Cooper Chapman: Making Mental Health a Daily Habit

Former pro surfer Cooper Chapman turned mental health advocate and founder of The Good Human Factory is on a mission to reshape the conversation around mental well-being through initiatives like the 1% Good Club, inspiring small daily actions for a healthier mind.

In this episode of Conversations That Count, we dive into how gratitude, mindset shifts, and simple habits can transform mental health in schools, workplaces, and daily life.

Tune in now and be part of the 1% making a difference! 🎧

#MentalHealthMatters #TheGoodHumanFactory #1PercentBetter #Mindset #Wellbeing #ConversationsThatCount

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to this week's podcast.
I'm super excited to have CooperChapman with me today from the
Good Human Factory.
So welcome.
I have come to a couple of yourevents now and have been super
inspired by what you do.
So I'm really excited to haveyou on the guest and learn more
about what you do and how yougot into being so passionate and

(00:24):
advocate for mental health aswell.

SPEAKER_02 (00:26):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's great to be here.
I always love coming to theNess.
This studio is sitting in, mygood friend Dino's, and yeah,
having chats about what I do andhopefully offering some lessons
and tips from my life that canmaybe make other people's lives
a little bit better.

SPEAKER_00 (00:41):
Yeah, perfect.
So tell me about the Good HumanFactory and what it is that you
do.

SPEAKER_02 (00:46):
Oh, I do a lot of things with the Good Human
Factory now, but I guess itstarted with just me wanting to
share the lessons I've learnedaround mental health and the
different I guess, daily habitsand rituals that we can do that
are scientifically proven tomake us feel good that most of
us aren't doing.
And I kind of share that in afew different ways.
I guess the main basis of it ismy goal is to inspire people to

(01:09):
take action for their mentalhealth.
And how I do that is througheducation, which is the
workshops and the keynotes thatI deliver for high schools, for
sporting clubs, for corporategroups, and for events.
I also educate through mypodcast, Good Humans, where I've
interviewed now over a differentextraordinary people from F1

(01:29):
drivers to Olympic gold medalistto NFL players all the top
sports in Australia players allthe way to mental health experts
in neuroscience psychology allthose different topics I've
covered many of them so yeah mygoal is just to learn as much as
I can through these incrediblepeople which then offers that
learning to the people wholisten to the podcast and then I

(01:51):
guess the other pillar of what Itry and do is motivate people to
take those actions so I have afew different community things
like the events that you'veattended down to the 1% Good
Club, which is a community wherepeople practice meditation and
gratitude every day for 1% oftheir day, which is something
I'm super proud of.
And then, yeah, my merchandisethat I do just tries to motivate

(02:12):
people to, you know, think a bitdifferently about mental health,
realize that mental health andmental illness are kind of two
separate things.
So often we hear mental healthin the world and we straight
away think of mental illness.
My goal is to open up that wordto be like, hey, mental health
is something we all have, so weshould all be doing some stuff
to take care of it.
So a few different ways you cango with asking questions from
there, but I've kind of builtthis ecosystem of just trying to

(02:34):
make mental health a bit moredigestible for people, but most
importantly, try and inspireaction to actually take care of
our mental health better.

SPEAKER_00 (02:41):
Yeah.
I think you just had a reallygood point where people say
mental health and mentalillness, they think of it as a
negative thing.
Yet, you know, we do like workout for our physical body, but
what do we actually do for ourmental health?
Because it's something that youneed to work on every day to
make sure that you're in theright frame of mind.
So then you can continue to showup for work, life and all the

(03:04):
things as well.

SPEAKER_02 (03:05):
Yeah, definitely.
I think, you know, becausemental health is pretty often
invisible and it's really hardto kind of understand.
And so often with mental healthor mental illness, we're
treating symptoms and it's avery complex place.
So my kind of understanding andmy ideas and theories around
mental health is just like yousaid, with our physical health,

(03:26):
we have to be doing somethingevery single day to work on it.
Just like if you don't brushyour teeth for a few days, you
start to feel pretty gross inyour mouth, right?
If you don't do something foryour mental health, whether it
be meditation, getting innature, exercising, eating
healthy food, reading,breathwork.
There's so many modalities.
That's almost like cleaning ourmind, you know, giving a bit of

(03:47):
a clear out of our mind.
So my whole objective with theGood Human Factory is to learn
all of these differentmodalities, understand the
science, but then give peoplepractical ways how to implement
it.
So yeah, they're taking a fewsteps of what I call against the
treadmill of life.
Like we have perfect mentalhealth at one end of this
treadmill, mental illness if youfall off the back, And you know,
the end of the treadmill isunattainable because it's always

(04:11):
moving.
So the whole goal of, I thinklife is to be taken a few steps
against that metaphoricaltreadmill each day by doing the
things that we know now fromneuroscience and psychology and
positive psychology will makeyou feel good, but we need to
take actions.

SPEAKER_00 (04:25):
You mentioned that you do a lot of work with the
schools.
So how did you get into theschools and how is it received
as well?
Because like.
It's such a perfect age tostart, to bring this into your
awareness and be aware of howyou think and how it's
contributing as well to schoollife.
How did you get into that space?

SPEAKER_02 (04:47):
Well, the schools was where it all started for me,
to be honest.
Back in 2018, I think it was, myyoungest sister was in her last
year of high school and she Shelost a friend to suicide and
that was kind of the catalystfor starting the Good Human
Factory.
At the time, I was stilltraveling the world as a
professional surfer and I'd beenrunning some surf camps with
young surfers and taking themthrough some of the things that

(05:11):
I just did to quiet my mind,like meditation and
visualization.
And all the parents after thesecamps that I was running said
like, oh, the kids really lovethat side of the stuff.
And I was like, okay,interesting.
And then when my sister lost afriend to suicide, My dad just
saw me quite visibly upset andhe was like, why don't you go
and try and speak to some of thekids at your old high school and
share with them some of thesemindsets and identity shifts

(05:32):
that you've been having and itmight help some of the kids.
So I went and spoke to an oldschool teacher friend of mine
who was a bit of a maid and toldhim like, hey, can I maybe come
and speak to some of the surfersor just some of the sporting
kids and it might help them.
And he said, mate, you're such agood human.
Like, yeah, that'd be great.
And he was actually also a veryentrepreneurial teacher and was
always sort of trying to sparkthis idea around building

(05:53):
business And he said to me,like, oh, there's actually a
really cool opportunity inpublic speaking.
Like schools have budget andblah, blah, blah.
Like if this is something you'reinterested in, most people are
so scared of public speakingthat it's quite a good niche.
If you can, you know, share yourstories in a way that inspires
the kids, that makes them thinka bit differently.
And at the time being aprofessional athlete, still in
my twenties, I think the kidscould relate to me quite a lot.

(06:15):
And hopefully they still cannow, even though I'm 30.
But yeah, that was where itstarted.
I just went to my old highschool at Narrabeen Sports High.
My mate said, go, you know,spend this school holidays.
It was right before Christmas.
And he said, go spend a fewweeks and develop a workshop and
then come in and you canpractice on the kids.
So yeah, that was in 2019.
I think I only did like oneworkshop that year.

(06:37):
Like at the time I was workingfull time as a tradie in between
my surf contest to fund mycareer.
So I was kind of juggling likeGood Human Factory, which at the
time wasn't really anything.
my surfing and my work to tryand fund my surfing.
So it was a very small sort ofendeavor at the start.
But my goal was just to likeshare lessons that maybe it
might help one or two kids.

