How To Make Sure the People You Love Don't Struggle Alone - Uncut with Gus Worland

Gus Worland is a TV, podcast and radio host, and the director and founder of the mental health foundation Gotcha4life. Gus is a passionate advocate for building mental fitness. Gus is particularly good at helping women connect with the men in their lives in ways that enable vulnerable and real conversations about their mental health.

We chat:

• Gus’ childhood friendship with Hugh Jackman, or ‘Jacko’ as he calls him
• Whether Gus is jealous of Hugh’s friendship with Ryan Reynolds
• What mental fitness is & why we have such an issue with mental health now
• Where men disproportionately struggle
• Why so many men are suffering in silence and don’t speak up when they’re struggling
• Not letting anyone struggle alone
• Creating ‘villages’ around us 

Gus also speaks about some really practical ways that we can connect with blokes, not try to ‘fix’ everything and create relationships where they feel comfortable speaking up.
You can find more from Gus on Instagram

Gotcha 4 Life Instagram

Gotcha 4 Life Website

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands
were never seeded. We pay our respects to their elders
past and present, Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land.
This episode was recorded on Cameragle Land. Hi guys, and

(00:23):
welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura,
I'm Brittany. Today's guest is a man of many talents.
I'm very excited to introduce Gus Woland. He's a TV
podcast and radio host and on top of that, he's
the director and founder of the mental health foundation Gotcha
for Life Now. Gus is a passionate advocate for building
mental fitness. Our very own producer, Keisha has worked alongside

(00:47):
him for many, many years, and she has nothing but
amazing things to say about you.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Actually, do you know what she said today?

Speaker 3 (00:52):
She said you are the best man that she knows.
And she said that to her partner Tobin. That went
down like a sack of shield alone.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
And on top of that, and this has nothing to
do with anything, but he just so happens to be
best friends with Hugh Jackman, so we just thought would
slide that on into the intro too. Today, Gus is
here to speak with us about creating mental fitness within
ourselves and the people that we love. Gus is particularly
good at helping women connect with the men in their
lives to make sure that they can be vulnerable and
have really open, honest conversations. So we are so happy

(01:24):
to welcome you to life on cut Gas.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
Thank you, thanks for having me.

Speaker 5 (01:27):
And as you say, Keisha and I have been working
together for a long time and I was waiting to
get invited on because you are number one podcasts like
in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
So put that on your bumper sticker in the world.
Everyone you heard it.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
I thought you were about to say, Oh, Keisha's also
the best man.

Speaker 5 (01:43):
I know, she's pretty special that I'm glad she's happy
now she's got a bike.

Speaker 4 (01:47):
Well decent, he's.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Pretty good, I reckon he's at least three quarter decent.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
No, Dus, he's not Gus level.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
Gus.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
We kick start everything with an accidently unfiltered your most
embarrassing story.

Speaker 4 (01:59):
Yeah, what do you got?

Speaker 5 (02:00):
Well, I've got a few, but I suppose the one
that consider relate to your listeners and you can have
a bit of a laugh at was that Jacko was
doing a movie with John Travolta. I can't quite remember
the name of the movie, but it was in Los Angeles.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
Our son was.

Speaker 5 (02:13):
Six, My godson, Jacko's first adopted child, Oscar, was six
months old, and I remember handing the kids over to
John Travolda and just taking photos with them and thinking,
this is the most sort of incredible thing for someone
like me who had watched Grease growing up and just
thought that was pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (02:28):
John Devolda was it well.

Speaker 5 (02:30):
Sort of hours later he came to Jacko's trailer and said, hey, guys,
we're going to have a drink tonight.

Speaker 4 (02:34):
It's the last night filming.

Speaker 5 (02:35):
So, Gus, why don't you come to my trailer at
like eleven you and I'll be back from this shoot
that we have to do. So I turned up eleven o'clock,
Jacko and Travalda were in there.

Speaker 4 (02:44):
We're in this beautiful you know sort of.

Speaker 5 (02:46):
His setup was twice as big as Jacko's and the trailer,
and it was like a horseshoe and on three bits
of the horse shoe was a glass of cranberry juice
each a big cuban cigar and like a cigar cutter
and a dune Hill Live. Everyone had the same thing, right,
so we didn't have to share the lighters or share
the cut or anything. So I sat down in front
of one of those and just started drinking and chatting

(03:08):
and think, I can't believe I'm talking to John Travolda,
but I'm smoking at the time the cigar as if
it's a cigarette, right, And I'm excited, I'm over excited,
and I'm not quite managing my excitement levels. And Jackoe
sort of looks over me I've about fifteen or twenty
minutes and goes.

Speaker 4 (03:24):
Mate, you look really white. I said, yeah, I just
don't feel one hundred percent, you know, like that.

Speaker 5 (03:28):
Anyway, I made two or three steps towards the door
and threw up.

Speaker 4 (03:32):
And I threw up like not just that little bit.

Speaker 5 (03:34):
From the cigar, like dinner and lunch and the whole
bit in Travold's trailer. And of course as your mates
laugh at each other when you do stuff like that, well,
Travolda was horrified that jack I was laughing at me
and not helping. So then he turns into this like
head master, going, you need to get Gus sorted out,
but then you have to come back clean out my trailer.
So these two sort of Hollywood superstars having this sort

(03:55):
of who's going to pick the vomit up? But in
such a fun way, and then you months later he
came to do the premier abe here in Sydney, and
I walked up to JT.

Speaker 4 (04:05):
And he just went, are you right? Is everything okay?
Like not going to try.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
So it doesn't that mean I does it than John
Chivolta jto you meant justin Timberley.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, I think it gets cooler than vomiting on him. Yeah,
I think. I mean you could have held your ship
together a little bit better than that.

Speaker 4 (04:21):
Well.

Speaker 5 (04:21):
I tried to get to the door and didn't quite
get there, and it was like on the.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
On the ladder, on the way in, plus the door area.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
But if you had the option, you could either meet
John Travolta being his trailer and vomit or never meet him.
I'm sorry, but I'm taking the vomit, but I would
vomit everywhere on him.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
It does scream on his face and then I have
HU drack them clean it up.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
It does scream a little bit of peer pressure when
you're like, I don't know how to smoke this, but
I'm gonna pretend like exactly as a grown man.

Speaker 5 (04:49):
As a grown man with children smoking the cigar, making
that that this is just normal for me to.

Speaker 4 (04:54):
Be hanging around.

Speaker 5 (04:54):
As you know, I set in Los Angeles with the
best stay in John Travolda who I looked up to
all these years, and Jackard told me great stories about him,
how much he had helped him because he's an experienced
guy and jack I was reasonably new to it.

Speaker 4 (05:07):
So I was in awe of this guy. And then
he was a nice blake as well.

Speaker 5 (05:10):
I mean, you guys would have met people in your
life you go, please be as nice as I hope
you're going to be.

Speaker 4 (05:14):
And John Devoda was that for me. So it was
just a double whammy.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
I mean I was going to ask you this later on,
but we're kind of here now. How did you meet
Hugh Jackman? Like, how did you guys become best friends?
Because this isn't like, oh, you know we both work
in media, is like a childhood friendship, yees.

Speaker 5 (05:28):
So we went to Pimble Public together, which is a
little public school in Pimble.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
My mum went to Pimble, did she at the girls school?

Speaker 4 (05:34):
She went.

Speaker 5 (05:37):
To the girls, well, a lot of girls from Pemble
Public would then go to PLC, so only within a
couple of kilometers of each other. So fifth grade, missus
Fairbrother our kindergarten teacher, and I remember her saying, and
we're all sort of trying to work out who's who
in the zoo. They said, Okay, turn to someone, grab
their hand and walk into the classroom. And I turned
and got Jacko's hand, and we then went. We did

(05:59):
four years together there, than we did the last two
years at Knox Prep. Then we did Knox, then we
did our gap year together and then he went to
UTS and I went to the Tape College just behind Uts.
And he was my best man. I was his best man.
Godfather do each other. So he wasn't a big deal,
remember until sort of mid twenties. So I all say
to him pre Wolverine friends and Wolverine friends, they're two

(06:20):
different batches before We sort of just loved him before
all this stuff. And of course he is the same bloke.
He is literally the same person as he was, even
with all the success.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
He's just so lovely.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
Question, because you know, we talk about this a lot,
Jealousy is a real emotion. How do you feel about
his friendship with Ryan Reynolds. Well, okay, so is there
a large level of jealousy?

