll in what we just learned was eighteen degree sunshine.
0:34
Speaker 1: Stroll as in stroll or sprint.
0:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, just a stroll, just a stroll. Really, I'm thinking
0:40
Speaker 2: I'll go for rid.
0:40
Speaker 1: I've had minimum vitamin D today, so I do need
0:43
Speaker 1: to get out after this and just walk a couple
0:45
Speaker 1: of laps of Hampton so that I might get some
0:51
Speaker 1: vitamin D into me. But I tell you bloke who's
0:54
Speaker 1: probably lacking none because he's in the fucking Sunshine State
0:57
Speaker 1: and was beating his chest and bragging before we got
1:00
Speaker 1: to know each other, So this could be a fucking nightmare.
1:02
Speaker 1: The next forty five minutes. There we go, Heston, Welcome
1:06
Speaker 1: to the show, my friend.
1:07
Speaker 2: A Craig Tiff, Thank you so much. From twenty four
1:10
Speaker 2: degrees up here in Brisy.
1:11
Speaker 1: Yeh whatever, right, Well, I thought it was about twelve
1:14
Speaker 1: or thirteen, and I just looked at the little weather
1:17
Speaker 1: thing on my phone and it's eighteen in Melbourne, which
1:19
Speaker 1: is pretty much tropical for this time of year. So
1:23
Speaker 1: stop complaining, harps, that's the story. How's bris Vegas these days?
1:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good.
1:29
Speaker 1: You know.
1:29
Speaker 2: I grew up here and I just moved back here
1:32
Speaker 2: April last year, and I met a place called Newstead
1:35
Speaker 2: here at the gas works and they really done well
1:37
Speaker 2: you activating the Brisy River and so much development going on.
1:41
Speaker 2: It's got a good modern feel to it.
1:44
Speaker 1: Where did you move back from Sydney?
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Speaker 2: So I spent most of my time living down in
1:49
Speaker 2: Sydney per my military career and what I sort of
1:52
Speaker 2: did for a couple of years after I got out
1:54
Speaker 2: from that.
1:55
Speaker 1: Now rather than me banging on with something that I
1:57
Speaker 1: ripped off the Internet, which I do have steering at
2:00
Speaker 1: me from the computer screen next to your face. Now,
2:03
Speaker 1: what don't you do with the honor and give us whatever,
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Speaker 1: as much or as little as you want on the
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Speaker 1: Heston Russell kind of bio, and then we can expand
2:11
Speaker 1: and go wherever we want because we have no rules here.
2:14
Speaker 1: We can even say fuck. So enjoy that for sure.
2:17
Speaker 2: Who is he? All right? Heston Russell? So my mum
2:20
Speaker 2: had a crush on Charlton Heston. That's where my name
2:22
Speaker 2: came from, not from Hector Heston. Bloomenthal was fifteen years
2:26
Speaker 2: old when I was born. So just to clear that
2:27
Speaker 2: up quickly, we're talking Charlton Heston, Moses, ben Her, all
2:31
Speaker 2: that good stuff, pre mra sort of stuff.
2:33
Speaker 1: How are you now?
2:35
Speaker 2: I am thirty six?
2:36
Speaker 1: Oh you're My fucking shoes are thirty six. So but
2:40
Speaker 1: tell people who Charlton Heston was, because there's quite a
2:44
Speaker 1: like tiff. Do you know who he was?
2:46
Speaker 2: Naw, he was, you know, he was again bad connotations,
2:50
Speaker 2: but he was a Tom Cruise of his apes.
2:52
Speaker 1: He was.
2:52
Speaker 2: He was ben Her. He was Moses in Moses. He
2:55
Speaker 2: was the original lead actor and planet of the Apes.
2:57
Speaker 2: He was the male leading role star back in the days.
3:02
Speaker 1: He was the goat really of leading men and rock star,
3:06
Speaker 1: good looking Hollywood superstars. He was maybe, if not the first,
3:12
Speaker 1: definitely one of the first, right.
3:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean back in the days you know where
3:16
Speaker 2: Ben hur was the real life chariot racing scene where
3:20
Speaker 2: people died. He was the big blockbuster stuff back before
3:23
Speaker 2: there was CGI and everything else in.
3:24
Speaker 1: Between, exactly before there were special and effects. You know,
3:27
Speaker 1: people used to actually get killed in the filming of movies.
3:31
Speaker 2: Tiff no, no looks just google chart and heston and
3:34
Speaker 2: he's no Patrick Swayze, Oh, come on, bro, go back
3:38
Speaker 2: to his young staff. He was definitely your mother and
3:40
Speaker 2: grandmother would have had a.
3:41
Speaker 1: Saw what they would have gone off like a frog
3:43
Speaker 1: and a sock, your mom and your grandmom. But you know,
3:46
Speaker 1: there was speaking of people dying in movies. Here's some
3:48
Speaker 1: trivia no one needs. There's a James Bond movie called
3:51
Speaker 1: Live and Let Die. And there's a scene in that
3:54
Speaker 1: movie where a boat does a jump and it's the
3:57
Speaker 1: longest so literally like off a ramp and can you
4:02
Speaker 1: just double check this, Tiff, Live and Let Die boat
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Speaker 1: jump actor or driver dies. So the guy that did
4:08
Speaker 1: that stunt in the movie and they kept it in
4:10
Speaker 1: the movie actually died. Wow, And they kept that. See
4:15
Speaker 1: this's got nothing to do with special forces or Glorrior.
4:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, no for sure. Look, and I grew up here
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Speaker 2: in Brazil, went to school here, got out, went down
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Speaker 2: to Canberra for four years. When I joined the Army,
4:27
Speaker 2: I went to the Defense Force Academy for three years,
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Speaker 2: the Royal Military College for one, got my commission, became
4:33
Speaker 2: a Lieutenant lieutenant and went up to Townsville in an
4:36
Speaker 2: infantry battalion for three years, where I deployed to East
4:39
Speaker 2: Tymoor for Peace tam and that twenty ten I completed
4:43
Speaker 2: selection into the Commandos to become a beret qualified commando
4:47
Speaker 2: and I spent the majority of my years there where
4:49
Speaker 2: I deployed to Afghanistan four times, Iraq, did a whole
4:53
Speaker 2: bunch of domestic caniterrorism stuff and stuff in the Asia
4:56
Speaker 2: Pacific region. And then I ended up coming back from
5:00
Speaker 2: deployment to Iraq, moving over to the US to live
5:03
Speaker 2: with my at the time secret boyfriend, and ended up
5:07
Speaker 2: moving back to Australia when I brought a brand called
5:09
Speaker 2: Barry's boot Camp over here to Australia and Singapore. And
5:13
Speaker 2: fast forward lockdowns, breakdowns of relationships, my own sort of
5:18
Speaker 2: mental health decline, failing in my transition from the military
5:23
Speaker 2: mental health decline and suicidal ideation the end of twenty
5:27
Speaker 2: twenty and ever since then, I've really sort of taken
5:30
Speaker 2: the torch to the veteran welfare and support system, namely
5:33
Speaker 2: the Department of Veterans Affairs and a bunch of legislation
5:36
Speaker 2: which saw me campaign for the Royal Commission into Defense
5:39
Speaker 2: and Veterans Suicide, which we won April last year, and
5:43
Speaker 2: then also step up post the accusations of war crimes
5:47
Speaker 2: against special forces, just to make sure that you know
5:49
Speaker 2: we're actually focusing on the full story, that those who
5:53
Speaker 2: do have things to enter for are actually gone taken
5:55
Speaker 2: to court, not trial by media, while the other three
5:58
Speaker 2: thousand plus people who being collectively punished weren't done something.
6:02
Speaker 2: We campaigned and succeeded for a few things there. So
6:06
Speaker 2: I now run a charity and up here Brisie with
6:08
Speaker 2: my little three year old sausage dog Copper.
6:12
Speaker 1: Awesome, we'll get onto TiO. What did you find?
6:14
Speaker 2: Well, I forgot. I forgot half way through what I
6:17
Speaker 2: was googling.
6:19
Speaker 1: Don't worry about it at the Moment's past.
6:21
Speaker 2: Live and let die of boat stunt rather dies. Yeah,
6:27
Speaker 2: but I haven't found any you know, just living.