(06:58):
And I learned pretty quicklythat, oh, the kids relate to
this stuff and starting to enjoyit.
And then, yeah, it kind ofprogressed to building a little
bit of credibility slowly,slowly, but surely.
And then COVID hit in 2020.
So I'd done probably like fourworkshops in public, like with
groups at schools before COVIDhit, which then just sort of
slowed everything down, whichallowed me to really build not

(07:20):
pivot, but really grow myknowledge, launch the podcast,
launch the merch, start thecommunities and expand from just
these workshops.
But the workshops kind of alwaysbeen the bottom of my funnel.
The thing that I love doingwhere I can get in front of
students, I can, you know, sharelessons that I wish I heard when
I was their age and just plantthat seed of living life through
a bit of a different lensthrough living a life of values.

SPEAKER_00 (07:42):
Yeah.
So what are some of the lessonsthat you share with them that
you've learnt along the way?

SPEAKER_02 (07:48):
Yeah, so the biggest thing that I really drill in is
this idea of not basing yourself-worth and your identity
around your career and yourachievements, but more around
your what your values are, howwell you can live to those
values.
And it was a lesson that reallychanged my life.
I felt like I was in a reallydeep victim mindset in my early
20s.
I'd lost my sponsorship.

(08:08):
I'd lost my support.
I was ranked in the top 50surfers in the world, but I had
no sponsorship.
I went from making$50,000 a yearto nothing.
So I went through this kind ofstage where I felt like the
world was against me.
I went major victim mindset.
I'd blame and just be like, thissucks, like I should be getting
more.
And then my sports psychologistsort of said to me like pro

(08:30):
surfing is what you do mate butit's not who you are like who
are you I was like what do youmean he said like what are your
personal values like what what'sguiding you as a compass and I
was kind of you know prettyswayed by external validation by
fear of judgment of others andyou know I wasn't living
strongly to values andThroughout my 20s, I just really
was exposed to that concept andstarted to try and develop

(08:50):
strong values.
The five that I've learned Ibelieve are fundamental for good
mental health now areresponsibility.
We must take responsibility forour life to shift from that
victim mindset to the heromindset.
What can I do rather than whatcan't I do?
The next one's gratitude.
If you're watching right now,you can see I have a shirt that
says gratitude.
It's a fundamental pillar of theGood Human Factory.

(09:13):
Now I understand theneuroscience quite well.
But when I was a kid, my dadalways said to me, like, focus
on appreciation, notexpectation.
It doesn't matter where you getto in life.
You can always have bigger, youcan always have better and you
can always have more.
So the real trick is to shinethe light that is our awareness
on the things that you do have.
And now I know scientifically itreleases chemicals in our brain
that make us feel good.

(09:33):
So that action and that mindsetof gratitude is just so
important to me.
The next one's empathy, takingmoments each day to, you know,
put yourself in other people'sshoes to respect what they're
going through even though youdon't understand what people are
going through I think we need tolead with empathy not judgment
and so often the knee-jerkreaction is judgment because it
protects our ego it allows us tofeel better about ourselves when

(09:55):
we see someone fail or seesomebody you know going through
a challenging time and notreally living up to what we
think is you know a good actionbut We all make mistakes.
We all have slip ups.
So when somebody does, insteadof judging them, try and live
with empathy.
I wonder what they're goingthrough.
I wonder how I can support themthrough that.
The next one's mindfulness.
I feel like so many of us arejust, you know, drifting through

(10:16):
life, living in the past in ourmind or living in the future.
What's going to come up?
And we take, you know, notenough time to be in that
present moment.
And there's so many great skillsthat we can do to, you know, get
to that present moment, to bringourselves back to living a calm,
you know, aware life somindfulness is a big pillar and
then the last one is kindnesslike there's so much great

(10:36):
neuroscience that shows kinderpeople are happier people all
these data studies but we're notreally taught that in school so
I really try and share um Threedifferent avenues of kindness.
Being kind to yourself, whetherit be through self-care,
exercising, takingresponsibility is one of the
kindest things we can do forourselves.
Not make excuses, but takepositive actions.
The second one is being kind toothers.

(10:58):
Once again, there's so muchgreat science that shows when
we're kind to others, it shouldmake us feel good.
And it's quite funny.
When I was younger, I used tosay, well, not say, I used to
feel if I succeed, then I'mhappy.
But that was about it.
Now I'm like, well, if I can behappy when the five best friends
around me succeed, there's sixchances to be happy.
If I can learn to just, youknow, be happy and celebrate

(11:20):
when other people succeed, whensomeone does something they
don't even know on Instagram,write them a nice comment going,
that's so awesome.
And, you know, we have tocelebrate to elevate and we
don't only have to celebratewhen we, when we can celebrate
when others do too.
So it's being kind to others andthen being kind to the
environment is something that Ithink should be fundamental to
every single one of us.
So there are five things that Idid for a long time called my
five fundamental vow values, butnow the more I think about it, I

(11:43):
think they should just be fivefundamental values for all of us
if we want to have decent mentalhealth.
That's kind of my main keynotethat I deliver.
I call it my Feel Good Workshop.
I really go into all of thosedifferent ways that we can add
it into our life, the techniquesthat we can do to add these
things into our life a bit more.
I share some of the science fromexperts on my podcast and then
just share some of my storiesbecause I feel like people

(12:05):
connect with storytelling andreally can get that perspective
shift through learning throughother people's challenges and
hopefully lessons.
That's kind of a real short butlong version of what I teach
students.
But yeah, I deliver thoseworkshops for a whole range of
different audiences and justchange the stories to connect
with the relevant audience.

SPEAKER_00 (12:22):
Yeah, I love all of that.
And I have so many questions aswell from that, which I'll go
through in a second.
You mentioned about the identityshift that you went through as
well.
And when someone said, you know,like, who are you as a person?
And I feel like so many peoplecan relate to that because they
go from school, they go intouniversity, they get their
career and then they get theirfamily or whatever it is.

(12:44):
Their identity is external towho they are and what I guess
they value.
How did you navigate thatparticular shift as well?
And like you mentioned about thefoundations, was there other
shifts that you had to gothrough or...
Um, support that you, you hadduring that time as well.

(13:06):
Cause it's, it's pretty big,like going from one thing that
you've always known and thenyou're like, okay, now what?

SPEAKER_02 (13:11):
Oh, absolutely.
It's been a massive work inprogress and I'm still working
on it every day.
Like you might ask me in fiveyears and my values might be
different.
I think we evolve through lifeand if you're not evolving, like
you're stuck.
Like the whole point of life isto change.
Like everything in evolution isall about changing, renewal.
And the way that I kind of lookat my life now is through the
form of a book.
Like imagine you have all thesedifferent chapters.

(13:32):
A lot of people hang on to liketheir chapter of being a
professional athlete in their,you know, twenties and they
can't let go of it.
Whereas I'm just trying to, youknow, turn the page and write
the next chapter.
A can be interesting in manydifferent ways but it's taken a
long time to adjust to thatmindset i think the biggest
thing is letting go of an oldmindset and i've been you know
quite fortunate to workalongside some great sports

(13:53):
psychologists through my surfingcareer which really helped my
surfing but i really took otherparts out of it to be honest i
really tried to understand thethings that could change me to
live a happier more fulfilledlife and one of the um biggest
things I began to do was sort ofjust read books or listen to
podcasts or watch documentariesand try and sort of look for

(14:15):
people who I really look up toand people who I admire and go,
what are like the things thatthey do, the actions that they
partake in, the habits thatthey're practicing that I admire
about them?
And then I've just tried toemulate it in my own sort of
perception and my ownperspective into my own life.
And, you know, I think a bigpart of it comes back to
self-reflection sort of at theend of each day going, okay, did

(14:38):
I live up, did my actions liveup to those values that I said
are mine?
And every single day I missthose.
many of the things, you know,and if we're not reflecting, I
don't think we can call ourselfout on that first and foremost,
but also have the capacity totake on the criticism or the
constructive criticism fromthose around us.
I think if we have people thatare just like always,

(14:58):
congratulating you andcelebrating you around you, we
get stuck in a bit of an echochamber.
I've been very fortunate to havea great family around me, to
have great psychologists that Ican bounce off, but also great
friends who will call me out alittle bit.
I feel like when I was in mysurf career, I didn't really
have that as much.
You're celebrated when you're atop athlete.
Everyone around you is there tohelp you celebrate, to chase

(15:21):
down your dreams, but then youleave the athlete career and you
lose that identity.
So yeah, a big part for me hasjust been the unlearning and the
letting go of an old mindset andopening space for a new way to
view the world that I believefor me has been a far healthier,
far more grounded, far happierlife, even though from the
outside, I might not be, youknow, living the pro surfer
travel in the wildlife thateveryone thinks is amazing.