Speaker 5 (06:44):
There not a large level, But I would be lying
to you to say if there wasn't a little moment
where I.

Speaker 4 (06:49):
Go oh oh oh.

Speaker 5 (06:51):
But then I know the two of them and their
friendship is doing a whole lot of good and obviously
it's a fun movie. The other day, Ryan and Jacko
rang into my radio show and said, look, I'm Gus
two point zero. There's no way that you can be
friends with someone if you've got a billion dollars and
they've got a billion dollars. You can't be friends with
someone who doesn't have a billion dollars. So it's a
whole different friendship. We can do whatever we want whenever

(07:12):
we want. We can get in a plane, we can
buy a plane, we can do whatever we want. You
just don't cut it anymore.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
You can't be me, Gus.

Speaker 4 (07:18):
You can't. And you know what he's like, He's just
he's just making stuff up with.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Saying you don't own a gin company.

Speaker 4 (07:23):
I do, exactly. You don't have a billion dollars.

Speaker 5 (07:25):
I do, and I'm a massive superstar social mate, so
I've taken over so we have a lot of fun
with it. When I saw him through the filming of
Wolverine Deadpool or Deadpool Wolverine, you know, Ryan was so
lovely and the first thing he did was come up
and said, look, Jacko loves you. I've got a friend
like he does, and this is lovely to meet you
now and stuff.

Speaker 4 (07:44):
So we had a big cuddle and that was nice.
But there is just I have like, what stap Jacko going,
what's the story with this guy? You know?

Speaker 5 (07:51):
Yeah, and he's like, mate, I love him, but you're
main man, Yeah, which is nice.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
I love the way I mean getting into what we
wanted to talk to you about, which I mean we
could talk about Hugh Jackman.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
All day long, but it's not him, believe at all.
That's not why we got you.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
We'll get here.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
On the podcast, we've spoken about mental health. I mean,
we speak about mental health all the time. But something
I find very interesting in the way that you speak
about it is that you call it mental fitness. Can
you describe to me what that means to you and
why the terminology is something cared about?

Speaker 5 (08:18):
Yeah, I think mental health's got a bad rap if
as soon as you hear mental health, it takes it
to the bottom of the barrel. It makes you think
that it's something that's not very positive. So I started
using the mental fitness term around in schools, and I
saw kids sort of nodding back at me.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
Okay, this is something, because I've got to get into
the kids.

Speaker 5 (08:36):
If the kids start doing it, then they might be
able to help mum and Dad all their bigger brothers
and stuff. So mental fitness for me is a positive term.
It's got good energy. And I can also then put
to the side. I can give you exercises to get
mentally fit, just like I can give you exercises to
get physically fit. We can do the same thing with
your mental fitness. So then we started the mental fitness gym,

(08:58):
and that gives your tips and tricks on how to
get mentally fit. This invisible muscle up here, this one
in their head, and I'm point into my head everyone.
Those invisible muscles are so powerful, so much more powerful
than your legs and your arms and all these other muscles,
because your head can stop you doing things or get
you to do things that may not be that sensible.
So let's work on the emotional muscle up here, and

(09:19):
let's get mentally fit really, so you don't worry alone.
As a general rule, we worry alone way too much.
Men in particular, we lose seven blokes a day. Every day,
we lose two women every day. That's nine Aussies that
woke up this morning, wake up tomorrow morning. And on
top of that sixty five thousand attempts, so that's one
every few minutes. We've been chatting for ten minutes, two communities,
two families, two relationships have been literally life changing moment

(09:43):
because someone has tried to take their life, and by
the time we finish this chat, there will be another ten.

Speaker 4 (09:48):
So I don't want to live in Australia like that.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
It's such a big conversation.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
But I would be surprised if there is anybody listening
to this episode who has not been affected by someone,
whether it's within their family or within their ce those community, who.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Has taken their own life. Absolutely because and.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
That statistics slaps she's straight in the face, doesn't It
makes you really stop when you say, in the time
we have been talking, in the last ten minutes, there's
two people that have taken their life really makes you
looking at it.

Speaker 5 (10:15):
Now, two people have tempted to take their lives, but
seven have died since midnight, men and two women.

Speaker 4 (10:21):
So nine earty is a day every day. So just
look around wherever you listen to this.

Speaker 5 (10:24):
Now, if you're listening in the bus, just look up
and go, Okay, those nine people not here tomorrow. Those
people on the left hand side of the bus in
front of me, they're not here tomorrow. And that's literally
the stats, and the stats hit you in the face
because you don't quite believe them to start with.

Speaker 4 (10:37):
I certainly when I first got told them, I.

Speaker 5 (10:39):
Went, that can't be true, but it is, and I
don't want to live in an Australia like that.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
It's also interesting when you say those statistics, because you know,
we often talk about how it's harder for a woman
to live like men have it easier in a lot
of ways. But then you look at those statistics and
you say, well, seven men are taking their lives verse
two women. Why do you think it is so pro
for men and why it's such an issue that men
are experiencing that that is the only option.

Speaker 4 (11:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (11:06):
Traditionally men have been told to sort of man up
and shut up and get on with it, and told
from a very young age that their emotions are to
be just stopped and just get on with it.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
And that's the way it is.

Speaker 5 (11:16):
And so I'm trying to tell everyone now it's sort
of man up and speak up rather than man up
and shut up, which is what we've been told.

Speaker 4 (11:22):
The numbers are horrific.

Speaker 5 (11:24):
Of course, three quarters of suicides are men, but most
of the people attempting suicide are women. So it's a
problem right across our society women. And this is all
generally speaking. You've got some type of connection where you
can go deeper without it feeling like, oh, I'm giving
up my soul here girls.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
I'm feeling humiliated.

Speaker 4 (11:42):
That's right where blokes just go.

Speaker 5 (11:43):
I should be able to handle my own stuff, because
I've been told all my life. Ads on Telly tell
me that, the movies tell me that all these heroes
they're not crying and asking for help, they're just getting on.

Speaker 4 (11:52):
With their stuff.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Well, I like the way that you refer to it
as mental fitness as a muscle, because when we think
about our body, we think about, oh, we need to
stay healthy and fit for our cardiovascular system, for aesthetic
reasons for whatever reason is to live longer. The brain
is also a muscle that you do need to exercise
and work out, and I think, leaning into what you
just said, women probably do it more without even knowing,

(12:16):
Like we get to exercise that muscle every day with
the conversations we have with our friends or our mother,
or we're more open to.

Speaker 4 (12:23):
Therapy traditionally that's the case.

Speaker 5 (12:26):
And all I'm saying to guys, you don't have to
burst in it is every five minutes or have a
deep and meaningful all the time.

Speaker 4 (12:31):
But have someone in.

Speaker 5 (12:33):
Your life that's got your for life and that can
be a professional too. You can fake it to you
make it with all your mates if you want, but
tell someone what's going on, because if you keep all
this stuff in your own head, you will end up
making a really, really poor decision, and that decision could
be a permanent one based on a temporary situation. So
that's what got Your Life is about. And of course
all the programs we do is about building mental fitness.

(12:55):
Kids get it in schools, corporates get it. Leaders get it.
We just need to get the word out more.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
What happened or was there something that happened in your
life that made you care about this, because I think
a lot of people are aware of it, but I
think it takes some specific to actually care as deeply
as you do.

Speaker 4 (13:12):
I agree made of mine, loved him mentor of mine.
He was my.