6:32
Speaker 1: Live and let die James Bond tragedy or something. You know,
6:35
Speaker 1: this really doesn't matter for the podcast, does it. This
6:37
Speaker 1: is what we do, has don We just bloody. It's
6:40
Speaker 1: a little bit Joe Rogan esque. We're just freestyle and
6:42
Speaker 1: we have a chat about anything. But all right, tell
6:45
Speaker 1: me about your secret boyfriend. Hang on, tell me, I
6:48
Speaker 1: just want to So that wasn't tell us about that?
6:52
Speaker 1: How was that? So you obviously couldn't be out and
6:57
Speaker 1: open about that.
6:59
Speaker 2: So this is the whole thing. I mean, I've just
7:00
Speaker 2: spent the last two weeks going into a hand to
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Speaker 2: hand conflict over this lighting up the try to remembrance
7:06
Speaker 2: rainbow colors type of stuff. I kept myself in close
7:09
Speaker 2: at my whole military career. The best part about my
7:14
Speaker 2: career was that it focused on what we call the
7:16
Speaker 2: daily renewable contract. The focused on how you showed up
7:19
Speaker 2: and your confidence and character as opposed to any other
7:22
Speaker 2: label that even now you know, you just google me
7:24
Speaker 2: and have a look at all the different labels, different
7:26
Speaker 2: outlets in the media try and put on me and
7:29
Speaker 2: people you know, to define them by traits that we
7:33
Speaker 2: were born with, you know, differences that shouldn't define us,
7:37
Speaker 2: but I used to define us because we'd like to
7:39
Speaker 2: understand things. So I kept myself in the closet because
7:41
Speaker 2: it was at a time I only first came comfortable
7:44
Speaker 2: with my sexuality twenty fifteen, when I was thirty years old.
7:47
Speaker 2: I was actually living in the US for a year
7:48
Speaker 2: on exchange for their Special Forces, and it was the
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Speaker 2: first time I got to see professional gay men who
7:53
Speaker 2: didn't wear their sexuality on their sleeve. I was in
7:56
Speaker 2: LA hanging out with Disney producers, you know, big tech
8:00
Speaker 2: people who I didn't know they were again until someone
8:02
Speaker 2: else told me, and I got to see the difference
8:03
Speaker 2: between that and otherwise Oxford Street and Sydney, which is
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Speaker 2: all I knew. All I knew was drag queens and middrifts,
8:09
Speaker 2: and I do celebrate that side, and I now understand
8:12
Speaker 2: that piece of that culture that needs to put their
8:15
Speaker 2: identity on display when you've rejected or had people reject
8:18
Speaker 2: your identity. But yeah, I kept that to myself. I
8:21
Speaker 2: kept my personal life out of my work life. That's
8:22
Speaker 2: what made me perform better. And I never wanted anyone
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Speaker 2: to judge me on anything other than how I performed
8:27
Speaker 2: and showed up each and every day.
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Speaker 1: But you know, an amazing mate, so good, so good.
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Speaker 1: I mean, that's like, what was that? I mean that
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Speaker 1: moment that when was that twenty fifteen where you decided
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Speaker 1: to open that metaphorphoric door and walk through and go
8:44
Speaker 1: that Ah, hey, guess what give us a snapshot of that?
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Speaker 2: Well? This is it. It was me becoming comfortable with
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Speaker 2: who I was. I was in the US and my
8:52
Speaker 2: sister was actually living up in Banff, Canada, and I
8:54
Speaker 2: flew to her and she's the first person I told
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Speaker 2: and love her. She's four years younger than me, and
8:59
Speaker 2: she said, you know, as long as you're not doing
9:02
Speaker 2: anything illegal and not hurting anyone, why does it matter
9:04
Speaker 2: what you do? And she said, as long as you're okay?
9:06
Speaker 2: And you know, she's just absolutely authentically amazing that I
9:10
Speaker 2: told mum and she cried because she wanted to have
9:12
Speaker 2: grandkids and I told her, apparently you can still do that,
9:15
Speaker 2: and then she's all happy again. But what I never did,
9:18
Speaker 2: I never came out. I never had a coming out.
9:20
Speaker 2: I told those who I wanted to because I felt
9:22
Speaker 2: like they needed to know, because otherwise I didn't want
9:24
Speaker 2: them finding out for our other people, but I kept
9:27
Speaker 2: it completely removed because again I didn't want it to
9:29
Speaker 2: be a consideration because when I got back to the
9:31
Speaker 2: US Craig, this is when the whole gay marriage vote
9:35
Speaker 2: and pleposite was going on, and society was looking for
9:38
Speaker 2: examples to use to be symbolic. You know, even within Defense,
9:43
Speaker 2: we were looking to celebrate and raise up people who
9:46
Speaker 2: were different in this diversity, and that was the last
9:49
Speaker 2: thing I wanted into the Defense force. You are praised
9:52
Speaker 2: publicly based on your performance, and to identify anyone on
9:55
Speaker 2: anything other than the way they perform in their role
9:59
Speaker 2: completely go against our culture. The defense culture is service,
10:03
Speaker 2: service before self, the team before self. You know, there
10:06
Speaker 2: is no individuality in that. There's individual excellence for the
10:09
Speaker 2: benefit of the team. And again hence why a bunch
10:12
Speaker 2: of the sort of culture wars I've been fighting the
10:14
Speaker 2: last couple of weeks because I also appreciate in this
10:17
Speaker 2: space that unfortunately so much of this comes from trauma.
10:21
Speaker 2: You know, I know what it was like literally rejecting
10:23
Speaker 2: my own sexuality and not being comfortable with myself, and
10:26
Speaker 2: how others have had that experience by others, and when
10:29
Speaker 2: people come from that place of trauma. It all depends
10:32
Speaker 2: who's around them once they reach that level of self actualization,
10:36
Speaker 2: whether it turns into entitlement and a stick they use
10:39
Speaker 2: to beat others and get back their pound of flesh
10:41
Speaker 2: at or it turns into which I was fortunate enough
10:43
Speaker 2: to now see it as a lens of responsibility over
10:46
Speaker 2: a responsibility to show people that I'm the same person
10:49
Speaker 2: to encourage those who feel like they can't be themselves,
10:52
Speaker 2: but at all times to focus on that external purpose
10:56
Speaker 2: and that team before looking to progress myself based on
10:59
Speaker 2: something that I choose to be honest.
11:02
Speaker 1: The hell good for you? And so, what's the did
11:06
Speaker 1: you say that currently there's been a little bit of
11:09
Speaker 1: who are around the lighting up that was at the
11:12
Speaker 1: shrine in the city remembrance. Have you had to deal
11:17
Speaker 1: with a bit of bullshit in the last couple of weeks?
11:18
Speaker 1: If so, what was that?
11:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there's this big the Shrine of Remembrance down
11:22
Speaker 2: there in Melbourne that was going to publicly display the
11:26
Speaker 2: LGBT rainbow lights on the external of the structure. It's
11:30
Speaker 2: doing an internal display, an internal year long display on
11:36
Speaker 2: LGBT i q A plus people within their service. But
11:38
Speaker 2: they want to do this big external signaling essentially, and
11:43
Speaker 2: they didn't consult with any of the veteran community. The
11:46
Speaker 2: CEO of the shrine isn't a veteran in itself, and
11:48
Speaker 2: they didn't consult with Victorian RSL. They didn't consult with
11:52
Speaker 2: many openly gay veterans like myself are out there in
11:55
Speaker 2: the media doing that thing, and a few of us
11:58
Speaker 2: just spoke up and said, hey, this isn't what we do.
12:01
Speaker 2: You know, this is virtue signaling. This is jumping on
12:03
Speaker 2: to a lot of these issues that are going on
12:05
Speaker 2: in society. And people immediately put up the wall saying
12:08
Speaker 2: you know you saying not to do that is homophobic.
12:10
Speaker 2: It's like, well, hold on, I'm a home so settled down.
12:13
Speaker 2: What it isn't is it's not people understanding our culture.