(15:43):
You know, I do have a great lifenow and I've built a business
that allows me some reallyexciting opportunities.
But yeah, I think just lettinggo of an old mindset is
something a lot of us findreally difficult, but it takes
time.
It takes reflection.
and it takes work to move in adifferent direction.

SPEAKER_00 (15:58):
Yeah.
I love that so much.
And yeah, as you said, it's partof life, right?
If you want to move towardscreating a particular identity
for yourself, it requires you tolet go of the old identity and
step into the new one.
And that can be hard sometimesbecause that also involves the
environment, the people aroundyou, the things that you were
doing, the habits, thediscipline, everything like

(16:19):
that, that goes along with it,which is a massive change.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 (16:23):
absolutely.
And that's the thing.
learn that if you want tochange, like things are going to
have to change, which can be sodifficult for people.
But that's where my whole thingis like, you don't have to like
change the world in like oneguy, like the goal should just
be to change your world.
Like what are the little actionsthat you take each day that you
And another thing that I reallytalk about is this idea of

(16:43):
knowledge is knowing, but wisdomis actually doing.
Most of us know a lot of thedifferent healthy things that we
should be doing.
We have a pretty goodunderstanding that we should eat
whole foods and nutritious food.
We have a pretty goodunderstanding we should drink a
fair bit of water each day.
We should probably exercisepretty regularly.
We should get in nature quiteoften.
We need to have socialrelationships.
We need to be taking care of ourfinances.

(17:05):
Most of us know all of thisstuff.
But the barrier is actuallydoing it.
So my whole idea is just aroundthis idea of small things each
day.
It's not about massive things.
My whole theory is for mentalhealth, we should give 1% of our
24-hour day to it, which is 14minutes and 24 seconds.
So each day going, okay, Ishould have a benchmark of I

(17:28):
have to give 1% of our day toour mental health.
So it's like how do we setourself up to complete that.
So for me, it's bigger aboutroutines, about accountability,
and just trying to take thatsmall action each day towards
sort of the future that you wantto have, towards that future
self that you want to be livingin.

SPEAKER_00 (17:44):
So with your 1%, can you talk through that in a
little bit more detail about the1% Club and what is involved in
the 14 minutes?

SPEAKER_02 (17:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
The concept I came up with isfunny.
I was doing a meditation aboutfour years ago now and I was
sitting there trying to quiet mymind.
Absolutely couldn't quiet itlike most of us do when we have
a meditation experience.
And I started thinking like, oh,I'm the gratitude and
mindfulness and teach all ofthese different skills in my
workshops.
But I knew deep down I wasn'tdoing it every single day.

(18:14):
I felt like a bit of a fraud, animposter.
I was doing it regularly but notevery single day and I knew the
benefits.
So I was like, In the middle ofthis meditation, I was like,
surely we can give 1% of our dayto our mental health.
Seems pretty achievable.
I think everyone listening canagree we should be able to do
that.
And I was like, oh, I stopped mymeditation like five minutes
into a 10-minute meditation.
I got my calculator out and Iwas like, what's 1% of a 24-hour

(18:34):
day?
So there's 1,440 minutes in aday.
14.4 minutes is 1%.
14.4 minutes is 14 minutes and24 seconds.
So I was like, well, what's twothings that we can do each day
that's good for our mentalhealth?
And through interviewing people,doing a lot of research in this
I realized that a lot of peoplewho were calm, present, looked
you in the eyes, there with you,practiced mindfulness, took time

(18:58):
to sort of wind the volume downof all this noise every day and
just calm their nervous systemdown, try and take themselves
from that sympathetic that mostof us are sitting in, that
stress response, and move us tothat parasympathetic and just
let the body relax for a second.
So I was like, okay, 10 minutesof meditation, pretty good base
that we should do each morning.
And then I also understand andlove the neuroscience behind

(19:18):
gratitude, like actually shiningthat light on the good things
each day becomes a practice, andwe allow ourselves to just focus
on the good things each day.
It doesn't say you don't havebad things going on, but it's
just shining the light on thegood, and the neuroscience shows
it's going to release chemicalsto make you feel good.
So the goal is to do fourminutes of gratitude reflection
at the end of your day, 10minutes of meditation in the

(19:39):
morning, and then there's 14minutes for your mental health.
Great baseline.
But then I was also like, you're95% more likely to achieve a
goal if you have anaccountability buddy with you.
So I was like, how can I buildan accountability group around
this meditation and gratitude?
So on Instagram, I just postedon my story back in 2021, if
anyone wants the accountabilityto do meditation and gratitude

(20:02):
every day, reply to this storyand I'll add you into a group
chat and every morning I'll sendyou a link to a meditation to
try that's 10 minutes so youdon't have to think about it
it's just like yep there's amessage click on it meditation
done and every single night I'llwrite three things I'm grateful
for on my Instagram story I'llsend that to the community the
group chat and then everyone canjust write three things they're

(20:23):
grateful for um in there so theyget a prompt it's a reminder to
do it and then they seeeverybody else's you kind of get
inspired and see what otherpeople are up to um so that
started four year or 1300 and 90days ago as of recording this
and it started with like 20people it's now growing to over
2 000 people do it every singleday um i think there's like 13
group chats now you can have 250in a group chat on instagram so

(20:45):
everyone builds these littlesatellite communities that have
about 200 people in them andthey see everybody's gratitudes
every day and they get the linkin the morning so yeah it's been
four years now i think there'sbeen close to like 800 000
gratitude sent in from juststrangers all around the world
um and it's completely free italways will be it's just a free
resource for my community toactually you know, take action.

(21:08):
There's so much great mentalhealth awareness.
You can follow accounts thatwill give you the awareness and
the stats around suicide anddepression.
But as I said, I want the GoodHuman Factory to be about
action.
So if you're listening right nowand you're like, you know what?
I want to take action 1% of myday for my mental health.
All you have to do is send atthe Good Human Factory a direct
message on Instagram saying, Iwant to join the club.
And you'll get added into thisfree community.

(21:29):
If you don't like it, you canleave whenever you want.
There's no judgment at all.
But yeah, I've just seen suchprofound evidence from so many
people, like literally I've gotsome members that have been
there for four years and haven'tmissed a day.
They've done like 1,200, 1,300days in a row like me.
And the feedback and theresponse I've had from people is
it's changed their life.
Like, you know, giving them aplace of stillness in the
morning, a community to be in,but then that prompt for

(21:52):
gratitude every night just like,you know, has lightened a lot of
people's life, which is probablythe thing I'm most proud of just
because

SPEAKER_00 (21:57):
it's been free for the community.
That's incredible andcongratulations because like
that's a pretty– incrediblething that you've created and
for so many people to join itbecause like, yeah, as you said,
the accountability is a massivepiece when it comes to making
any change as well.