Speaker 5 (13:18):
He was my cousin's boyfriend, then my cousin's husband, and
my dad had left the family home when I was
quite young, so this bloke took on that role and
I just adored him so much. And every time I
needed some help, you know, what do I say to
the girl? Should I invite it to the form, or
what subjects should I do at school? I've been dropped

(13:39):
to the b's in footy, I need to make the a's.
And he was the guy right and many many years
later I started working for him. I worked for him
in America, in the UK and in Australia. And I
was working for him in the UK when I got
the phone call saying that he had died, and then
in the same phone call that he had taken his

(13:59):
own life. I was meant to be best man for
a bloke's wedding. That afternoon, I went to my mate
and said, I just have to get to Heathrow. I
need to get on a plane because there's no way
my mate would do what he did. So I arrived home,
went to the police, said you need to investigate this.
This bloke was good looking, married with three children, status
inside of work, status outside of work, he had everything.

(14:20):
People like that don't take their own life. And that's
when I learned my first lesson, and my bubble was burst.
This detective put his arm around me and said, mate,
it happens all the time, and it doesn't discriminate. It
takes people down that you don't expect it too. People
that seem to have it all tick all the boxes,
they're the ones we have to worry about.

Speaker 4 (14:38):
So I went to the funeral.

Speaker 5 (14:39):
A thousand people at the funeral, and of course I'd
been out of town in the UK working for him,
and I said, every time I spoke to him, he
was positive, upbeat, He always had workarounds for every.

Speaker 4 (14:48):
Deal that we're trying to chase.

Speaker 5 (14:50):
He showed no vulnerability whatsoever to me, and everyone said
the same thing.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
He had that mask on so tight, and not even
his wife knew.

Speaker 4 (14:59):
His wife did no.

Speaker 5 (15:00):
He took his own life on the day that his
third and final child finished their HC.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
God.

Speaker 5 (15:05):
So we're here in North Sydney, so sure school just
down the road. That's where Henry finished his schooling and
he was at the pub having a few beers in
the green Gate at Kolara and.

Speaker 4 (15:16):
We never saw him alive again.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
What do you think of when people talk about suicide
because people often, I mean, it has so much stigma
around being selfish. A good friend of mine grew up
without his dad because his dad took his own life,
and I think he really struggled with the identity of
not being enough for his dad, and people would always say, oh,
you've got a child, like it's so selfish, how could
he ever do that to you?

Speaker 2 (15:38):
What is your opinion of that.

Speaker 5 (15:39):
That's changed over the time. I know exactly what your
friend would have been thinking. I was angry for a
long time.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
I used to and I think people said it to him.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
People would be like, you know, it was such a
selfish thing for him to do, to leave you like this,
And that's kind of the mentality towards it that he
grew up with for a long time.

Speaker 5 (15:56):
I think a lot of people still feel that way.
There's no doubt about it, that anger and that feeling
of selfishness and so forth until I started speaking to
people that had actually tried to take their life, and
they'll still with us. So those conversations I've had are
incredibly powerful and emotional. And when I've spoken to people
that have tried to take their life, like the moment

(16:17):
they let go of the bridge, or the moment they
took the last sip of grog with a handful of tablets,
the moment that it was sort of too late they
regretted it. And that's the thing that's given me great hope,
and it made me realize that perhaps he was just
so dark, he was just so sad, he didn't know
how to handle it.

Speaker 4 (16:37):
It's like putting on you know, like.

Speaker 5 (16:38):
Horses put on those what are the finders, Yeah, the blinders,
and it's like just because you need to get that
gets so narrow and so dark that you don't even
see what could be outside your life at the time.
And when I talk to people that have tried to
take their life, when they explain to me what they're
going through, I understand why they want to take their life,
because that life is shit, that life is awful, and
the thought of living another day in it, I understand it,

(17:01):
but that's not the reality of what their life actually is.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
No, it's a place that they go to that they
won't always be in that place. And I think in
what you said, Laura, a lot of people that do
that it's not a selfish act. In fact, they truly
believe it's unselfish. They believe that the people in their
lives life will be better off once they're not there.
So I think it's a really hard thing for people
to say and reiterate that message to your friend of

(17:26):
like how selfish your dad was when I don't know
what he was thinking at that time.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
And I do think that the sentiment is changing, and
I think the more that these conversations had it's changing.
The understanding around it is changing. But yeah, I do
think that a lot of people feel as though it
lacks comprehension, especially when there are kids involved.

Speaker 5 (17:47):
Absolutely, just to reiterate the story about exactly that, about
feeling people are going to be better off without you.
There was a guy that did the Man Up Program
with Me on the ABC, which challenged masculinity and tried
to work out why we lose so many One of
the guys in that. I stayed in contact with him
after and he explained to me why he tried to
take his own life because he woke up in a

(18:08):
hospital bed and the doctor said, your wife and children
are here and they want to see you. Like, imagine
trying to take your own life. You've been unsuccessful. God,
You're lying in a hospital bed and your wife and
children are outside and you're about to see them.

Speaker 4 (18:22):
So that Just think about that for a moment.

Speaker 5 (18:25):
And then when he saw them and the cuddles and
all that happened, they then left. Eventually he lay in
bed and he said, I don't think I'm good enough
for that family. My wife deserves a better bloke, My
kids deserve a better dad.

Speaker 4 (18:38):
That's why I'm trying to check out.

Speaker 5 (18:40):
Because she will eventually find someone else, and even though
the sadness will end up being less and less, she'll
eventually be happier than whatever I can give her. Then
you ask his wife that thought, and she's like, what
are you? What my world and you're the kids world?
Like we're a team, the four of us here, this

(19:01):
is us.

Speaker 4 (19:01):
This is it. You know, ups and downs, good bad
days and other days.

Speaker 5 (19:05):
You're totally in love with them like, this is it, mate,
We're in this life together, we're going through life's ups
and downs. I don't expect this perfect BS world.

Speaker 4 (19:13):
And I can now.

Speaker 5 (19:14):
Say that that's sixteen eight years and they're still all together, happy.
And when I catch up with him up on the
Gold Coast, he looks at me and goes, fuck, what
was I thinking?

Speaker 1 (19:26):
What was it like, Gus? How did you feel when
that happened to your friend? And I'm so sorry that happened,
But was there a part of you that was like?
How did I not see that? How did I not
know that someone so close to me was going through that?

Speaker 5 (19:42):
I think because I was working for him in the UK,
I gave myself a bit of a pass on that
one because I but however, I was like, I can't
believe he kept it from everyone here at work who
knew him well, Like he'd been there twenty years, so
people had known him really well.

Speaker 4 (19:56):
He had that on so tight. Yeeah so and that's
what that's what men do.

Speaker 5 (20:01):
I won't tell the stories here on this podcast right now,
but I would have one hundred and fifty blokes like
me who loved someone who took their own life that
the night before, the day before, hours before, they were
literally having what they would say was such a wonderful
time together.

Speaker 3 (20:19):
It's so I mean, we've spoken about this concept of
toxic masculinity, and this is one part of how it
manifest We've just spoken about it quite a bit on
the recent episodes around how men don't go and get
their general health checkups because they're supposed to just be fine.
And this has been something that's impacted my world massively.
My stepdad just passed away from terminal prostate cancer because

(20:41):
he never got tested. And it's all of these things
and they're in isolation, they're all massive, but then you
look at them combined and it's like this idea that
men are just supposed to get on with it.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
This is the outcome. This is what happens.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Some of them are dying because of things that could
have been completely prevented. We'll both situations could be completely prevented.
You've done an incredible TED talk and I don't want
to but to the name is someone you love suffering
in silence, here's what to do. This has been quite
a viral TED talk, and I guess the question is
here and what we've spoken about this, identifying that someone

(21:15):
in your life could be going through this and you
would have no idea.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
How do we know? What do we do?

Speaker 4 (21:21):
Well?

Speaker 5 (21:22):
We don't know because as general rule, blokes in particular
are really good at making out that everything's awesome when
it's not. So to build an emotional muscle and a
connection where you can have a wartz in all conversation
with somewhere out without any fear of judgment, because blokes
just don't want to be judged.

Speaker 4 (21:38):
They don't want to be told what to do.

Speaker 5 (21:40):
Sometimes they've tried to have a conversation, it gets shut
down but the wrong person.

Speaker 4 (21:44):
They'll never try that conversation again.