12:16
Speaker 2: It's projecting society's culture onto the shrine of remembrance. Is
12:20
Speaker 2: there to commemorate service and sacrifice and bullets and bombs
12:24
Speaker 2: do not discriminate people do and to individually identify people
12:28
Speaker 2: who served based on a demographic or a piece of
12:31
Speaker 2: them that has nothing to do with that responsibility, but
12:34
Speaker 2: comes down to entitlement and seeking personal example. I see
12:37
Speaker 2: personal promotion goes completely against our culture. And this is
12:41
Speaker 2: at a time where I will take up the fight
12:43
Speaker 2: on culture left front and center, because if we don't
12:45
Speaker 2: fight for those values that we believe in, like, what
12:47
Speaker 2: what are we fighting for?
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Speaker 1: How ironic? Well, firstly, that was incredibly well articulated, that
12:53
Speaker 1: was bloody amazing. But how ironic that you kind of
12:59
Speaker 1: get labeled homophobic? Any did you go? Hang on what?
13:04
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I've even had my own run ins with the
13:08
Speaker 2: heads of Marty Gorara and people like this who I've
13:10
Speaker 2: been told that I'm not gay enough to be seen
13:13
Speaker 2: as an adequate representation of the community. You know, I
13:15
Speaker 2: don't conform to the stereotype. You know, I come across
13:19
Speaker 2: as quote sis male heterosexual who's actually homosexual. And this
13:24
Speaker 2: is where I said at people and going, look, I'm
13:25
Speaker 2: Hester Russell, and I am who I am each and
13:27
Speaker 2: every single day. You know, I'm sorry that I don't
13:29
Speaker 2: conform to what you think. But I have that many
13:33
Speaker 2: closeted homosexual gay men reach out to me from militaries
13:37
Speaker 2: across the world saying how just seeing me being a
13:41
Speaker 2: normal person and wearing my labels with responsibility not in toilerment,
13:44
Speaker 2: has made them feel so much more comfortable in them
13:47
Speaker 2: in themselves and not needing that public affirmation to make
13:51
Speaker 2: them feel accepted, which, as we know in this day
13:54
Speaker 2: and age, is what we actually need more young people
13:55
Speaker 2: to do, to not rely on external affirmation, but to
13:58
Speaker 2: be confident with who they are internally at an intrinsic level.
14:02
Speaker 1: How dare you not meet their expectations? How dare you
14:05
Speaker 1: not be how people think you? Stop being yourself? You
14:08
Speaker 1: fucking rebel?
14:09
Speaker 2: Well, what I love is, Craig, I haven't even had
14:11
Speaker 2: a personal conversation with these people. It's all based off
14:13
Speaker 2: social media snippets, you know. That's the way we live
14:16
Speaker 2: it at the moment. It comes down to what people
14:19
Speaker 2: perceive your brand to be without taking the time to
14:21
Speaker 2: have a physical conversation.
14:23
Speaker 1: By the way, everyone over one hundred combat missions serving
14:27
Speaker 1: with the Special Forces. I mean.
14:30
Speaker 2: I used to be cool. I tell people I used
14:32
Speaker 2: to be cool.
14:34
Speaker 1: I think you still wear the cool badge pretty well. Right,
14:38
Speaker 1: let's talk about something else. But so so much respect
14:41
Speaker 1: for you being so transparent and great with all of that,
14:45
Speaker 1: because we all need to like, it's just nice to
14:48
Speaker 1: know how you think and not that the way you
14:52
Speaker 1: think is the only way people should think but for
14:55
Speaker 1: you to know who you are and how you are,
14:57
Speaker 1: and to have clarity about yourself and your identity and
15:00
Speaker 1: to be comfortable in that. I wish we were all
15:03
Speaker 1: that comfortable with whoever we are and how we are.
15:07
Speaker 2: Let's come quickly, job in there, that's come. Like I
15:09
Speaker 2: said September August twenty twenty, mate, I sat on my
15:13
Speaker 2: lounge after a whole period of you know, de escalating
15:17
Speaker 2: and living in authentic life to a point where I
15:19
Speaker 2: was literally planned on how I wanted to take my
15:22
Speaker 2: own life in the service of so many other veterans
15:24
Speaker 2: who are experiencing this mental health and suicide crisis. And
15:27
Speaker 2: when you get to that point where you know, I've
15:29
Speaker 2: been in one hundred combat missions, I've had plenty of
15:31
Speaker 2: bad guys shoot at me and hit parts of my
15:33
Speaker 2: equipment and all this. But the closest I came to,
15:36
Speaker 2: you know, being removed from this earth was by my
15:38
Speaker 2: own hand. And when you reach that point of extreme
15:41
Speaker 2: sort of self rejection and get to that mental state
15:43
Speaker 2: of a place you really start to you really have
15:46
Speaker 2: the chance to sit there and do that self assessment
15:49
Speaker 2: and go, you know who I am, what do I
15:50
Speaker 2: stand for what is the authentic version of me, because
15:52
Speaker 2: everything else is causing all of these issues to snowball
15:56
Speaker 2: and progress further. And once you figure that out, and
15:59
Speaker 2: again do so through a lens of responsibility, not a hey,
16:02
Speaker 2: this is me, fuck you all, but like, this is
16:04
Speaker 2: me and this is my responsibility. All the rest of
16:07
Speaker 2: it is a bit of white noise, mate, as long
16:09
Speaker 2: as you're working for the right reasons, which is helping others.
16:11
Speaker 1: In my opinion, what's it like being in the middle
16:14
Speaker 1: of combat when people are trying to kill you and
16:17
Speaker 1: people are shooting at you? I mean, apart from shit
16:19
Speaker 1: and terrifying, can you.
16:21
Speaker 2: Expand the best time in my life?
16:24
Speaker 1: You know? We had a guy on TIF what was
16:25
Speaker 1: his name recently, I shouldn't know his name. He said,
16:29
Speaker 1: you never feel and he'd like you combat whole bunch
16:32
Speaker 1: of times and a similar space, but different story. He said,
16:38
Speaker 1: you never feel more alive than when someone's trying to
16:41
Speaker 1: kill you. That's what he said.
16:42
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I give this talk on leadership. People want to
16:45
Speaker 2: talk about combat leadership. Combat leadership is the easiest form
16:48
Speaker 2: of leadership because there's immediate feedback. You know, if you
16:51
Speaker 2: don't do something you're going to get shot. You make
16:53
Speaker 2: the wrong move, it's going to hurt you or your team.
16:56
Speaker 1: And when you say easy, come on, bro, So I mean.
17:00
Speaker 2: That's Look, that's what I've been trained to do. You know,
17:02
Speaker 2: my whole career was trained to do that. Imagine training
17:05
Speaker 2: for you know, representational rugby and never getting to run
17:08
Speaker 2: on and play. I got to do that, and I
17:10
Speaker 2: got to do that with a team that I worked with.
17:11
Speaker 2: You know, eighteen months beforehand. We're at this intuitive level
17:15
Speaker 2: of mental and emotional and physical connection to the way
17:19
Speaker 2: in which we conducted our operations. You know, career leadership
17:23
Speaker 2: is the hardest when there's so much more time for
17:26
Speaker 2: people to question decisions. You know, combat leadership, your stuff up.
17:30
Speaker 2: Someone gets killed in your career leadership, your stuff up.
17:33
Speaker 2: It grows and slowly eats away like a toxic cancer,
17:36
Speaker 2: you know. And it's not that purpose and that motivation
17:40
Speaker 2: isn't immediately there in front of you to manufacture and
17:44
Speaker 2: generate and inspire people so much more. I often say this,
17:48
Speaker 2: particularly the last couple of years of politics and everything else.
17:51
Speaker 2: I miss being overseas mate, because everything is so practical
17:55
Speaker 2: and pragmatic and relevant. If I tell people, Hey, I
17:59
Speaker 2: need extra helicopter otherwise we can't get our dudes out
18:02
Speaker 2: if someone gets injured. You get it. You know, you're
18:05
Speaker 2: able to justify these things. You're not sitting there playing politics,
18:09
Speaker 2: you know, trading one thing for another. It's like, this
18:12
Speaker 2: is why we need this, because this is the mission
18:14
Speaker 2: we need to achieve. And you literally are going out
18:17
Speaker 2: there with people who are risking their lives to achieve this.
