November 23, 2025 • 62 mins
Leon Purton strolled in for a chat in today's ep and we tumbled straight into that familiar territory you and I love... identity, leadership, masks, messy middles, self-belief, crucible moments, and why so many of us chase gold stars instead of growth.
Leon unpacked how the Air Force shaped him, how a divorce cracked him open, how perfection cost him connection, and how he rebuilt himself by dropping armour instead of adding more. We danced through stories about boxing, leadership, values, and those little internal kids in us who just want a pat on the head. And mate… did we hit some big realisations about self-belief, surrender, stillness, and the weird way life forces you to grow in directions you never would’ve picked from the safety of your twenties.
It was honest, warm, insightful, vulnerable, and bloody funny. A proper good yarn… I hope you love it!
SPONSORED BY TESTART FAMILY LAWYERS
Website: testartfamilylawyers.com.au
LEON PURTON
Website: leonpurton.com
TIFFANEE COOK
Linktree: linktr.ee/rollwiththepunches
Website: tiffcook.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
She said, it's now never. I got fighting in my blood.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
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test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au Leon pertin my new
(00:55):
tazzy friend, how are you mate? Welcome?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Hey, tif, I love a bit of tiffness on my Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
We've landed in the same room as each other twice
this year, and it was time to drag you into
this room for a chat.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I agreed.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I know what a great community the old speaking community
has turned out to be. I love it.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I love I seriously walked into that room in June
and got talking to people, and I'm like, I think
I found my people. I think I've found my people.
I've been looking for our community that was sort of
all about lifting other people up and filled with people
(01:37):
who want to make their own little dent in the world.
And that was just like juice for my soul. And
I'm like, I have to be part of this and
I want to be around these people as much as possible.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
That is exactly how I was. I was like, I'm
big on that. I'm big on that energy in a room,
and I just could like to go to Gold Coast
and sit in a room with what was this seventy
or eighty people or something, but to go, Oh, I
feel like I'm hanging out with my people and I
haven't even met most Like I've met maybe five to
(02:10):
ten of them, Max, But I feel like this is
the room full of my people that I've known all
my life, and they all want me to do well
and I want to hang out with them. How awesome
is that?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
That's so cool? Yeah, I knew nobody when I walked in.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I'm just going, how'd you land there?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
It's the cold outreach email. I think I'm not exactly sure.
I'm still trying to unpick how it got there. I
think somehow Jacqueline ended up in my not spam folder
and it was weird, Like the book come out in May,
and then this thing was on in June, and I'm like,
I want to stand on stages and I want to
learn about how I can transition from what I'm doing
(02:46):
into speaking more. And it was like this serendipitous moment,
that's there's this business a speaking conference on and it's
really easy for me to get to, and so I
just went along. And now there's like ninety people that
know my nickname. And I did a speaking gig on Sunday,
(03:08):
got up and told a story on Sunday, and there
was like ten people from that same room that we
met in June together in the audience, smiling back at
me as I was telling my story so such, so powerful,
so good.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
And I don't know. There's one bloke that was in
our pro the seven month program I've just done with Jack,
who we were all kind of sat talking about how
we ended up there, and he was like, actually, actually,
I think while I was in Brisbane we went out
for dinner. I went for dinner with him and his
wife and I was like, so, how did you, like,
how did you land in Jack's world, and he was like,
(03:45):
I actually don't know, because like I don't know, I
don't know. I just I'm in the course and I
don't know how. I don't know how.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
To that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
But we also figured out, and I don't know how
we figured it out, but that our parents know each
other in Tazzy.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
They do, Yeah, they do. I was like, I met
this Tiffany Cook chicken. She's a boxer and she grew
up in Tazzy and I think she's on the Northwest coast. Somebody,
do you know do you know any Tiffany Cook? He well,
I know this the Cooks that you used to live
in the Turner's Beach. Yes, and they had the store.
And I'm like, what, how do you know these people?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
So yeah, So now every time I speak to my
dad he asks about you.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Oh that's so good.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
In fact, my dad asked, just the other day, have
you spoken to that boxer girl again lately? I'm like, yeah,
actually I saw her the other day. So good.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
What what made you want to get into speaking.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
There's two, probably two elements to it, tiff and maybe
you can resonate with the first one. I'm I grew
up playing a fair bit of sport, and I don't
play that much sport anymore. If I do, it's not
super competitive. But standing on stage and those moments just
(05:04):
before you stand on stage and the moments after you
get off stage are like little snapshots into the pregame
nerves and the postgame exhilaration that comes from competitive sport
and if you can learn to sort of tap into that.
So it's a bit addictive to have that you do
(05:25):
the work, you prepare, you execute, and you get the
results at the end of it side of thing, And
it just reminded me a little bit of that. That's
sort of the first reason is that many people get,
you know, is that Jerry Seinfeld quote, if you're asked
to give the eulogy at a funeral, ninety nine out
(05:46):
of one hundred people would prefer to be the person
in the box and the person giving the speech. So
some people struggle struggle with that, but for me, it's
a real People confuse anxiety with excitement and nervousness with
you know, energy that you're stretching and striving. So I'm
pretty good at differentiating those two. And for that reason,
(06:07):
I really like that the preparation and the execution elements
of that. The second reason is that I come to
a realization, maybe ten years ago tif that I wasn't
doing enough of the stuff that really gave me energy.
(06:28):
I was doing a lot of stuff that people expected
me to do and not enough about what I thought
was really important to me to do. So what I
realized was I did a little values exercise, and out
of the values came so two core values for me.
One is growth and the other is connection. And I
(06:49):
define those as growth as being a little bit better
the application of my energy each day. I apply that
to me, the people I interact with, the things that
I've products and that I've got to generate, whatever it
might be. But if I can apply some of my
energy to it and make it a little bit better,
then I get a lot of positive sort of fulfillment
from that. And then connection is I don't want to
(07:12):
have a million connections. I don't want to be some
type of Instagram influencers who checks their followers count all
the time. But when I talk to somebody, I want
to strengthen the connection that I have with them, and
I do that by asking what I call big talk
questions so, and what I found was that when I
leaned more into those two things, not only was I
(07:33):
more effective at work, I was happier, more content and
more fulfilled. And the thing that I found the most
that lent into those two values was having one on
one conversations with other people about how they could potentially
improve and get a little bit better. And that inspired
me to eventually write a leadership and personal development style
(07:54):
blog and I did that for like one hundred weeks.
Every Tuesday, I just released a blog post and eventually
turn that into a book just this year and release
that this year, which tries to summarize all of those
types of conversations I've had over time. So sort of
the culmination of that is I love talking one on
one with people and helping them be a little bit
(08:16):
better in their leadership journey. I like doing one to more,
like small groups and getting together. And I think if
you really want to have an impact, you've got to
do it one to many. So one on one's good,
wonder more's all right, but one to many is where
you can have the biggest impact overall. And the most
effective way of getting one to many reach is standing
(08:38):
on stages and talking to people. So that's my motivation tip.
I want to help as many people as I can
stop pivot the way they think about how they show
up in the workplace and potentially be the leader that
somebody else in the workplace needs them to be for
their special moment. And I want to do that by
trying to reach as many people as I can, and
I think the most effective way to do that is
(09:00):
is to get in front of their people and teams
on stages or in front of classrooms doing workshop facilitation
and stuff. So that's sort of that was a really
long witted answer to say, I'm a competitive little shit.
It's still like speaking, and I think that I've got
something useful to say that might help a bunch of
people have a less sucky workplace, and so I want
(09:21):
to get on stages and try and help them fin
Did that shitty leadership?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah? Did that come from a place of like, what's
your journey with work being? Where did you Where did
you start? Where did you think you were going? And
was it being at the on the receiving end of
shitty leadership or seeing shitty leadership or maybe at some
point modeling shitty leadership that made you want to get
better at it? What was the journey?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Yeah, So I grew up in the Top Gun generation.
Tiff and my best friend and I watched Top Gun
in like year seven or eight or whatever, and he
was going to be he was going to be Maverick
and I was going to be Goose and we're going
to go flying around in the sky. So maybe I
was Maverick. I'm not sure, but maybe not Maverick with
these but I was always destined to be an engineer.
(10:10):
But we went we're going to be Maverick and Goose together,
And so I got this seed plann and I was
going to join the Air Force. And there's not a
lot to do in the northwest coast of Tasmania if
unless you get out of there. So I'm like, that's
a good opportunity to get out as well. So I
had in this sort of seed planned. My mate left
a high school in year eleven, dropped out and joined
the Navy to fix engines on boats. And I'm like, well,
(10:33):
I'll still join the air Force. So I joined the
Air Force as an avionics technician. So I was working
on electronics on aircraft and eventually did an engineering degree
and as you go through the military, you're expected it's
just sort of get promoted in the different levels you're
expected to do leadership development courses. They take you out
of the workplace for a few days at a time,
(10:54):
depending on what level you've been promoted to, and trying
to educate you on understanding team dynamics, understanding strengths and
weaknesses people and the team, becoming aware of policy and
processes that the military utilizes around leadership. And it was,
like I said to you about ten years ago, I
(11:15):
was going through going through a divorce and marriage breakdown.
I was pretty unhappy with how I'd been showing up
and leading myself outside of work. Work felt like the
safe zone for me. I was excelling at work and
people were giving me lots of pats in the back
and going great work leon but at home I wasn't
getting any of that validation as the marriage sort of
broke down and I felt like I was failing my kids.
(11:38):
And at the same time, I got sent away on
this leadership promotion course down to Canberra for two weeks,
standing laying down on these little single bedrooms with a
little sink in the mirror and a mess kitchen up
the hall on a military base, and I was just
stuck there for two weeks and we covered famous military
campaigns and we talked about military management principles, and we
(12:02):
had discussions about perhaps how he might do a coaching
conversation with a junior person. But I was sitting there
in that room, going this is not cutting it, Like,
this is not going to help our leaders become better leaders.
They got promoted to this level because they were really
really good at what they do, and we're not preparing
(12:22):
them for being really really good at leading people to
get stuff done. And so I was on that course.
So given a book by an air traffic controller and
the book was called Turn the Ship Around by David Marquay,
and he was a US Navy submarine commander and he
trained up for like six months to get ready to
(12:45):
go on too a certain submarine in the US Navy Fleet,
and then in the last moment they switched into a
different submarine that he knew nothing about. So he had
to switch from being like a know it all. I know,
I know the submarine, I know all the systems, I
know how people interact with the systems to go into
a completely new submarine type, and it happened to be
the worst performing submarine in the fleet. And it tells
(13:09):
his journey of turning it around by instead of telling
people what to do, asking them what they're going to do.