Speaker 5 (21:46):
Literally, they'll try it once, and it might be when
they were really little and they're just told in the
park at the playground.

Speaker 4 (21:52):
Get up, suck it up, suck it up, don't cry
like a girl.

Speaker 5 (21:56):
That's the type of stuff they get. So they go, oh, okay,
so girls are allowed to cry.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
I'm not. I won't be an uncomfortable situation. That's how
I'm meant to act.

Speaker 5 (22:04):
And you've got men now that I speak to in
their forty fifties and sixties that have never asked for
help because if that's what they got. So from my
point of view, it's like I've never been more vulnerable
with my group of friends. I said the other day,
I'm really scared of some decisions that I have to
make over the next few months and stuff with various
things going on in my life.

Speaker 4 (22:22):
And Blake say, just go what do you mean? I said,
I'm scared, stiff, And they're.

Speaker 5 (22:25):
Like, but but you you go well, like you're going well,
like you got all this stuff going. I go, mate,
I could fuck it up any time now, Like we're
always on that sort of verge trying our best to
do stuff I'm telling you, and it just makes people
feel better talking about the Ted Talk. I spoke to
all these speakers the other day about the Ted Talk,
and I said, I was so frightened the night before.

(22:47):
My wife was like, all right, mate, get into bed,
like she was jet lagged. She wanted to watch the
and feel good about it. And I told them how
scared I was, and until I got up onto that
red dot and I went, oh, I've got it, I've
got it. But up until that moment, I had no
idea that I'd got it. And it made people feel better.
That someone they thought would be handling everything that no

(23:09):
dramas was actually going through a human condition.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
And I think vulnerability in a way is contagious. Like
when you open up a conversation and are vulnerable to someone,
you're giving them the okay to do it back. Which
is why it's so important to take the mask off
and be honest, because I can guarantee you the relief
a man would feel when another man opens up, Oh
my god, thank god, I'm not the only person. Like,
even if that's their internal monologue, their internal monologue might

(23:34):
be enough to make a difference that day.

Speaker 5 (23:35):
That's exactly right, and all it needs is one person
be brave enough to go.

Speaker 4 (23:40):
This is how I feel.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
It's hard though, because it depends on the family, it
depends on the culture, like and I know that in
the people that we surround ourselves with. Absolutely, vulnerability is
a beautiful thing. But vulnerability can also make other people
feel uncomfortable. And that's why, especially in terms of death,
we as a society deal with it's so badly. And
I mean, for example, I have a very good friend

(24:04):
when we were at university, a friend of ours, she
passed away and at the time my girlfriend. They were
in a car together, and I remember her saying, no
one ever brought it up. They pretended like it didn't happen.
And then I still think about it every day. I
still think about it all the time. And people didn't
bring it up because they were so scared about reminding me.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
And she's like, you can't not remind me. I know,
But then, you know, I think it's because we have
been conditioned to.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
Not want to make people cry. I don't want to
make you cry, so I'm just not going to ask.
And I guess, how do we get over that hump,
the awkwardness around vulnerability, just.

Speaker 5 (24:40):
By having to go at it like changing it? Like
what we're doing right now is not working. If you
did a podcast and no one listened to it, you go, Okay,
we're going to have to change it up.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
Here cry on every episode.

Speaker 5 (24:50):
At moment, that's fantastic, right, because you'd be looked upon
as a strong woman who's doing well in life blah
blah blah, and you're showing true emotion.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
That's awesome.

Speaker 5 (24:59):
But at the end of the day, people say to me,
how do I start the conversation? Bumble and fumble your
way through it, or send them a simple text message
just saying I want to have a conversation with it.

Speaker 4 (25:08):
It's going to be a little bit deep. Don't quite
know what to do.

Speaker 5 (25:11):
Can we go for a walk tomorrow rather than having
a beer on Saturday at the footy? Let's have a
walk together, do something differently, because at the moment, the
number one way to die as a young Australian male
is suicide. Seven men a day, two women, sixty five
thousand attempts. Stop doing what you're doing and do something different.
And if that means you're going to be uncomfortable, well tough,
you're going to have to be uncomfortable. But the more

(25:32):
you practice it, it's just like going to the gym.
I've lost forty kilos four times in ten years. Right,
so I'm at the moment on my way back down again,
feeling good about life. Three months ago I walked into
the gym. I felt a shame. My membership wasn't up
to scratch. They thought that I had left. I forgot
my tow, I didn't have my pottle. The girl at
the front counter.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
You've not been here for a while. You didn't even
bring a.

Speaker 5 (25:53):
Town like you literally mate, you're having a Barry Crocker.
So I'm there like that. Now, I walk into the
gym and it's like.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
Get I, Susie, Hey you going? Can I guess? How
are you going? What are you going to do today? Mate? Going? Well?
Brother data And it's all that little bit of connection.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
You're high fiving on the way in now.

Speaker 4 (26:07):
Because I've practiced it right.

Speaker 5 (26:09):
So the first person you asked a question about, how
do you get over this awkwardness? Get over it by
just going big, deep breath. I'm going to tell you
how I feel. You don't need to fix me. I'm
going through some stuff and just blurt it all out.
And if you don't want to do that with a friend,
do it with a professional.

Speaker 4 (26:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
And it's also like on that Laura, it's awkward for
people because the conversations just aren't being had. That's why,
like when someone opens up to you and you don't
know what to do, it's because no one's opened up
to you before. But if we all start to hub
those conversations, it's going to get a lot easier. But
when you give us those statistics, gus, are we seeing
suicide rates plateau increase or decrease.

Speaker 5 (26:46):
We had a slight decrease through COVID five point six percent,
so one.

Speaker 4 (26:49):
Hundred and seventy people less.

Speaker 5 (26:50):
Absolutely, But I worked I think I worked it out
that we had something in common, right, so people just
had the same stuff they're going through.

Speaker 4 (26:58):
We had the same.

Speaker 5 (26:58):
Issues, the same dramas seeing friends being able to you know,
people in Victoria compared to people in other parts of
the country. So we had something that just went, you
know what, we're all in this together. And Ossies loved
that coming out of that. The pressure that comes with
the finances puts onto the relationship. I expected to have
an increase. We haven't touched wood, but well, I reckon

(27:19):
we're hanging on like it's a cliffhanger at the moment.
We're literally hanging on for dear life. Because those numbers,
at some point when people are under so much pressure,
are bound to increase. But it's all about emotional muscle
and working that emotional muscle, which means we're going to
have to start getting uncomfortable.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
It's interesting what you say about COVID because so many
people I remember the news at time. Everyone was like,
it's going to increase, it's going to increase. We're going
to have this absolute just that's going to be the
second biggest killer we've got COVID, and then it's going
to be people who can't handle the current situation. But
you mentioned this idea that we all had something to
work towards. We all had this thing in common. Do

(27:55):
you think then it's sense of community, It's sense of village,
it's sense of having shared interest, Like, what do you
think is it? That's the thread that keeps people feeling
as though they have something to be connected to.

Speaker 5 (28:06):
When I do my keynote, now, it's all about village.
So that's what I've taken from what you just said.
I think all of that is right. But you just
think village is an easy one to think of because
I get people to write down a list of the
people that they love and adore. Most people have never
written that list ever before. You've got them in your
head the people you love, of course, but have you
ever written the list of people that you love and

(28:27):
then gone to work on Could I do better with
that person? I'm probably doing really well with that one.
Oh maybe I should give that person a call. Make
those connections. If your village the most important thing in
your life because believe me, work they can chop you
any minute. Life can do all sorts of stuff to you.
Your people, your village are the most important. So for me,
having that village around you that knows everything about you,

(28:48):
having those warts and all combos without any fear of judgment,
that is the best thing you can do as a
human being because you'll go through good and bad together
that way.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
It's something that it gets trick heer as you get older,
your network gets smaller. There's some statistic that like every
seven years you lose half your friends or something. Not
lose them in the way we're talking about, but you
just lose connection with them. Do you think that there
is something to be said around the friendships and working
on those connections as we get older, because I think
there's so many people that get into their sixties and

(29:16):
their seventies and they look around and they go, I
don't really have many friends left.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
I've got family.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Mine nana has more friends than me.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
My nana had none and she tied away. We just
had her funeral. God's beat a fucking groom week. Her
funeral last week, and it was just me, my mum my,
sister and my auntie. Yeah, and it was because she
had dementia and her but which was part of why
her world got really small. But I do remember her
being like families enough, I don't need friends anymore. But

(29:44):
it made her world tiny, probably very unfulfilling.