SPEAKER_02 (22:12):
And it's just having a safe space.
Like some people find it kind ofa bit awkward maybe to post
their gratitudes on their storylike I do, but I do that to lead
the community.
And then everyone is just intheir own small community.
And you see all these, likeafter like a week, you start to
recognize the same name typingin and you read their gratitude.
So you start to learn people'slives.
Like for instance, one of ourmembers, um, who's quite active,
had a kid a few days ago and youhad like 60 people going,

(22:34):
congratulations, mate.
It's so good.
Strangers all around the worldthat have learned who their
community is and you start tosupport each other through the
tough times, the easy times andgive advice where you need to.
Um, so yeah, it's just, it'sreally supportive, like
beautiful, like 13 communitiesthat have formed now.

SPEAKER_00 (22:50):
Yeah.
I love that.
Let's talk through, youmentioned, um, the science of
gratitude a few times.
So let's go through that in aBecause so often, you're right,
we think about the past or whatwe have to do today.
We're always in that go, go, gomindset and that we forgot.
It's hard to sometimes come backand anchor into the present
moment and focus on everythingthat we have right now, we

(23:12):
created, and a past version ofus actually created where we
are.
But we're already one step aheadthinking about the next thing.
So talk us through gratitude ina little bit more detail and,
yeah, the science.

SPEAKER_02 (23:25):
I mean, I'll...
precursor with I'm not aneuroscientist I'm not a
psychologist I'm just someonewho's really fascinated by this
stuff I've interviewed manyneuroscientists I've interviewed
many psychologists and read alot of books and I'm just
fascinated by this topic Myunderstanding is when we
practice gratitude, when weshift our awareness to the
things that are going well inour life, whether it be just a

(23:47):
mindfulness practice of thinkingabout the positive things that
went on your day, whether it bewriting stuff down, whether it
be typing it in a group, whetherit be writing a text message to
someone you're grateful for.
When we do this, it releasesserotonin and oxytocin in our
brain, which make us feel good.
So that's kind of just thebaseline of the science.
Like we have to take the actionto get the release of these

(24:08):
chemicals.
So that's kind of first step.
But we can live in like a stateof gratitude too and just sort
of our jerk reaction be to begrateful rather than to, you
know, be pessimistic orungrateful.
And I really just as a littlezoom out because some people go,
I don't have much to be gratefulfor.
If you think about like thecreation of our earth or our

(24:30):
universe like so many chainreactions have gone perfectly in
our favor and then our lineageof our human history has you
know one family member 10generations before didn't die
from a plague or didn't do fromthis and then you were the sperm
and then that was the sperm thelineage for us you right now
whoever's listening to this tobe here in this human experience

(24:52):
is like mathematically liketrillions to one like So if you
can't be grateful just for theopportunity that we have to live
this conscious existence, thatshould be the baseline, I think,
for all of us.
And then if you're listeningright now, I'm guessing the
majority of your audience isfrom Australia, just like mine.
You go down the line of, inAustralia, there's, let's call

(25:14):
it 25 million people for thesake of mathematics, 8 billion
people in the world.
Your chance of being here inAustralia is 0.3% of a chance.
It's like three in 1,000.
So if you're an Australian, youhave to get a dice right now and
roll one to 333 on the dice faceand you land on number one.

(25:34):
That's how lucky we are to behere in Australia.
So like, I just like zoom outand look at perspective through
that and just go like, we're solucky.
Whether you call luck andgratitude the same thing.
But for me, that just like makesme be like, you know what?
I'm so grateful for thisexperience, this existence.
It's such a fluke that we'rehere getting to experience this
at this point in time with thetechnology, with the

(25:56):
advancements in health.
We have a chance to live forlonger and healthier, happier
lives than anyone ever in humanhistory.
So if you can't be grateful forthat, what can we be grateful
for?
But then obviously...
We live a reality that is ourreality.
We go through challenges.
We have moments that we'reungrateful, that we feel
expectation.
We don't feel grateful for thelife that we're living, and

(26:17):
that's okay.
But gratitude's about, I think,shifting the perspective and
shifting our light to thepositive things a bit more
often.
And if we look at kind of theneuroscience of our thoughts and
what's going through our head,It's kind of argued in
neuroscience.
You hear Jay Shetty talk aboutit a bit around saying we have
60,000 thoughts a day, but youdo that, it's like every 1.5

(26:38):
seconds we have a thought.
So it's quite interesting.
I've spoken to anotherneuroscientist, Nicole, who's
been on my podcast a few times,and she says, let's go at the
number of 6,000.
They say between 6,000 and60,000, but let's go the low
number of 6,000 thoughts a day.
On average, around 75% of themare negative for humans.
And 95% of them are usuallyrepetitive, the same thoughts we

(26:59):
thought yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 (27:00):
So

SPEAKER_02 (27:00):
if we have 75% of our thoughts running through our
head are negative, like...
I just don't think that'shealthy.
I think most of us would agreethat.
And I'm not saying we have toget down to 0% negative
thoughts.
Like that's, you know, Buddha,enlightenment sort of stuff.
Like negative thoughts are therefor safety.
Yeah, we have bad days.
We can't have good days if wedon't have bad days.
But my whole idea aroundgratitude and kindness and

(27:22):
positivity is like, let's tryand like wind that 75% dial down
to 50%.
Let's have the yin and the yangof life.
Like 50% negative thoughts, 50%positive.
So if you feel like you'rehaving more negative than
positive, just try and catchyourself.
Next time you're know I suck atthis go no but I've done
something pretty good this aswell like try and just like ping
pong between the positive andthe negative and just balance it

(27:43):
out a little bit more and we cando that through practice through
each day having a dedicatedalright let's shine the light to
the positive thing and then thenext day when you go through
something challenging you go ohbut there's a positive too.
So it's about creating thehabits.
It's about taking the action andgratitude.
Yeah.
Through the practice of mycommunity of each night,
stopping to think through thepractice of, you know,

(28:03):
mindfulness and meditation, justshifting that light to the
positive in your mind and justwinding down that 75% negative
thought down to like 50, 40,30%.
Um, I think it's just a reallyhealthy way to live.
So it's kind of a long windedanswer around just the science
of gratitude, but I think ithopefully shows people like how
lucky we are to be here as areal baseline, but then And if
you find that part of sort of ithard going, okay, well, what are

(28:26):
the positive things?
Not saying you don't havenegative things.
We all do, but going, I justwant to shine the light on it
because I know the neuroscienceis going to, you know, make my
life better.