And it just made so much sense to me that
why within the military, why don't we start to think
in this way? Why do we always feel like we
have to push all of the information up to the
top of the chain of command so that they've got
(13:29):
information and can make a decision instead of giving them
some constraints about what they can do, but let them
make decisions at their levels. And he implemented a whole
of different systems to help him do that, and he
went from the worst performing ship and the fleet to
the best performing ship in the fleet in his time there,
and had a higher promotion rate of all the junior
(13:50):
people on the fleet. And I was reading that on
a weekend when I was meant to be learning military
leadership from the military leadership people, and I'm like, this
book just made so much more sense to me than
everything that I've been tried and to be told on
my leadership journey. And so I was like, if I
(14:10):
can get this one piece of information in my head
and internalize it and realize that I need to show
up differently. Perhaps I need to help other people come
to that same realization. So I was sort of two
factors to answer your question. One, I didn't feel like
I was leading myself very well. I felt like I
was being incongruent, like I was excelling in some areas
(14:33):
and failing in others. And so I'd rather be really
good in every area than exceptionally in one and not
so good in others. And that I thought that leadership
was being overly complicated in how it's approached and that
the military wasn't quite getting it right. So I took
it upon myself to start sending emails to everybody at
(14:56):
work with his leon's leadership thoughts, and I called them leaderships,
and I invited people to have conversations about them. And
I just tried to introduce a little bit of a
change in the organization. And like I said to you,
I started to affect people one on one, and I
started to affect people one to a few, so me
to a couple of people. But I didn't feel like
(15:17):
I was having the reach I wanted to have. So
that's why I wrote a three hundred page business card
called a book, and now I get to try and
work with other people and their teams to try and
the same sort of gifts of introspection and revelation that
(15:37):
I had to work for as I went through my career.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
What are probably the most important principles for leaders that
aren't generally at the top of people's list.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, so I might ask you that, Tiff, what do
you reckon that you've done. You've had a lot of
good trainings, like people to help you in your life.
You've done lots of different things that you've generally done
well at. What have you seen that differential people, differentiates
(16:15):
people that are really good for those that are not memorable?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
I have for as long as I can remember, I
have spurted out the saying lead by example, and it's
a huge value of mine personally. I lead by example.
I go first, and I am I am just really honest.
I have a real aversion, a visceral aversion to mask wearers,
(16:39):
which is why so much of my keynote talks about
masks and personas. I have a real trust switch on that.
So I think for me, I mean, I don't work
in corporate leadership spaces like you do. But yeah, I
think being human, saying when you're wrong, saying when you
(17:04):
don't have the answer. I mean, they would probably be
my top three. That when that's when I will follow someone,
when they are willing to say I don't know, I'm
not sure they did this fucked up.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Yeah, that you can develop a lot deeper empathy and
connection with people and you realize they're not perfect right
when you stop, when they when they're comfortable enough to
step down off this pedestal that you've put them on,
whether or they deserve to be there, and just be
real with you. So I think there's probably three things
answer your question if The first is that until you
(17:38):
can lead yourself, you don't deserve to leave anybody lead
anybody else, right, And so that was a realization that
was really impactful for me. I was I'm going to
be not humble here, but I was really really good
at my job. I was always really always getting stuff done.
I was the person that they could give the problem to.
(18:00):
I could go away and fix it, but I couldn't
fix the problem as to why my marriage was failing,
why I couldn't show up in the same way and
get the same results at home until I realized that,
like I said, I was not. I was trying to
be trying to focus on external validation, so people telling
(18:23):
me I was doing good things, then internal validation of leon,
you're doing the hard work and you can get better,
and it doesn't matter if anybody else notices it matters.
It matters that you acknowledge the fact that you're growing yourself.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Right.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
So I had to make that shift from external validation
internal validation. But I personally believe the I think it's
John Maxwell quote that the most important team you'll ever
lead is a team of one, and if you do
that right, you earn the right to lead more people.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
So that's I want to ask a question before you
move on to the other ones. I want to ask,
how does a person know? How does a person have
the self awareness to know whether or not they are
leading themselves? Well, like, what if their eye is so
firmly on this prize of the leadership label and the
aspiration to go and lead and do something, how do
(19:15):
we know?
Speaker 3 (19:16):
So my personal belief, Tiffany, is you can measure it.
You can identify it by looking at how you're measuring success.
So too often people have an external measure of success.
If I get when I get promoted, when I get
the pay rise, when I seal the contract or win
(19:39):
the deal or whatever it might be, or you know,
win the fight. Is that it's an external measure of success,
and when you talk to people that instead have an
internal measure of success. So I'm going to set myself
goals to achieve or want to improve in this area.
I acknowledge that I've got growth to do in this area,
(20:00):
and I want to do some work to develop it.
I want to see these other people around me succeed
in this way, and I want to help them lift
up through my contribution to their to their work rather
than being you know, the finish line is not the goal.
(20:20):
The work that goes in to getting you towards that,
So focus on focus on the systems and processes, not
the outcomes. So what the stuff that you can control,
not the stuff that you can't. So I think that's
the first measure. The second is what i'd call and
I mentioned to you before, how I did some work
(20:40):
to identify my values. How much of your daily activity
and actions and behaviors are in alignment with your values?
And how much of it is you have you're doing
because it's expected of you by the environment in which
you're in, but isn't in alignment with your values. So
that'll be the second the second measure, and then the
last one would be that you know, if you want
(21:04):
to go far, go alone. No, So if you want
to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far,
go together. And so who you're moving with, what's your
circle like? Who have you surround? And we mentioned we
started this talk talking about the people we met in
the room right that want to make a little dent
in the world and are really supportive of lifting each
other up. And I'm a big believer. If you don't
(21:26):
have that mentality of my role is not just for
me to succeed, it's for us to succeed, and what
can I do to help you in achieving that, then
you're not self aware enough of your role in life
and your role in the people around you, and you
potentially need to refocus that so that maybe answers my
question and any of those jump out to your tiff
(21:47):
is super important.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, absolutely, I remember what that idea of values I
remember years ago doing I think it was John D.
Martini's little values determination process, and I would have it
would probably be over a decade ago, and I just
started business networking, much to my disgust, I was part
(22:11):
of a company that merged and one of the owners
was part of a B and I it was like,
you're in sales. I'm going into production after this merger,
so you're you can take over this. Oh dude, dude.
The terror of doing a sixty second introduction in front
of sixteen people in Saint Kilda Road was fucking palpable.
(22:34):
I was terrified, but that was a tangent. I didn't
need to go on for the values determination. But the
point I want to make is I remember doing these questions,
and I remember at the time because it's kind of
after a while I'd got I liked I loved seeing
people who could captivate a room and influence and shift energy.
(22:57):
I really always appreciated that my dad had an ability
to do it when he gave speeches at family things,
and it used to just lodge itself in my heart.
I had a boss who would do it in print,
and he wasn't all that, he wasn't doing anything hugely inspiring.
It would just literally be a tip, but there was
(23:18):
something about the way that he shaped his words that
I really appreciated and the way that that could influence
a team. And so I remember doing this values determination
and thinking I kept saying I'd like to do speaking,
but thinking that's not going to show up. And then
when it churned out my results, it was really high
(23:40):
on the list and I kind of didn't I wasn't
identifying it in my answers. So that was really interesting
to me. Sometimes I don't think we're aware of our
actions and our values and how they align. So I
think that is an important one.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah, it's really I think that your values are like though,
is like energy buckets, right, and you have to do
you have to have regular actions or behaviors that put
the lines of your values to fill for your bucket.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Right.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
That's the fuel that moves your moves your body and
motivates you to do things without If you don't fill
that bucket up, you're running on empty. You're trying to
work on determination to get things done rather than inspiration
and motivation.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah. Yeah, before boxing, I remember i'd unrecognized, but I
realized that I would do things that people said I
was good at if there were, if I was a
sure bet, so never took my gym gear to school.
But come the athletics carnival, I would win first in
(24:48):
one hundred, two hundred, four hundred meter sprints and all
of the jumping events. And then I'll go to into
high into club like the inter club competitions. So I
would annihilate that I was the superstar of the day,
spend my gym sessions actually smoking cigarettes, Mum's cigarettes behind
the bloody behind the gym when getting in trouble for
not in inverted com was bringing my gym gear. Then
(25:10):
I'd have to race against the other schools and they
all trained, so I was the shittert so I hated it.
So I was like this one day where I know
I'm going to be the best in the superstar, I'm
all in, and then this next day where I'm against
people that actually trained, hated it, didn't want to go.
Boxing was the first activity that came into my world
(25:30):
at twenty nine where despite having a win in that
first like that twelve week challenge and the hell that
it was and the terror and the fact that I
wasn't good at it and it was embarrassing, it was
embarrassing to be that uncoordinated and not feel good at
it and not be a sure bet. And it was
so hard, the work was so hard to turn up
(25:53):
and do that. And then for some reason I got
to spat out the other side and I was like
something kept pulling me in and I'm like, what what
is this? Because I don't do this, I don't do
the hard thing. I don't do. I do the sure
bet and no one, no one has told me I'm
good at this, So that really cap That was really
interesting to me.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
I've had a similar story with I call it gold
star behavior tiff, where you do the thing that you
know you're good at, yes, because you know you can
get the little gold star pinned on your chest at
the end of the day, and anything that you're even
potentially marginally a little bit shit at, you just I
didn't try. But I didn't try. I wasn't trying and
(26:34):
it wasn't hard. So you never have to put yourself
out there and risk potentially trying really hard and still
not being good enough. You only do the things that
you know that you're going too. Thought, I was a
big sucker for that gold star Go Sar validation and
some of the stuff I had to unpack with the psychologist.
So I was going through the divorce and trying to
get a little bit better. Was how do I how
(26:55):
do I stop this little kid inside of me always
seeking out the activities that he knows that he can
get gold stars out instead of doing the hard ship
that he might be the last finisher and never get
a never get any acknowledgment for the work that he
put in. But he's better than he was the day before.
And so I've struggled a lot with that internal child
(27:16):
and trying to to acknowledge the fact that that internal
child is still very, very motivated by pats on the
back and added boys and we're joking about championship belts
and gold medal. It's just just today, right, I'm like,
I feel called out. You're still going to fight against
(27:38):
each own fact. I lost to you in a speaking
competition at that conference we went to. I wasmingming you
because that.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Was a very funny, funny story. You told I the
beauty of a sport like boxing, and I think it
was the gift to me. Was this unders standing that
there is a winner and there is a loser. There
is no second best right, but also shittest sport in
(28:09):
history for being a measure of success, because you are
a winner based on your performance on the day with
one person who stepped in the ring with you with
the only things to measure are you have a body weight,
a three kilo body weight to match, right, so you're
(28:32):
equal in body weight and number of fights. So we
get people get these belts and people choose to fight
or to not fight. But Australia is the worst. People
people are choosing fights, They're getting fights imported from overseas
to bump up their ranks. You get bad decisions. Judges
(28:53):
can just not like you and decide that Like my
particular coach, especially in my first image fight, not well
liked in the amateur scene. My housemate had had fights
under him. So I knew in my very first fight,
the one I spoke of in my keynote, I knew
that I that I had to win convincingly because if
(29:13):
I just won, I wouldn't get the win. So when
I won, you would like, if you watch the end
of that fight, you would think I just won the
fucking tats lotto, Like I just set myself. I was like, oh,
my God. But I think to be in a sport
that means so much to you and to consciously have
those realizations along the way that hey, this is no measure.
(29:39):
Hey no one cares. I'm getting my head pummeled and
no one actually cares. Doesn't mean anything to anyone but me.
And also the w or the l that I get
at the end of this that also has no meaning,
Like how wild is that?
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Yeah, that's hard. I mean, I'm sure you've had losses
that have taken a little while to soaken as well.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
I had a loss in twenty nineteen that was I
had a win when because I'd had three or four
years break probably one, I can't remember, maybe three. Anyway,
first fight won it. The girl was way heavier. I
was so miserable about my perform I was like, don't
even that was the worst performance. The next fight I
(30:23):
lost on split decision. Best. Oh, you could have sworn
again that I'd one test lot. I was like five
round five or six rounds, I think first first one
of that length. Super happy with the two things that
irritated me. In the first fight I lost on split decision.
