Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #119 What Does Free Diving & Parenting Have In Common? (Featuring Ant Williams)

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#119 What Does Free Diving & Parenting Have In Common? (Featuring Ant Williams) · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:06
Speaker 1: This is the Parenting in Perspective podcast, a Happy Families podcast.
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Speaker 1: My name's doctor Justin Coulson. And you've probably noticed this
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Speaker 1: is a slightly different intro to what we normally do
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Speaker 1: on the podcast. Well, we're doing things a little differently
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Speaker 1: for the next couple of months. I'm going to be
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Speaker 1: conducting a whole range of interviews and we'll have an
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Speaker 1: interview series that we're calling Parenting in Perspective.
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Speaker 2: And the reason I'm doing this is well, number one, to.
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Speaker 1: Mix it up, but number two, I think that there's
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Speaker 1: so many important voices, so many powerful ideas that I
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Speaker 1: want to share with you to make your family happier.
0:39
Speaker 1: And I can't think of a better way to do
0:41
Speaker 1: that than in depth conversations in podcast form that you
0:45
Speaker 1: can listen to at your convenience, and really, will number
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Speaker 1: one be entertained, but number two grow and learn from
0:51
Speaker 1: the conversations that I'm having. So for the next couple
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Speaker 1: of months, i haven't decided how long this season will be,
0:56
Speaker 1: but I'm guessing it's going to.
0:57
Speaker 2: Be about a dozen interviews, going to.
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Speaker 1: Be speaking to a guest, and I've got some amazing
1:01
Speaker 1: guests lined up. I just can't wait for you to
1:05
Speaker 1: hear some of the people that I'm going to be discussing.
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Speaker 2: Big things in parenting with.
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Speaker 1: You'll have the opportunity to learn, have a lot of fun,
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Speaker 1: and get into the detail of these people's lives or,
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Speaker 1: in the case of researchers, what they've been studying, and
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Speaker 1: how we can implement that in our lives and in
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Speaker 1: our families to make family life better and to grow better, stronger,
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Speaker 1: more resilient children.
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Speaker 3: Freedom and did teach me something quite early on, which
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Speaker 3: was to let go of that need to feel like
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Speaker 3: I should be in full control the whole time. But
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Speaker 3: an early mistake was diving with lots of fear, feeling
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Speaker 3: that as long as I puffed up my chest and
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Speaker 3: asserted my control and dominance in each dive that I
1:44
Speaker 3: would get deeper than any other athlete. And I think
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Speaker 3: there is some interesting analogies when I think of my
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Speaker 3: own experience in parenting as well, I'm trying to exert
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Speaker 3: control or convince my kids that they should do it
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Speaker 3: my way. I need to find that actually, if I
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Speaker 3: took a step backwards and looked at it more whole
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Speaker 3: less and turned the volume down on my ego, that
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Speaker 3: it actually might find a farmer effective way of getting
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Speaker 3: outcomes with my kids that I truly need.
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Speaker 1: Aunt Williams started his career as a sports psychologist, working
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Speaker 1: with elite athletes involved in dangerous sports. Challenging himself to
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Speaker 1: take up an extreme sport like those he was counseling,
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Speaker 1: he discovered the sport of free diving. Since that discovery,
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Speaker 1: he worked his way into the world top ten rankings
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Speaker 1: of the sport. He set a personal best diving to
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Speaker 1: a depth of one hundred meters and set a world
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Speaker 1: record for the deepest dive under ice in the open ocean,
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Speaker 1: and can hold his breath for a staggering eight minutes.
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Speaker 1: At is the founder of Modus Leadership Developments, an organization
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Speaker 1: that specializes in corporate development around sales effectiveness. He lives
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Speaker 1: with his family on the Victorian surf coast. So Ant,
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Speaker 1: tell me more about your work in your family.
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Speaker 2: Who is Aunt Williams.
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Speaker 3: So Ant Williams is a dad. I have two beautiful
3:01
Speaker 3: young kids. So I have Luke, who is fourteen years old,
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Speaker 3: loves his gaming, loves his animals and loves his his
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Speaker 3: jiu jitsu, and I always have Chloe. Chloe is eleven
3:15
Speaker 3: years old and she's more into arts, crafts. She loves,
3:21
Speaker 3: you know, dance and hip hop and yeah, she's just
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Speaker 3: she's a little firecracker. And so we've got, you know,
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Speaker 3: the two kids, my wife Marin, and we've got one
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Speaker 3: little dog, Cookie and we hang out down here on
3:34
Speaker 3: the sef coast.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, sounds beautiful. Now.
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Speaker 1: Your story fascinating me from the very first moment that
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Speaker 1: I heard it. You and I were speaking at a
3:43
Speaker 1: major conference for the Commonwealth Bank, I think it was
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Speaker 1: maybe back in about twenty seventeen, twenty sixteen, somewhere around there,
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Speaker 1: and you told a story about the part time adventuring
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Speaker 1: that you do as a free diver. Was I was
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Speaker 1: in inspired by the idea of free diving when I
4:02
Speaker 1: was a teenager. I saw a movie called The Big
4:05
Speaker 1: Blue and then when I met you had brought all
4:07
Speaker 1: of that back to me and I actually started to
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Speaker 1: do some free diving for a little while. But what
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Speaker 1: exactly is free diving? Now this is going to relate
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Speaker 1: to parenting soon for people who are thinking why is
4:15
Speaker 1: he talking about this? It will, But can you just
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Speaker 1: tell us what free diving is and how you actually
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Speaker 1: got into it?
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Speaker 3: Yeah? Sure, So free diving is a sport where you
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Speaker 3: take a boat out into very deep water, you run
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Speaker 3: ropes down off the side of that boat, and then
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Speaker 3: everyone who's competing has to nominate a depth, the depth
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Speaker 3: that they can believe that they can swim down to
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Speaker 3: to retrieve the tag on one single breath of the air,
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Speaker 3: and then they must make it all the way back
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Speaker 3: to the surface without blacking out.
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Speaker 1: Sounds like so much fun, and you know, and let's
4:49
Speaker 1: just dive down deep and try not to pass out underwater.
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Speaker 2: That makes perfect sense.
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Speaker 3: Oh, look it is. You know. It is a scary sport.
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Speaker 3: I think it's a sport that really combined a couple
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Speaker 3: of very primal fears. You know, you've got the sphere
5:02
Speaker 3: of suffocation, and you've also got this other fear, if
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Speaker 3: you know, I think all of us have it. You're
5:07
Speaker 3: born with this fear of being out in very deep
5:09
Speaker 3: water where if you start sinking in that water, it
5:13
Speaker 3: might start off beautiful, open blue and turquoise, but then
5:16
Speaker 3: quite quickly it gets a dark blue, and then you
5:18
Speaker 3: know you can pitch black darkness and know that you
5:20
Speaker 3: still have another minute of free force sinking all alone
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Speaker 3: in the open ocean and pitch back darkness. So yeah,
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Speaker 3: it's quite an intimidating sport.
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Speaker 2: How did you get into it?
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Speaker 3: Okay, well, because he asks me, why did you get
5:35
Speaker 3: into it? But yes, how did I get into it? Well?
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Speaker 3: I studied to become a psychologist when I was at university,
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Speaker 3: and in particular, what I was most fascinated by were
5:45
Speaker 3: athletes and how athletes could achieve a state of peak
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Speaker 3: performance and perform consistently at the highest of their ability.
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Speaker 3: Because I had never been an athlete. I always thought
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Speaker 3: of myself as somewhat athletic, but I've never succeeded in sport.
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Speaker 3: So I'm studying athlete and I get introduced to this
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Speaker 3: idea that you can help athletes perform better simply by
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Speaker 3: helping them with their mindset and helping them become more
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Speaker 3: mentally tough. And so I'm fascinated by this. I'm at
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Speaker 3: university thinking wow, this is this is the coolest thing ever.
6:17
Speaker 3: And you know, officially I wanted to see if it works,
6:20
Speaker 3: and you know, all this research that I looked into,
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Speaker 3: and as part of the studies, I quickly realized that boy,
6:26
Speaker 3: there's a lot in this. So I thought, great, this
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Speaker 3: is this is it. After all these years, I finally
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Speaker 3: figured out what I want to do with my life
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Speaker 3: as my career, and so I went at boots and
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Speaker 3: and became a sports psychologist. So that man six years
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Speaker 3: at university, and you know, it came out did case
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Speaker 3: work a couple of years later. I'm a registered psych
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Speaker 3: It took me eight years. And then after just a
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Speaker 3: couple of years of consulting out to athletes, I just
6:52
Speaker 3: realized that I was a total fraud. I was a
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Speaker 3: fraud because the athletes that I was working with were
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Speaker 3: looking at me for real, genuine, insightful guidance on how
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Speaker 3: to perform at their absolute best. Yet everything I was
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Speaker 3: teaching them had come out of a textbook. You know,
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Speaker 3: I'd never succeeded at sport, and most of my athletes
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Speaker 3: were doing dangerous sports like motor GP racing motorbikes, or
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Speaker 3: rally or base jumping or big wave toe and surfing
7:18
Speaker 3: or you know, mutai fighting. I'd never done these things.