Speaker 4 (29:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (29:48):
Well, from my point of view, it's all about your
village and your friendships. But you need to work on them.
And people do stuff to you too, and you just
like get so disappointed the way they react to something
or they've let you down or whatever. Most of its
just go, okay, that's it. They're not my people anymore,
and that's okay. But I would prefer to go back
and say, why did you do that to me? I
thought we had this connection. I don't understand it. Like

(30:10):
I've got WhatsApp groups come out.

Speaker 4 (30:11):
Of me yinging.

Speaker 5 (30:11):
I went to a retreat in Bali. When was it
about a month ago? Within three days, I'm like, right,
we've got to.

Speaker 4 (30:19):
Have a WhatsApp group.

Speaker 5 (30:20):
This is us, you know, because we had breakfast, lunch
and dinner together, we did treatments.

Speaker 4 (30:23):
Together, we did yoga together, with walks together. Now we're swapping.

Speaker 5 (30:27):
Have you been able to get the new recipe for
this because we want to eat a certain way and
we don't want to be eating carbs and blah blah blah,
all this stuff.

Speaker 4 (30:33):
I've built a community, but if I hadn't got all
their numbers, it wouldn't happen. It wouldn't have happened.

Speaker 5 (30:38):
And people go, oh, I wish I had or I
wish I had taken that phone.

Speaker 4 (30:41):
Just do it.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, you need to make effort. We talk about this
all the time, Like at our age when I say
our age just adults with busy lives and kids and
whatever else. You do have to make a conscious effort
to keep those relationships in your.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
Own because they're not for sure.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
It's different to when you're twenty two or you're in
UNI and you don't have any responsibilities and you've got
all the time in the world. You do have to
make an effort. And also, like the older you get,
you get tired. You don't want to go out, like
you said, a lounge. You're like, I don't want to
go meet my friends. I want to send a louage
with my dog any ice cream. Yeah, but you do
have to get that was personal, got it. I was
talking about myself I'm.

Speaker 5 (31:13):
With you though, I mean Scooby and I love it
just up on the sofa.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
That's actually a dog's name, well Scooby, Scooby original Scooby.

Speaker 4 (31:22):
Yeah, she's a girl too. Em. I got Winnie too cute.

Speaker 5 (31:26):
And we've got Angus, which was named after me by
It's a long story, but basically a guy came to
Australia because of me named his dog Angus, lost his
job and I've given me the dog.

Speaker 4 (31:36):
And now I've got a dog named after me. Wow.
When I'm at the people are like, you up yourself made?

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Like, come on, that is very very funny. But are
there any statistics or information around And I guess this
is either from men that have openly talked about depression
or maybe attempted suicide. Are there any information about what
is the leading cause of attempted suicide and depression? Like,
what is the one thing that a man is feeling?

(32:01):
And I say that because I wonder if it's economical
pressure or I wonder if it's like the person that
you spoke about earlier who says I just don't feel
good enough for my family. What are we looking at?

Speaker 4 (32:11):
Two main things?

Speaker 5 (32:12):
You said them both relationships and money, you know, and
the fact that you're a failure, the fact that you
feel like you haven't stepped up to the plate and
done the job that we are meant to do as men,
which is provide and make sure everyone's okay and everyone's
safe and that sort of stuff. So they're the two
biggest things when it comes to suicide, and men in
particular find it really hard to be vulnerable enough and
talk about that every time you do, like, okay. At

(32:35):
a men's group the other day, two hundred and eighty
seven blokes avalon Surf Life Saving Club. I had to
open up the entire Surf Life Saving Club because we
had people coming from everywhere. Two hundred and eighty seven blokes.
One night, Tuesday night, horrible weather. They all turned up
and within five minutes they're like, oh, oh, he feels
the same way as I do.

Speaker 4 (32:54):
No.

Speaker 5 (32:54):
No, this whole bloke says, Oh, that's how I've always felt,
and I wish I could talk about it. I felt
this way when I was eighteen. Now I'm seventy six.
A sixteen year old boy stood up and said, in
front of his dad, I've been thinking about killing myself
for the last three months.

Speaker 4 (33:07):
His dad never heard that before.

Speaker 5 (33:09):
So we had this moment where two hundred eighty seven blokes,
we all came together with the kid and the father
in the middle, just having the biggest cuddle.

Speaker 4 (33:15):
That was the start of the night. Three and a
half hours later, everyone's going, oh, I had no idea.
I thought I was the only one.

Speaker 5 (33:22):
I thought I was the only one that didn't quite
feel like I was nailing life. And life really is
your relationships with your loved ones, your children and so forth,
having enough money to go and do things, keeping up
with the joneses or that jazz, perhaps not being able
to do it in bed anymore, all this sort of stuff,
and it all just gets in.

Speaker 4 (33:40):
This melting pot and blokes end up thinking I'm no good.

Speaker 5 (33:44):
So they end up making a permanent decision based on
a temporary situation. You go to one of these nights
you realize, oh, it's all right, We're just one part
of one big dysfunctional bunch.

Speaker 4 (33:52):
Of blokes and that's okay.

Speaker 5 (33:54):
And you're really good at something, and I'm really good
at that, and you're not so good at that, and
we just bumble our lives through together.

Speaker 4 (33:59):
That is what life's a been.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
How do you recommend for I mean, we have a
very large women listener base. How do you recommend they
have those conversations? And you know, I had to have
this conversation really recently with someone in my life and
I had said, are you okay, not actually expecting the
response like it was more he was going through something,

(34:22):
and he said no, I'm not like I don't have
anything to live for. I'm not happy, and I'm shamed
to say that. I was like, what do I do?
Like I for someone that has so much information like
I have, and I talk about this all the time.
And I was really panicky because I was like, Okay,
this is him saying like I really need help. And

(34:42):
I had a moment. I was like, I don't know
what to say or do. So I just said, you know,
like we talked, We did we absolutely. I was like,
I'm here, let's do this. But is there like a
right response? You know, I'm not a man. I don't
know what the best response is for that. What do
you recommend for the women that are wanting to have
those conversations but not quite sure. They don't want to
scare them away, they don't want to push them over
the edge.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
Well, thank you for sharing that, by the way, and
as your friend, okay for.

Speaker 5 (35:06):
Now, Yeah, yeah, there might be some people that I
can help him with. The thing is not to think
you have to fix it, you know, like your hubby,
if he does open up to you like you're the
luckiest person in the world. If you've got a relationship
where the boy says to his lover you know, wife, partner, whatever,
what's going on, you've hit the lottery, you know, because
a lot of blokes love their partners, but they will

(35:27):
never have this discussion with them.

Speaker 4 (35:30):
So that's that's a huge thing.

Speaker 5 (35:33):
If a bloke ends up being brave enough to tell
you how he feels, then please just listen and don't
try to fix Just say, okay, thank you so much
for telling me.

Speaker 4 (35:42):
You're not worrying alone anymore.

Speaker 5 (35:43):
Now we're a team and we're going to work this
stuff out together, and that's all you really need to
say at that moment. Blokes want to fix things all
the time. They don't necessarily are very good listeners. So
there's a whole lot going on there, and that's really
the discussion between a man and a man. When a
mate hears it from another mate, but when it's your
girl partner, oh, it's just about okay, thank you for

(36:04):
sharing that with me. Now let's get on the road
to recovery together and not fixing it, but just saying.

Speaker 4 (36:09):
You're not alone anymore.

Speaker 5 (36:11):
Worrying alone about things gives us really bad outcomes. Once
someone shares it, then everything just gets a bit calmer
and then you can get on the road to recovery.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
And so what are the next steps to recovery? So
obviously we have Gotcha for Life, which is an amazing foundation,
but like, where do people go? We're like, okay, let's
do this together. Let's get you help.