This chick was hundreds of fights, like she'd had so
many more fights than me, and I was like, you
don't even have to tell me that was good. That
was good. And I was like, t if you lost,
(30:45):
I'm like, I don't care. I just I won that.
I won me, which is a weird experience because it's like, mate,
there's all these people in this room just saw you lose.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Like that's the that's the How old were you in
that fight?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
One that was in twenty nineteen, So I'm in my thirties.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
So here's the thing I reckon And I don't want
to be I don't want to focus too much on
age as the delineator in this, but I truly think
it's the case. I think there's a moment in your
thirties where you reade fine success for yourself, I think,
and some people never get there, and that's for whatever reason,
(31:26):
maybe they haven't had to go through those crucible moments
that you talk about, Tiffany. But from my perspective, I
think there's a moment in your thirties where you switch
from trying to achieve everything everybody else tells you should
do to here's what I think I need to do
and what I want to do that will help me
(31:46):
be happier. And I don't think you can get there
until you're in your thirties. And I think it takes
a crucible moment that you've got to You've got to
go through it. You can't go around it or over it.
You have to go through it, Chick. There's no cheats
way through it. You've got to go through it to
come to that realization, because it forces you to sit
(32:06):
in introspection and reflection and think about why am I
motivated for the things I'm motivated and are they still
important to me? And so I think for you, like
if I chatted a fair few times Stiff, I know
I resonate with you. I'm a competitive person as well,
and the measure has always been where you finish, until
(32:29):
it becomes not about that, and it's about how proud
you are of what you've overcome, the effort you put
in your ability to follow the plan that you put
in place for yourself and follow the systems and structures
in a way that it made you feel that you
gave it your best shot. That motivated changes a little bit,
(32:50):
and I feel like it happens in your mid earlier
mid thirties. I don't feel like you can get there
in your twenty if I don't think your self awareness
is enough your sense of health perhaps rather than self awareness,
but your own self identity is rich enough to be
able to start to pick that apart.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I think it's also maybe we have to we have
to achieve the wrong things, or we have to have
an expectation of what achievement's going to mean and get
to something to realize that there's something isn't the thing
that we want.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Yeah, there's an analogy of working so hard to push
your ladder up against the wall and build this ladder
and climb and climb and climb and climb and get
to the top of the wall. I need to realize
once you get there that you've put the ladder up
against the wrong wall and you aren't even climbing in
the right direction, and you've got to go back down
and put it against a different wall and start climbing
(33:44):
over there. And that analogy is quite rich for me,
because I think it's true. But what I've realized, I
think in that time, is that if you do do
that work and you redefine what success means to you,
that you become more successful and happier and more content
and fulfilled, And you'll lead a much richer life than
the one you would have left if you kept striving
(34:06):
for success in the wrong direction.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So what did you learn about you in the middle
of the failed marriage?
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Many things that I think that we are as a nation,
even as a global entity, the human race, becoming more
disconnected from human connection by the amount of technical barriers
(34:40):
that we put in front of places. So I found
that I was fighting so hard to look perfect that
I could never be excellent at anything. And I'll talk
about the difference between those two in a minute. And
so what I realized was that I can't fight for
perfection and have people understand. We talked about it at
(35:02):
the start in your response that people that say I
don't know, people that say I fucked up, people that
say I'm not sure what we should do, and I'm
a bit worried about the future and what we're trying
to achieve. People that are honest enough to have those
conversations can't also be perfectionists, right, because they exclude those
(35:23):
two things. So what I found was that I was
holding so tightly to this identity of good enough. You know,
I'm great at this things. I'm good at everything that
I was, excluding all these other parts of my life
where I wasn't that and I wasn't brave or courageous
enough to be able to have those conversations with other
people who I was worried about, breaking down this veneer
(35:46):
of being perfect along the way. So just on that,
I think perfection shuns external criticism. Perfection is an internal locus.
I believe it's good enough. I think that I'm good enough.
I've done the thing as well as it can be done,
and I think it's good. Whereas excellence seeks external feedback.
(36:10):
So I've done this thing, can you help me make
it better? I don't know how to do this thing?
Can you help me start the strategy? So it seeks
external feedback. And so when I made that shift, the
big shift for me tift was to forget perfect and
strive for excellent, and that meant giving away your own
internal measures of enough isms and starting to talk to
(36:33):
people in a real and honest way about what you're
trying to achieve, why you're trying to achieve it, why
it's important to achieve, and having them support you along
the way because they understand where you are and where
you're trying.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
To get to. So I love that. How what what
do you what was the process? Like, how did you
like you mentioned psychology before, how did you work with
some of the stuff that you learned? I think I was.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
It's odd to say we talked about being gold star
before TIF right, I was a gold star student inside
of the psychologist's office as well, Like whatever they gave
me a piece of information, I'd go away and I'd
research and I'm like, right, leand how can I apply this?
And I come back to the psychologist and I'd like
trying to hand my homework in and tell me I'm
a good guy, like telling me I'm a good student psychologist,
And I'm like, no, it's not about understanding information and
(37:36):
doing your own research and thinking about how it might
apply to you. It's about choosing to take the information
and then show up in a different way based on
this shift in understanding that you have. And so that
I mean that it's brutal to do, right, because it's
easy to be. It's easy to be like I'm good
at learning all the information. I guess it's the difference
(37:56):
between problem the talk about don't come to me with problems,
come to me with solutions, and too often we get
we identify solutions, but they turn into just solutions that
we admire. We get to, oh, yeah, I know I
(38:17):
need to do that, but you don't do it because
it's hard or uncomfortable or it makes you feel weird,
and so you don't do it. And but you know
what you need to do, but you don't do it.
And so that was that was a pivot for me
with a psychologist was yes, I understand, here's these different models.
Understand I need to show up differently and think about
things differently. And then you go greatly on are you
doing it? I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm not doing that.
(38:41):
So for me, I think that the key part was
if that I was showing up like I mentioned to
you before, incongruently, I was aiming for excellence in one
area and not willing to do the work in the
other area. I didn't know a part of how to
get to the answer, so I didn't so I didn't
(39:03):
even try and walk down the path. I didn't interact
with people that might help me git down that path.
What I found was when you when you stop fighting
to hold everything together and start being brave enough to
let other people in. Then you start to have a
shift in the way you show up in the world,
(39:25):
and then that shift is an evidence of progression in
a certain direction that reinforces the journey that you're on.
And then bit by bit, just bit by bit. I
mentioned it the other day, it's just tiny moments of
unarmored leon's just stucking on top of each other where
you just drop the armor of perfection and you just
(39:48):
show up without any armor, and you get hurt a
little bit along the way, but you've got a network
to help you through it. So I know your keynote
Tiff Hooks leans heavily into that, and I absolutely resonate
with it as well. Is that you just got to
keep showing up even if you get hurt sometimes or
it hurts to show up in that way.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yeah, I know. For me, I found like the idea
of looking in the mirror and discovering something about yourself
is a really profound moment. And then for me it
was followed by an incredible amount of frustration and angst
because it was like, well before I realized this was
(40:33):
the catalyst for who and how I am, I had
a pretty cool story and it felt good and I
felt empowered and I was the fucking tough guy and
without doing things and my story was real solid and
that was cool. And then I had the I don't
know wisdom or courage or opportunity or whatever it was,
(40:53):
but I came to a point in life where questions
I asked myself, questions, I made discoveries. I realized that
there was some shit I had to deal with. And
then it was like, for a moment that felt really
promising and hopeful. I'm like, fucking yeah, I just discovered this. Whooa,
we're on the path. And then it's like this what
felt like a long time of what what now? Like
(41:17):
what's the point? What's the point of doing the work that?
What do I do with it? How do I change it?
Because I've been me for thirty something years and now
I've realized that there's a part of me that's got
some flaws that need to be that that can be
worked on. And that was so fun, you know, like
sitting in the being okay, we're sitting in the mess.
(41:40):
And then I think further to that, I almost look
at life now and go, we will We're have this.
We developed this idea that we're over the humph. I
learned this lesson. I'm going to tell the world and
then I'm going to share this and we're on the way,
and it's like, mate, you probably aren't even that's probably
the one tiny little pot Oh, you've just gone over
(42:01):
that way till you see what's coming life.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Yeah, it's one of that that being you mentioned it
being brave or well supported enough to sit in the pain.
People grow when they're uncomfortable. So doing hard things forces
you to grow. But if you're in pain, you'll end
up changing, and it might not. Some people don't positively change.
(42:28):
Some people get pushed into that pain and they make
decisions that lead them into a path that's perhaps less positive.
Others get into that pain and they make some decisions
that helps them come out of it in a positive way.
And other people don't deal with the pain. They just
try and numb it. So they just they immerse themselves
(42:50):
in a thing. Whatever it might be, you know, it
could be. It could be any type of addictive substances.
It could be social media or trashy TV, or talking
shit with your mates all the time and that makes
you feel good. In the moment in the boxing ring
(43:13):
a few times to do a different hard thing to
so you don't have to deal with the other hard thing.
There's plenty of plenty of the adventure racing industry is
founded on that. I think so. But if you're if
you're not brave enough to And for me, I numbed
for a long time in that lead up to the
marriage breakdown. I didn't deal with the thing because I
(43:35):
didn't know how to and it felt too hard to
deal with, so I distracted myself from it. So you're
one hund percent right. You've got to feel comfortable to
sit in that pain. And too often we chuck on
masks or armor or whatever it might be that helps
us feel a bit protected from that pain instead of
(43:55):
taking them off and sitting in that pain and being
exposed to it. But I think the key part is
you've got you've got to have a system or support
network that will help you get out of it eventually.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Right.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
It might take you a while, but you need to
be able to talk to other people going, hey, I'm
really struggling with this and have that conversation. And if
you don't have a network of people that you can
have that type of conversation with then people feel isolated
and feel like they have to try and do it themselves,
and they get frustrated and can never escape it properly.
So yeah, it's important lesson, but if you don't have
(44:32):
the tools to get through that moment, then you can
sometimes get stuck in it or go the wrong way
out of it.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
And like the idea that how you do one thing
is how you do everything. I like, I love That's
part of why that whole boxing metaphor was so meaningful
to me and showed me represented that in a particular space,
but I know it exists every I call the podcast
my emotional boxing ring because I I saw the growth
of how I could see me unmasked in the boxing arena,
(45:06):
and how when I changed things in there, how tightly
the metaphors landed, how tightly I learned about real life
boundaries and vulnerabilities and visibility and all of these things
that were actually the reason that that place felt sacred
to me, because they were all the things I struggled
with in real life. When I addressed them in there,
(45:28):
it gave me a framework, and I saw myself changing
out of there same thing with the podcast because I
started stepping into these open, vulnerable conversations and stepping into
trusting people and asking them to trust me and having
these deeply vulnerable stories. And I remember sitting in the
first couple of months in conversations like this and thinking,
(45:51):
you don't you don't open up like this, and you don't, like,
who what's this? You know? And I went, well, it's
happening here, and if I practice this here, this will
flow out into my real life relationships. And that's what happens.
It's bloody awesome like but you know, it's the same
(46:12):
with yourself. You have a version of you showing up
at work and then a version of you showing up
at home, and you're like, oh, what can I what
can I learn from that?