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Speaker 3: I'd never succeeded in competition, and so I just, you know,
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Speaker 3: I really sat myself down one day and when hey,
7:29
Speaker 3: if you're going to have any answer credibility as a
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Speaker 3: sports psychologist, then go and try something, and because your
7:37
Speaker 3: athletes are doing dangerous stuff, maybe go and learn a
7:40
Speaker 3: dangerous sport and apply what I'm teaching others and to
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Speaker 3: see if I can actually have some degree of success
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Speaker 3: in a sport. And that was it.
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Speaker 2: Certainly I want to get onto the parenting in just
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Speaker 2: a minute.
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Speaker 1: But one of the things that actually seems to apply
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Speaker 1: there immediately is you said that you were sitting in
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Speaker 1: front of these people and feeling like you had no credibility.
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Speaker 1: And I think that this may have some kind of
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Speaker 1: a reverse parallel to parenting because the people that you
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Speaker 1: were sitting in front of they had achieved all of
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Speaker 1: this success. They were doing things that humans typically don't do,
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Speaker 1: so they were extraordinary people.
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Speaker 2: They were incredible.
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Speaker 1: Athletes, and you felt like you didn't have any credibility.
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Speaker 1: But I wonder sometimes if parents feel the same way.
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Speaker 1: We're sitting in front of our children. It's been so
8:25
Speaker 1: long since we were a child. It's always challenging as
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Speaker 1: a parent. Do you do you think that there's any
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Speaker 1: parallels there that sense of I haven't got this at all.
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Speaker 1: And what would you suggest to parents when they're feeling
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Speaker 1: like if I can use a metaphor out of their depth.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, So, like I was quite fascinated by this around.
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Speaker 3: Why was such a deal for me because I think
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Speaker 3: it's this type of imposter's syndrome where you feel that
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Speaker 3: you're in a position of authority or responsibility helping support others,
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Speaker 3: in my case, in athletes in my sport. Yet like
9:00
Speaker 3: a true impost I think that when you first have
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Speaker 3: your you know, a child, then there's this belief that
9:06
Speaker 3: you will automatically be a great parent because you're a
9:09
Speaker 3: wonderful person, and you buy into this right and then
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Speaker 3: you realize that it's actually really hard and that you're
9:13
Speaker 3: ell equipped, and then you sort of I don't know,
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Speaker 3: I think you do one of two things. There are
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Speaker 3: those amongst us who seem to adapt very quickly and
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Speaker 3: try to figure it out and invest a lot of energy,
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Speaker 3: and then there are those of us who are more
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Speaker 3: stubborn and just go, this is just who I am.
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Speaker 3: Let's be more authentic to myself and you know, you're
9:32
Speaker 3: just going to get what you receive from me, and
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Speaker 3: I'm sure if it's anything like what I received, then
9:37
Speaker 3: you'll be fine. And we don't adapt. We just kind
9:40
Speaker 3: of pursue and push forward.
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Speaker 1: Let's reverse back to your free diving for a moment,
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Speaker 1: because you've been very modest and humble about what you've
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Speaker 1: actually accomplished in free diving. What I'd love for you
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Speaker 1: to do is maybe outline. Well now I'll say it,
9:54
Speaker 1: because I know you and I know that you don't
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Speaker 1: want to give yourself a big head and all that
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Speaker 1: kind of thing.
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Speaker 2: But at one point you were one.
10:00
Speaker 1: Of the deepest, you held a record or had done
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Speaker 1: one of the deepest free dives in the world in
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Speaker 1: regular water.
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Speaker 2: You went down to one hundred meters.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, the deepest they've ever dived under the water in
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Speaker 3: the ocean is one hundred meters. At the time, that
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Speaker 3: put me in world number eight. The highest I've ever
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Speaker 3: ranked is world number five for deep diving.
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Speaker 1: So eighth in the world or fifth in the world
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Speaker 1: diving down to one hundred meters? What does that do
10:30
Speaker 1: to your body when you dive into those depths? Could
10:35
Speaker 1: you describe, maybe in a couple of minutes, what doing
10:38
Speaker 1: that actual dive was about. You know, you're laying on
10:40
Speaker 1: top of the wall, you take a breath, and then
10:43
Speaker 1: what happens and what's going on inside your head and
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Speaker 1: inside your your lungs, and your brain and your body
10:49
Speaker 1: as this is all happening.
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Speaker 3: Well, most of these events take place in pretty exotic locations.
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Speaker 3: Where did the one hundred meters was it? A competition
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Speaker 3: called Vertical Blue in the Bahamas at a very remote
11:00
Speaker 3: island called Long Island. And you literally go down onto
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Speaker 3: the sand on this very remote beach and start swimming
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Speaker 3: out into the water and within just a few strokes
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Speaker 3: of your arms, the water underneath you is over two
11:15
Speaker 3: hundred meters deep. And so when I swim out to
11:19
Speaker 3: this platform for the competition, there would have been thirty
11:23
Speaker 3: people huddled around the platform. With that you have to
11:27
Speaker 3: dive in and essentially you go out, you do a
11:29
Speaker 3: couple of warm up dives, and then the officials will
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Speaker 3: call you over to where they have a rope set
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Speaker 3: up with the depth that you've nominated the day before.
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Speaker 3: You go into that area, you clip into a you
11:40
Speaker 3: have like a safety land that you clip onto that
11:42
Speaker 3: main line that runs freely, and then you just lie
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Speaker 3: there on your back, surrounded by all these people and
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Speaker 3: officials and someone yelling out the time, which is a
11:50
Speaker 3: countdown timer. They start at two minutes and they count
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Speaker 3: you down to zero. On zero, you have to take
11:55
Speaker 3: your final breath, roll over, and then start diving down
11:58
Speaker 3: to your nominated depth. So one zero you pack in
12:01
Speaker 3: a huge amount of year, like you overinflate your lungs,
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Speaker 3: his techniques willing to do that. And then when you
12:06
Speaker 3: roll over and you begin swimming, and you've got to
12:08
Speaker 3: swim really hard to overcome all the buoyancy, all this
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Speaker 3: here that you've got in your lungs. But it's lovely,
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Speaker 3: you know, it's it's kind of a fun part of
12:16
Speaker 3: the dive because it's beautiful, you know, warm water, and
12:19
Speaker 3: you can see you know, forty or fifty meters and
12:22
Speaker 3: the visibility. But then as you go down and you
12:24
Speaker 3: get to about twenty meters, it's starting to get pretty dark.
12:27
Speaker 3: In fact, when I did a one hundred meter dive,
12:29
Speaker 3: by the time I got to twenty meters it was
12:30
Speaker 3: pitch black. So then you start to feel a little
12:33
Speaker 3: bit more alone. And at twenty meters you can stop
12:36
Speaker 3: kicking because the weight of the water above you is
12:39
Speaker 3: now so heavy that it actually just pushes you down.
12:41
Speaker 3: So you stop kicking, You bring your arms down by
12:44
Speaker 3: your sides, and you just kind of just really start
12:46
Speaker 3: to relax and just conceive your energy and go for
12:50
Speaker 3: the ride.
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Speaker 1: Can I just pause you there for a secon You say,
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Speaker 1: you close your eyes and relax and go for the ride.
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Speaker 1: But what you're actually saying is you're about to sink
12:58
Speaker 1: like a stone from twenty meters to one hundred meters
13:01
Speaker 1: and you're not going to fight it. You're not going
13:02
Speaker 1: to kick, You're just going to let the pressure of
13:07
Speaker 1: the water push you one hundred meters down into the ocean.
13:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, effectively, that's exactly right. So from twenty meters you
13:14
Speaker 3: know that you've got.
13:14
Speaker 2: To relac and you're going to relax while it happens.