18:19
Speaker 2: They believe in it that much. And you could just
18:21
Speaker 2: imagine that collective mindset and motivation that comes with that,
18:25
Speaker 2: as well as being able to do you know what
18:27
Speaker 2: is a very masculine thing to do, you know, go
18:30
Speaker 2: out there and serve and protect and do all those
18:32
Speaker 2: sorts of things that you know require us to provide
18:35
Speaker 2: physical courage. And very rarely in modern society do we
18:38
Speaker 2: ever get to show physical courage. It's that moral courage
18:41
Speaker 2: that we need. And once you are able to test
18:44
Speaker 2: yourself and test yourself with those you love to be
18:47
Speaker 2: around and are trained with that level of again the
18:50
Speaker 2: different levels of self actualization, I realized being able to
18:53
Speaker 2: go into that on that one mission, on that one
18:56
Speaker 2: deployment in twenty twelve, you know, we flew sixty seven mission.
19:00
Speaker 2: We killed one hundred and seventeen bad guys. I killed
19:02
Speaker 2: my share of those. And none of that is to celebrate.
19:05
Speaker 2: It's finally being tested at doing the job you've been
19:07
Speaker 2: trained to do for the right reasons. And once you
19:10
Speaker 2: do that, it really provides a perspective that is now
19:13
Speaker 2: my responsibility to bring forward into everything else we do
19:15
Speaker 2: as well. If Nathan Bolton episode eight hundred and seventy two, everyone, jeez,
19:23
Speaker 2: you guys are busy.
19:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, eight seventy two. What are we up to now?
19:28
Speaker 1: Eight nine ish?
19:31
Speaker 2: Yes, ish, yeah.
19:32
Speaker 1: We do one every day, mate, We're a bit crazy.
19:35
Speaker 2: That's great. Gives the mind engaged. There.
19:38
Speaker 1: We're three hundred and sixty five days of even Christmas,
19:42
Speaker 1: New Year's Day, and New Year's Eve. We put out
19:43
Speaker 1: episodes because we can. It's how we roll awesome. It's
19:49
Speaker 1: always interested me. I'm not really asking a question, I'm
19:53
Speaker 1: just thinking out loud about something and maybe you can
19:56
Speaker 1: roll off the back wet. I've always been fascinated, like
19:59
Speaker 1: we grow in our culture where you know, thankfully now
20:04
Speaker 1: there's a focus on you know, bullying and looking after
20:07
Speaker 1: people and keeping everyone safe and out of harm's way.
20:11
Speaker 1: And don't hurt people, and be kind and be thoughtful,
20:14
Speaker 1: and these are all great ideas and constructs and kind
20:18
Speaker 1: of guidance principles. But then you and your mates you
20:23
Speaker 1: get trained to kill people, understandably, because like it or not,
20:28
Speaker 1: that's fucking more. And so all of that kind of
20:34
Speaker 1: cultural and I guess in a way like moral and
20:38
Speaker 1: ethical and perhaps spiritual kind of principles that most of
20:42
Speaker 1: us grow up don't hurt anyone, and definitely then you
20:46
Speaker 1: have to kind of park that and then learn how
20:49
Speaker 1: to kill people?
20:50
Speaker 2: Is there?
20:52
Speaker 1: How does that work? Is their internal conflict? Is there?
20:55
Speaker 1: Like fucking don't blah lah lah, don't think about it.
20:58
Speaker 1: I don't know what how do you manage that? That's
21:01
Speaker 1: a really good question. No one has ever actually asked
21:03
Speaker 1: me anything that sort of touches on that question. And
21:05
Speaker 1: I think it all comes down to purpose. So I've
21:07
Speaker 1: just saying, you want to hire performance, you need a
21:09
Speaker 1: higher purpose. If you know why you're doing what you're
21:11
Speaker 1: doing for the right reasons, then all of that sort
21:14
Speaker 1: of fades into the white noise. And particularly in.
21:17
Speaker 2: Afghanistan, I knew why we were deploying, I knew the
21:19
Speaker 2: mission we were doing, you know, we go out into
21:21
Speaker 2: a target and we'd take fingerprints off things, or we'd
21:24
Speaker 2: get someone's phone, and you know, we'd track down and
21:27
Speaker 2: capture or kill someone who'd manufactured and detonated an ID
21:31
Speaker 2: in a crowded marketplace and killed women and children, you
21:33
Speaker 2: know the previous month, or you know, had built an
21:36
Speaker 2: ID that had killed one of our guys or an
21:38
Speaker 2: American guys. You know, we didn't just go out there
21:41
Speaker 2: indiscriminately getting people. It would take us a month, you know,
21:45
Speaker 2: or just at least a few weeks to develop and
21:48
Speaker 2: get all the intelligence together to justify these people as
21:51
Speaker 2: properly bad people that we needed to capture or kill.
21:54
Speaker 2: Fast forward through to my last appoyment to Iraq. We
21:58
Speaker 2: were fighting isis dash Literally, the best way I can
22:03
Speaker 2: put it, is the true manifestation of evil on this earth.
22:06
Speaker 2: I won't tell you some of the things they did
22:08
Speaker 2: to innocent women and children, but I've actually never felt
22:10
Speaker 2: more there. I say it righteous in actually going out there,
22:14
Speaker 2: and the most enjoyment I've ever taken from my career
22:17
Speaker 2: is taking the fight to those people who are trying
22:20
Speaker 2: to persecute fully and kill those who can't defend themselves
22:24
Speaker 2: and being able to protect those who can't defend themselves
22:27
Speaker 2: is where so much of that moral authority essentially comes
22:31
Speaker 2: from to enable us to do that, and again putting
22:33
Speaker 2: that purpose and your immediate team before yourself. None of
22:38
Speaker 2: those situations sort of ever registered into a personal mental
22:41
Speaker 2: health or an emotional health aspect for me, and I've
22:44
Speaker 2: still to this day have absolutely zero issues with any
22:47
Speaker 2: of the combat and carnage I've seen. To be honest,
22:50
Speaker 2: I miss that all immersive and inspirational purpose and team.
22:54
Speaker 2: If anything, you.
22:56
Speaker 1: Know, it's weird. I mean that love and caring, compassionate
23:00
Speaker 1: brother heston. What's weird is that people like you perform
23:05
Speaker 1: great under pressure, but the average person or many average people,
23:09
Speaker 1: don't perform really well under pressure. But then sometimes people,
23:14
Speaker 1: not necessarily you, but sometimes people like you come back
23:17
Speaker 1: to mundanity suburbia where there's no war, there's no one
23:21
Speaker 1: trying to kill you, there's no immediate threat, and you
23:24
Speaker 1: take away the pressure and they're not as good as
23:27
Speaker 1: when they're under pressure. Is that right?
23:30
Speaker 2: That's where I struggle, mate, That's where I literally struggled
23:33
Speaker 2: in my mental health. I struggled for relevance. I went
23:36
Speaker 2: from planning and coordinating gigantic missions, you know, doing no
23:41
Speaker 2: fail stuff through to waking up and the biggest responsibility
23:44
Speaker 2: I had was taking my dog for a walk that day.
23:47
Speaker 2: That's where I struggled And what I realized is I
23:49
Speaker 2: struggle without having a team. I struggle without having that purpose.
23:53
Speaker 2: I struggle without having responsibility. And people don't rise to
23:57
Speaker 2: the occasion. They fall to their level of training. I've
24:00
Speaker 2: been taught that time and time again, and before I
24:02
Speaker 2: deployed on my first trip to Afghanistan, I've been through
24:05
Speaker 2: seven years of training in the Army, eighteen months worth
24:07
Speaker 2: of intensive training to do our job. There's so much
24:11
Speaker 2: that goes into that. It's not like you're just thrown
24:14
Speaker 2: into battle in my role to go out there and
24:16
Speaker 2: do it. So everything else is that de escalation and
24:20
Speaker 2: that decompression from that, and that is, to be honest,
24:23
Speaker 2: where defense actually is really failing a lot of soldiers
24:27
Speaker 2: in that sort of transition from defense process is one.
24:31
Speaker 1: Of the challenges. Before I asked this question, So you
24:34
Speaker 1: retired as you were a Special Forces major? Is that correct?
24:38
Speaker 2: Yes?
24:39
Speaker 1: How old were you when you became a major?