Speaker 3 (46:22):
What's the lesson that you're trying to learn or perhaps
the universe is forcing you to relearn at the moment?
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Nice question, ah, self belief right, hey say more. It
was interesting. There was a it's been a turbulent couple
of years with like, I'm in the midst of perimenopause
at the moment. So I went to go back to
fight tre I was going to have a profile in
(46:49):
twenty twenty two, I think it was went back into
fight camp and physically just crash, like started waking up
at one am. So but because of a bunch of stuff,
I thought it was a I thought it was just
the training. And then I thought, because I'd again done
a lot of psychological workaround stuff, I was like, maybe
(47:09):
it's the Maybe I'm just reading into some metaphors again
and it's just a bit triggering emotionally, I don't know whatever.
But maybe a couple of years after that, I remember
messaging my coach and now he's coached me quite maybe
(47:29):
three or four different occasions for whatever bunch of times
in between breaks, but only ever, like I walk in
as a box, I'll go in. I have two hours there.
But it's an incredibly intimate space, right You're seeing somewhat
like I saw at twenty nine years old. I saw
a version of Tiffany Cook that I never knew existed.
(47:50):
So it stands to reason that the person who sees
only that version of you is in part they're seeing
the realist version, and they're making assumptions and that not
the rest of whatever goes on. And at some point
I sent him a message and it was something along
the lines of kind of as you know, you've coached
me for a very long time, now, you know since
(48:13):
what a twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, I think I started
training with him, and I was kind of interested in
what what do you make of me? What do you
see in me? So, however I worded it warranted and
he got back to me twenty four hours later with
a very introspective, beautiful message. But I remember the one
(48:35):
thing that kind of landed and I was like, what
are we talking about? Was this fact that you don't
you don't believe in yourself. And I was like, but
you know, I look back at training now and I
and there were so many times I was parking what
I knew and how I wanted to find I was
grappling in the middle of these sparring sessions of the
(49:00):
unknown answer to what he wanted me to do. And
It's like, but I know I have the innate intelligence
of how I cope right now, what I need to
do in this situation, but I'm trying to read this
mystical answer because I need him. That was one of
the other people believing in me was one of the
things that along with shame that I burned in the
(49:21):
Himalayas on the mountain and left up there a year ago.
Like the second thing I wrote on my list was
the need for other people to believe in me because
I'm a go get it. I go, I make a decision,
I go get it, I make shit happen. But then
once it happens the first time, I think, oh, that's
just luck, and then I it's like I cling to
somebody or I have at times. Then I cling to
(49:44):
somebody who I think if they believe in me, then
I'll make it, and then my self sabotage.
Speaker 3 (49:53):
So which part of your identity is the one that's changed?
Is it your d is it the fighter part of
your identity that you might not get back? Is it
the feminine part? Is what is the part of the
identity that's being challenged at the moment that's affecting your
self belief?
Speaker 2 (50:13):
I think well, I would say my biggest lesson all
the thing that's changed most recently was and I think
I've grappled a long time with the idea of surrender
and letting go. That's been in high rotation with a
lot of Marklebust episodes on this podcast, my inability to
let go or relinquished control and to not fight. And
(50:36):
so I've parked the fighting now and I talk a
lot about our fight to surrender like that. That's been
a term that has been in a lot of my conversations,
the ability to let go, the ability to surrender and
to just be and be what's left, and to not
achieve and to pause. Yeah, and I think stillness and
(51:04):
not achieving.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
The reason I bring it up to, if i'll distruct
with my story for a little bit, is when I
was going through that moment in my life, I and
you can pay me out for this analogy if you want,
but if you think of the like a marble statue
like you see up on pedestals or whatever, that I
had this mental image of the key parts of my
(51:31):
identity were like labels that fit inside of the big
parts of this statue. But the core of this statue
where the core parts of my identity, and then the
less parts, you know, the less significant parts of my
identity out in the extremities, right. And I was going
through a divorce, which meant I wasn't going to be married,
which is part of my identity. I was struggling with
(51:54):
this perspective that I wasn't going to be around my
kids full time for in separate house, and so what
did that mean for this part of my identity that
was father? And then not long after that, I left
the military, and so I had this other part of
my attachment that had been from eighteen to forty was
part of my identities, another big hole that was left.
(52:18):
And so I had these three things that were all
being sort of challenged at the same time, and that
really affected my self belief, really manifested as a sense
of shame for some parts of it, an uncertainty for
other parts of it, and my self belief really dropped off.
So my motivation for asking you the question that I
(52:39):
did was that I've struggled with self belief when those
parts of my identity are changing or absent or missing
and need to be replaced. And so what I went
through is that, okay, divorce, that's okay, I was married.
That's not a super important part of who I am,
it's what I was. So I replaced sat with you
(53:00):
know this other part to me, your father. I'm not
around my kids full time, but I can manifest you
I can still be in their life in a meaningful way.
So even though I'm not just always going to be
sitting down sitting on the couch when they want to
come up and give me a HRG or whenever we're together,
I want to spend be more purposeful about the time
we spend together. And then this identity is military, I'm like, well,
(53:24):
that's still always going to be a part of me.
It's no longer significant anymore. So perhaps it shuffles off
to a shoulder or or down a leg somewhere or whatever,
but I'm still attached to this idea of doing work
that is more meaningful than individual outcomes. It's a significant
has a purpose greater than your individual contribution, and so
(53:47):
I still want to be around work that fits into
that category. So I'm going to be a purpose driven
you know, how can I identify that the outcomes we're
trying to achieve are meaningful? And my role in that
plays apart and so I mean a defense adjacent role,
and I want to get into leadership speaking. All those
things lean into that. So I was able to rebuild
that sense of belief and identity that was attached to
(54:10):
that through going through a bit of a mental process
of rebuilding. Okay, who I'm That's what I was. Who
am I going to be in the future, and how
do I take actions that will help me show up
in that way in the future. So you said self belief,
and the story that went through my mind was that
there's a part of your identity being challenged at the
(54:31):
moment and you've lost a bit of belief because of that.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
And I think I think I'm coming out of this
part of it. But I think the boxer identity the
fighter was a big one, and especially like twenty twenty
four the boxer album gets released. Yeah, tips the Boxer
and it's and basing my keynote. You know, all my
list I will always talk about boxing is the analogy.
(54:55):
And I guess there was a part of me that
I mean, I kept training when my body wasn't loving
it with boxing for most of last year until I
just went you, in no uncertain terms, your body doesn't
want to train like this right now. Put it away.
You don't have to do it. You can still train fighters,
(55:16):
You can still use all of the wisdom that innately exists.
You can still expose people to this sport without being
a boxer. You don't have to be a boxer. You
don't have to pick up the gloves ever again. And
that was part of when I went to the Himalayas.
I remember just wanting to leave behind every part of
(55:36):
my identity, the label, every label. I wanted to be
on that mountain with people that weren't in the gym
with me, and weren't on the podcast with me, and
weren't in my tiff world here, and I wanted to
be reintroduced with everything that was left after that was stripped.
And it was an incredible experience because we get so
(55:57):
wrapped up in who we are an inverted commas by
the things we do or the people around us that
tell us who we are. We are that to them
because that makes them feel like them, So that's not
even about us.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
Yeah, there's a Harold Green Probably are the name wrong,
But there was a quote when I was going through
the process of writing the book. It talks to that
exact thing. Tear fits I am not who I think
I am. I am not who you think I am.
I am who I think you think I am right,
(56:35):
which is a bit matter to unpack, but it's talk
to the fact that your identity is built up by
how you think other people need you to show up. Yeah, right,
And so if you are hanging out in the boxing
gym all the time, then they expect you to be
showing up as the boxer, right, And so you've got
(56:58):
to do that work to peel those layers back, going, Okay,
I'm not going to show up how you think I
think I should. I'm going to show up how I
think I think I should. And it sounds like you
went through that pairing back of identity through your through
your you know, moment on the mountain in Nepal.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
Big time, big time. Even when I started this show
and then I started working on the new project with Craig. Now,
Craig's been a massive mentor of mine for many years now,
and I'd started years ago doing volunteering at his events
and had a bit of coaching from him, So it
was a huge mentor of mine. And then after I'd
(57:43):
started this show a few months later, he rang up,
he said, you want to do a show a week online.
I'm like, fucking amazing. For a very long time, and
I see that myself do this in other instances, I've
picked myself up along the way and go and you
do that like mirroring people, or be my psychologist, cause
it's growing down, growing down in situations. So I would
(58:04):
get on a podcast with him. Here's this guy that's
doing a PhD in self awareness and metaperception and he's
super smart and he's my mentor, and I would dumb down.
I would become and I would change. I would be complete,
not completely different, but I just know I would not
play to my strengths. And I want to think, why
(58:26):
do you? Why do you do? You actually have more
to say and what you have to say matters, but
you just turn into this fucking nervous little schoolgirl that
whose voice isn't worthy of being heard on. This was
a weird thing to notice. It's part of that sitting
(58:46):
in the mess, you know, and it's part of I
think psychologists for me are worth their weight in goal
because it's you don't see that till you get to
reflect on it and in a conversation. And then when
I started having coversations where I learned that was happening,
then I could see it happen in the moments. And
then when you start to capture yourself in the moments,
(59:08):
you can plan for it and you can change it,
like training in the boxing gym. Then you can start
to show up and be like, actually, I'm just going
to show up and not do that in time.
Speaker 3 (59:18):
Yeah, I always found the psychologist's office is that ninety
percent of the value comes from the silence, right because
it forces you to sit there and just this stupid
frigging gray matter just percolates away in the background on
this one question that's been asked, and rather than just
(59:39):
too often we try and fill that space or we
distract ourselves with something else. But sitting there in that
psychologists office, you're forced to sit in the silence for
a moment and think about what was just said. And
so it's a weird thing. You're essentially paying for quiet time,
which is a weird thing to do, right, But I
found most the value come from just being, you know,
(01:00:02):
someone staring at you, waiting for you to say there
is something meaningful back, but being patient enough for you
to come up with the words, rather than just try
and fill that space. So yeah, I find that I
talk about oppressive silence in psychologists rooms that it just
forces you to strip away everything else and focus on
just one thing. So yeah, I agree to you that
(01:00:25):
that very important, But I think there's if you can
get yourself in the right crowds, you can spend some
time with other people who can say you. Also create
similar spaces for you to have contemplation and reflection and
ask good questions.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
You're an ACE mate. You better tell everyone where they
can buy your book, how they can contact you, and
how they can book you to talk to their leadership team.
Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
Yeah, I'd love for people to head over at eleon
pertin dot com and look me up online. All my
stuff's in there. You buy a copy of the book
The Ignited Leader. It's in the background here, but I'll
just flushually copy of the bamk Cup recently won gold
medal for Leadership and Management at the Able Book awardins
pretty ace. I've got a gold medal that Tiff doesn't.
So I'll go to lord that.
Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Over game on.
Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
And you can brought me from speaking now. And I
want to speak to the executives and middle managers who
are sick of their their leaders driving people out the
door instead of driving results. And they know they've got
to and I've got a problem there, and they perhaps
haven't quite got the right language or tools to help
their teams. So thanks, Tiff. I've really appreciated mate. I
(01:01:36):
love spending time with you. Was looking forward to this
chat because it felt like I just got someone on
one time instead of us all being crowded around in
a conference room. And I am going to come to Melbourne.