13:17
Speaker 3: Well, that's that's the hardest thing about the sport. So
13:20
Speaker 3: you've now got a minute and a half of free
13:22
Speaker 3: fall where it's yeah, it's I pitched back darkness, you're
13:26
Speaker 3: all alone, and the pressure as you go down every
13:29
Speaker 3: ten meters the pressure gets so significantly, you know, greater
13:34
Speaker 3: on your body. That weird stuff happens and you start
13:37
Speaker 3: to feel different sensations, but most of them are just
13:40
Speaker 3: degrees of discomfort that you go through.
13:42
Speaker 1: Can you describe can you describe physiologically what's happening? So, like,
13:46
Speaker 1: what's happened to your lungs and to your blood vessels
13:49
Speaker 1: when you're at fifty meters or eighty meters or something
13:51
Speaker 1: like that.
13:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, fifty meters is quite a significant depth because
13:55
Speaker 3: once you're at fifty meters, you're not breathing any compressed air,
13:57
Speaker 3: which means that all you've got is the year that's
13:59
Speaker 3: in your life, and that's usually so compressed by fifty
14:02
Speaker 3: meters that your lungs are literally about the size of
14:04
Speaker 3: a grapefruit. So you're at what's called residual volume, which
14:10
Speaker 3: means that your lungs can't collapse any further. So physiologically,
14:15
Speaker 3: what happens is you get you get a shift of
14:19
Speaker 3: blood and plasma around your lungs that protect your chest
14:21
Speaker 3: cavity like it. We call it a mammalian divory flex,
14:25
Speaker 3: so that you can carry on going deeper without any
14:27
Speaker 3: damage to your chest. But it's very uncomfortable, very unpleasant
14:31
Speaker 3: to go through, and you know that you're only halfway
14:36
Speaker 3: and you still got a lot of sinking to do
14:38
Speaker 3: in a lot more discomfort to come.
14:40
Speaker 1: When you say it's very uncomfortable, I'm imagining my lungs
14:44
Speaker 1: being compressed to the size of grapefruit, and I can't
14:47
Speaker 1: help but think that I would expel air because of
14:50
Speaker 1: the pain. I mean, is it actual pain or is
14:53
Speaker 1: it just pressure and you just keep sinking.
14:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not painful, but it is very uncomfortable. It's
15:00
Speaker 3: like if you are holding your breath sitting on the
15:02
Speaker 3: couch and you got to thirty seconds and you're like, oh,
15:06
Speaker 3: this is kind of okay, and then you got to
15:08
Speaker 3: a minute, and then it doesn't get painful, but it
15:10
Speaker 3: gets really uncomfortable. And if you desire to just sit
15:13
Speaker 3: in there at discomfort for another thirty seconds, you'd be
15:16
Speaker 3: like all been out of shape, wanting to take a breath.
15:19
Speaker 3: And that's what free diving's like. But the sensation of
15:22
Speaker 3: pressure is want of discomfort. But it's like someone's giving
15:24
Speaker 3: you a giant beer hug from behind and you've got
15:27
Speaker 3: to tuck in your chin because someone's squeezing your throat
15:30
Speaker 3: and your stomach is being drawn up inside your chest cavity.
15:33
Speaker 3: So you've got always things going on. Plus this is
15:37
Speaker 3: hard to escape fact that the longer you allow this
15:39
Speaker 3: to happen, the worst it's going to get, and the
15:41
Speaker 3: further away from help you're becoming.
15:44
Speaker 2: It sounds like.
15:44
Speaker 1: Such a tremendous sport when you describe like that.
15:49
Speaker 2: So let's go back to your dive. So you're at
15:51
Speaker 2: fifty meters.
15:52
Speaker 1: You're obviously doing something about the pressure in your ears.
15:55
Speaker 1: That's called equalizing, So you're doing this kind of equalizing
15:59
Speaker 1: thing to keep your ears and eyes and headworking. But
16:04
Speaker 1: everything inside you was squeezing and the pressures getting greater.
16:07
Speaker 1: And you're at fifty meters, you know you've got to
16:08
Speaker 1: go to one hundred. What happens in that last fifty meters?
16:12
Speaker 1: And how long did it actually take from the moment
16:14
Speaker 1: you drew breath and dived under the water until you got.
16:17
Speaker 3: To the bottom a minute and a half, so it's.
16:20
Speaker 2: A ninety second free dive down.
16:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, and had another ninety seconds to get back up,
16:26
Speaker 3: so it was actually it was a bit longer. I
16:28
Speaker 3: think it was three and a half minutes there and back.
16:30
Speaker 3: So yeah, a little over a minute and a half
16:33
Speaker 3: down and back each way. And yes, past fifty meters,
16:37
Speaker 3: it's very difficult once you're at residual volume, because equalizing
16:41
Speaker 3: is so difficult when you've got no air left in
16:43
Speaker 3: your chest or anywhere in your body. So Essentially, there's
16:47
Speaker 3: this weird technique that we bring all you out of
16:49
Speaker 3: our lungs and we saw it on our cheeks, and
16:51
Speaker 3: we use our tongue like a piston to circulate air
16:54
Speaker 3: around our head and into our EU station tubes in
16:56
Speaker 3: order to equalize, which allows us to go much deeper.
17:00
Speaker 3: So why technically you can dive deeper using these techniques.
17:04
Speaker 3: It does get more and more uncomfortable. In fact, I
17:07
Speaker 3: remember as I passed through ninety meters thinking, oh my word,
17:11
Speaker 3: it's like someone's got a petent ball and they're ramming
17:14
Speaker 3: it through my chest and trying to pull it out
17:15
Speaker 3: through my back, just like that. It was incredible the
17:21
Speaker 3: amount of discomfort. I kind of was glad that I
17:24
Speaker 3: had the peace of mind to just acknowledge it without
17:28
Speaker 3: being terrified about it. I just kind of acknowledged and went, wow,
17:31
Speaker 3: this is crazy. I'll be glad when this is over.
17:35
Speaker 1: So then you do the last ten meters, You touch
17:37
Speaker 1: the plate, grab the tag. Unfortunately you're attached to the
17:41
Speaker 1: rope by that lanyard, and so then you just turn
17:43
Speaker 1: around and you kick as hard as you can and
17:46
Speaker 1: swim back to the surface.
17:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you've got to really have your senses about you,
17:51
Speaker 3: so at the bottom you can't mark around down there,
17:53
Speaker 3: but you don't want to have gone all that way
17:55
Speaker 3: to not retrieve a tag, otherwise you don't get it
17:58
Speaker 3: as an official dive. So look around at the bottom,
18:01
Speaker 3: get your tag, and then begin your assent, and you
18:05
Speaker 3: want to do that quite quickly. This is for me,
18:08
Speaker 3: This is the hardest part of the dive is when
18:10
Speaker 3: you're at the bottom and you're just starting to ascend,
18:13
Speaker 3: because you start to sort of do yourself checks and balances,
18:16
Speaker 3: how am I, how do my legs feel? And once
18:20
Speaker 3: when you go that deep, the pressure on you is
18:22
Speaker 3: so crazy and you've got so much lactic acid build
18:26
Speaker 3: up that when you go to kick, often your legs
18:28
Speaker 3: don't want to work, and that's not a good thing.
18:30
Speaker 3: When you're that deep, your legs don't want to work,
18:33
Speaker 3: and you're just willing them, willing them on, and it's
18:36
Speaker 3: very hard to keep away that voice inside your head
18:39
Speaker 3: that says, well, this is not good at all. You're
18:41
Speaker 3: super deep and your legs aren't going, So you've got
18:44
Speaker 3: to that's where mental toughness really does kick in. You've
18:47
Speaker 3: actually got to just acknowledge that happening and really just
18:51
Speaker 3: wheel your body through it in order to get back
18:53
Speaker 3: to the surface.
18:54
Speaker 2: And of course you made it. You got to the
18:55
Speaker 2: top and you were still well.
18:57
Speaker 1: We were able to take a breath, and you give
18:59
Speaker 1: everyone a thumbs and everyone knew you were safe and
19:01
Speaker 1: you did this one hundred meter dive. Now since then
19:04
Speaker 1: you have you've gone and set a new world record.
19:07
Speaker 1: You're the person who has dived deeper under ice than
19:12
Speaker 1: anybody else in the history of mankind.
19:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. After many years, seventeen years in fact,
19:18
Speaker 3: of doing free diving and competitive events all around the world,
19:22
Speaker 3: I decided to do something that just kind of motivated
19:25
Speaker 3: me more and would give me my own journey of
19:27
Speaker 3: self discovery in the sport. So I decided to take
19:31
Speaker 3: it an attempt at the world record to become the
19:33
Speaker 3: deepest man under ice, and seemboled a small crew. We
19:36
Speaker 3: went up high into the Arctic Circle and March of
19:39
Speaker 3: last year, cut a hole and ice that was nearly
19:43
Speaker 3: one and a half meters thick up on a frozen lake.