SPEAKER_00 (28:34):
Yeah.
And I think the power of thereframe is so important.
So like, cause as you said, weare going to have negative
thoughts and moments throughoutthe day, but it's like, okay,
well, how can I change that intothe positive?
So rather than I have to go dothis, I'm like, I get to do this
or I'm choosing to do this aswell.
It's like those things.
because everything in life is achoice and you're choosing what

(28:57):
you're doing in every singlemoment.
So it's like, okay, how can Ichange that?
Or like if you're learning, youknow, like I can't do this.
Yeah, but you're learning.
It's a new skill.
Like you can't expect to justtry something new and be amazing
at it.
It's like a process and thatbeginner mindset as well.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (29:13):
Yeah.
The choice thing is such aninteresting one.
And there's a great quote.
that I love from this.
I think it's in the book.
I haven't read the book, but Iwatched the movie.
It's called The PeacefulWarrior.
And there's this quote thatsays, be conscious of your
choices and take responsibilityfor your actions.
And I feel like not many of usare doing that.
We just go through lifeunconsciously doing all these
different things all day thatwe're not really consciously

(29:35):
sort of checking in on thosechoices.
And then very often as well,like we're not taking
responsibility for actions.
We're deflecting, we're blaming,we're playing the victim.
And something I've been toyingwith in my head recently is this
idea of like if you kind of likehave this imaginary future self
and then you have yourself now,almost think of it like there's
this like yes, no choice orchoice and positive choice,

(29:58):
negative choice.
And some of them are going tolead you towards the future
person you want to be.
And some of them are going tolead you to some of that you
don't necessarily want to be.
And it's taking the moment eachtime you're making a choice
going, is this what the futureme would do that I want to be
at?
Or is this a decision thatwouldn't?
And it's very hard and subtle todo that each day, but it might
be like the choice about whatfood you're going to eat, the

(30:18):
choice about snoozing the alarm,the choice about, you know,
judging somebody or being kindto them, the choice of being
empathetic towards someone'ssituation or criticizing them.
Like we have these micro choicesevery day.
And a lot of the times we're notliving up to them.
And that's where thatself-reflection at the end of
each day I think is reallyimportant to go, oh, did I, I
was pretty unhappy with how Ishowed up in that situation.

(30:40):
I yelled at my partner todaywhen really that was just
because I had a shitty day atwork.
I don't want to show up likethat tomorrow.
Okay, I've reflected on it.
I might not make that choicetomorrow.
But if we're unconsciouslymaking that choice every single
day consistently, That's when westart to deteriorate
relationships.
We break down our physicalhealth.
We break down our mental health,our financial health.

(31:01):
Those small decisions compoundto give us the life that we end
up with.
Those decisions you're makingabout finances, about
relationships, everything alladds up.
The way I look at it is we havethis table in life.
I've stolen this concept from afriend of mine, Chris Griffin,
where our dreams and goals areon top of this table.
But the four legs on the tableare our physical health, our

(31:24):
mental health, our financialhealth and our social health.
If those legs are unstable andone of them falls out or two of
them fall out, sometimes one canfall out and we can still stay
balanced.
But you lose two of those tablelegs and all your dreams and
goals fall off.
If your physical health isshot...
It's a very long way to get backto a healthy position, but you
can still probably manage.

(31:44):
But then your physical andmental health are gone, you're
in trouble.
Or your financial health andyour social health is gone,
you're in trouble.
So it's about trying to reallytake the time to maintain each
of those foundations if we wantto reach these big goals and
have this beautiful future life.

SPEAKER_00 (31:59):
Yeah, it's so important.
And as you said, we'reconstantly moving either towards
that future version or we'retaking a step back.
Like you, there's no such thingas staying put.
And so it's like every day, youknow, it's those little things.
So.
Is it moving you towards or awayfrom your goals?
And I think once you understandthat, like it's actually a game
changer.
Like, yeah, getting up, settingyour alarm and going to the gym.

(32:20):
Well, I don't really feel likeit, but you're not going to feel
like doing everything or you'renot always going to feel
motivated.
It's just like, yeah, keepingthat future version of you in
mind when you are making thosedecisions.

SPEAKER_02 (32:31):
And the goal isn't perfection.
Like that's where a lot ofpeople get it wrong.
The goal is progress.
The goal is taking a stepagainst that treadmill every
single day towards theunachievable, perfect mental
health.
And you hear the kind of analogyof like it's not about all the
sort of um cliche of like it'snot about the destination it's
about the journey but it trulyis like once you can fall in

(32:52):
love with that life's about thisbook that there's a new chapter
each day that's a new journeyhow am i moving forward towards
that future life rather thanjust standing on that treadmill
thinking i know everything andthen just going backwards
towards you know a life that youdon't want to live

SPEAKER_00 (33:08):
you mentioned um about, I think we, you spoke
about some stats there earlieras well.
Like if we look about it withmental health and wellness in
Australia at the moment, I thinkit's like one in five people.

SPEAKER_02 (33:20):
Diagnosed for the mental illness.

SPEAKER_00 (33:22):
Yeah.
Like what do you think is thebiggest contributors to that?
And then also a lot of peopleare still not focusing on it.
So what do you think as well?
Like, do you think that there'ssomething actually wrong?
Yeah.
with how we, hang on, I probablydidn't frame that up the right
way, did I?

(33:43):
But like, there's obviously,there's an issue.
There's an issue that we've got.

SPEAKER_02 (33:46):
We're throwing a lot of money at mental health and
the funding's going up from thegovernment and organizations,
but the numbers are getting

SPEAKER_00 (33:52):
worse.
Yeah, exactly right.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (33:54):
I mean, if I knew the answer, I'd be very, very
rich and hopefully change theworld.

SPEAKER_00 (33:58):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (33:59):
I think there's many different contributing factors.
Obviously, you know, we'removing into a very different
world from like 30 years ago.
We're living in a veryindustrial world, whereas now
we're living in a technologicalworld.
So I think the education systemis really missing the point.
We haven't changed education.
We haven't evolved the educationsystem as quick as the world's
evolved.
So I think a lot of people aregetting educated, getting thrown

(34:22):
into a world where theireducation doesn't really help
them too much and they'refeeling very lost and feeling,
you know, no purpose.
I think that's first andforemost a big part of it.
That's why I'm so passionateabout educating young people to
look at the world through adifferent lens, hopefully adopt
a perspective that maybe is alittle bit different to the
mainstream because I struggledwith that mainstream mindset.

(34:42):
I know a lot of people dothrough interviewing so many
people and really always talkingto people about their high
school experience.
I think it's important that theeducation system gets a shake
up.
That's first and foremost.
I mean, there's so manydifferent things, obviously,
making sure the cost of livingis rising.
Everyone's feeling so stressedand anxious living in this
heightened sympathetic state forso long.

(35:03):
It's crazy.
We've been sold this lie that wehave to work five days to get
two days to chill to then gettwo weeks holiday at the end of
the year.
It's like, wait, we live thisexistence where most of us are
working for somebody else tocreate their dream life to then
make enough just to get by.
And the cost of living isrising.
So we're having to work more andless time for this, you know,

(35:24):
for ourselves to live our life.
Like whose life do we get tolive?
Like somebody else's or livingour own.
So I'm massive on trying to findthat balance.
And I understand that, you know,there is restrictions with
family, with having, you know,such big workload to survive.
So I think a big one is tryingto find time for yourself every
single day.
Not enough of us do that.

(35:44):
And to come back to what I'vebeen talking about most of this
chat, just doing those couplesmall things a day for yourself.
Like for me, I really try andlimit my screen time to not be
on my phone between 7pm and 7amand that's my time like the
world can get me for 12 hours aday but I get 12 hours a day for
myself for my sleep for my selfcare routines for my breath work
and meditation in the morningfor a bit of exercise you know

(36:07):
really trying to give myselfhalf of my day and give the
world the rest of the day.
And I think not enough of us dothat.
And obviously people, I don'thave a family right now.
I've got a partner that I loveto spend time with, but spending
time with your family and yourpartner is time for yourself.
But doing that diligently andnot just kind of, you know,
letting life just unconsciouslytake over just to get you two

(36:27):
weeks holiday a year.
Like I think life's about, youknow, having a life for yourself
and a life for everybody else.
So I think there's a bigdisconnect in that.
And that's a big part of mentalhealth because of cost of living
rising.
It's making people work more,which they're not having enough
time for themselves.
So they're two just, I think,fundamental things is having
that.
And I think obviously as wellnow with social media, it can be

(36:48):
used for a tool for good.
It can be used for a tool forbad.
But I think with the way thealgorithm pushes, everyone sees
the 0.1% highlight reel ofpeople's lives and we compare
our whole life against people's0.1%.
So we kind of just have thiswarped kind of perception of
what life is.
We see everybody's tinyhighlight reel and compare our

(37:11):
everyday life with theirhighlight reel.
So I think trying to once againlearn to let go of that and
learn to see it for what it is,as hard as it is, because we're
getting bloody good at fakingit.
Yeah, just realize no one'slife's perfect.
The people who look like theyhave a good life are those I
mean, on social media, quiteoften are those who are lying,

(37:31):
but those who really have a goodlife and a content life and a
happy life, I believe are peoplewho live strong to their core
values.
They're not swayed by externalvalidation.
They're swayed by the opinion ofthose who are around them that
love them, that, you know, theydeserve to give them advice.
But if they're not someone whoknows you, you shouldn't be
taking advice from someone thatdoesn't know you in and out.