I'm going to get up in your space and we'll
spend some more time together in the future.
Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
Well, mate, when you do, I'll take you for a cookie.
Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
I can't wait. I hope you get them. I might
even ask you to punch me in the face.
Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
Tiff with pleasure, with pleasure, mate, it's been awesome. I
hope you do make it down to Melbourne. I'll be
glad to see you. Everyone. Go buy a book, go
book him in, check out the website, do all the
things and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
I appreciate you, Tess. Thanks mate, back
Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood,
got it, got it,
She said, it's now never. I got fighting in my blood.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
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test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au Leon pertin my new
(00:55):
tazzy friend, how are you mate? Welcome?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Hey, tif, I love a bit of tiffness on my Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
We've landed in the same room as each other twice
this year, and it was time to drag you into
this room for a chat.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I agreed.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I know what a great community the old speaking community
has turned out to be. I love it.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I love I seriously walked into that room in June
and got talking to people, and I'm like, I think
I found my people. I think I've found my people.
I've been looking for our community that was sort of
all about lifting other people up and filled with people
(01:37):
who want to make their own little dent in the world.
And that was just like juice for my soul. And
I'm like, I have to be part of this and
I want to be around these people as much as possible.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
That is exactly how I was. I was like, I'm
big on that. I'm big on that energy in a room,
and I just could like to go to Gold Coast
and sit in a room with what was this seventy
or eighty people or something, but to go, Oh, I
feel like I'm hanging out with my people and I
haven't even met most Like I've met maybe five to
(02:10):
ten of them, Max, But I feel like this is
the room full of my people that I've known all
my life, and they all want me to do well
and I want to hang out with them. How awesome
is that?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
That's so cool? Yeah, I knew nobody when I walked in.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I'm just going, how'd you land there?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
It's the cold outreach email. I think I'm not exactly sure.
I'm still trying to unpick how it got there. I
think somehow Jacqueline ended up in my not spam folder
and it was weird, Like the book come out in May,
and then this thing was on in June, and I'm like,
I want to stand on stages and I want to
learn about how I can transition from what I'm doing
(02:46):
into speaking more. And it was like this serendipitous moment,
that's there's this business a speaking conference on and it's
really easy for me to get to, and so I
just went along. And now there's like ninety people that
know my nickname. And I did a speaking gig on Sunday,
(03:08):
got up and told a story on Sunday, and there
was like ten people from that same room that we
met in June together in the audience, smiling back at
me as I was telling my story so such, so powerful,
so good.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
And I don't know. There's one bloke that was in
our pro the seven month program I've just done with Jack,
who we were all kind of sat talking about how
we ended up there, and he was like, actually, actually,
I think while I was in Brisbane we went out
for dinner. I went for dinner with him and his
wife and I was like, so, how did you, like,
how did you land in Jack's world, and he was like,
(03:45):
I actually don't know, because like I don't know, I
don't know. I just I'm in the course and I
don't know how. I don't know how.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
To that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
But we also figured out, and I don't know how
we figured it out, but that our parents know each
other in Tazzy.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
They do, Yeah, they do. I was like, I met
this Tiffany Cook chicken. She's a boxer and she grew
up in Tazzy and I think she's on the Northwest coast. Somebody,
do you know do you know any Tiffany Cook? He well,
I know this the Cooks that you used to live
in the Turner's Beach. Yes, and they had the store.
And I'm like, what, how do you know these people?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
So yeah, So now every time I speak to my
dad he asks about you.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Oh that's so good.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
In fact, my dad asked, just the other day, have
you spoken to that boxer girl again lately? I'm like, yeah,
actually I saw her the other day. So good.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
What what made you want to get into speaking.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
There's two, probably two elements to it, tiff and maybe
you can resonate with the first one. I'm I grew
up playing a fair bit of sport, and I don't
play that much sport anymore. If I do, it's not
super competitive. But standing on stage and those moments just
(05:04):
before you stand on stage and the moments after you
get off stage are like little snapshots into the pregame
nerves and the postgame exhilaration that comes from competitive sport
and if you can learn to sort of tap into that.
So it's a bit addictive to have that you do
(05:25):
the work, you prepare, you execute, and you get the
results at the end of it side of thing, And
it just reminded me a little bit of that. That's
sort of the first reason is that many people get,
you know, is that Jerry Seinfeld quote, if you're asked
to give the eulogy at a funeral, ninety nine out
(05:46):
of one hundred people would prefer to be the person
in the box and the person giving the speech. So
some people struggle struggle with that, but for me, it's
a real People confuse anxiety with excitement and nervousness with
you know, energy that you're stretching and striving. So I'm
pretty good at differentiating those two. And for that reason,
(06:07):
I really like that the preparation and the execution elements
of that. The second reason is that I come to
a realization, maybe ten years ago tif that I wasn't
doing enough of the stuff that really gave me energy.
(06:28):
I was doing a lot of stuff that people expected
me to do and not enough about what I thought
was really important to me to do. So what I
realized was I did a little values exercise, and out
of the values came so two core values for me.
One is growth and the other is connection. And I
(06:49):
define those as growth as being a little bit better
the application of my energy each day. I apply that
to me, the people I interact with, the things that
I've products and that I've got to generate, whatever it
might be. But if I can apply some of my
energy to it and make it a little bit better,
then I get a lot of positive sort of fulfillment
from that. And then connection is I don't want to
(07:12):
have a million connections. I don't want to be some
type of Instagram influencers who checks their followers count all
the time. But when I talk to somebody, I want
to strengthen the connection that I have with them, and
I do that by asking what I call big talk
questions so, and what I found was that when I
leaned more into those two things, not only was I
(07:33):
more effective at work, I was happier, more content and
more fulfilled. And the thing that I found the most
that lent into those two values was having one on
one conversations with other people about how they could potentially
improve and get a little bit better. And that inspired
me to eventually write a leadership and personal development style
(07:54):
blog and I did that for like one hundred weeks.
Every Tuesday, I just released a blog post and eventually
turn that into a book just this year and release
that this year, which tries to summarize all of those
types of conversations I've had over time. So sort of
the culmination of that is I love talking one on
one with people and helping them be a little bit
(08:16):
better in their leadership journey. I like doing one to more,
like small groups and getting together. And I think if
you really want to have an impact, you've got to
do it one to many. So one on one's good,
wonder more's all right, but one to many is where
you can have the biggest impact overall. And the most
effective way of getting one to many reach is standing
(08:38):
on stages and talking to people. So that's my motivation tip.
I want to help as many people as I can
stop pivot the way they think about how they show
up in the workplace and potentially be the leader that
somebody else in the workplace needs them to be for
their special moment. And I want to do that by
trying to reach as many people as I can, and
I think the most effective way to do that is
(09:00):
is to get in front of their people and teams
on stages or in front of classrooms doing workshop facilitation
and stuff. So that's sort of that was a really
long witted answer to say, I'm a competitive little shit.
It's still like speaking, and I think that I've got
something useful to say that might help a bunch of
people have a less sucky workplace, and so I want
(09:21):
to get on stages and try and help them fin
Did that shitty leadership?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah? Did that come from a place of like, what's
your journey with work being? Where did you Where did
you start? Where did you think you were going? And
was it being at the on the receiving end of
shitty leadership or seeing shitty leadership or maybe at some
point modeling shitty leadership that made you want to get
better at it? What was the journey?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Yeah, So I grew up in the Top Gun generation.
Tiff and my best friend and I watched Top Gun
in like year seven or eight or whatever, and he
was going to be he was going to be Maverick
and I was going to be Goose and we're going
to go flying around in the sky. So maybe I
was Maverick. I'm not sure, but maybe not Maverick with
these but I was always destined to be an engineer.
(10:10):
But we went we're going to be Maverick and Goose together,
And so I got this seed plann and I was
going to join the Air Force. And there's not a
lot to do in the northwest coast of Tasmania if
unless you get out of there. So I'm like, that's
a good opportunity to get out as well. So I
had in this sort of seed planned. My mate left
a high school in year eleven, dropped out and joined
the Navy to fix engines on boats. And I'm like, well,
(10:33):
I'll still join the air Force. So I joined the
Air Force as an avionics technician. So I was working
on electronics on aircraft and eventually did an engineering degree
and as you go through the military, you're expected it's
just sort of get promoted in the different levels you're
expected to do leadership development courses. They take you out
of the workplace for a few days at a time,
(10:54):
depending on what level you've been promoted to, and trying
to educate you on understanding team dynamics, understanding strengths and
weaknesses people and the team, becoming aware of policy and
processes that the military utilizes around leadership. And it was,
like I said to you about ten years ago, I
(11:15):
was going through going through a divorce and marriage breakdown.
I was pretty unhappy with how I'd been showing up
and leading myself outside of work. Work felt like the
safe zone for me. I was excelling at work and
people were giving me lots of pats in the back
and going great work leon but at home I wasn't
getting any of that validation as the marriage sort of
broke down and I felt like I was failing my kids.
(11:38):
And at the same time, I got sent away on
this leadership promotion course down to Canberra for two weeks,
standing laying down on these little single bedrooms with a
little sink in the mirror and a mess kitchen up
the hall on a military base, and I was just
stuck there for two weeks and we covered famous military
campaigns and we talked about military management principles, and we
(12:02):
had discussions about perhaps how he might do a coaching
conversation with a junior person. But I was sitting there
in that room, going this is not cutting it, Like,
this is not going to help our leaders become better leaders.
They got promoted to this level because they were really
really good at what they do, and we're not preparing
(12:22):
them for being really really good at leading people to
get stuff done. And so I was on that course.
So given a book by an air traffic controller and
the book was called Turn the Ship Around by David Marquay,
and he was a US Navy submarine commander and he
trained up for like six months to get ready to
(12:45):
go on too a certain submarine in the US Navy Fleet,
and then in the last moment they switched into a
different submarine that he knew nothing about. So he had
to switch from being like a know it all. I know,
I know the submarine, I know all the systems, I
know how people interact with the systems to go into
a completely new submarine type, and it happened to be
the worst performing submarine in the fleet. And it tells
(13:09):
his journey of turning it around by instead of telling
people what to do, asking them what they're going to do.
And it just made so much sense to me that
why within the military, why don't we start to think
in this way? Why do we always feel like we
have to push all of the information up to the
top of the chain of command so that they've got
(13:29):
information and can make a decision instead of giving them
some constraints about what they can do, but let them
make decisions at their levels. And he implemented a whole
of different systems to help him do that, and he
went from the worst performing ship and the fleet to
the best performing ship in the fleet in his time there,
and had a higher promotion rate of all the junior
(13:50):
people on the fleet. And I was reading that on
a weekend when I was meant to be learning military
leadership from the military leadership people, and I'm like, this
book just made so much more sense to me than
everything that I've been tried and to be told on
my leadership journey. And so I was like, if I
(14:10):
can get this one piece of information in my head
and internalize it and realize that I need to show
up differently. Perhaps I need to help other people come
to that same realization. So I was sort of two
factors to answer your question. One, I didn't feel like
I was leading myself very well. I felt like I
was being incongruent, like I was excelling in some areas
(14:33):
and failing in others. And so I'd rather be really
good in every area than exceptionally in one and not
so good in others. And that I thought that leadership
was being overly complicated in how it's approached and that
the military wasn't quite getting it right. So I took
it upon myself to start sending emails to everybody at
(14:56):
work with his leon's leadership thoughts, and I called them leaderships,
and I invited people to have conversations about them. And
I just tried to introduce a little bit of a
change in the organization. And like I said to you,
I started to affect people one on one, and I
started to affect people one to a few, so me
to a couple of people. But I didn't feel like
(15:17):
I was having the reach I wanted to have. So
that's why I wrote a three hundred page business card
called a book, and now I get to try and
work with other people and their teams to try and
the same sort of gifts of introspection and revelation that
(15:37):
I had to work for as I went through my career.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
What are probably the most important principles for leaders that
aren't generally at the top of people's list.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, so I might ask you that, Tiff, what do
you reckon that you've done. You've had a lot of
good trainings, like people to help you in your life.