Speaker 4 (36:30):
First.

Speaker 5 (36:31):
First stop GP mental health program. You know, you basically
get that program lined out for you. You get to
meet a counselor you get perhaps medication, whatever it might be.
There's so many wonderful people out there, but it all
starts with your GP. If you know someone and you're
loyal to them, that's where you should be. If not,
sometimes people go too late, you have to take them
straight to the hospital. The first thing you get taught

(36:52):
at all the lessons we do mental health first aid
is you say, are you suicidal? Are you going to
kill yourself, which seemed to me to be the most
ridiculous thing to ask, but it sort of shocks them
into actually, I am I've actually thought about it, right, Okay,
well it's that can't be you that needs to go
to a hospital and so forth. But they might turn
around and say, actually, no, no, no, no, I'm just

(37:12):
really sort of anxious and okay, let's go to the
doctor and sit down together. But I've been to two
hundred doctor's appointments with my mates. I don't let them
go them by themselves. I get a day off work
and I go with them, and then we go and
have lunch after that type of thing.

Speaker 4 (37:26):
So you build it together, so not such a big thing.

Speaker 5 (37:28):
I've had so many people go to that first appointment
and drive straight past or sit in the waiting room
and then walk out before the doctor comes. It's a
really scary thing. Don't let that person go through it alone.
It's like your mental fitness. You're a team now, So
I'm so much better with you us three together. You know,
we can handle so much more rather than me just
being sent off by you to a doctor.

Speaker 4 (37:47):
Let's do it together. We're a team.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
Now, what about the gaps though, because I would say that,
I mean the necessity to go to the hospital verse
trying to book in to see someone them not being
available when you need it. Like there's so many apps
in the mental health system to be able to service
people in their time of need, and there is so
much waiting, which I think can be so problematic for
someone when they are on the precipice of this, especially

(38:11):
if they're not communicating it absolutely.

Speaker 4 (38:13):
I mean, that's why so many four through the gaps
as well.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
That's the problem, and it's probably also why if there
is the urgency to it, I don't think most people
would know that, like going to emergency, because I think emergency.
You think I'm having a physical ailment break all. Yeah,
you don't think, Okay, I'm having like a mental emergency.
This is a mental emergency, and they will get you
a psychologist, but you'll be escalated in that environment, whereas

(38:36):
if you go through Okay, we'll book in and maybe
I've got an appointment in four weeks time, kind of
feels like you're not prioritized.

Speaker 4 (38:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (38:43):
No, And that's absolutely true, and there's a lot of people.
If people come through me, I've got a directory of
people that I can you know, we can jump through
so few hoops and so forth. But as a general rule,
if you don't have my number and you can't just say, hey, Gus,
i've got a friend of mine that needs help, they
go and get some help.

Speaker 4 (38:59):
It's six weeks, like you.

Speaker 5 (39:00):
Say, it's crazy, or it's like they find a counselor,
but the counselor doesn't connect with them.

Speaker 4 (39:05):
Like in Australia you have to see six.

Speaker 5 (39:06):
Counselors before you find one that you connect with, that
you feel the same energy with.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Got to have the money to do that as well,
that's right.

Speaker 4 (39:11):
And then you've got medication.

Speaker 5 (39:13):
Get the meds right first time round, or too much
of this and not enough of that. So it's a
journey to go on. But if you're going on that
journey by yourself, you're less likely to succeed. That's why
if you have someone in your corner, you go, well,
I've seen that counselor and that made no sense to me.

Speaker 4 (39:28):
I never want to see them again.

Speaker 5 (39:29):
Okay, no worries. I'm now going to cook you another one.
I'm going to be there the next time you do something.
Let's go and talk to the doctor again, don't let
them do it by themselves once.

Speaker 4 (39:38):
They've told you about it. You're a team. You do
stuff together.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
Do you think that there has been an increase in
things like anxiety disorders or people who are struggling with
their mental health. Do you think that this is something
that is increasing or do you think it is just
increasing that we're speaking about it.

Speaker 5 (39:54):
I think it's increasing, but it's certainly more we're speaking
about it social media. Yeah, it's like if I could,
I know, we're all on social media here and your
shows on social media, as mine is.

Speaker 4 (40:05):
It's just not being used for enough good.

Speaker 3 (40:07):
And even kids with anxiety disorders, like the number of
and I say this in terms of like people I
know who are in their twenties. People are who I
know who are literally children mums who are dealing with
children who have anxiety disorders. And I mean I am
a mum to very young kids. So this is not
a world that I've been in for very long. But
I wasn't aware of how prolific it is. And I'm
not sure if whether it was diagnosed as frequently in

(40:30):
the past or whether we just I think, like, suck
it up, you go on to school like school refusal
or not.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
It's just it's definitely more.

Speaker 5 (40:36):
Literally combo of everything you're saying, for sure. And I
think that's a good thing that we're now talking about.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
It more and so forth through identifying it.

Speaker 4 (40:44):
Yeah, and we've got still a lot of oldies out there.

Speaker 5 (40:46):
Like I did a chat up micgold Coast the other
day and I could just tell about halfway through my chat.

Speaker 4 (40:50):
That they weren't connecting with me at all on it.

Speaker 5 (40:52):
So I had to change tack and I said, Okay,
let's not because they're all sit there say young people today,
you know they're soft. They've got it all too easy.
Back in my day they started having those convos. I said, okay,
So let's say at Christmas time, your uncle Harry. Uncle
Harry's over there, So do you want a young person
to walk into Christmas and go, oh, I can't wait
to get Uncle Harry by himself because I want to

(41:13):
get his advice on something.

Speaker 4 (41:15):
Or do you want them to walk in and say.

Speaker 5 (41:16):
Uncle Harry, there's that old bugger that I'd never talked
to him about my feelings because you will never understand
which Uncle Harry do you want to be? They all go, well,
I want to be the guy that gives advice. I've
been on this world a while, I've got I know
some stuff. Well, at the moment, none of those young
people are coming to you because.

Speaker 4 (41:30):
You think that that's soft.

Speaker 5 (41:32):
You think you don't the world is a different place
to the place you grew up with. These young kids
are growing up in a different world. You cannot talk
to them, you cannot educate them, teach them the way
that we were taught because the world's different, simply because
what we've got all around us now somewhere we'd have
our phones.

Speaker 4 (41:48):
You've guys got that top sitting on mine.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yeah, there's so many good, so much good that comes
with that connection.

Speaker 4 (41:58):
But it's not the right type of connection.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
And I was talking about this to someone the other day. Actually,
she is very, very wealthy, has a wonderful life. Their
husband and wife is still together. Family's incredible. The daughter
gets everything that she could possibly need, go to a
wonderful school. And she was saying to me, she's eleven.
She's like, my daughter is on anxiety medication. And she's like,
I do not get it. And she's like, obviously she's

(42:21):
on the medication because I'm looking after her, but she's
like it is beyond me, Like she could want for
nothing that she doesn't. Well, No, the point is life
has changed. It comes down to things like social media.
And when we say social media can be a wonderful thing,
I do agree with you, Gus. It's not used for
quite the right thing, and for an eleven year old
it is a very dangerous place. We didn't have that

(42:43):
when we were eleven.

Speaker 5 (42:45):
That's right, your friends saying she'd want for nothing. There's
something she wants she's not getting. And it may not
be the latest gadget, the latest this, and the school
and the this and the nice car dropping them off
and the beautiful holiday look forward to. She may need
something completely different than eleven year old. She needs maybe
a bit more, I don't know. And I'm throwing it
out there, just time with mum and dad, without the

(43:07):
phone going and the thing and this and the next
thing to be organized. Maybe just sitting going for a walk.
That might be what she actually wants.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
Well, I mean, the point is is that you can't
be going and throwing your life opinions and your life
experiences onto the next generation.

Speaker 5 (43:20):
The worst thing a parent can say is back in
my day. This is what you Oh.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
My mom used to say it all the time. It's
like she goes, I had to walk to school through
four meters of grass. You can walk to school too, And.