19:46
Speaker 1: So just with chainsaws, you pull a chainsaw out and
19:48
Speaker 1: you drilling, you saw the ice and go a meter
19:51
Speaker 1: and a half through the ice to get to the
19:52
Speaker 1: water below.
19:53
Speaker 3: It almost so when you use the largest saw blade
19:58
Speaker 3: on the largest chainsaw you can get, it still does
20:01
Speaker 3: not reach the water on the first couple of hours
20:03
Speaker 3: of cutting. So once you remove that layer, then yes,
20:07
Speaker 3: the second layer down you can actually get the blade
20:09
Speaker 3: to touch the water. It's cold and it's dark. From
20:13
Speaker 3: one foot under the surface, it's just you don't have
20:17
Speaker 3: to wait so you get to the bottom. It's just
20:19
Speaker 3: a whole other level of ridiculous. When you get down
20:21
Speaker 3: to the bottom and because of that cover of ice
20:25
Speaker 3: and snow, no light permeates through that, which means that
20:29
Speaker 3: from the second that you put your head under it
20:31
Speaker 3: is zero degree water and you're going to be diving
20:34
Speaker 3: down the entire time and pitchback darkness. Even when you
20:37
Speaker 3: put high powered torches on, they just shine out into
20:40
Speaker 3: pitch back darkness, so nothing refracts back to yougo. You
20:44
Speaker 3: have just no experience of comfort from any sort of light.
20:49
Speaker 2: Do you ever get scared about what might be down there?
20:52
Speaker 3: No? No, I don't really.
20:54
Speaker 1: I guess there's other things on your mind, like your oxygen. Yeah, yeah, amazing.
21:01
Speaker 1: So as I listen to these stories and think about
21:04
Speaker 1: what you're going through. I can't help but think that
21:05
Speaker 1: there are some pretty amazing metaphors for raising children.
21:09
Speaker 2: The first is I.
21:10
Speaker 1: Mean you mentioned being at ninety meters and feeling like
21:13
Speaker 1: somebody was literally trying to push a ball through your
21:17
Speaker 1: torso and retrieve it from your back, actually push it
21:20
Speaker 1: through your body.
21:21
Speaker 2: The pressure.
21:22
Speaker 1: And while I'm not going to suggest that parenting gives
21:25
Speaker 1: us the same experience exactly, there are times where as
21:29
Speaker 1: parents we feel tremendous pressure. We feel like the circumstances
21:33
Speaker 1: are high stakes, you know. I mean, they just won't
21:35
Speaker 1: get off their screen, they just won't go to bed,
21:37
Speaker 1: they won't eat their dinner. That feels like high stakes
21:39
Speaker 1: in the moment when you're a parent, even if it's
21:41
Speaker 1: not life and death like your circumstances, and therefore it
21:45
Speaker 1: requires on the part of parents some pretty incredible self control.
21:49
Speaker 1: And as a parent, there are times where we feel
21:52
Speaker 1: under enormous pressure. Maybe it's a child having a tantrum
21:56
Speaker 1: in public, or a teen is breaking our rules or
22:00
Speaker 1: swearing at us in the living room in front of
22:02
Speaker 1: the younger siblings and showing disrespect and all that kind
22:04
Speaker 1: of thing. There would be countless times where that high
22:08
Speaker 1: stakes pressure on a parent demands the kind of self
22:11
Speaker 1: control that you need to have mentally when you're ninety
22:14
Speaker 1: or one hundred or seventy meters below the surface. So obviously, well,
22:19
Speaker 1: you haven't actually indicated that you have had those times
22:21
Speaker 1: under the water. I mean there is pressure, But have
22:24
Speaker 1: you had those fears and those worries and have you
22:27
Speaker 1: felt that pressure and if so, how do you control that?
22:30
Speaker 1: And what does that teach us about dealing with the
22:33
Speaker 1: pressure that our children sometimes enable us to feel?
22:39
Speaker 4: Well?
22:39
Speaker 3: I think free diving does elicit a lot of fear
22:41
Speaker 3: and anxiety. I've been free diving for eighteen years, and
22:45
Speaker 3: I still would find that on probably thirty or forty
22:47
Speaker 3: percent of my dives, especially the deeper ones, I would
22:50
Speaker 3: experience fear or a sense that I need to be
22:55
Speaker 3: able to control everything but I can't. Freedoming did teach
22:59
Speaker 3: me something quite early on, which was actually to let
23:02
Speaker 3: go of that need to feel like I should be
23:04
Speaker 3: in full control the whole time, but to more follow
23:07
Speaker 3: a set of principles and guidelines that I knew would
23:10
Speaker 3: give me safe through each dive. And it took me
23:13
Speaker 3: a long time tool to evolve those but an early
23:17
Speaker 3: mistake that I think I kept doing for I reckon
23:20
Speaker 3: about a decade was diving with lots of fear, feeling
23:24
Speaker 3: that as long as I puffed up my chest and
23:27
Speaker 3: asserted my control and dominance in each dive, that I
23:30
Speaker 3: would get deeper than any other athlete. And then I
23:33
Speaker 3: found that all most other athletes started to go past
23:37
Speaker 3: me in terms of how deep they were going, and
23:39
Speaker 3: I got stuck at a particular depth because that approach
23:42
Speaker 3: was no longer serving me well. And I think there
23:45
Speaker 3: is some interesting analogies when I think of my own
23:48
Speaker 3: experience in parenting as well of trying to exert control
23:52
Speaker 3: or convince my kids that they should do it my way,
23:55
Speaker 3: I need to find that actually, if I took a
23:58
Speaker 3: step backwards and looked at more holistically and turn the
24:02
Speaker 3: volume down on my ego, that it actually might find
24:05
Speaker 3: a farm or effective way of getting the outcomes with
24:07
Speaker 3: my kids that I truly need.
24:08
Speaker 1: It's really interesting that as well the way you say that, Aunt,
24:10
Speaker 1: because I'm thinking, you know, those strategies that served you
24:14
Speaker 1: well until you got to that particular depth, let's say,
24:16
Speaker 1: for example, forty meters. Those strategies worked until that point,
24:20
Speaker 1: and I think as parents, we kind of get into
24:23
Speaker 1: patterns and we implement strategies at a certain level. But
24:28
Speaker 1: once our children get to a particular depth, that is,
24:30
Speaker 1: once they get to three or four or seven, we
24:34
Speaker 1: need to do something different because they've changed and we
24:37
Speaker 1: can't stay in that same pattern. But what about the pressure?
24:42
Speaker 1: You know, you described the extraordinary pressure lungs the size
24:45
Speaker 1: of a grapefruit, feeling like you're being impaled and a
24:48
Speaker 1: ball is being pulled through your body and out the
24:50
Speaker 1: other side. As parents, we feel tremendous pressure. We feel
24:54
Speaker 1: in some ways that our children are doing some high
24:58
Speaker 1: pressure things to us. How do you deal with that
25:02
Speaker 1: pressure when you're under the water, and what does that
25:05
Speaker 1: teach about parenting?
25:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is I think possibly the greatest thing
25:11
Speaker 3: that free diving has taught me in fact is and
25:14
Speaker 3: it was a hard lesson to learn it genuinely, was
25:18
Speaker 3: was that if I wanted to get deeper than fifty meters,
25:20
Speaker 3: then I had to change something fundamentally, not in my
25:22
Speaker 3: physicality or my technique or my equipment, but in my mindset.
25:27
Speaker 3: And I think for me, it's the same for parenting.
25:29
Speaker 3: Just like you said, you just need a different game
25:31
Speaker 3: plan in order to deal with new challenges. And for
25:36
Speaker 3: ten years, I actually it was a ten years, No,
25:39
Speaker 3: it's probably five years. I was stuck at fifty meters
25:42
Speaker 3: and then ten years I was stuck at another block,
25:44
Speaker 3: which was eighty meters. And for the fifty meters one
25:47
Speaker 3: was it was actually coincidental. It was someone else who
25:51
Speaker 3: gave me the guidance by saying something very extraordinary to me.