You've done lots of different things that you've generally done
well at. What have you seen that differential people, differentiates
(16:15):
people that are really good for those that are not memorable?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
I have for as long as I can remember, I
have spurted out the saying lead by example, and it's
a huge value of mine personally. I lead by example.
I go first, and I am I am just really honest.
I have a real aversion, a visceral aversion to mask wearers,
(16:39):
which is why so much of my keynote talks about
masks and personas. I have a real trust switch on that.
So I think for me, I mean, I don't work
in corporate leadership spaces like you do. But yeah, I
think being human, saying when you're wrong, saying when you
(17:04):
don't have the answer. I mean, they would probably be
my top three. That when that's when I will follow someone,
when they are willing to say I don't know, I'm
not sure they did this fucked up.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Yeah, that you can develop a lot deeper empathy and
connection with people and you realize they're not perfect right
when you stop, when they when they're comfortable enough to
step down off this pedestal that you've put them on,
whether or they deserve to be there, and just be
real with you. So I think there's probably three things
answer your question if The first is that until you
(17:38):
can lead yourself, you don't deserve to leave anybody lead
anybody else, right, And so that was a realization that
was really impactful for me. I was I'm going to
be not humble here, but I was really really good
at my job. I was always really always getting stuff done.
I was the person that they could give the problem to.
(18:00):
I could go away and fix it, but I couldn't
fix the problem as to why my marriage was failing,
why I couldn't show up in the same way and
get the same results at home until I realized that,
like I said, I was not. I was trying to
be trying to focus on external validation, so people telling
(18:23):
me I was doing good things, then internal validation of leon,
you're doing the hard work and you can get better,
and it doesn't matter if anybody else notices it matters.
It matters that you acknowledge the fact that you're growing yourself.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Right.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
So I had to make that shift from external validation
internal validation. But I personally believe the I think it's
John Maxwell quote that the most important team you'll ever
lead is a team of one, and if you do
that right, you earn the right to lead more people.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
So that's I want to ask a question before you
move on to the other ones. I want to ask,
how does a person know? How does a person have
the self awareness to know whether or not they are
leading themselves? Well, like, what if their eye is so
firmly on this prize of the leadership label and the
aspiration to go and lead and do something, how do
(19:15):
we know?
Speaker 3 (19:16):
So my personal belief, Tiffany, is you can measure it.
You can identify it by looking at how you're measuring success.
So too often people have an external measure of success.
If I get when I get promoted, when I get
the pay rise, when I seal the contract or win
(19:39):
the deal or whatever it might be, or you know,
win the fight. Is that it's an external measure of success,
and when you talk to people that instead have an
internal measure of success. So I'm going to set myself
goals to achieve or want to improve in this area.
I acknowledge that I've got growth to do in this area,
(20:00):
and I want to do some work to develop it.
I want to see these other people around me succeed
in this way, and I want to help them lift
up through my contribution to their to their work rather
than being you know, the finish line is not the goal.
(20:20):
The work that goes in to getting you towards that,
So focus on focus on the systems and processes, not
the outcomes. So what the stuff that you can control,
not the stuff that you can't. So I think that's
the first measure. The second is what i'd call and
I mentioned to you before, how I did some work
(20:40):
to identify my values. How much of your daily activity
and actions and behaviors are in alignment with your values?
And how much of it is you have you're doing
because it's expected of you by the environment in which
you're in, but isn't in alignment with your values. So
that'll be the second the second measure, and then the
last one would be that you know, if you want
(21:04):
to go far, go alone. No, So if you want
to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far,
go together. And so who you're moving with, what's your
circle like? Who have you surround? And we mentioned we
started this talk talking about the people we met in
the room right that want to make a little dent
in the world and are really supportive of lifting each
other up. And I'm a big believer. If you don't
(21:26):
have that mentality of my role is not just for
me to succeed, it's for us to succeed, and what
can I do to help you in achieving that, then
you're not self aware enough of your role in life
and your role in the people around you, and you
potentially need to refocus that so that maybe answers my
question and any of those jump out to your tiff
(21:47):
is super important.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, absolutely, I remember what that idea of values I
remember years ago doing I think it was John D.
Martini's little values determination process, and I would have it
would probably be over a decade ago, and I just
started business networking, much to my disgust, I was part
(22:11):
of a company that merged and one of the owners
was part of a B and I it was like,
you're in sales. I'm going into production after this merger,
so you're you can take over this. Oh dude, dude.
The terror of doing a sixty second introduction in front
of sixteen people in Saint Kilda Road was fucking palpable.
(22:34):
I was terrified, but that was a tangent. I didn't
need to go on for the values determination. But the
point I want to make is I remember doing these questions,
and I remember at the time because it's kind of
after a while I'd got I liked I loved seeing
people who could captivate a room and influence and shift energy.
(22:57):
I really always appreciated that my dad had an ability
to do it when he gave speeches at family things,
and it used to just lodge itself in my heart.
I had a boss who would do it in print,
and he wasn't all that, he wasn't doing anything hugely inspiring.
It would just literally be a tip, but there was
(23:18):
something about the way that he shaped his words that
I really appreciated and the way that that could influence
a team. And so I remember doing this values determination
and thinking I kept saying I'd like to do speaking,
but thinking that's not going to show up. And then
when it churned out my results, it was really high
(23:40):
on the list and I kind of didn't I wasn't
identifying it in my answers. So that was really interesting
to me. Sometimes I don't think we're aware of our
actions and our values and how they align. So I
think that is an important one.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah, it's really I think that your values are like though,
is like energy buckets, right, and you have to do
you have to have regular actions or behaviors that put
the lines of your values to fill for your bucket.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Right.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
That's the fuel that moves your moves your body and
motivates you to do things without If you don't fill
that bucket up, you're running on empty. You're trying to
work on determination to get things done rather than inspiration
and motivation.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah. Yeah, before boxing, I remember i'd unrecognized, but I
realized that I would do things that people said I
was good at if there were, if I was a
sure bet, so never took my gym gear to school.
But come the athletics carnival, I would win first in
(24:48):
one hundred, two hundred, four hundred meter sprints and all
of the jumping events. And then I'll go to into
high into club like the inter club competitions. So I
would annihilate that I was the superstar of the day,
spend my gym sessions actually smoking cigarettes, Mum's cigarettes behind
the bloody behind the gym when getting in trouble for
not in inverted com was bringing my gym gear. Then
(25:10):
I'd have to race against the other schools and they
all trained, so I was the shittert so I hated it.
So I was like this one day where I know
I'm going to be the best in the superstar, I'm
all in, and then this next day where I'm against
people that actually trained, hated it, didn't want to go.
Boxing was the first activity that came into my world
(25:30):
at twenty nine where despite having a win in that
first like that twelve week challenge and the hell that
it was and the terror and the fact that I
wasn't good at it and it was embarrassing, it was
embarrassing to be that uncoordinated and not feel good at
it and not be a sure bet. And it was
so hard, the work was so hard to turn up
(25:53):
and do that. And then for some reason I got
to spat out the other side and I was like
something kept pulling me in and I'm like, what what
is this? Because I don't do this, I don't do
the hard thing. I don't do. I do the sure
bet and no one, no one has told me I'm
good at this, So that really cap That was really
interesting to me.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
I've had a similar story with I call it gold
star behavior tiff, where you do the thing that you
know you're good at, yes, because you know you can
get the little gold star pinned on your chest at
the end of the day, and anything that you're even
potentially marginally a little bit shit at, you just I
didn't try. But I didn't try. I wasn't trying and
(26:34):
it wasn't hard. So you never have to put yourself
out there and risk potentially trying really hard and still
not being good enough. You only do the things that
you know that you're going too. Thought, I was a
big sucker for that gold star Go Sar validation and
some of the stuff I had to unpack with the psychologist.
So I was going through the divorce and trying to
get a little bit better. Was how do I how
(26:55):
do I stop this little kid inside of me always
seeking out the activities that he knows that he can
get gold stars out instead of doing the hard ship
that he might be the last finisher and never get
a never get any acknowledgment for the work that he
put in. But he's better than he was the day before.
And so I've struggled a lot with that internal child
(27:16):
and trying to to acknowledge the fact that that internal
child is still very, very motivated by pats on the
back and added boys and we're joking about championship belts
and gold medal. It's just just today, right, I'm like,
I feel called out. You're still going to fight against
(27:38):
each own fact. I lost to you in a speaking
competition at that conference we went to. I wasmingming you
because that.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Was a very funny, funny story. You told I the
beauty of a sport like boxing, and I think it
was the gift to me. Was this unders standing that
there is a winner and there is a loser. There
is no second best right, but also shittest sport in
(28:09):
history for being a measure of success, because you are
a winner based on your performance on the day with
one person who stepped in the ring with you with
the only things to measure are you have a body weight,
a three kilo body weight to match, right, so you're
(28:32):
equal in body weight and number of fights. So we
get people get these belts and people choose to fight
or to not fight. But Australia is the worst. People
people are choosing fights, They're getting fights imported from overseas
to bump up their ranks. You get bad decisions. Judges
(28:53):
can just not like you and decide that Like my
particular coach, especially in my first image fight, not well
liked in the amateur scene. My housemate had had fights
under him. So I knew in my very first fight,
the one I spoke of in my keynote, I knew
that I that I had to win convincingly because if
(29:13):
I just won, I wouldn't get the win. So when
I won, you would like, if you watch the end
of that fight, you would think I just won the
fucking tats lotto, Like I just set myself. I was like, oh,
my God. But I think to be in a sport
that means so much to you and to consciously have
those realizations along the way that hey, this is no measure.
(29:39):
Hey no one cares. I'm getting my head pummeled and
no one actually cares. Doesn't mean anything to anyone but me.
And also the w or the l that I get
at the end of this that also has no meaning,
Like how wild is that?
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Yeah, that's hard. I mean, I'm sure you've had losses
that have taken a little while to soaken as well.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
I had a loss in twenty nineteen that was I
had a win when because I'd had three or four
years break probably one, I can't remember, maybe three. Anyway,
first fight won it. The girl was way heavier. I
was so miserable about my perform I was like, don't
even that was the worst performance. The next fight I
(30:23):
lost on split decision. Best. Oh, you could have sworn
again that I'd one test lot. I was like five
round five or six rounds, I think first first one
of that length. Super happy with the two things that
irritated me. In the first fight I lost on split decision.
This chick was hundreds of fights, like she'd had so
many more fights than me, and I was like, you
don't even have to tell me that was good. That
was good. And I was like, t if you lost,
(30:45):
I'm like, I don't care. I just I won that.