Speaker 5 (43:30):
I was like, okay, mom, But honestly, this world is
so different to everyone else. You've just got to sit
there and go, okay, what are you going through?

Speaker 4 (43:38):
And listen. My parents are terrible at listening.

Speaker 5 (43:40):
We're just really good at telling this is what we
need to happen, blah blah blah, just sitting down and
having a conversation where it goes both ways.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
It's so interesting you say that, because I find like
the times where I get the most information out of
especially Maley, because she's old enough to have a conversation
with me, is at nighttime. We're going to bed and
we've got time to be calm, and I'll lay down
in bed next to her, and that's when all the
stuff comes out. That's when the bad bits of the
day comes out. That's when she talks to me about,
you know, one of the boys that was mean to
her or something that happened at school, and.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
She's had it bottled up all day.

Speaker 4 (44:10):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (44:10):
But it's been so quick and everything's moved from dinner
to BA to like d that she hasn't had the
moment to say like, oh mommy, this made me sad today,
or how she felt about it.

Speaker 5 (44:20):
You created the connection point, the moment for her to
feel safe enough to talk about it at bedtime.

Speaker 4 (44:26):
And she might have even at her young age. Now Okay,
that's the.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Time I'm going to tell mum, we can talk about
these things.

Speaker 4 (44:30):
You know.

Speaker 5 (44:30):
But let's say you're away with the show, or you're
away doing something else, you're not there and something happens.
You want to build a relationship with her where you can.
You can FaceTime and you go, Mum, I need to
talk to you about something, and that'll come. But now
she's got that one safe place.

Speaker 4 (44:45):
That is brilliant.

Speaker 5 (44:45):
Most of us are so busy, we miss all these
little connection points and it gets to the point.

Speaker 4 (44:50):
We had one hundred and fifty.

Speaker 5 (44:51):
Three thousand school kids go through our programs last year.

Speaker 4 (44:54):
It's a lot of kids.

Speaker 5 (44:56):
Seventy three percent said that they cannot talk to their
mum and dad about the stuff that's truly going on
because they go home and there's a little moment and
then dad will have phone or ring or Mum will say, oh,
I got no time for this. There's a drama, there's
a situation. The moment is lost and they never talk
about it again. The mums and dads. If they were
told your kid's about to tell you something really important,

(45:17):
of course the parent will go, I'm not picking the
phone up, I'm not worrying about anything.

Speaker 4 (45:21):
Yes, you've got my full attention.

Speaker 5 (45:22):
But we never have that moment right, It's never perfect,
So the moment gets lost.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
And they would be horrified as parents to why they
have missed that.

Speaker 5 (45:29):
And then of course it builds and builds and builds
in someone's tunueing to the point where it becomes anxiousness,
depression or God help us something to do around suicide.

Speaker 1 (45:38):
What do you think like attitude wise needs to change
attitude towards modern masculinity.

Speaker 5 (45:44):
It's tough at the moment for a lot of young
blokes out there. They don't quite know what their role
is is rightly, so there's been a complete change. I
one hundred percent agree with that. I've got a twenty
four year old son who's a teacher over in London.
At the moment I talk to him all the time
of just being a decent, kind human being, Like you
just know what the right thing to do is and
that might mean you miss a few things, that might

(46:04):
mean things don't quite happen for you, but you can
just live with yourself for being a decent person. I
reckon that is what it's all about. But it's a
tricky one. But for most parents, just bringing up kind children,
that's a hard thing to do.

Speaker 4 (46:18):
But that's what a we're all striving for.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
Do you know what I would love more men to know?
And I have said this over and over on this podcast,
but I think a big part of men not wanting
to be vulnerable with their friends, female friends, partners is
because they think it makes them less masculine, and they
think that that vulnerability or crying is embarrassing. I can't
tell you how much I love a man that cries.

(46:42):
I love a man that is open with his emotions.
It gob smacks me when a man's like, I don't
want to embarrass you, I'm so sorry I'm crying, and
I'm like, are you kidding me? Like this is you've
gone up in my world because you feel like you're
in a place where you're able to talk. And I
think if more men knew that women do not have
a problem with being vulnerable, Like.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
It's actually attractions.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
We think it's hot that cry cry to me. If
you cry to me, and I will you wet your
tears and I will wear whatever.

Speaker 5 (47:13):
Godmore, just when you engage women.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Now, I'm engaged to a lovely man, but I love
when Ben.

Speaker 4 (47:18):
Christ No, but I agree with you.

Speaker 5 (47:20):
I did this speed dating even though I've been married
for thirty years nearly coming up when I did the
Man Up program. But the girls didn't know that. There
was probably about there's ten of us, nine blokes that
looked like your husband.

Speaker 4 (47:33):
I've seen your your Sorry, he's a good looking.

Speaker 5 (47:36):
Guy, generic apparently, well you know that type's not generic.

Speaker 4 (47:42):
No, you know what I mean. Like, he's a good
looking guy.

Speaker 5 (47:45):
And I was by far the plainest of the ten,
right and the oldest, so anyway, but they didn't know that.
The girls didn't know that. So we did the speed dating.
I think we had five minutes each blah blah blah.
Then we had a dinner and at the end of
the night, the girls write down who they wanted to
date with.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
All ten wanted a date with me, Well maybe you're not.
The reason why is because.

Speaker 5 (48:07):
I was vulnerable and I showed my true emotions and
I was honest because I wasn't trying to find a
second date, I wasn't trying to take them home that night,
whatever it might be. I came from a place of
just I'm just going to be myself. And then the
guys that looked like your fiance coming up to the
end and go, hey, what's going on here? Like I
got like three dates and look at me and look

(48:27):
at you, and I just said to them, mate, The
greatest little snipbit that I can give you is that
you don't need to make out that everything's awesome, puffyr
chest out.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
Just be vulnerable.

Speaker 5 (48:37):
Girls love it, and do not apologize for when you cry,
like the first thing people do.

Speaker 4 (48:42):
Like, thank god, we've all cried today. We haven't apologized
to each other. Great.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
Laura cried four times this morning and said sorry each time,
and I said, stop apology because I was blobvery.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
It's a bit different.

Speaker 4 (48:52):
It's not.

Speaker 5 (48:53):
It's it's like apologizing for you being a human being. Yeah,
I can tell I've met you first time today. I
can tell that you you're just so you're strong, you're independent,
but you are a human, bloody being and that is
your attraction, right, so allow yourself to be that.

Speaker 3 (49:08):
It's such an interesting thing, and I mean it's a
thing that I think a lot of people learn with age,
but not everyone. I used to think that crying was weak, right,
and that's I think a lot of people think that.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
And I'm go back.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
I said this before on the podcast, but if you
haven't heard it, Like going back to when we did
The Bachelor million years ago, I was like, I'm never
going to cry. I'm not going to cry because people
who are watching this are going to think I'm pathetic.
So I was so steadfast, and then it was almost
the opposite because I and I felt all the things.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
I just did it not on camera. Did it to myself.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
You know, I cried at nighttime, but I was always
very stoic, and it was because I was so frightened
of embarrassing and humiliating myself. But watching it back, I
was like, no, I come across as cold. And then
it really changed my opinion around what and how people
are perceived because I was well, if you're if you're strong,
and you're stoic. You're perceived as though you aren't affected

(50:04):
by something and you don't need help, and everyone thinks
you're fine, and I was so not fine. And to me,
there was such a level of how disingenuous it was
to how I was actually feeling.

Speaker 4 (50:14):
Now, I cry all the time, and that's great because.

Speaker 3 (50:17):
And there's strength in that. I think it's vulnerability lubrication.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
You heard a hair fast everyone. Vulnerability is hot.

Speaker 4 (50:23):
It is.

Speaker 5 (50:24):
And I tell you and you girls, the way that
you are and the strength that you have in this podcast,
if you at one point just did that, just spoke
about that being vulnerability is a strength, Vulnerability is awesome,
vulnerability is hot, whatever you want to call it, that
would do us the world of good.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
You know, we've probably just created a new wave of monsters,
men that just go have heard this podcast and they
just didn't turn up at a date and cry like
they put their drops in. You're like, I've got this,
I know how to get a penny.