24:43
Speaker 2: I was thirty one?
24:45
Speaker 1: Is that young? That seems really young.
24:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I sort of. Well, going to school here in Queensland,
24:51
Speaker 2: I graduated, I turned seventeen in November and when then
24:55
Speaker 2: went straight down and I passed selection as a twenty
24:58
Speaker 2: four year old. Always been the sort of youngest in
25:01
Speaker 2: everything that I've done. I was the youngest in my platoon.
25:03
Speaker 2: But that's that's pretty much the absolute youngest you could
25:06
Speaker 2: physically be.
25:07
Speaker 1: Wow, amazing. We talk a bit on the show about identity.
25:12
Speaker 1: While we talk more than a bit, but you know,
25:14
Speaker 1: that sense of who am I and what defines me?
25:17
Speaker 1: And where do I get my sense of self from?
25:20
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
25:22
Speaker 1: You know, And when I was a fat, insecure kid,
25:25
Speaker 1: I had all this weight and then I last weight.
25:26
Speaker 1: Then I used to for a long time we've spoken
25:28
Speaker 1: about this, I used to get my identity from what
25:30
Speaker 1: I look like, my body and my biceps and all
25:32
Speaker 1: that shit, and you know, then it was kind of
25:35
Speaker 1: from my business. And when you're a soldier and you
25:39
Speaker 1: do what you do, it's kind of what you do
25:42
Speaker 1: is pretty much who you are to a level. Am
25:45
Speaker 1: I correct?
25:46
Speaker 2: Absolutely mate? And that is where I've struggled my entire life.
25:50
Speaker 1: And so then you're this Special Forces fucking literally trained
25:55
Speaker 1: killer who's done, you know, gone over there to serve,
25:59
Speaker 1: by the way, thank you for your service, gone over
26:01
Speaker 1: there and done all this incredible shit on our behalf.
26:04
Speaker 1: Literally put your life on the line over one hundred times.
26:08
Speaker 1: And then you come back and it's Wednesday, and you're
26:11
Speaker 1: on the couch and you're not a soldier, and you're like, fuck,
26:14
Speaker 1: is it Netflix or is it a pizza? Or is
26:16
Speaker 1: it both?
26:17
Speaker 2: Is there a bit of that that goes well, this
26:20
Speaker 2: is my struggles And you've hit the nail on the head.
26:23
Speaker 2: The military is fantastic at grabbing people off the street
26:25
Speaker 2: and issuing them with a collective identity that makes you
26:28
Speaker 2: subordinate to your team and subordinate to the purpose. What
26:32
Speaker 2: they don't do is successfully reconstitute that individual identity when
26:36
Speaker 2: you leave, and you leave a giant organization that is
26:39
Speaker 2: a not for profit, it is a full purpose organization,
26:43
Speaker 2: and throws you into a world which is arguably for
26:45
Speaker 2: profit in employment at least, and you are unable to
26:47
Speaker 2: find that same level of personal satisfaction. And for me, mate,
26:51
Speaker 2: I left the military and threw myself headlong into my
26:55
Speaker 2: identity being a gay man, you know, finally accepting myself
26:59
Speaker 2: and in joining so much that I had deprived myself.
27:02
Speaker 2: I fell in love. I'd never been in love throughout
27:04
Speaker 2: my personal career, and then society wants that to be
27:07
Speaker 2: your label. And I've made my relationship become literally my identity.
27:11
Speaker 2: And then when I lost that relationship for four years,
27:14
Speaker 2: I got sent back to that identity crisis. And what
27:16
Speaker 2: I've learned time and time again is it then comes
27:18
Speaker 2: down to the community you've built around you. Everything has
27:22
Speaker 2: to come back to those you surround yourselves that help
27:24
Speaker 2: you to either find your identity again or find your purpose.
27:27
Speaker 2: But everything does come back to who you are outside
27:30
Speaker 2: of any other label. And that's where you heard me
27:32
Speaker 2: say before I finally reached the point where I understand
27:35
Speaker 2: that I am Heston Russell, and I get back to
27:38
Speaker 2: that daily renewable contract. The day you rest on your
27:42
Speaker 2: laurels is the day you become irrelevant. But it's so
27:45
Speaker 2: hard in this society. Mate. You know, before every interview,
27:47
Speaker 2: before every whatever, people like, hey, how do you want
27:49
Speaker 2: us to refer to you? Hey? Tell us about you.
27:52
Speaker 2: It's like, what parts you know? I could stuff up tomorrow?
27:55
Speaker 2: In my entire life of successes, I mean absolutely nothing
27:59
Speaker 2: in this society. That's just show short term focused at
28:03
Speaker 2: the moment, and that's an opportunity, but it's actually massive
28:06
Speaker 2: threat and you feel like it's his inauthenticity piece. Mate,
28:09
Speaker 2: when I when I transition to the to the gay
28:11
Speaker 2: version of me, everything is measured by you know, biceps,
28:15
Speaker 2: speedos at pool parties, what your last Instagram post is.
28:18
Speaker 2: You're comparing yourself to the last version of yourself. And
28:22
Speaker 2: that's with these layers of in all authenticity creep in
28:24
Speaker 2: social media is one of the worst things for it.
28:27
Speaker 2: And just cutting through all that and you know, creating
28:29
Speaker 2: your own content based off what you're doing as opposed
28:32
Speaker 2: to just creating content for the sake of content. That's
28:35
Speaker 2: what sort of really helped me get back on this
28:37
Speaker 2: right narrow.
28:39
Speaker 1: Everyone that I talked to that's been in the military,
28:42
Speaker 1: there's there's this I suppose it was the same for you,
28:47
Speaker 1: but they seem to have this this level of connection
28:51
Speaker 1: and trust and loyalty with their you know, with their colleagues,
29:00
Speaker 1: the tribe, with their tribe. Thank you like this. There's
29:04
Speaker 1: this loyalty and trust and connection and I guess understanding
29:10
Speaker 1: that you can't get outside of the military. Is that
29:14
Speaker 1: a struggle.
29:15
Speaker 2: Well, it's when you've been through adversity with people. You know,
29:20
Speaker 2: true bonds are formed when you're under pressure, be that
29:22
Speaker 2: physical pressure, be that you know, out in the cold,
29:25
Speaker 2: shivering and feeling that freeze to death. You know, you
29:28
Speaker 2: form bods when someone you're snuggling up to in the
29:30
Speaker 2: same sleeping bag just don't have those same pressure. So
29:34
Speaker 2: same particularly physical and mental pressures on the outside that
29:39
Speaker 2: I've experienced during my time in service. A lot of
29:41
Speaker 2: people have gone through some of those personal, mental and
29:44
Speaker 2: emotional pressures doing COVID lockdown, feeling alone, isolated, everything else
29:49
Speaker 2: in between, but particularly that physicality and the endorphins and
29:52
Speaker 2: all the chemicals that go with going through that physical
29:55
Speaker 2: adversity together and you know, training and progressing and being
29:59
Speaker 2: like minded with it. You just don't find that on
30:01
Speaker 2: the outside because people's interactions are either within work, which
30:05
Speaker 2: is designed for a purpose, or outside socially, where you
30:08
Speaker 2: know you pulled in so many different directions. It's such
30:10
Speaker 2: a finite and focused and high precious sort of situation,
30:14
Speaker 2: and those bonds are for much faster and stronger.
30:18
Speaker 1: How did your tribe respond when you came out?
30:23
Speaker 2: Well again, so I never had a whole coming out thing,
30:26
Speaker 2: and I just gradually let people you know, I was
30:29
Speaker 2: just more liberal on my social media. Essentially, I made
30:33
Speaker 2: the rule that anyone who ever asked me, I'd tell
30:34
Speaker 2: them absolutely upfront. And you know, I actually attended a
30:39
Speaker 2: wedding with some of my old platoon guys that we
30:41
Speaker 2: sort of post all this and the amount of guys
30:43
Speaker 2: who came up to me and just be like, dude,
30:46
Speaker 2: why the fuck didn't you tell us? Yeah, And it
30:50
Speaker 2: was from a place of we could only imagine what
30:52
Speaker 2: that was like for you, holding yourself back, like we
30:55
Speaker 2: are so sorry that you didn't feel supported enough to
30:58
Speaker 2: come out and be like that. That's so I said, hey, no, no, stop,
31:01
Speaker 2: I'm the one who wasn't comfortable with me. They have
31:03
Speaker 2: been the most amazing people, particularly in the Special Force
31:06
Speaker 2: aside of the house. You know, you're performing at the
31:09
Speaker 2: elite level. And this is what I've realized. I was
31:12
Speaker 2: bringing ninety five, ninety six percent of myself to everything
31:14
Speaker 2: that I was doing, but there was still, you know,
31:16
Speaker 2: that four or five percent of me that was holding
31:18
Speaker 2: myself back. And my regret is that I hadn't allowed
31:22
Speaker 2: myself to be fully one hundred percent emotionally and mentally
31:25
Speaker 2: aligned to what I was doing. But that's my own
31:27
Speaker 2: development phase.