25:54
Speaker 3: I was at a master free diving camp over in Turkey,
25:59
Speaker 3: and I remember it was the final day of coaching
26:03
Speaker 3: and training after two weeks in Turkey, and in a
26:06
Speaker 3: plot called cash and we're out on a boat. It
26:08
Speaker 3: was awful conditions with white caps and waves, and there
26:12
Speaker 3: was only sort of six of us and some of
26:14
Speaker 3: the top free divers in the world, and the best
26:16
Speaker 3: free diving coach in the world was there. And I
26:18
Speaker 3: was there suited up, thinking there's no way any of
26:20
Speaker 3: us are going to dive today. These conditions are atrocious,
26:23
Speaker 3: but I didn't say that because I didn't want to
26:25
Speaker 3: be seen as the sook in the group. And there
26:27
Speaker 3: was this one guy, his name was Toppy Litton Hungers,
26:30
Speaker 3: who was a finished guy, and he was the world
26:32
Speaker 3: record holder and swimming down to extraordinary depths with no
26:36
Speaker 3: fins on whatsoever. And he hadn't really said a word
26:40
Speaker 3: to anyone for two weeks. He was like the most
26:42
Speaker 3: introverted guy I've ever met. Anyway, I was there freaking out.
26:46
Speaker 3: It was the last day and I hadn't got past
26:48
Speaker 3: my fifty bloody meters and I went and sat down
26:51
Speaker 3: down at the transom so the back of the boat,
26:52
Speaker 3: just about to get in the water, and I sat
26:54
Speaker 3: next to Toppy and he didn't say word. I didn't
26:57
Speaker 3: say word. And as I was putting on my mask
27:00
Speaker 3: an he looked at me and he said, you know
27:01
Speaker 3: your problem? And I just looked at him, went what
27:05
Speaker 3: cause your problem is you don't know how to let go.
27:08
Speaker 3: You try to fight. Anytime you try to fight, you
27:11
Speaker 3: get stuck, your ears lock up, you're tense up, and
27:13
Speaker 3: then you turn around and you have to come back
27:15
Speaker 3: because you can't bloody equalize, mate, he is your problem
27:19
Speaker 3: is you don't know how to let go, yus. As
27:21
Speaker 3: soon as you figure that out, you're going to go
27:22
Speaker 3: really deep. And then he just got in the water
27:25
Speaker 3: and the buggers swum off. I was like, hang on
27:29
Speaker 3: a second, what did you mean by that. And the
27:33
Speaker 3: weird thing was is that then I swam out when
27:36
Speaker 3: it was my turn, I went out to the road
27:38
Speaker 3: and yeah, the conditions are awful, waves of breaking over
27:41
Speaker 3: my mouth as I was trying to breathe up, and
27:42
Speaker 3: all I could think was this, this bagger had put
27:45
Speaker 3: this idea into my mind to let go. And the
27:48
Speaker 3: whole way down on my swim, I'm feeling all uncomfortable
27:51
Speaker 3: and been out of shape, but over and over in
27:53
Speaker 3: my mind it's saying let go. And then as a
27:55
Speaker 3: cell past forty meters again, in my mind, it's just
27:59
Speaker 3: saying let go, and then I sail past fifty meters,
28:03
Speaker 3: I sail past sixty meters and it means up turning
28:06
Speaker 3: at sixty eight meters and swim back up. And it
28:11
Speaker 3: was the weirdest thing ever like it. It felt like
28:14
Speaker 3: a beautiful dive. It actually did feel in control, even
28:17
Speaker 3: though I'd released my sense of control. And it was
28:22
Speaker 3: the biggest shift I've ever made in free diving. I'm
28:25
Speaker 3: annoyed that it took me ten years or five years
28:27
Speaker 3: to make that shift, and that it took one very
28:30
Speaker 3: strange comment. And sometimes that's all it takes. There's just
28:34
Speaker 3: some insight or inspiration from Samarase to give you that
28:37
Speaker 3: breakthrough that you need.
28:38
Speaker 1: Now, I'm not going to suggest that parents need to
28:40
Speaker 1: let go, but if letting go was a useful strategy,
28:46
Speaker 1: and frankly, I think that letting go of control is
28:49
Speaker 1: a very important parenting strategy, how would you how would
28:55
Speaker 1: you advise somebody to let go?
28:57
Speaker 2: How does a parent make.
28:58
Speaker 1: That switch where they they still care about the outcome?
29:01
Speaker 1: I mean, clearly, as a free dive, you don't want
29:03
Speaker 1: to die, you want to get back to the surface.
29:05
Speaker 1: You very much care about the outcome. So how do
29:07
Speaker 1: you continue to guide your children, care about the outcome
29:10
Speaker 1: and help them to move in an ideal direction while
29:17
Speaker 1: being while having that level of detachment, that ability to
29:21
Speaker 1: let go. How does a parent do that in real
29:23
Speaker 1: life in a practical way.
29:25
Speaker 3: Well, for me, it's about realizing that I am part
29:29
Speaker 3: of the issue. And that's hard, I think to accept
29:33
Speaker 3: on a number of occasions when we see our kids
29:35
Speaker 3: being unruly, as you think, this is my kid being unruly,
29:39
Speaker 3: and it's them. They've got to fix this, and I'm
29:42
Speaker 3: going to tell them how to fix this, and they
29:44
Speaker 3: should listen to me because I'm the adult and I
29:47
Speaker 3: know best, whereas in fact we still want the same outcome.
29:51
Speaker 3: We want to get our kids through something that's a
29:54
Speaker 3: significant challenge. The insight for me from the free diving
29:58
Speaker 3: has been I still want the right outcome, which is
30:01
Speaker 3: to go deeper. I want to feel that experience of
30:05
Speaker 3: being successful with that. But I have to I have
30:07
Speaker 3: to be more humble. I actually have to acknowledge that
30:11
Speaker 3: what I'm doing is not working in this situation and
30:14
Speaker 3: I have to be open to different paths to change
30:16
Speaker 3: it up. And you know, when I figured that out
30:20
Speaker 3: in free diving, it was monumental for me. I think
30:23
Speaker 3: it took me years before I then learned how to
30:26
Speaker 3: take that insight and apply it to how I was parenting.
30:29
Speaker 3: And I still don't get it right all the time.
30:31
Speaker 3: There's no way, But I catch myself more often now
30:34
Speaker 3: going what outcome am I really after hear? What's the
30:37
Speaker 3: best outcome for my son and my daughter? And what
30:41
Speaker 3: else can I try if I'm if I put my
30:43
Speaker 3: ego to one side and explore different paths and what
30:47
Speaker 3: does my child really need from me today or right
30:50
Speaker 3: in this moment? And I'm just trying to be open
30:53
Speaker 3: to explore different ways of being for my children.
30:56
Speaker 1: So let's let's talk about this in a really concrete way.
30:58
Speaker 1: Let's say I've got a child and I don't feel
31:00
Speaker 1: like they're living up to their potential. And by the way,
31:02
Speaker 1: I've got a massive problem with that statement. You know,
31:05
Speaker 1: I want my children to live up to their potential.
31:06
Speaker 1: What does that even mean? Like, who actually does live
31:08
Speaker 1: up to their potential? Anyway, I digress, But a lot
31:11
Speaker 1: of parents will say I really want my children to
31:13
Speaker 1: live up to their potential, whether it's academically, or whether
31:16
Speaker 1: it's in the sporting arena, or whether it's musically or
31:19
Speaker 1: in their art and drama pursuits, whatever.
31:21
Speaker 2: It might be. I want my child to live up
31:23
Speaker 2: to my potential. And so we've got this.
31:25
Speaker 1: Let's say there's a whole lot of pressure around this
31:27
Speaker 1: because the child is not living up to their potential,
31:30
Speaker 1: they're not doing the stuff that they said that they
31:32
Speaker 1: would do.
31:33
Speaker 2: How do you let go of that?
31:34
Speaker 1: Based on I mean, you've given some really nice ideas
31:38
Speaker 1: in an abstract kind of way, in that general sense
31:40
Speaker 1: of we need to let go. But when you're in
31:42
Speaker 1: the heat of the moment and you're thinking, I just
31:44
Speaker 1: I've spoken to this eight year old or this eighteen
31:46
Speaker 1: year old fifteen times about this. I keep on having
31:49
Speaker 1: the same conversation, and they're just not putting in the work.
31:52
Speaker 1: They're not going to soccer practice, or they're not studying
31:54
Speaker 1: for their exams, or they're not doing their music lessons properly.
31:57
Speaker 1: So they're going to pass the music test. How do
32:01
Speaker 1: you let go? Should you let go? I mean, I
32:05
Speaker 1: think you and I both agree that the answer to
32:06
Speaker 1: that is probably yes. But if so, how do you
32:09
Speaker 1: let go in a way that actually works?