Speaker 4 (50:52):
I'm just healing at the moment.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Just give me a moment.

Speaker 1 (50:55):
And everyone's like, let's just go home to my house
and talk.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
It's why we all love the Broken Bird, right. That
was me in the day anyway.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
Oh, the only other thing I wanted to ask because
it was a term I hadn't heard, and produce the keys.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
You wrote it down the second mountain. What does this
mean to you?

Speaker 4 (51:08):
Yeah, a book.

Speaker 5 (51:09):
There's a fantastic book that's out there, and I've must
have bought it twenty times for twenty different people and
sent it to them all around the world. It's basically,
you know, you feel like you've made it, or you
feel like your life is like, okay, I'm really comfy
in life is really good. So it's a bit like
walking up a mountain. You think, oh, that's the peak,
and then you get to the peak and you go, oh,
there's another one. There's another one, you know, and it's

(51:29):
the second mount And the second mountain is actually the
one that's the one that you're meant to be. So
everything has got you to that first mountain that you
think is what it's all about, the success and the
celebrity or the money or whatever it might be. O,
my real destiny is this one over here, and now
I'm going to take everything that I've learned to get
to where I thought of for it to be and
go to that next bit and that basically takes all.

Speaker 4 (51:51):
Your ego out.

Speaker 5 (51:53):
It makes you realize that you're just a human being
and you're actually on this surf for not a very
long time, and you need to make sure that you
leave it in a better place than where you started.

Speaker 4 (52:02):
And for me, Gotcha for Life was my second mountain.
You know.

Speaker 5 (52:06):
I was thirty eight years of age. I was a salesman.
I got Jacko and I came up with this idea
for this ridiculous cricket show where I'd travel around the
world following the Australian cricketers. We somehow did twenty odd episodes,
three different shows, and then I end up on breakfast radio.

Speaker 4 (52:20):
My first gig ever was breakfast Radio Triple M.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
And I'm thinking, people don't just end up on breakfast radio.
You're obviously a very talented man to have just fallen
into that.

Speaker 4 (52:30):
Well.

Speaker 5 (52:30):
I did an Assie Goes Barmie and Ossie Goes Bolli
which was in India and Ossi Goes Calypso in the
West Indies and I was promoting and Ossie Goes Calypso
on Triple M in Melbourne on their breaky show, and
the boss was in a cab between the airport and
and the radio station, and he turns up and goes,
this guy can tell a story. We did a new
breakfast show in Sydney and that's how that all started.

(52:51):
It was two thousand and nine and I've still on
triple M now. But in twenty sixteen when I did
Man Up and then i started Gotcha Full life. Like
we've raised twenty million dollars now, no not a cent
from that.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
It's incredible.

Speaker 5 (53:03):
Got a cent from the government. So that's mums and dads, fives,
tens and twenties going. I believe in what you're doing.
This is going to help me, you know. I want
to prevent someone else going through what I'm going through.
That's what it's all about. Right, we're eight years in.
My wife and I do it together like it's just
the most extraordinary thing that we've found ourselves in and
I don't want to do anything else. And that's my

(53:23):
second mountain. So that's what I'm actually here for. All
the other stuff was like a bit of a bit
of a dress rehearsal.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
Be fun though at the start, I don't worry.

Speaker 5 (53:31):
I still need the balance of radio and having like
lovely mornings with you guys here because you know, I'm
going to a thing at lunch today which will be
very difficult, very emotional.

Speaker 4 (53:41):
So I need the balance in my life.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
You need to be able to have the laughs and
the light with the heavy.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (53:46):
Like I sometimes i come in to Triple Him in
the afternoons and I'm like, I walk straight into our
producer's meeting and I go, guys, you need.

Speaker 4 (53:52):
To help me today. Yeah, And that means to them,
I don't need to go into it.

Speaker 5 (53:57):
They just know that I've had a very emotional day
and I'm going they need a bit of warming up,
you know, because this is nonsense compared to what I've
just left, which.

Speaker 4 (54:04):
Was totally sadness and trauma and all that. So they're like,
we got your big man. We've got your big man.

Speaker 5 (54:09):
Everyone gets up and we hug each other within half
an hour, do a couple of pre records, you know,
go and have a coffee.

Speaker 4 (54:14):
And I'm back with my team again. I feel great.

Speaker 5 (54:18):
But if I if I went, I've just got to
be stoic here and I'd muck it up. That vulnerability
is really important, And then you also work out who
your people are because I can't do they have that
conversation if they weren't my people, because they go, mate,
it's just suck it up. We've all got jobs to do,
like you meant to be on drive radio, so just
do your job. The fact that I can say that
to the producers of my team and they rally, well,

(54:40):
it means that we've done something to build the right culture.

Speaker 4 (54:42):
And that's what I do a lot with.

Speaker 5 (54:44):
Corporates now, because you need to build the culture to
make sure people can be human.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
Gush, you're a wonderful man doing wonderful things, and please
let us know what else people can be doing or
where we can find more information.

Speaker 5 (54:54):
Well, if you go to Gotcha for life dot org,
it's got all that stuff there. We've got the mental
fitness gym, which is no mirror, is no fees, no weights.
It basically gives you daily little ticks and tricks to
get to work on this invisible emotional muscle that we're
talking about before. But you know, there's simple things you
can do on a weekly basis, which is like a
check in Tuesday. So my particular socials, it goes out

(55:16):
to people, but I do it well.

Speaker 4 (55:18):
Keisha's right here, your producer here.

Speaker 5 (55:20):
I send her this maybe every second or third because
I've got a group of people that I've tried to
look after.

Speaker 4 (55:25):
And I just say to keep you know, what are
you out of ten today? Simple as that.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
And she's just like, I'm looking five flame.

Speaker 5 (55:31):
Some days it's a seven. Some weeks is a three?
Some weeks is higher than that? And I'm like, if
it's anything under a seven, then it's a follow up. Okay,
what can I do a lot of people just the
fact that I got your text, It's given me another
I've gone from a six to a seven. Someone thinking
about me, someone caring about me, because we're all out
here in this big wide world alone a lot of
the time, and it's nice to have a bit of
unsolicited love.

Speaker 4 (55:53):
So check in. So put it in your diary. Is
everyone listening?

Speaker 5 (55:56):
A certain day doesn't have to be a Tuesday, but
I do a Tuesday at lunch time, before you go
and buy your lunch or whatever, before you sit down,
or as you're doing it, text ten mates saying, give
yourself a mark out of ten?

Speaker 4 (56:07):
How are you going today? I'm a blah blah blah. Friends,
you do? So do Seven's fine five.

Speaker 5 (56:13):
Whatever your village is, but whatever it is, let them
know that you're thinking about them.

Speaker 4 (56:17):
Unsolicited love is key and.

Speaker 5 (56:20):
So easy to send a text, right, we've always got
our phones with us that you just don't know what
that might do to someone to get a bit of
unsolicited love, a little text to go, oh that's so
lovely and they're gone through a bit of a tough time.
Hopefully they might say, actually, they'll be honest with you
and s I'm a three out of ten. And then
you wring them up, you FaceTime them, I'm here for you.
What can I do? Whatever it might be. You know,

(56:41):
I'm a part of this now. Just having those we're
so good in Australia talking about having great mates and stuff.

Speaker 4 (56:46):
It's bs. We've got to be better.

Speaker 5 (56:48):
We've got to go from sort of mates to being
really proper friends and just going and watching the game
and having a few beers. Of course that's a part
of it, having a family barbecue, I get it. But
to have your village, it's your most important people knowing
that they can talk to you about anything, what's and
all no judgment. That's what a good human being is about.
And you need to work on it. Just like your

(57:09):
physical fitness, to get mentally fit, you need to work
at it will not come by just sending the odd
text to you.

Speaker 4 (57:14):
Now you have to live.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
It well everything that Gus has just said. Then all
the links are in the show notes. So if you
want to go and find the Foundation or his Ted Talks,
just go check out podcast shown its thank you so
much for giving away, so it's.

Speaker 4 (57:25):
Really love to meet you both. Thank you