31:29
Speaker 1: Do you think that if you had come out to them,
31:32
Speaker 1: I don't know earlier I'm not. I don't know if
31:35
Speaker 1: this is I'm not suggesting you should or shouldn't do anything,
31:39
Speaker 1: but could that have proven a distraction and maybe that's
31:42
Speaker 1: why you didn't do it?
31:43
Speaker 2: Or yeah, again, it was all timing. So I came
31:46
Speaker 2: back from the US at the end of twenty fifteen
31:49
Speaker 2: fully prepared to live an openly gay life. But again,
31:53
Speaker 2: who you sleep with and what your sexual preference is
31:56
Speaker 2: completely irrelevant to day to day. Within the military was
32:00
Speaker 2: such a high operationally focused unit that you're not sitting
32:03
Speaker 2: there going, oh, by the way, guys, I'm gay and
32:06
Speaker 2: like accept it. Like that again goes against our entire culture.
32:09
Speaker 2: But the issue was that society was reaching in looking
32:13
Speaker 2: for diversity for diversity's sake and also to progress those
32:16
Speaker 2: who were over those who weren't. At that same time
32:20
Speaker 2: I was dealing with, I was running the commando selection course.
32:23
Speaker 2: We had just opened it up for women to finally
32:25
Speaker 2: be allowed to apply for the selection course, and I
32:29
Speaker 2: was told by our general that I was to reserve
32:31
Speaker 2: ten positions for female candidates, which for a selection course
32:35
Speaker 2: goes completely against everything. There is a standard. That standard
32:39
Speaker 2: comes from the operational requirement backcasting. And I did a
32:43
Speaker 2: public consultation with the other support staff females in our unit,
32:46
Speaker 2: and they burned it down in flames. They said, don't
32:50
Speaker 2: you dare undermine our success by giving us a quota.
32:54
Speaker 2: We want to earn that off our own bat and
32:56
Speaker 2: particularly in that society. And that was that same sort
32:59
Speaker 2: of context for me. There was also that time and
33:01
Speaker 2: space relevance where it just wasn't the right time to
33:04
Speaker 2: do that publicly. But the biggest thing was, Mate, I
33:07
Speaker 2: had to become comfortable with it first. It's only once
33:10
Speaker 2: we can become comfortable with ourselves can when you actually
33:13
Speaker 2: withstand if people can't tolerate or it's just something new
33:16
Speaker 2: for them to catch up on.
33:18
Speaker 1: And when you think about it, it is, I mean,
33:22
Speaker 1: for ninety nine percent of you know what I do
33:25
Speaker 1: in my job, what you do in your job, what
33:28
Speaker 1: Tiff does, maybe even nearly it's not relevant. Like I've
33:32
Speaker 1: never walked into a meeting or an environment or a
33:34
Speaker 1: workshop or a conference and made a point to let
33:39
Speaker 1: anyone know that, by the way, I'm heterosexual. I just
33:42
Speaker 1: thought i'd put it out like it's not a thing,
33:45
Speaker 1: is it? So you shouldn't need to feel on any way.
33:49
Speaker 1: I don't know, like required to open that door because
33:53
Speaker 1: it doesn't really make any difference to what you do.
33:56
Speaker 2: And that's my aspiration, you know. I said to one
33:58
Speaker 2: of my guys, is like, hey, mate, why don't you
34:00
Speaker 2: just come out and tell everyone about it. I'm like, mate,
34:02
Speaker 2: do you come out and tell people you're heterosexual? And
34:05
Speaker 2: he's like no. I said, exactly, why the fuck do
34:07
Speaker 2: I need to tell people sexual preferences? And he just
34:10
Speaker 2: you watched them. He sat back and went, I don't know,
34:12
Speaker 2: it's just what everyone does. I said, why do.
34:14
Speaker 1: They do it? Yeah, because why do they do it?
34:17
Speaker 1: What's your take on that?
34:19
Speaker 2: It's it's a way in which they feel permission to
34:22
Speaker 2: I guess progress that next level of self acceptance for
34:25
Speaker 2: many many people. Unfortunately, it is also a way in
34:28
Speaker 2: which many people use to gain attention and gain affirmation.
34:32
Speaker 2: Per our love languages. People need affirmation. They need to
34:34
Speaker 2: feel permission to be different because they're made to feel different.
34:38
Speaker 2: They're not sat down and taught hey, you know, difference
34:41
Speaker 2: and diversity is actually empowerment, but you have to use
34:44
Speaker 2: it with responsibility, you know, particularly if it's not something
34:47
Speaker 2: you've earned, it's something you've been born with. My whole
34:49
Speaker 2: aspiration is for this just to be so normalized and
34:51
Speaker 2: we focus on the content and character of people, not
34:54
Speaker 2: you know, their sexual preference, you know, religion, skin color,
34:58
Speaker 2: all these things. When I was a kid, we'll talk,
35:00
Speaker 2: never judge a book by its cover, But all we
35:02
Speaker 2: do in society these days is put more and more
35:04
Speaker 2: labels on that cover and make that the measure of
35:07
Speaker 2: the person.
35:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, now, everyone, I've just looked at Heston's instapage and
35:13
Speaker 1: hang on, steady on Champ. He's nine hundred people away
35:18
Speaker 1: from one hundred thousand. He's ninety nine point one thousand.
35:22
Speaker 1: So jump on, follow, Follow the little fucker, give him
35:27
Speaker 1: a bit of love, send him a message and tell
35:29
Speaker 1: him he's ace because he's killing this podcast. Tell him
35:32
Speaker 1: how awesome he is. But most importantly, hit the follow.
35:34
Speaker 1: Hang on, I'm going to do it right now. There's
35:38
Speaker 1: you can you see the blue? Yeah? I can right
35:41
Speaker 1: now live follow and I don't follow. Many people only
35:45
Speaker 1: follow about two hundred. Oh wow, so you are now
35:49
Speaker 1: part of my tribe, whether or not you like it.
35:51
Speaker 2: Thank you, mate. I was at one hundred and four
35:55
Speaker 2: thousand before the election, and then I got shadow bound apparently,
35:58
Speaker 2: and I'm just dropping numbers every week, really blue tick
36:02
Speaker 2: and all, mate, like it means nothing if.
36:03
Speaker 1: You turn that around, peepsy, let's turn the big steering
36:08
Speaker 1: wheel around all in the ring. A couple of questions,
36:11
Speaker 1: So tell me you came out of the military. Was
36:15
Speaker 1: it in fifteen, twenty, seventeen, seventeen? Okay, so five years ago.
36:22
Speaker 1: Now there's a weird question. But coming out of the military.
36:25
Speaker 1: Before you came out of the military, you were obviously
36:29
Speaker 1: had an idea in your mind of what that would
36:31
Speaker 1: be like. Yeah, so the idea of what it would
36:34
Speaker 1: be like post military. Give me a comparison with how
36:38
Speaker 1: it actually was. How was it different to what you expected?
36:43
Speaker 2: Two key things. One was, again in the military, you're
36:46
Speaker 2: working for purpose, whereas on the outside everything is based
36:49
Speaker 2: on profit and there was a big sort of personal
36:52
Speaker 2: disconnect with that. I never had to do that before.
36:55
Speaker 2: And second was just the value set. So service within
36:59
Speaker 2: the military, particularly where I was, came down to responsibility, selflessness, leadership, teamwork.