32:12
Speaker 3: Yeah? Look, and I'm going to be honest, I struggle
32:16
Speaker 3: as much for this as any any parent. So I
32:22
Speaker 3: guess all like an offer here is that is that
32:25
Speaker 3: I want them. I want to just be there to
32:27
Speaker 3: agitate what's happening with your internal dialogue. Now I know
32:30
Speaker 3: that that's another concept, right, And I'll try to get
32:33
Speaker 3: more concrete for you, because you've rightly asked me to
32:35
Speaker 3: be more concrete with this stuff. And so what I
32:38
Speaker 3: what I mean by that is I want to challenge
32:40
Speaker 3: them to play through the scenario, to just walk through. Okay,
32:43
Speaker 3: So because you don't want to do your homework and
32:46
Speaker 3: you don't want to you don't want to participate in
32:49
Speaker 3: I know, taekwondo anymore because you feel bored and you
32:51
Speaker 3: want to play with mates or build tiktoks and okay, cool,
32:55
Speaker 3: So what does where does this?
32:57
Speaker 1: You know?
32:57
Speaker 3: What do you love the most about this? And where
32:59
Speaker 3: does this take you? And what things were you learning
33:02
Speaker 3: from from taekwondo that you kind of miss right now?
33:06
Speaker 3: And and I just I literally just play it out
33:09
Speaker 3: in the conversation with them, just just just to kind
33:11
Speaker 3: of go, where does this lead us to? And sometimes
33:16
Speaker 3: they go, no, I'm really happy just being being me,
33:19
Speaker 3: enjoying building my tiktoks right now in the moment. And
33:21
Speaker 3: that's You've got to suck it up, dad, That's just
33:23
Speaker 3: how it's going to be. And I go, right, my
33:25
Speaker 3: child's not ready for this other conversation yet, but it
33:27
Speaker 3: doesn't mean that they won't be in a week's time.
33:30
Speaker 3: And so I'll try to have it again with them
33:32
Speaker 3: in a week's time. And I just you just got
33:34
Speaker 3: to stay really open because if you if you go
33:36
Speaker 3: in and go listen, I'm going to tell you what
33:38
Speaker 3: happens if you follow down this path any longer building
33:41
Speaker 3: your tiktoks and not doing your homework and you're going.
33:43
Speaker 2: To be a failure. Your life's over. We might as
33:45
Speaker 2: well just gen up now.
33:46
Speaker 3: You're not living up to your potentially you're not going
33:50
Speaker 3: to get the outcome. You won't and I'll give you. Okay,
33:52
Speaker 3: I'm going to give you one more concrete example really quickly.
33:55
Speaker 3: So I would love my kids given them. I've moved
33:59
Speaker 3: my family down the coast. I would love my kids
34:00
Speaker 3: to take up surfing. And what happens is you get
34:04
Speaker 3: them out surfing, and you know, for the first couple
34:06
Speaker 3: of times they really love it, and then the next
34:08
Speaker 3: time you try to take them out, they go, oh, no, no, no, no,
34:10
Speaker 3: I don't want to do it anymore. It's cold, it's wed,
34:12
Speaker 3: my witsy doesn't fit right, none of my mates are coming,
34:15
Speaker 3: and that's it. Don't want to do it anymore or
34:17
Speaker 3: even worse than you force them to. And they go
34:19
Speaker 3: out and they have a wipeout, A big wave hits
34:22
Speaker 3: them and they go, I hate the sport. You make
34:24
Speaker 3: me do it, and I never want to do it again.
34:26
Speaker 3: And then it's kind of as a parent, you go, man,
34:28
Speaker 3: I've screwed it up royally here. They're never going to
34:30
Speaker 3: do this again. But then it's about going, how do
34:32
Speaker 3: I get them to have a wonderful positive experience with
34:35
Speaker 3: this and get some success with it, And even if
34:38
Speaker 3: I have to kind of engineer that scenario. So I
34:40
Speaker 3: would wait for the sunniest day with the best conditions,
34:44
Speaker 3: I'll get their mates over, get all the boards ready,
34:46
Speaker 3: and just go, We're going to really short just for
34:48
Speaker 3: half an hour surf and I'll push them on the
34:50
Speaker 3: waves and make sure they have this the most fantastic time.
34:53
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden, that's an intervention over.
34:55
Speaker 3: They just want to go surfing all the time. It's
34:58
Speaker 3: not always as easy to do because see things pretty
35:00
Speaker 3: fun support I think, compared to something I doing homework.
35:04
Speaker 3: But there's something in there around being bitter at problem
35:07
Speaker 3: solving experience, not always coming at it from the same
35:10
Speaker 3: angle that frustrates our kids and puts up barriers between
35:14
Speaker 3: us and them.
35:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, my experiences that force creates resistance. In fact, just
35:19
Speaker 1: as you were sharing that, I had an experience just
35:21
Speaker 1: over the weekend, my six year old has been so
35:25
Speaker 1: resistant about riding a bicycle.
35:28
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm a cyclist.
35:29
Speaker 1: I don't want to get on a road bike and
35:31
Speaker 1: come into one hundred k's with me, But I just
35:32
Speaker 1: want her to come on a bike ride and enjoy
35:36
Speaker 1: the opportunity to be together as a.
35:37
Speaker 2: Family on a ride. And I've been you know, Emily,
35:40
Speaker 2: come on, I want to teach you to ride a bike.
35:42
Speaker 2: I don't want to learn now now.
35:43
Speaker 1: The last time I took her on the bike, we
35:45
Speaker 1: took the training wheels off, because she can ride with
35:47
Speaker 1: training wheels no problem. Took the training wheels off and
35:50
Speaker 1: she had a couple of little stacks and you know,
35:53
Speaker 1: Gray's knee hurt a hand or that kind of thing,
35:55
Speaker 1: really simple stuff. She wasn't hurt badly, but it was
35:58
Speaker 1: enough to make her a bit miserable. And I realized
36:01
Speaker 1: that I wasn't doing it. You're familiar with my three
36:03
Speaker 1: e's right, So I needed to explore, explain, and empower.
36:06
Speaker 2: So I sat down, I.
36:07
Speaker 1: Put my arm around. I said, Emily, can you tell
36:09
Speaker 1: me why you don't want to ride a bike? Like
36:11
Speaker 1: you said, you actually ask all those questions, where is
36:13
Speaker 1: it going to lead? What happens if you can't ride
36:15
Speaker 1: a bike?
36:15
Speaker 2: And she said, I don't need to ride a bike.
36:17
Speaker 3: I don't care.
36:17
Speaker 1: I said, okay, I get it, I said, but and
36:19
Speaker 1: then I decided to explain, I said, Emily, and I
36:23
Speaker 1: kind of put a bit of emotional guilty in, just gently,
36:25
Speaker 1: not too much, just a little bit. I said, Emily,
36:27
Speaker 1: it would make me so happy if I could teach you,
36:29
Speaker 1: because I know that you're going to love it, and
36:31
Speaker 1: we can have family bike rides and it'll be so
36:33
Speaker 1: much fun. And then I said this, I said, I'm
36:36
Speaker 1: not going to force you to do this, but I'd
36:38
Speaker 1: be so happy if you could. And then I empowered her.
36:41
Speaker 1: Why don't you have a think about it, and let's
36:44
Speaker 1: go down and we'll learn to ride the bike, but
36:46
Speaker 1: only for one go.
36:48
Speaker 2: We'll just have one go.
36:49
Speaker 1: We won't do long gos, we won't do five goes.
36:51
Speaker 1: We're just going to have one go. And once you've
36:53
Speaker 1: had one go, that's all we've got to do. And
36:55
Speaker 1: I only took about two or three minutes.
36:57
Speaker 2: She came to me. She said, all right, I'll do it.
36:59
Speaker 1: She wouldn't put a suit on, she will get changed
37:01
Speaker 1: out of address, but she was happy to come and
37:03
Speaker 1: do it for one go. And you know, fifteen minutes
37:05
Speaker 1: later she was riding the bike and now she can't
37:09
Speaker 1: wait to get on it again. Like she just loves it,
37:11
Speaker 1: but it seems like, you know, for about six months,
37:14
Speaker 1: I've been trying to force it, even though I'm the
37:16
Speaker 1: parenting expert who says not to do it, I've been
37:17
Speaker 1: trying to force it. And then the one day where
37:20
Speaker 1: I eased off and said, when you're ready, but here's
37:23
Speaker 1: why it's important, and I get what your issues are,
37:25
Speaker 1: and I reassured her I won't let you fall. All
37:28
Speaker 1: of a sudden, we got a resolved, so the pressure
37:30
Speaker 1: was off and it worked. Okay, now we need to
37:32
Speaker 1: move this along because I know the time's getting away
37:34
Speaker 1: from it. So and a couple of other questions for you.