SPEAKER_00 (37:52):
Or have the life that you want as well.
Yeah.
But you're right.
Like social media is a massivecontributor and people do
compare themselves to that.
And it's easy to do becauseyou're like, oh, what are they
doing?
Like, how are they doing that?
And you're like, well...
You don't actually see whathappens off screen.
Exactly.
And there's so much more topeople than just what's on their
social media as well.
I think that's a really validpoint.

(38:14):
Yeah.
I, you know, around mentalhealth and the workload as well,
like I mentioned, I just steppedoutside of corporate and I there
is a huge mental health, in myopinion, because workloads
increasing, as you mentioned,overwhelm, stress, anxiety,
which are all contributingfactors in how you show up in

(38:35):
all areas of your life.
And I personally feel like evencorporate space, they're not
doing enough and focusing on theright things to actually support
their people.
So then they support thecompany.
And a lot of companies haveemployee assistance programs,
which...
I guess it's talk therapy, whichis a modality and only like, you

(38:57):
know, 5% or something like thatof people actually use it.
So in my opinion, like in, inthe work world, there's also
massive issues that we need toaddress there because people are
actually getting more stressedand more burnt out as well.
When you have a look, like whenyou go into corporate as well,
like what do you focus on?

(39:18):
Because like, Is it similartools with the schools and
workshops?

SPEAKER_02 (39:23):
Yeah, definitely really similar stuff.
It's really just trying toinvoke that introspection and go
like, oh, wait, if work'soverwhelming me and blah, blah,
blah, what am I doing formyself?
And quite often the answer isnot much.
So as we kind of just went onfor a bit of a tangent, just
sent on this idea of findingthat work-life balance, making
sure you have time for yourself,which is, once again, being kind
to yourself, being kind toothers, which is being

(39:44):
empathetic in situations, whichis taking time to practice
mindfulness each day, practicegratitude with your family and
take responsibility when you'reat work and something gets
challenging instead of blamingeveryone, going, okay, what can
I do?
Taking a bit of agency back overyour life is so important.
So yeah, the workshops that Ideliver for corporates have have
definitely a bit of a spindifferent to the school ones.

(40:05):
Obviously a lot of the languageis different, a few of the
stories are different, but stillthis really same concept and
theme of having your personalvalues and having your career
and your achievements and notletting them kind of be swayed
by each other.
So yeah, the workshops that Irun for corporates are always
fun.
I love getting to, you know,walk into a room as a young male

(40:25):
and kind of see a lot of eyesrolls, like what's this guy
going to teach me?
But what I've found from myfeedback, you know, from working
with companies like Red Bull,Amazon, Telstra, McDonald's,
Westpac is that it's quiterelatable it's not this big
heavy mental illness talk it'snot this big you know EAP here's
a number to call when you'restruggling it's almost like
you're trying to catch someoneout and you feel a bit anxious

(40:48):
around that.
It's about, okay, here's sometools that you can just take on
by yourself.
Take it or leave it.
But the science shows this willmake you feel a little bit
better.
Here's some of my stories.
Here's the science, but alsohere's, you know, some one or
two minute little exercises thatcan take you on your way.
And that's what I'll offer in myone hour workshop.
I then have a 90 minuteworkshop, which goes a little

(41:09):
bit deeper where we do somepractices that take a little bit
longer around meditation andmindfulness and breathing.
And then I'm now also this yearoffering a half workshop where
we're really going to helppeople develop their 14 minute
practice a day for their mentalhealth and go a bit deeper into
a few different modalities likebreath work which I'm currently
doing facilitator training inlike just different things that

(41:33):
can you know change us from thatsympathetic to parasympathetic
to lower our heart rate to calmus to allow us to be more
present which we know in theworkplace allows us to be more
productive allows us to takeless days off work so it's a You
know, it's an investment, but Ithink it's something like$8
billion a year is lost in thecorporate space due to mental
health, whether it be absenteesand stuff ups at work, lower

(41:57):
productivity.
So investing in mental healtheducation, investing in mental
health training is isn'tnecessarily mental health
training.
It's not trying to avoid peoplefrom having, you know,
depression, anxiety.
Sure, it helps with that.
But my whole idea is like, howdo we get someone from a five
out of a 10 up to a seven?
Like, how do we get someone froma seven up to a 10?
And I got, I can't think of theword.

(42:18):
I got reached out by apsychologist PR company a few
days ago that's doing this newresearch.
I can't remember the word.
But there's all this newresearch that's about to come
out in a few weeks around,there's a lot of people who
don't have a mental illness Buta feeling just lost and stuck
and in this kind of, you know,let's call mental illnesses 2

(42:38):
out of 10 and 1 out of 10, 20%of people.
But there's so many sitting froma 3 to a 6 that kind of just
aren't feeling much.
They're just in this flat, youknow, nothingness space that I
think we really– that's going tobe the next sort of, you know,
real big– mental health issue isit's like not people that
recognize with a mental illnessbut it's people who just don't

(42:59):
feel purpose don't feel likethey want to get up each morning
but don't identify you knowfully with a mental illness but
you know need help to get thatspark back in life and i'm
hoping through these differentexercises skills really does
invigorate that spark in

SPEAKER_00 (43:12):
people i think that's a that's such a great
point because like People listento this and go, oh yeah, I feel
pretty happy.
You know, I've got the career.
I've, I've got this.
I've got, and I say, yeah, I wasgoing to say material things.
Right.
But then deep down inside,they're like, I know that I'm
meant for more and I know thatthere's more to life than this,
but there's nothing.

(43:33):
actually wrong.
Do you know what I mean?
And so that's a really goodpoint where it's like, oh, I
feel happy and content, but am Ihappy with that life or do I
want to actually live anextraordinary life?
And so it's like, how do I gofrom this to this?
And then, yeah, it's actuallyfocusing, okay, well, yeah, what
are your personal values?
Who are you behind the label ofmom, dad, parents, like, you

(43:56):
know, partner, whatever it is,my job title, like, who are you?
And then how do you actuallystart to work and grow that?
as an individual.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (44:06):
And then that generally opens up like, you
know, a more aligned workplace.
If you are in a place that youdon't feel like, you know,
inspired each day going in, likeby living to these values that
attracts more of that into yourlife.
And then it might, you know,open up a whole new career path.
So yeah, I think just, takingtime to be self-aware and
reflect and check in withyourself is so important and
something that not many of usdo.

SPEAKER_00 (44:27):
Yeah, and get out of the doing every day.

SPEAKER_02 (44:29):
Yeah, we're human beings, not

SPEAKER_00 (44:31):
human beings.
Yeah, I love that so much.
And that's a massive unlearning,I think, for a lot of people as
well.
It's actually, yeah, creatingthat space.
You mentioned before thatthere's a few people that
inspire you, you're inspired by.
Like, who are your biggestinspirations in life at the
moment?