37:05
Speaker 2: They were those sort of core values, you know, courage,
37:07
Speaker 2: physical and moral courage. And then into the outside world,
37:11
Speaker 2: responsibility is replaced with entitlement. Selflessness is resplace, is replaced
37:15
Speaker 2: with selfishness. You know, teamwork is replaced with dog eat
37:19
Speaker 2: dog Leadership is replaced with risk avoidance, you know, abdication,
37:23
Speaker 2: passing the buck. There's no accountability, all these things. And
37:28
Speaker 2: so I found that completely different. And it's funny because
37:31
Speaker 2: even though you're in the military, you're still living in
37:33
Speaker 2: wider society, but your outside living is more dwelling before
37:37
Speaker 2: you go back into it. At least it was for me,
37:41
Speaker 2: you know, there was really that rejection of those values.
37:44
Speaker 2: But unfortunately, what we're also trained to do so well
37:47
Speaker 2: is to assimilate into our new environment. And I found
37:50
Speaker 2: myself getting on that gravy train, becoming entitled, getting you know,
37:54
Speaker 2: fixated on how I looked, going out to parties, you know,
37:57
Speaker 2: recreational drugs, all those things that are in society that
38:00
Speaker 2: you know, we were drug tested every week on our
38:03
Speaker 2: special Force of stuff, things like this, but you never taught,
38:06
Speaker 2: you never had those adult conversations like hey, you're going
38:09
Speaker 2: to go out in Sydney and every person, every bathroom
38:11
Speaker 2: is going to be doing this stuff, and that's actually
38:13
Speaker 2: the worst thing for your mental health as opposed to,
38:16
Speaker 2: you know, just getting caught up in the short term
38:20
Speaker 2: existence of it. And it really was a struggle. And
38:23
Speaker 2: it was this whole collision of what we call this
38:27
Speaker 2: moral injury or this dislocation from your values, combined with
38:31
Speaker 2: being lonely, not having a team, not having a purpose
38:34
Speaker 2: that understood you at an intrinsic level, with everything else
38:36
Speaker 2: being focused so extremely and it was a whole new
38:40
Speaker 2: identity shift.
38:41
Speaker 1: Was there a this is a dramatic question, but fuck
38:44
Speaker 1: it was there a grieving? Like when do you feel
38:48
Speaker 1: like there was a grief period? Because there was a
38:52
Speaker 1: loss or a sense of loss.
38:54
Speaker 2: I think, particularly for me, I've been operating at such
38:57
Speaker 2: a high and fast level that you know, it's the
38:59
Speaker 2: I call pendulum swing. You've got to swing away. And
39:02
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed that first year living in the US. Again,
39:04
Speaker 2: I'd never been personally in love or fulfilled my personal needs.
39:08
Speaker 2: I always focus on those professional so I really loved
39:11
Speaker 2: and enjoyed that. But then once that pendulum starts to
39:14
Speaker 2: swing back to its resting place, you sort of sit
39:16
Speaker 2: there going well, this is all enjoyment and I fulfilled that,
39:19
Speaker 2: but I'm actually missing that deeper level of purpose and
39:23
Speaker 2: value and giving back and service. I was missing that
39:26
Speaker 2: element of being able to serve, to put the needs
39:28
Speaker 2: of others before me, And that is where I have
39:31
Speaker 2: really struggled. And that's where I missed my tribe. That's
39:33
Speaker 2: where I drive past and army barracks and remember and
39:37
Speaker 2: wish I could drive on and go do PT in
39:39
Speaker 2: the morning at seven point thirty, which is the time
39:42
Speaker 2: every base does PT. Just go join in a group
39:45
Speaker 2: and go do PT. Go and be equal, go and
39:47
Speaker 2: be accountable. Do you miss that? You really do miss
39:50
Speaker 2: that authenticity?
39:52
Speaker 1: And so as part of your mission purpose fill in
39:57
Speaker 1: the blank, to create your own tribe it is.
40:00
Speaker 2: And I struggle with that, mate, And I you know,
40:03
Speaker 2: I have my meeting, my weekly meeting with my psychiatrist
40:06
Speaker 2: actually before having miss chat.
40:08
Speaker 1: Well, if you're going to talk to a psych before
40:10
Speaker 1: you talk to me, that's a great time, because I'm
40:12
Speaker 1: a fucking hand I'm a handful. So well done.
40:15
Speaker 2: Yeah. My issue these days is again my love language
40:18
Speaker 2: is active service, and I love doing things for people.
40:21
Speaker 2: So I continue to build relationships based on me being
40:23
Speaker 2: able to do things for them and in order in return,
40:26
Speaker 2: people get coming to me looking for ways in which
40:29
Speaker 2: I can help them. But the way in which I
40:30
Speaker 2: feel love is actually quarterly time. People who want to
40:33
Speaker 2: be around me and be with me just for the
40:35
Speaker 2: sake of hanging out with you. Again, That's why I
40:37
Speaker 2: have a three year old dog. So I actually really
40:39
Speaker 2: struggle informing those connections with people that aren't based off
40:42
Speaker 2: any form of service. That's where you know, I contemplate
40:46
Speaker 2: going back and joining a rugby team or joining a
40:48
Speaker 2: water polo team. Finding that camaraderie where your actions are
40:52
Speaker 2: that which define you as opposed to anything you say
40:55
Speaker 2: or any perceptions otherwise, something I'm still working on and
40:59
Speaker 2: I really need to.
41:01
Speaker 1: Well, if you live down here and not up in
41:04
Speaker 1: the bloody tropics, you know we could hang.
41:06
Speaker 2: Out coming down there in November, putting together.
41:10
Speaker 1: Hit me out buddy, you and me breakfast arm wrestling
41:12
Speaker 1: you know, no arm wrestling, I reckon you might have it.
41:19
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, So as much or as little as you
41:22
Speaker 1: want to tell me about twenty twenty when you momentarily thought, fuck,
41:27
Speaker 1: do I want to be here anymore?
41:29
Speaker 2: Yep? So I literally had been other day at the
41:36
Speaker 2: park of the day with my dog and came home
41:37
Speaker 2: and I've got a message from one of my former
41:39
Speaker 2: guys who told me that a person we knew who
41:43
Speaker 2: I deployed Canisteen with beforehand and tried to take his
41:46
Speaker 2: own life and tried to overdose, and he had his
41:48
Speaker 2: young son in the back room. And there was a
41:51
Speaker 2: long string of by that stage, known more guys who'd
41:55
Speaker 2: taken their own lives than we lost in combat, And
41:59
Speaker 2: there were so many factors going on. I was in
42:02
Speaker 2: eighteen months worth of a fight with the Department of
42:04
Speaker 2: Veterans Affairs. I was alone. I was suffering from depression
42:08
Speaker 2: anxiety that I refused to ever see a psychologist to
42:11
Speaker 2: admit any weakness as opposed to vulnerability. And it took
42:15
Speaker 2: me to a place where I just sort of sat
42:17
Speaker 2: down and applied every ounce of my professional planning skills
42:20
Speaker 2: to pull apart what was going on. And the scariest
42:24
Speaker 2: part is I had the sharpest moment of clarity I've
42:27
Speaker 2: had I'd had in you know, three or four years,
42:29
Speaker 2: where every ounce of me decided that what I needed
42:33
Speaker 2: to do was to be the next veteran to take
42:36
Speaker 2: their own life. I needed to write a letter to
42:39
Speaker 2: Senator Lambee, who I'd connected with, and all of this
42:42
Speaker 2: in order to and at this stage, I had, you know,
42:44
Speaker 2: seventy five thousand followers on social media, and I'd been
42:47
Speaker 2: on the news a couple of times supporting veteran things,
42:50
Speaker 2: and you know, I was this picture of biceps and
42:53
Speaker 2: Barry's boot camp and all this stuff as well. I
42:55
Speaker 2: needed to use my profile to be that next veteran
42:58
Speaker 2: suicide that would finally get cut through because I was
43:02
Speaker 2: you know, when people say this, I was one of
43:03
Speaker 2: those people that no one would have ever expected it
43:05
Speaker 2: to sort of happened to. I wasn't sitting there drinking
43:08
Speaker 2: myself into misery. I was excelling at the top of
43:11
Speaker 2: my performance. And you know, for that five or ten
43:14
Speaker 2: minutes or fifteen minutes, whatever it was, I was sitting
43:17
Speaker 2: there so clear and set on my mission and purpose.