37:37
Speaker 1: One more metaphor that stood out to me was this
37:40
Speaker 1: the idea you' is sinking into the depths of a dark,
37:42
Speaker 1: cold ocean, and you're going deeper and deeper, and it
37:45
Speaker 1: feels a little bit like sinking into the depths of
37:47
Speaker 1: stress and fear with our children. So I'm thinking, you know,
37:51
Speaker 1: maybe you've got a child that's got a health issue
37:53
Speaker 1: or a label or a diagnosis, or they're getting poor
37:55
Speaker 1: academic outcomes, or they're being bullied, and all those things
37:58
Speaker 1: are pulling us down deeper and deeper and further from
38:00
Speaker 1: the surface and safety and solutions. So as a parent
38:05
Speaker 1: is feeling like they're sinking, you know, they've past twenty
38:08
Speaker 1: meters and now the weight of parenting is simply pulling
38:10
Speaker 1: them down to an early grave. What would you say
38:14
Speaker 1: that parents can do to kind of, I don't know,
38:16
Speaker 1: get back up to the surface for air, to take
38:18
Speaker 1: that pressure off when they are surrounded with really painful,
38:23
Speaker 1: very real pressureus.
38:26
Speaker 3: I think the first thing is is to try to
38:28
Speaker 3: give yourself the breathing space to take a step back
38:31
Speaker 3: and get perspective over things. And there's two ways that
38:34
Speaker 3: I personally try to do that, whether it's with my
38:36
Speaker 3: kids and how I'm parenting in a difficult situation, or
38:39
Speaker 3: it's with my sport. Because it's actually the same principle.
38:42
Speaker 3: I need to step back and try to see it
38:44
Speaker 3: for what it really is. And the first way that
38:46
Speaker 3: I do that is I give myself a break and
38:49
Speaker 3: give myself a period of time where I stop beating
38:52
Speaker 3: myself up over it about maybe a failure or a
38:55
Speaker 3: perceived block that's mine and I own it, and I
38:57
Speaker 3: just kind of acknowledge it for what it is and
39:02
Speaker 3: explore the idea that maybe I just need to get
39:03
Speaker 3: some help with it. And then the second thing I
39:06
Speaker 3: do is actually find people that I really trust and
39:08
Speaker 3: believe in to kind of go, hey, have you had
39:13
Speaker 3: to deal with something similar to this, So what do
39:14
Speaker 3: you do? And I try to use them as a
39:17
Speaker 3: sounding board. Sometimes they might suggest an answer that I
39:20
Speaker 3: don't like. And it's not about just kind of taking
39:22
Speaker 3: blindly their view on things, but it's actually using others
39:26
Speaker 3: around me, my network, my social circle, is to just
39:30
Speaker 3: use as a sounding board to try things out and
39:32
Speaker 3: get some other ideas going, because I think the biggest
39:35
Speaker 3: risk that we run is not getting any other ideas,
39:39
Speaker 3: the insights and how to approach a problem differently. It's like,
39:43
Speaker 3: you know, if I'm a hammer, then everything's a nail,
39:46
Speaker 3: and I try to treat it all the same way.
39:48
Speaker 3: I'm saying, break out of that. But if you're in it,
39:51
Speaker 3: you can't break out of it. You've got to take
39:53
Speaker 3: a step back, get on the back of the boat
39:55
Speaker 3: with Toppy, and get Toppy to give you some random,
39:58
Speaker 3: crazy advice and you kind of go, huh, I'm going
40:01
Speaker 3: to reflect on that and maybe there's something in it
40:04
Speaker 3: for me, and you'll be surprised with that inspiration can
40:06
Speaker 3: sometimes come from.
40:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. I think that's great.
40:09
Speaker 1: In psychological terms, we call it psychological or self distancing.
40:12
Speaker 1: And there's a whole range of techniques that are useful there.
40:15
Speaker 1: But such such important things for us to do, especially
40:18
Speaker 1: when we're dealing with those blockages as parents. Now, last
40:22
Speaker 1: question about free diving, and then we'll wrap up with
40:24
Speaker 1: my five questions that everybody in this podcast is going
40:28
Speaker 1: to get to work through, and they're rapid fire questions.
40:31
Speaker 2: But first one, last big one.
40:33
Speaker 1: What's the most powerful thing that you've learned from free diving,
40:35
Speaker 1: not necessarily to do with family or parenting, just about
40:38
Speaker 1: life that you would share, like, how does that thing
40:40
Speaker 1: help you to be a better aunt?
40:42
Speaker 3: Williams Humility. That's the number one thing I've learned. The
40:47
Speaker 3: only way for me to be successful in my sport
40:50
Speaker 3: is to hang up my ego or at least dial
40:52
Speaker 3: it down a bit. It's two. This is quite ironic
40:58
Speaker 3: even saying this out loud, because it's a competitive sport.
41:00
Speaker 3: But I have to put aside my desire to win.
41:03
Speaker 3: I have to put aside my desire to be the deepest.
41:06
Speaker 3: I have to put away my desire to compare myself
41:09
Speaker 3: against others, and I actually just have to be humble.
41:13
Speaker 3: And the weird thing is is that when you just
41:17
Speaker 3: try to accept that you want to do it for
41:19
Speaker 3: the sake of doing it for what it teaches you
41:21
Speaker 3: about yourself and having that experience and testing your own boundaries,
41:26
Speaker 3: then it's a magical experience. And freedoving for the last
41:30
Speaker 3: decade has just all been about that. For me, I
41:33
Speaker 3: don't really care if I beat you or not. I'd
41:34
Speaker 3: rather you beat me, and then when we celebrated your success,
41:38
Speaker 3: that would be as exciting for me as as having
41:40
Speaker 3: my own success with the sport. And for me it's
41:43
Speaker 3: the same. And actually, when I reflect on what I
41:46
Speaker 3: love the most about parenting is actually it's helping me
41:50
Speaker 3: become a better version of myself for my kids. And
41:53
Speaker 3: if I'm truly being honest to this intent to being humble,
41:57
Speaker 3: then I don't force my kids to be another version
41:59
Speaker 3: of me. I simply I just want the best outcomes
42:02
Speaker 3: for them, and to do that, I have to stay flexible,
42:04
Speaker 3: keep exploring and finding new ways to you know, to
42:08
Speaker 3: help them through some of these challenges, even when those
42:11
Speaker 3: challenges really great me and bug the hell out of me,
42:13
Speaker 3: and I never get it right every time. It's always
42:17
Speaker 3: about kind of acknowledging this stuff's hard, getting perspective and
42:21
Speaker 3: getting help when you can.
42:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, and of course surfing and surfing.
42:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, lots of time out to go diving.
42:29
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, and we're gonna set this podcast up in
42:34
Speaker 1: such a way that every guest on the podcast answers
42:37
Speaker 1: a series of questions to wrap things up.
42:39
Speaker 2: You're the very first person to try it.
42:41
Speaker 1: You're my first guest, so well, the good news for
42:43
Speaker 1: you is there's no pressure because no one's going to
42:44
Speaker 1: compare your answers to all of the great answers in
42:47
Speaker 1: that amazing other episode because you're red your episode number one.
42:51
Speaker 1: Here we go with question one. If we ask your
42:53
Speaker 1: kids their favorite thing to do with you, what would
42:56
Speaker 1: they say.
42:57
Speaker 3: Or hands down, that'd say to go skiing. To get
43:00
Speaker 3: that snow skiing We've only ever done that together as
43:02
Speaker 3: a family once, but I reckon i'd say snow skiing,
43:06
Speaker 3: probably closely followed by camping. We haven't done a lot
43:08
Speaker 3: of camping either, but I reckon those have been some
43:11
Speaker 3: of the coolest memories we've had as a family. And
43:13
Speaker 3: then more on a day to day basis probably just
43:15
Speaker 3: time that we spend together as a whole family, including
43:17
Speaker 3: the little dog Cookie. So it'll be walks on the
43:19
Speaker 3: beaches where we, you know, just shoot the breeze and
43:23
Speaker 3: get out in the open air.
43:24
Speaker 2: What's been your trickiest parenting moment.