I won me, which is a weird experience because it's like, mate,
there's all these people in this room just saw you lose.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Like that's the that's the How old were you in
that fight?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
One that was in twenty nineteen, So I'm in my thirties.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
So here's the thing I reckon And I don't want
to be I don't want to focus too much on
age as the delineator in this, but I truly think
it's the case. I think there's a moment in your
thirties where you reade fine success for yourself, I think,
and some people never get there, and that's for whatever reason,
(31:26):
maybe they haven't had to go through those crucible moments
that you talk about, Tiffany. But from my perspective, I
think there's a moment in your thirties where you switch
from trying to achieve everything everybody else tells you should
do to here's what I think I need to do
and what I want to do that will help me
(31:46):
be happier. And I don't think you can get there
until you're in your thirties. And I think it takes
a crucible moment that you've got to You've got to
go through it. You can't go around it or over it.
You have to go through it, Chick. There's no cheats
way through it. You've got to go through it to
come to that realization, because it forces you to sit
(32:06):
in introspection and reflection and think about why am I
motivated for the things I'm motivated and are they still
important to me? And so I think for you, like
if I chatted a fair few times Stiff, I know
I resonate with you. I'm a competitive person as well,
and the measure has always been where you finish, until
(32:29):
it becomes not about that, and it's about how proud
you are of what you've overcome, the effort you put
in your ability to follow the plan that you put
in place for yourself and follow the systems and structures
in a way that it made you feel that you
gave it your best shot. That motivated changes a little bit,
(32:50):
and I feel like it happens in your mid earlier
mid thirties. I don't feel like you can get there
in your twenty if I don't think your self awareness
is enough your sense of health perhaps rather than self awareness,
but your own self identity is rich enough to be
able to start to pick that apart.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I think it's also maybe we have to we have
to achieve the wrong things, or we have to have
an expectation of what achievement's going to mean and get
to something to realize that there's something isn't the thing
that we want.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Yeah, there's an analogy of working so hard to push
your ladder up against the wall and build this ladder
and climb and climb and climb and climb and get
to the top of the wall. I need to realize
once you get there that you've put the ladder up
against the wrong wall and you aren't even climbing in
the right direction, and you've got to go back down
and put it against a different wall and start climbing
(33:44):
over there. And that analogy is quite rich for me,
because I think it's true. But what I've realized, I
think in that time, is that if you do do
that work and you redefine what success means to you,
that you become more successful and happier and more content
and fulfilled, And you'll lead a much richer life than
the one you would have left if you kept striving
(34:06):
for success in the wrong direction.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So what did you learn about you in the middle
of the failed marriage?
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Many things that I think that we are as a nation,
even as a global entity, the human race, becoming more
disconnected from human connection by the amount of technical barriers
(34:40):
that we put in front of places. So I found
that I was fighting so hard to look perfect that
I could never be excellent at anything. And I'll talk
about the difference between those two in a minute. And
so what I realized was that I can't fight for
perfection and have people understand. We talked about it at
(35:02):
the start in your response that people that say I
don't know, people that say I fucked up, people that
say I'm not sure what we should do, and I'm
a bit worried about the future and what we're trying
to achieve. People that are honest enough to have those
conversations can't also be perfectionists, right, because they exclude those
(35:23):
two things. So what I found was that I was
holding so tightly to this identity of good enough. You know,
I'm great at this things. I'm good at everything that
I was, excluding all these other parts of my life
where I wasn't that and I wasn't brave or courageous
enough to be able to have those conversations with other
people who I was worried about, breaking down this veneer
(35:46):
of being perfect along the way. So just on that,
I think perfection shuns external criticism. Perfection is an internal locus.
I believe it's good enough. I think that I'm good enough.
I've done the thing as well as it can be done,
and I think it's good. Whereas excellence seeks external feedback.
(36:10):
So I've done this thing, can you help me make
it better? I don't know how to do this thing?
Can you help me start the strategy? So it seeks
external feedback. And so when I made that shift, the
big shift for me tift was to forget perfect and
strive for excellent, and that meant giving away your own
internal measures of enough isms and starting to talk to
(36:33):
people in a real and honest way about what you're
trying to achieve, why you're trying to achieve it, why
it's important to achieve, and having them support you along
the way because they understand where you are and where
you're trying.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
To get to. So I love that. How what what
do you what was the process? Like, how did you
like you mentioned psychology before, how did you work with
some of the stuff that you learned? I think I was.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
It's odd to say we talked about being gold star
before TIF right, I was a gold star student inside
of the psychologist's office as well, Like whatever they gave
me a piece of information, I'd go away and I'd
research and I'm like, right, leand how can I apply this?
And I come back to the psychologist and I'd like
trying to hand my homework in and tell me I'm
a good guy, like telling me I'm a good student psychologist,
And I'm like, no, it's not about understanding information and
(37:36):
doing your own research and thinking about how it might
apply to you. It's about choosing to take the information
and then show up in a different way based on
this shift in understanding that you have. And so that
I mean that it's brutal to do, right, because it's
easy to be. It's easy to be like I'm good
at learning all the information. I guess it's the difference
(37:56):
between problem the talk about don't come to me with problems,
come to me with solutions, and too often we get
we identify solutions, but they turn into just solutions that
we admire. We get to, oh, yeah, I know I
(38:17):
need to do that, but you don't do it because
it's hard or uncomfortable or it makes you feel weird,
and so you don't do it. And but you know
what you need to do, but you don't do it.
And so that was that was a pivot for me
with a psychologist was yes, I understand, here's these different models.
Understand I need to show up differently and think about
things differently. And then you go greatly on are you
doing it? I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm not doing that.
(38:41):
So for me, I think that the key part was
if that I was showing up like I mentioned to
you before, incongruently, I was aiming for excellence in one
area and not willing to do the work in the
other area. I didn't know a part of how to
get to the answer, so I didn't so I didn't
(39:03):
even try and walk down the path. I didn't interact
with people that might help me git down that path.
What I found was when you when you stop fighting
to hold everything together and start being brave enough to
let other people in. Then you start to have a
shift in the way you show up in the world,
(39:25):
and then that shift is an evidence of progression in
a certain direction that reinforces the journey that you're on.
And then bit by bit, just bit by bit. I
mentioned it the other day, it's just tiny moments of
unarmored leon's just stucking on top of each other where
you just drop the armor of perfection and you just
(39:48):
show up without any armor, and you get hurt a
little bit along the way, but you've got a network
to help you through it. So I know your keynote
Tiff Hooks leans heavily into that, and I absolutely resonate
with it as well. Is that you just got to
keep showing up even if you get hurt sometimes or
it hurts to show up in that way.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yeah, I know. For me, I found like the idea
of looking in the mirror and discovering something about yourself
is a really profound moment. And then for me it
was followed by an incredible amount of frustration and angst
because it was like, well before I realized this was
(40:33):
the catalyst for who and how I am, I had
a pretty cool story and it felt good and I
felt empowered and I was the fucking tough guy and
without doing things and my story was real solid and
that was cool. And then I had the I don't
know wisdom or courage or opportunity or whatever it was,
(40:53):
but I came to a point in life where questions
I asked myself, questions, I made discoveries. I realized that
there was some shit I had to deal with. And
then it was like, for a moment that felt really
promising and hopeful. I'm like, fucking yeah, I just discovered this. Whooa,
we're on the path. And then it's like this what
felt like a long time of what what now? Like
(41:17):
what's the point? What's the point of doing the work that?
What do I do with it? How do I change it?
Because I've been me for thirty something years and now
I've realized that there's a part of me that's got
some flaws that need to be that that can be
worked on. And that was so fun, you know, like
sitting in the being okay, we're sitting in the mess.
(41:40):
And then I think further to that, I almost look
at life now and go, we will We're have this.
We developed this idea that we're over the humph. I
learned this lesson. I'm going to tell the world and
then I'm going to share this and we're on the way,
and it's like, mate, you probably aren't even that's probably
the one tiny little pot Oh, you've just gone over
(42:01):
that way till you see what's coming life.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Yeah, it's one of that that being you mentioned it
being brave or well supported enough to sit in the pain.
People grow when they're uncomfortable. So doing hard things forces
you to grow. But if you're in pain, you'll end
up changing, and it might not. Some people don't positively change.
(42:28):
Some people get pushed into that pain and they make
decisions that lead them into a path that's perhaps less positive.
Others get into that pain and they make some decisions
that helps them come out of it in a positive way.
And other people don't deal with the pain. They just
try and numb it. So they just they immerse themselves
(42:50):
in a thing. Whatever it might be, you know, it
could be. It could be any type of addictive substances.
It could be social media or trashy TV, or talking
shit with your mates all the time and that makes
you feel good. In the moment in the boxing ring
(43:13):
a few times to do a different hard thing to
so you don't have to deal with the other hard thing.
There's plenty of plenty of the adventure racing industry is
founded on that. I think so. But if you're if
you're not brave enough to And for me, I numbed
for a long time in that lead up to the
marriage breakdown. I didn't deal with the thing because I
(43:35):
didn't know how to and it felt too hard to
deal with, so I distracted myself from it. So you're
one hund percent right. You've got to feel comfortable to
sit in that pain. And too often we chuck on
masks or armor or whatever it might be that helps
us feel a bit protected from that pain instead of
(43:55):
taking them off and sitting in that pain and being
exposed to it. But I think the key part is
you've got you've got to have a system or support
network that will help you get out of it eventually.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Right.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
It might take you a while, but you need to
be able to talk to other people going, hey, I'm
really struggling with this and have that conversation. And if
you don't have a network of people that you can
have that type of conversation with then people feel isolated
and feel like they have to try and do it themselves,
and they get frustrated and can never escape it properly.
So yeah, it's important lesson, but if you don't have
(44:32):
the tools to get through that moment, then you can
sometimes get stuck in it or go the wrong way
out of it.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
And like the idea that how you do one thing
is how you do everything. I like, I love That's
part of why that whole boxing metaphor was so meaningful
to me and showed me represented that in a particular space,
but I know it exists every I call the podcast
my emotional boxing ring because I I saw the growth
of how I could see me unmasked in the boxing arena,
(45:06):
and how when I changed things in there, how tightly
the metaphors landed, how tightly I learned about real life
boundaries and vulnerabilities and visibility and all of these things
that were actually the reason that that place felt sacred
to me, because they were all the things I struggled
with in real life. When I addressed them in there,
(45:28):
it gave me a framework, and I saw myself changing
out of there same thing with the podcast because I
started stepping into these open, vulnerable conversations and stepping into
trusting people and asking them to trust me and having
these deeply vulnerable stories. And I remember sitting in the
first couple of months in conversations like this and thinking,
(45:51):
you don't you don't open up like this, and you don't, like,
who what's this? You know? And I went, well, it's
happening here, and if I practice this here, this will
flow out into my real life relationships. And that's what happens.
It's bloody awesome like but you know, it's the same
(46:12):
with yourself. You have a version of you showing up
at work and then a version of you showing up
at home, and you're like, oh, what can I what
can I learn from that?
Speaker 3 (46:22):
What's the lesson that you're trying to learn or perhaps
the universe is forcing you to relearn at the moment?
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Nice question, ah, self belief right, hey say more. It
was interesting. There was a it's been a turbulent couple
of years with like, I'm in the midst of perimenopause
at the moment. So I went to go back to
fight tre I was going to have a profile in
(46:49):
twenty twenty two, I think it was went back into
fight camp and physically just crash, like started waking up
at one am. So but because of a bunch of stuff,
I thought it was a I thought it was just
the training. And then I thought, because I'd again done
a lot of psychological workaround stuff, I was like, maybe
(47:09):
it's the Maybe I'm just reading into some metaphors again
and it's just a bit triggering emotionally, I don't know whatever.