SPEAKER_02 (44:48):
Oh, my biggest inspirations in life at the
moment.
Um...
A couple of my good friends, oneof my mates who I've just
started a program with calledBlue Minds with the charity
Surface for Climate, Good HumanFactories partnered with, and
we're teaching students sort ofhow to lower eco-anxiety through

(45:09):
some of my practices inmindfulness and breathing and
gratitude, but then also how totake better care of the ocean
because there's recent surveysfrom Origin, this survey company
that shows 67% of young peoplehave eco-anxiety.
They're kind of fearful ofwhat's coming up in the future
So my friend, Cal Glansnick, whoI'm super inspired by, he's 24,

(45:31):
might have just turned 25, justgot voted in as an independent
councillor in Cronulla ShireCouncil, which is kind of
amazing to see him sort ofstarting his journey into
politics because he's just anabsolute whiz.
But he just loves the ocean somuch.
He's so passionate about theenvironment.
He's so dedicated to making theworld a better place.
And he always says, like, I justthink about what I say to my

(45:53):
grandparents now, like, oh, whydidn't you invest in Apple and
this and all these differentquestions that we have for our
grandparents?
And he says, what questions aremy grandkids' children going to
have for me?
And he really thinks, and Idefinitely agree with him,
they're going to say, why didn'tyou do more to protect our
environment, to protect ourocean?
With this ramp up of industrialrevolution into technology

(46:15):
revolution, we're seeing theenvironment really go through
some struggles and You can haveyour opinion around climate
change, but there's certainthings that I'd think are
undisputable, which is theamount of plastic that we're
creating, the harmful chemicalsthat are in plastics that are
coming from oil.
There's some things that we canall agree upon we need to do
better at when it comes to theenvironment.

(46:36):
And unless we make the noise, weeducate people, we're not going
to see people change thosechoices that they make each day.
So Cal is massive on that.
It's great to partner with himand to be able to educate young
people and communities aroundthe different actions that they
can do on an individual levelwhen it comes to taking better
care of the ocean and ourenvironment, on a community
level, but then also hopefullyinspire young people to innovate

(46:58):
different solutions when itcomes to moving away from
plastic, moving away from fossilfuels and becoming more
sustainable.
Because if we want to live onthis earth forever, more
generations to come, we can'tjust keep stripping it of the
natural beauties that we have inorder for corporate gain.
So big fan of what he's doing,super inspired by his work.

(47:19):
And I'm inspired by my partnerat the moment.
She's such a beautiful human.
She's moved over from Brazil tobe with me We're going through
the journey of partnership visasand all that stuff right now.
So she's had to let go of herlife in Brazil and her family
over there to come and set upand be here with me.
So I'm inspired by her to leaninto love and build hopefully a

(47:43):
beautiful life with me.
I

SPEAKER_00 (47:44):
love that.
That's great.
What's one piece of advice thatyou would give your younger
self?

SPEAKER_02 (47:53):
I mean, it depends how young, but I think just
really try and lean into livingby values as it's obviously a
big core concept that I share.
And to be honest, it wassomething that I was exposed to
probably in my teen years.
And you'd see things that you'dreally aspire towards, but I
just let that drive of externalvalidation, that fear of other

(48:14):
people's opinion, allow me tomanipulate this image of myself
and to be what I thought peoplewanted.
But in hindsight, it wasn'treally the person I wanted to
be.
So I think the advice I'd giveto my younger self is like,
understand what your values areand let them guide your
decisions, not your fear ofrejection, your fear of others'
opinions, um, and not yourdesire for external validation,

(48:38):
like learn to live by values andlet that guide your decisions
through life.

SPEAKER_00 (48:42):
As you mentioned, like you're in the spotlight at
such a young age, like how doyou, how did you handle that as
well?

SPEAKER_02 (48:49):
I mean, don't get me wrong.
I think I was a pretty goodperson.
I had some good morals andvalues, but I just, you know,
let some decisions be made in away that I look back on now and
I'm not super proud of, but Ithink all of us look back in our
life.
Like if we didn't do that, wewere not learning.
Um, so yeah, it was, I mean, itwas great.
I was traveling the world,getting paid to surf with my
friends for so long, but quiteinterestingly, like I was doing

(49:12):
it with a mindset of like, oh, Ishould be getting more.
This guy's getting paid morethan me.
Or like, why don't I get thatsupport from a brand?
And now I look back inhindsight, I'm like, I was
getting paid to ride a surfboardon waves in the ocean and
traveling the world with myfriends.
I'd won in life.
Life was amazing.
But the mindset I had, I wasn'tliving presently and living like

(49:34):
I felt like I had an amazinglife.
I felt like I deserved andwanted more.
Whereas the more that I reallystarted to lean into this
concept of gratitude andmindfulness and kindness, I
started to be like, I didn't.
I'd live the best life ever.
In the last few years of mycareer, even though I had no
support from sponsors and had tomake up$50,000 a year that I was
making from sponsorship inworking to get there and really

(49:54):
squeeze every penny to make itwork, I loved that part of my
career because I was moregrateful because I was more
grounded in my values.
I really enjoyed that travelaround the world because I had
different perspectives.
It was awesome.
But it did come with someunhealthy mindsets that I'm very
grateful that I've learned toadjust them.
And don't get me wrong, I stillstruggle with, you know, those

(50:17):
values every day.
Every day I try and reflect andhave the sort of mindset, did I
live with integrity?
And normally every day there'sone, two, three, five actions
that aren't to that.
But I, you know, I'm proud tosay that I feel like I'm far
more living to my values than Iwas back then.

SPEAKER_00 (50:32):
Yeah.
And I think, like, as you said,as you go through life, they're
going to change and evolve andit's just about...
recognizing that within yourselfand increasing your
self-awareness and yourconsciousness to actually move
through life as well and pick upnew tools and resources.
Like I'm always learning newstuff about myself.
Um, and it's beautiful at thesame time, right?
Because you just like, Oh, hangon.

(50:53):
You have like a penny dropmoment, um, which is nice.

SPEAKER_02 (50:56):
Yeah.
It's like, if you think you knoweverything, like what a sad
place to be.
Like you want to always beexpanding.
And I find it quite interesting.
There's, um, Have you heard ofhedonic adaptation?
So hedonic adaptation is thiskind of, not theory, I guess
it's proven.
I'm probably going to butcherthis, but this idea that like
life, we kind of have like ourbaseline and then it's like, you

(51:16):
could win the lottery and you goup here and happiness, but even
the people who win lottery endup back down here.
And then someone might, youknow, have a partner that's
committed suicide or diedsuddenly and they go way down
here.
But based on hedonic adaptation,we generally come back to this
baseline and But I think weshould throw that out and have
this theory that a baselineshouldn't be like this.
We should be growing throughlife.
It should be like we'reconstantly learning and finding

(51:38):
new things and our baselinecontinually grows with our
expanding of awareness, with ourlearning of new modalities, with
our tool belt becoming granderand our awareness of being able
to let go of things, being ableto not be as distracted by
things, being able to not be asaffected by things like our–
comfort zone expanding so muchthat things don't really put us

(52:01):
off that adaptation sort ofhedonic up and down.
It's kind of like we're a lotmore even, but it's always going
up.
We should be like expanding andgrowing through life, not just
going through life.