43:27
Speaker 3: Trickiest parenting moment I've ever had was finding out that
43:30
Speaker 3: my one of my kids was being bullied at school ouch,
43:34
Speaker 3: and then feeling helpless as his parent because my initial
43:37
Speaker 3: response was I'm going to find out who's bullying my child,
43:41
Speaker 3: and then I'm going to go and bloody throttle them
43:43
Speaker 3: and their parents. Those of you can't do that. And
43:47
Speaker 3: then when my rational ada brankicked and I was still
43:51
Speaker 3: I still found myself coming up short. I can't, you know.
43:55
Speaker 3: The only pathway I've got here, as I think, is
43:57
Speaker 3: to speak with his school. And so I make a
44:00
Speaker 3: really effort to not only speak with the school, but
44:02
Speaker 3: to make sure that I spoke with the principle, who
44:03
Speaker 3: didn't want to speak to me about it initially until
44:06
Speaker 3: I really impressed on him that ultimately the code that
44:10
Speaker 3: they have said as a school around bullying comes under
44:15
Speaker 3: his leadership. Therefore he's ultimately responsible therefore, he owes me
44:18
Speaker 3: the responsibility or the duty to talk with me about
44:20
Speaker 3: it to find how we're going to resolve it. But
44:25
Speaker 3: even after having spoken with him, which was a good conversation,
44:27
Speaker 3: I still found myself thinking, Man, I just how can
44:30
Speaker 3: this be? How can my child be experiencing this sort
44:34
Speaker 3: of challenge or discom feel pain and I'm helpless as
44:38
Speaker 3: a parent? I honestly felt like a period of helplessness.
44:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I found that those are they are the
44:44
Speaker 1: trickiest times as a parent where you just can't really
44:47
Speaker 1: do anything because you want to fix everything.
44:50
Speaker 2: And you just can't.
44:52
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's an awful feeling, it really is. And you
44:56
Speaker 3: know the irony was is that actually it was my
44:59
Speaker 3: child who solved it, and it was through really good
45:02
Speaker 3: open conversations with their child to let to let them
45:09
Speaker 3: come up with how they wanted it to be solved,
45:11
Speaker 3: and they decided to take it on themselves to resolve
45:14
Speaker 3: it through a number of strategies which they shared with me,
45:17
Speaker 3: and we collectively agreed that that would be a great approach.
45:20
Speaker 3: But boy, that was tough. Yeah.
45:22
Speaker 2: I love the way that ended up as well. Thank
45:25
Speaker 2: you for sharing that. Number three, if you could spend.
45:27
Speaker 1: An hour with your children at any age at all,
45:31
Speaker 1: what age would you pick?
45:33
Speaker 3: And why, oh no, this is an easy one. I
45:36
Speaker 3: would pick ages three and four hands down, because they
45:39
Speaker 3: are at the most ridiculously cute stage then, and you
45:43
Speaker 3: kind of miss it when they get to like the
45:44
Speaker 3: early teenage years and you look back at the old
45:47
Speaker 3: photos and videos. Just recently, I was on the couch
45:50
Speaker 3: with Chloe, my youngest, and she's showing me this video
45:54
Speaker 3: that we made of here when you know, she was
45:56
Speaker 3: three years old walking around the house in a cardboard
46:00
Speaker 3: with crazy, big curly here saying I Am a robot,
46:05
Speaker 3: and you know, her brother chasing her and the dog
46:07
Speaker 3: going bananas, and those moments are just ridiculously cute where
46:11
Speaker 3: you just want to cuddle them and give them all
46:14
Speaker 3: your love and stuff, and it seems to get harder
46:16
Speaker 3: to do that, and they have those moments of pure
46:19
Speaker 3: i don't know, just just pure blisses, you know, and
46:23
Speaker 3: that kind of oh, that childhood and nature that they have,
46:28
Speaker 3: and so I miss those. I miss those moments of
46:30
Speaker 3: just yeah, one wonderful yeah times with the kids when
46:34
Speaker 3: they were young.
46:35
Speaker 1: Love it question for no matter how good life has been,
46:38
Speaker 1: and how glad you are to be in the moment.
46:40
Speaker 1: What are you most looking forward to as a dad?
46:45
Speaker 3: The thing I'm most looking forward to is a dad
46:47
Speaker 3: would be the day when the not when the kids
46:51
Speaker 3: leave the house, but when they come back. So they
46:52
Speaker 3: come back and they've got their own families, their own partners,
46:55
Speaker 3: and they come back and we have these big meals together,
46:59
Speaker 3: and you know, we celebrate Christmases and birthdays together, and
47:03
Speaker 3: we have extended families all coming to the grandparents' house,
47:07
Speaker 3: you know, our place, and we just you know, we
47:12
Speaker 3: just entertained with music and song and playing games together
47:18
Speaker 3: and then getting to know their kids. I think that's
47:20
Speaker 3: going to be the most magical time of our lives.
47:23
Speaker 2: Beautiful and question of a five.
47:24
Speaker 1: If you could go back to Aunt Williams as a
47:26
Speaker 1: young dad with no experience at raising children at all,
47:31
Speaker 1: what advice would you give yourself and how did you
47:33
Speaker 1: actually learn why that's valuable.
47:35
Speaker 3: There's probably a couple of bits of advice I give myself.
47:39
Speaker 3: They're kind of almost contradictory and a certain way. The
47:42
Speaker 3: first one I'd say is, mate, you're not going to
47:44
Speaker 3: be as good as you think you're going to be.
47:49
Speaker 3: And then I'd quickly follow it up with but that's okay.
47:52
Speaker 3: You just got to learn how to give yourself a
47:54
Speaker 3: break when tough, when things get ready tough, when you
47:57
Speaker 3: become a parent mate, and you'll figure it out, but
48:00
Speaker 3: make sure you give yourself plenty of perspective and don't
48:03
Speaker 3: beat yourself up over it.
48:04
Speaker 2: And how did you come across the value of that advice?
48:08
Speaker 3: Definitely through freedover. It taught me if you don't you know,
48:11
Speaker 3: you think you're gonna be awesome, but you're not. And now, yeah, there,
48:16
Speaker 3: the more humble I get is the freedover, the more
48:18
Speaker 3: successful overcome. And it's true. I don't just say that
48:22
Speaker 3: as a throwaway line. I've been competing for seventeen years
48:26
Speaker 3: and my most successful events, with my biggest performances against
48:29
Speaker 3: the strongest athletes in the world, have come late in
48:32
Speaker 3: my forties.
48:35
Speaker 2: And Williams, it's just been a delight to talk to you.
48:36
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for sharing so generously.
48:38
Speaker 1: If people did want to find out more about you,
48:40
Speaker 1: whither you're free diving and you know, following you on
48:42
Speaker 1: Instagram or something like that, or even the work that
48:44
Speaker 1: you do with Modus Leadership in terms of the corporate
48:47
Speaker 1: work that you're doing.
48:47
Speaker 2: How would they find you?
48:48
Speaker 3: Probably the easiest is either find me on LinkedIn or
48:51
Speaker 3: just through my website, which is Modus Leadership dot com
48:55
Speaker 3: dot au. And look, I do have a website that's
48:59
Speaker 3: just my freedom called Aunt Williams dot com. I probably
49:02
Speaker 3: haven't updated it in a while, I'm honest, So maybe
49:05
Speaker 3: best is just find me at Modus Leadership dot com
49:07
Speaker 3: do au. Thanks Justin, I.
49:11
Speaker 1: Hope you've gotten some insight into Aunt Williams as a
49:13
Speaker 1: result of this Parenting in Perspective podcast. I just love
49:16
Speaker 1: the fact that an elite ocean free diver who can
49:19
Speaker 1: dive to one hundred meters on a single breath that
49:21
Speaker 1: still still struggles to get his kids to join him
49:24
Speaker 1: in the ocean for a surf. Join me, doctor Justin Colson.
49:27
Speaker 1: Next time, as I talk with Professor Wendy Rolnick of
49:30
Speaker 1: Clark University about seeing things from our children's perspective.
49:35
Speaker 4: We'd all kind of start with taking children's perspective, thinking
49:38
Speaker 4: about where are they coming from, how are they thinking
49:41
Speaker 4: about what they're doing, and trying to get into their
49:44
Speaker 4: heads and understand their perspective.
49:46
Speaker 1: That's Professor Wendy Grohlnik my next guest on episode two
49:50
Speaker 1: of the Parenting in Perspective podcast, a Happy Families podcast.
49:55
Speaker 1: For more information on how to access more premium content,
49:59
Speaker 1: visit Happy family dot com, dot A and click on
50:02
Speaker 1: memberships
50:10
Speaker 4: MHM