But maybe a couple of years after that, I remember
messaging my coach and now he's coached me quite maybe
(47:29):
three or four different occasions for whatever bunch of times
in between breaks, but only ever, like I walk in
as a box, I'll go in. I have two hours there.
But it's an incredibly intimate space, right You're seeing somewhat
like I saw at twenty nine years old. I saw
a version of Tiffany Cook that I never knew existed.
(47:50):
So it stands to reason that the person who sees
only that version of you is in part they're seeing
the realist version, and they're making assumptions and that not
the rest of whatever goes on. And at some point
I sent him a message and it was something along
the lines of kind of as you know, you've coached
me for a very long time, now, you know since
(48:13):
what a twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, I think I started
training with him, and I was kind of interested in
what what do you make of me? What do you
see in me? So, however I worded it warranted and
he got back to me twenty four hours later with
a very introspective, beautiful message. But I remember the one
(48:35):
thing that kind of landed and I was like, what
are we talking about? Was this fact that you don't
you don't believe in yourself. And I was like, but
you know, I look back at training now and I
and there were so many times I was parking what
I knew and how I wanted to find I was
grappling in the middle of these sparring sessions of the
(49:00):
unknown answer to what he wanted me to do. And
It's like, but I know I have the innate intelligence
of how I cope right now, what I need to
do in this situation, but I'm trying to read this
mystical answer because I need him. That was one of
the other people believing in me was one of the
things that along with shame that I burned in the
(49:21):
Himalayas on the mountain and left up there a year ago.
Like the second thing I wrote on my list was
the need for other people to believe in me because
I'm a go get it. I go, I make a decision,
I go get it, I make shit happen. But then
once it happens the first time, I think, oh, that's
just luck, and then I it's like I cling to
somebody or I have at times. Then I cling to
(49:44):
somebody who I think if they believe in me, then
I'll make it, and then my self sabotage.
Speaker 3 (49:53):
So which part of your identity is the one that's changed?
Is it your d is it the fighter part of
your identity that you might not get back? Is it
the feminine part? Is what is the part of the
identity that's being challenged at the moment that's affecting your
self belief?
Speaker 2 (50:13):
I think well, I would say my biggest lesson all
the thing that's changed most recently was and I think
I've grappled a long time with the idea of surrender
and letting go. That's been in high rotation with a
lot of Marklebust episodes on this podcast, my inability to
let go or relinquished control and to not fight. And
(50:36):
so I've parked the fighting now and I talk a
lot about our fight to surrender like that. That's been
a term that has been in a lot of my conversations,
the ability to let go, the ability to surrender and
to just be and be what's left, and to not
achieve and to pause. Yeah, and I think stillness and
(51:04):
not achieving.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
The reason I bring it up to, if i'll distruct
with my story for a little bit, is when I
was going through that moment in my life, I and
you can pay me out for this analogy if you want,
but if you think of the like a marble statue
like you see up on pedestals or whatever, that I
had this mental image of the key parts of my
(51:31):
identity were like labels that fit inside of the big
parts of this statue. But the core of this statue
where the core parts of my identity, and then the
less parts, you know, the less significant parts of my
identity out in the extremities, right. And I was going
through a divorce, which meant I wasn't going to be married,
which is part of my identity. I was struggling with
(51:54):
this perspective that I wasn't going to be around my
kids full time for in separate house, and so what
did that mean for this part of my identity that
was father? And then not long after that, I left
the military, and so I had this other part of
my attachment that had been from eighteen to forty was
part of my identities, another big hole that was left.
(52:18):
And so I had these three things that were all
being sort of challenged at the same time, and that
really affected my self belief, really manifested as a sense
of shame for some parts of it, an uncertainty for
other parts of it, and my self belief really dropped off.
So my motivation for asking you the question that I
(52:39):
did was that I've struggled with self belief when those
parts of my identity are changing or absent or missing
and need to be replaced. And so what I went
through is that, okay, divorce, that's okay, I was married.
That's not a super important part of who I am,
it's what I was. So I replaced sat with you
(53:00):
know this other part to me, your father. I'm not
around my kids full time, but I can manifest you
I can still be in their life in a meaningful way.
So even though I'm not just always going to be
sitting down sitting on the couch when they want to
come up and give me a HRG or whenever we're together,
I want to spend be more purposeful about the time
we spend together. And then this identity is military, I'm like, well,
(53:24):
that's still always going to be a part of me.
It's no longer significant anymore. So perhaps it shuffles off
to a shoulder or or down a leg somewhere or whatever,
but I'm still attached to this idea of doing work
that is more meaningful than individual outcomes. It's a significant
has a purpose greater than your individual contribution, and so
(53:47):
I still want to be around work that fits into
that category. So I'm going to be a purpose driven
you know, how can I identify that the outcomes we're
trying to achieve are meaningful? And my role in that
plays apart and so I mean a defense adjacent role,
and I want to get into leadership speaking. All those
things lean into that. So I was able to rebuild
that sense of belief and identity that was attached to
(54:10):
that through going through a bit of a mental process
of rebuilding. Okay, who I'm That's what I was. Who
am I going to be in the future, and how
do I take actions that will help me show up
in that way in the future. So you said self belief,
and the story that went through my mind was that
there's a part of your identity being challenged at the
(54:31):
moment and you've lost a bit of belief because of that.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
And I think I think I'm coming out of this
part of it. But I think the boxer identity the
fighter was a big one, and especially like twenty twenty
four the boxer album gets released. Yeah, tips the Boxer
and it's and basing my keynote. You know, all my
list I will always talk about boxing is the analogy.
(54:55):
And I guess there was a part of me that
I mean, I kept training when my body wasn't loving
it with boxing for most of last year until I
just went you, in no uncertain terms, your body doesn't
want to train like this right now. Put it away.
You don't have to do it. You can still train fighters,
(55:16):
You can still use all of the wisdom that innately exists.
You can still expose people to this sport without being
a boxer. You don't have to be a boxer. You
don't have to pick up the gloves ever again. And
that was part of when I went to the Himalayas.
I remember just wanting to leave behind every part of
(55:36):
my identity, the label, every label. I wanted to be
on that mountain with people that weren't in the gym
with me, and weren't on the podcast with me, and
weren't in my tiff world here, and I wanted to
be reintroduced with everything that was left after that was stripped.
And it was an incredible experience because we get so
(55:57):
wrapped up in who we are an inverted commas by
the things we do or the people around us that
tell us who we are. We are that to them
because that makes them feel like them, So that's not
even about us.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
Yeah, there's a Harold Green Probably are the name wrong,
But there was a quote when I was going through
the process of writing the book. It talks to that
exact thing. Tear fits I am not who I think
I am. I am not who you think I am.
I am who I think you think I am right,
(56:35):
which is a bit matter to unpack, but it's talk
to the fact that your identity is built up by
how you think other people need you to show up. Yeah, right,
And so if you are hanging out in the boxing
gym all the time, then they expect you to be
showing up as the boxer, right, And so you've got
(56:58):
to do that work to peel those layers back, going, Okay,
I'm not going to show up how you think I
think I should. I'm going to show up how I
think I think I should. And it sounds like you
went through that pairing back of identity through your through
your you know, moment on the mountain in Nepal.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
Big time, big time. Even when I started this show
and then I started working on the new project with Craig. Now,
Craig's been a massive mentor of mine for many years now,
and I'd started years ago doing volunteering at his events
and had a bit of coaching from him, So it
was a huge mentor of mine. And then after I'd
(57:43):
started this show a few months later, he rang up,
he said, you want to do a show a week online.
I'm like, fucking amazing. For a very long time, and
I see that myself do this in other instances, I've
picked myself up along the way and go and you
do that like mirroring people, or be my psychologist, cause
it's growing down, growing down in situations. So I would
(58:04):
get on a podcast with him. Here's this guy that's
doing a PhD in self awareness and metaperception and he's
super smart and he's my mentor, and I would dumb down.
I would become and I would change. I would be complete,
not completely different, but I just know I would not
play to my strengths. And I want to think, why
(58:26):
do you? Why do you do? You actually have more
to say and what you have to say matters, but
you just turn into this fucking nervous little schoolgirl that
whose voice isn't worthy of being heard on. This was
a weird thing to notice. It's part of that sitting
(58:46):
in the mess, you know, and it's part of I
think psychologists for me are worth their weight in goal
because it's you don't see that till you get to
reflect on it and in a conversation. And then when
I started having coversations where I learned that was happening,
then I could see it happen in the moments. And
then when you start to capture yourself in the moments,
(59:08):
you can plan for it and you can change it,
like training in the boxing gym. Then you can start
to show up and be like, actually, I'm just going
to show up and not do that in time.
Speaker 3 (59:18):
Yeah, I always found the psychologist's office is that ninety
percent of the value comes from the silence, right because
it forces you to sit there and just this stupid
frigging gray matter just percolates away in the background on
this one question that's been asked, and rather than just
(59:39):
too often we try and fill that space or we
distract ourselves with something else. But sitting there in that
psychologists office, you're forced to sit in the silence for
a moment and think about what was just said. And
so it's a weird thing. You're essentially paying for quiet time,
which is a weird thing to do, right, But I
found most the value come from just being, you know,
(01:00:02):
someone staring at you, waiting for you to say there
is something meaningful back, but being patient enough for you
to come up with the words, rather than just try
and fill that space. So yeah, I find that I
talk about oppressive silence in psychologists rooms that it just
forces you to strip away everything else and focus on
just one thing. So yeah, I agree to you that
(01:00:25):
that very important, But I think there's if you can
get yourself in the right crowds, you can spend some
time with other people who can say you. Also create
similar spaces for you to have contemplation and reflection and
ask good questions.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
You're an ACE mate. You better tell everyone where they
can buy your book, how they can contact you, and
how they can book you to talk to their leadership team.
Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
Yeah, I'd love for people to head over at eleon
pertin dot com and look me up online. All my
stuff's in there. You buy a copy of the book
The Ignited Leader. It's in the background here, but I'll
just flushually copy of the bamk Cup recently won gold
medal for Leadership and Management at the Able Book awardins
pretty ace. I've got a gold medal that Tiff doesn't.
So I'll go to lord that.
Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Over game on.
Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
And you can brought me from speaking now. And I
want to speak to the executives and middle managers who
are sick of their their leaders driving people out the
door instead of driving results. And they know they've got
to and I've got a problem there, and they perhaps
haven't quite got the right language or tools to help
their teams. So thanks, Tiff. I've really appreciated mate. I
(01:01:36):
love spending time with you. Was looking forward to this
chat because it felt like I just got someone on
one time instead of us all being crowded around in
a conference room. And I am going to come to Melbourne.
I'm going to get up in your space and we'll
spend some more time together in the future.
Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
Well, mate, when you do, I'll take you for a cookie.
Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
I can't wait. I hope you get them. I might
even ask you to punch me in the face.
Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
Tiff with pleasure, with pleasure, mate, it's been awesome. I
hope you do make it down to Melbourne. I'll be
glad to see you. Everyone. Go buy a book, go
book him in, check out the website, do all the
things and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
I appreciate you, Tess. Thanks mate, back
Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood,
got it, got it,
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