SPEAKER_00 (52:10):
And I think, yeah, like when you're younger where
you might not have had thosetools and resources or the
support that you needed, you canfeel it so much more.
Like when you hit rock bottom,like that's rock bottom.
Your

SPEAKER_02 (52:23):
first relationship

SPEAKER_00 (52:24):
breakup.
Exactly right.
We're now...
As you grow and that comfortzone stretches and you have more
tools and resources as you gothrough a breakup, yeah, it's
really shit.
But you also know how to handleit in such a different way and
it's faster to move through atthe same time.
It's

SPEAKER_02 (52:44):
important to expand that comfort zone and sort of
realize we're capable of so muchmore than we sort of box ourself
in on doing.

SPEAKER_00 (52:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
What's one question that youwere hoping I would ask today
that I haven't?

SPEAKER_02 (53:02):
There wasn't really anything in particular, but I
don't know why my mind went toit because I was just thinking
about doing hard things andexpanding your comfort zone.
But I guess like the questionthat what's a big challenge that
you've completed recently?
Because I did something prettycool last year that I learned a
lot about myself.

SPEAKER_00 (53:18):
Yeah, tell us.

SPEAKER_02 (53:19):
So I kind of like to give myself like a bit of a
challenge sort of every year tohave outside of my work.
And two years ago it was, um, Idid 12 months not drinking
alcohol.
So I documented on my podcastand did like 28 and sober.
Then last year I was like, whatcan I do?
And I was like, I want to do abig physical challenge.
And a podcast guest I had on mypodcast was talking about
endurance running.

(53:40):
And I was like, maybe I shoulddo a hundred kilometer ultra
marathon.
And he was like, yeah, do it.
So last year I, um, yeah, I dida hundred days of training to
run a hundred Ks.
Thank you so much for having me.

(54:02):
Setting yourself a goal, workingtowards it, achieving it, and
then your comfort zone expands.
Because I would have neverthought I could run 100
kilometers.
I'm a surfer.
I'm not an endurance runner byany means.
I had run the Gold CoastMarathon also on a whim.
I was like, I've been running alittle bit.
I'm just going to sign up forthe marathon.
On a whim.
Yeah, I signed up to themarathon two days before and
just went and did it.
I hadn't trained once.

SPEAKER_01 (54:23):
And

SPEAKER_02 (54:24):
that was very painful and left my body very
sore for a long time.
So the 100K, I actually trainedfor it.
But the goal was to show myselflike you're capable physically
of so much more.
Like who thinks they can run 100kilometers?
But I got it done in the 17hours and it was a massive day
and I learned a lot about myselfand my mindset.
So often when our body wants togive up, we've got so much more

(54:45):
in us, just like our mind.
When our mind wants to give upand starts telling you like, why
are you doing this?
Like, what are you doing outhere in the dark, in the blue
mountains?
It's freezing cold, you'retired, you're hungry, you're
sore.
But then showing that you canget through it and get past it.
So whether, you know, there'sthat big conversation that
you've got to have with yourpartner that you've been putting
off or your boss, you know, wewill get through it.
We are capable of, you know,overcoming these challenging

(55:08):
moments.
And on the other side of it isusually a place of, you know,
oh, that wasn't so bad.
Like I got through it.
It was really challenging, but Igot through it.
So yeah, I think hopefully thelesson in that is you're capable
of so much more than you think.
with a bit of hard work andtraining or, you know, just
stepping into that discomfort,you're going to, I mean, every

(55:29):
moment you've gone through inlife that you felt uncomfortable
in, if you listen to thispodcast, guess what?
You've survived.

SPEAKER_00 (55:34):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (55:34):
So leaning into that a little bit more, you're
probably going to survive andit's going to grow through it.

SPEAKER_00 (55:38):
And yeah, as you said, it's all the lessons along
the way as well.
Like last year I did the GoldCoast Half Marathon.
It's not quite the ultramarathon, but, um, but yeah.
And like, it's, it's thetraining is one thing, but then
on the actual day, it's themindset that came into play.
And I know like when I, when Idid it, I was, my frame of mind
that morning was not it.
Hey, like I just, I hated everysingle moment of it.

(56:03):
Um, yeah.
And like now looking back, I'mlike, I just still ran a half
marathon.
Regardless of how I was feelingat the time and the struggle I
was going through, I stillcompleted a half marathon,
which, you know, for me, thatwas a big achievement.
And a lot of people don'tachieve that.
So it's like, okay, well, Ipushed myself through something
and I did survive.
And then it taught me so manymore lessons about myself and

(56:25):
how I think and how I prepare aswell.

SPEAKER_02 (56:27):
Yeah, and how limiting our beliefs usually
are.

SPEAKER_00 (56:30):
It was crazy, yeah.
What's your big goal then forthis year?

SPEAKER_02 (56:34):
I'm writing a book at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 (56:36):
Are

SPEAKER_02 (56:37):
you?
Yeah, so that's kind of my biggoal for this year.
It's a pretty big challenge.
Yeah, I got a book deal withWiley Publishing towards the end
of last year and got given asix-month timeframe to write a
60,000-word book.
I've got two months left andI've written 15,000 words, so
I've got a lot of writing stillto do.

(56:57):
I've just been compiling mythoughts.
I've been a speaker for the lastcouple of years through my
workshops, through my podcast,so I feel very confident
expressing myself throughspeech, but writing is a whole
different beast.
I've been finding my writingstyle and trying to collate all
the ideas.
A lot of the stuff we've spokenabout today is the first half of

(57:17):
the book.
The second half of the book isgoing to be all about these
different healthy habits,skills, modalities that we can
do that are scientificallyproven to make us feel good.
And the book's going to becalled The 1% Good Club, How 14
Minutes a Day Can Transform YourMental Health.

SPEAKER_00 (57:30):
I love that.

SPEAKER_02 (57:31):
So yeah, it's going to be this journey really of
basically a lot of the things wespoke about today, the values,
the how I came around to thisway of thinking, the different
lessons I learned along myjourney, the science behind
them.
And then, yeah, building theGood Human Factory, some of the
stories and evidence throughhundreds of people I've
connected with, millions ofpeople now through the podcast

(57:51):
as well, that have had a bigimpact.
And then finishing with 10different healthy habits and
domains in life that are backedby science to improve your
mental health.
And then it'll finish withsaying, now you've learned all
these skills, you've learned thescience, you've learned how to
integrate them in your life,you're now part of the 1% Good
Club.
You've read this book, a littlebit like Atomic Habits or the

(58:12):
5AM Club.
The book's about more than me.
It's hopefully a theory thatanyone who reads it can adopt
into their life forever.
You never forget that idea of,oh, 14 minutes for my mental
health.
Okay, I know about breathwork,meditation, healthy eating,
nature, gratitude, all of thesedifferent things and continually
learn more.
And hopefully you can add themto 14 minutes a day and try and

(58:34):
stay dedicated to that for yourmental health.
Yeah, that's my big goal thisyear to try and get a lot of
writing done over the next twomonths.
And then just expand on kind ofeverything else I'm doing
work-wise.
There's a lot of excitingopportunities coming up.
Um, with a few different things.
So yeah, really keen to seewhere the year takes me.

SPEAKER_00 (58:51):
I know.
I feel like, um, this is a bigone for a lot of people and some
big goals out there, which isgreat.
Yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (58:58):
Quarter of the century.
Yeah.
25.
We'll see what it brings.

SPEAKER_00 (59:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, thank you so much forcoming and having the
conversation and conversationsthat count.
I've really appreciated yourinsight and value that you've
added today for listeners aswell, and for them to implement
into their daily life and yeah,the 14 minutes, um, which I feel
like, you know, it's veryachievable for a lot of people.
So it's great and I love whatyou're doing.

(59:23):
Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_02 (59:24):
It's been an absolute pleasure having a chat.