43:21
Speaker 2: And it really helped me appreciate and understand that suicide
43:24
Speaker 2: can just happen like that. You know, it can just
43:28
Speaker 2: take that mental shift where you literally think you are
43:30
Speaker 2: doing the right thing. And as a story goes, my
43:35
Speaker 2: dog came and literally put his head on my lap.
43:38
Speaker 2: It was my time to feed him. And as I've realized,
43:42
Speaker 2: for me, it was that service someone else needed something
43:44
Speaker 2: of me. That sort of actually snapped me out of
43:46
Speaker 2: that moment. And I sat there and I read the
43:48
Speaker 2: email that I'd written in all of this and just went,
43:50
Speaker 2: what the fuck are you doing, you idiot? Why are
43:53
Speaker 2: you outsourcing? Just cut through? Why not get out there
43:56
Speaker 2: and be that voice yourself? And that was that.
43:59
Speaker 1: Well, mate, we're very glad you made that decision. And
44:03
Speaker 1: what's your dog's name?
44:05
Speaker 2: Copper? Copper, like the color like the metal copper.
44:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, thank god? Is it a he?
44:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, hey, he's a good boy.
44:13
Speaker 1: Thank god he came over and interrupted you, bloody the
44:16
Speaker 1: rabbit hole that you were going down. Thank goodness for him,
44:20
Speaker 1: and thank goodness. All right, now tell us about Voice
44:24
Speaker 1: of a Veteran. What is it? What do you do,
44:26
Speaker 1: how does it work? How can we help if we can?
44:29
Speaker 2: Yeah? So, Voice of a Veteran actually just ended up
44:31
Speaker 2: being a podcast and a social brand that I started
44:34
Speaker 2: up to start talking about my own mental health decline.
44:38
Speaker 2: I then even then needed a platform that wasn't me
44:41
Speaker 2: talking directly talking from a platform as a veteran, and
44:45
Speaker 2: just took off when me telling my mental health story
44:48
Speaker 2: really started to help so many other alpha masculine males,
44:52
Speaker 2: and then very strong other females step forward and say, hey,
44:55
Speaker 2: you know, I now have mission to acknowledge that I've
44:58
Speaker 2: been struggling, and part of it has then been making
45:00
Speaker 2: sure that the continuation of that journey for them is
45:03
Speaker 2: through a lens of responsibility, not entitlement, because so many
45:06
Speaker 2: of my problems came from again outsourcing all of my
45:09
Speaker 2: problems solving to departments, agencies, politicians, and it's about getting
45:13
Speaker 2: back to solving those problems yourself. That led us to
45:17
Speaker 2: campaign for the Royal Commission, and I've then set up
45:19
Speaker 2: the charity Veterans Support Force. It's the website is VSF
45:23
Speaker 2: dot org dot au where we are a charity organization
45:27
Speaker 2: and we support veterans and their families during the current
45:30
Speaker 2: Royal Commission. We do projects, we do surveys, we've done
45:33
Speaker 2: some campaigning up to government, we do community activities, We
45:38
Speaker 2: support veterans who want to engage with the Royal Commission
45:41
Speaker 2: and off that that is where I find my projects
45:43
Speaker 2: with purpose back for the community of my people. So
45:46
Speaker 2: I want to get involved. Head to VSF dot org.
45:49
Speaker 2: Dot au and otherwise it's whatever else comes across my
45:54
Speaker 2: table that I find purpose doing and jump on board.
45:58
Speaker 1: Awesome. Do youv dot org dot? Are you? Is this
46:03
Speaker 1: your and I mean I know this year is your
46:05
Speaker 1: purpose and your passion, but is this also your career?
46:08
Speaker 1: Do you do corporate stuff? Do you do like how
46:11
Speaker 1: do you make a buck?
46:12
Speaker 2: Yeah? So that's been and to be honest, I've only
46:14
Speaker 2: actually had to start looking at that. So I did
46:16
Speaker 2: the lead up into politics, which was unsuccessful this year,
46:22
Speaker 2: and up until that time, I've just been sort of
46:24
Speaker 2: living off savings that I screwled away, very conscientious throughout
46:27
Speaker 2: my career. So I'm actually at that point where VSF
46:30
Speaker 2: stuff is all voluntary. What I do do to earn
46:32
Speaker 2: a buck is I go in and do corporate speaking.
46:35
Speaker 2: I give it a speech on leadership, and my website
46:38
Speaker 2: Heston Russell dot com is where most people go to
46:40
Speaker 2: get info on that. But corporate speaking workshops, even helping
46:44
Speaker 2: out recruiters select people, that's the stuff I love. Anything
46:48
Speaker 2: to do with people and teams and particularly leadership is
46:52
Speaker 2: my number one topic because no amount of technology or
46:56
Speaker 2: you know, outsourcing innovation is going to help that. It
46:58
Speaker 2: comes down to people and purpose motivations. That's how I
47:01
Speaker 2: earn a buck.
47:03
Speaker 1: And what do you do for fun mate? Do you
47:05
Speaker 1: still train? Do you still lift heavy? Shit? Are you
47:07
Speaker 1: still jacked? I can only see you from the kind
47:09
Speaker 1: of the chest up, but you look like a fucking
47:11
Speaker 1: hell mate. I shipped away.
47:15
Speaker 2: Just I'm getting I'm getting back into it, you know,
47:18
Speaker 2: particularly after the campaign, I actually let myself go. You know,
47:22
Speaker 2: my mental and physical health sort of went by the wayside.
47:25
Speaker 2: That sort of happened to those hyper periods. But I
47:27
Speaker 2: try and get to the gym every day. I really
47:29
Speaker 2: enjoy going to the gym and working out. I enjoy
47:33
Speaker 2: a bit of sort of group fitness, And to be honest,
47:36
Speaker 2: I've spent the last two years so focused on the
47:40
Speaker 2: purpose side of the house, campaigning for those things we
47:43
Speaker 2: spoke about, and then the politics piece that the rest
47:47
Speaker 2: of this year is actually focusing on me. I actually
47:50
Speaker 2: got a contract to write a book on my own
47:52
Speaker 2: memoir last year and it's finally due to get published
47:56
Speaker 2: by the end of this year. So that's been a
47:58
Speaker 2: real passion project as well. But I'm in the rebuild
48:02
Speaker 2: and refocused face. And that said, fitness is such a
48:05
Speaker 2: huge part of that fitness and nutrition that I need
48:07
Speaker 2: to get back to. Absolutely well.
48:10
Speaker 1: Mate, when you come to Melbourne, we'll lift some heavy
48:11
Speaker 1: shit as well as have a coffee. It's really good
48:15
Speaker 1: to meet really good to meet you, great to chat
48:17
Speaker 1: to you. What you're doing is awesome. Thanks for sharing
48:20
Speaker 1: some of your story with us and maybe we'll get
48:24
Speaker 1: you back again. I reckon, there's a lot more we
48:26
Speaker 1: could unpack.
48:27
Speaker 2: Thanks for letting me chack Craig, thanks to let me
48:29
Speaker 2: have I call this my mental fitness session, so thanks
48:31
Speaker 2: for just let me have that chat with you. And
48:33
Speaker 2: there we go. Mate, you've got a man here. You
48:37
Speaker 2: go elusive. I like it.
48:41
Speaker 1: Heston Russell Voice of a Veteran. Is that the name
48:44
Speaker 1: of the podcast?
48:45
Speaker 2: It's now just called the Heston Russell Podcast.
48:47
Speaker 1: Heston Russell and Russell Podcast and VSF dot org, dot
48:53
Speaker 1: au TIF. Very good scouting by you, good job.
48:58
Speaker 2: Tip, pretty happy, Thanks Hestin, Thanks Harps.
49:02
Speaker 1: I feel like you might be on roll with the
49:05
Speaker 1: punches soon and you might be back at TYPO. Will
49:08
Speaker 1: talk in a minute, but for the minutes. Thanks everyone, Heston,
49:13
Speaker 1: thanks so much. We appreciate you.
49:15
Speaker 2: Thanks great. Thanks Jeff