How To Transform Your Mindset and Life with Outdoor Adventure | Level Up With Duayne Pearce - The "Level Up" with Duayne Pearce Podcast

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_03 (01:27):
G'day guys, welcome back to another episode of Level
Up.
We are back in the shed thisafternoon for another cracking
episode, and I am pumped aboutour guest today.
So uh in about seven months'time, I am off to Kakada.
Uh we've put a bunch of blokestogether and mates and uh other
builders, and we're going to umget over there.
And um, I think the plan is tofinish on Anzac Day, which I'm

(01:50):
really looking forward to.
I think it's going to be veryemotional, but um I'm definitely
putting in the work andpreparing myself for it.
But uh the man I have sittinghere with me today is Glenn
Azar.
He's actually the one taking uson the trip.
Um, so Glenn runs AdventureProfessionals, he also does a
Building Better Humans project.
Um, so I'm really excited tohave you here this afternoon,
mate, and have a chat.

(02:10):
Thanks, mate.

SPEAKER_02 (02:11):
We had that phone conversation yesterday and I put
up a video saying I'm pumped forthis.
So I got home and I spoke toMillie, my partner.
So I'm I'm actually pumped forthis one.
And so she goes, All right, nowshe's now she's invested in
listening to it.
So we better not screw it up.

SPEAKER_03 (02:24):
I um so I I got introduced or put on to you,
mate, because it's today's thefirst time we've met in person.
We spoke on the phone yesterday,but um, Luke, one of the other
builders that's coming on thetrek um with us, and another
builder mate of mine, uh Ryanfrom RKB Constructions.
Um Ryan knows you.
Luke has been listening to yourpodcast, and that's how I first

(02:47):
actually got introduced to you.
Luke sent me one of yourpodcasts, said, Hey, check this
guy out, he's he's on the samepage, like does some good stuff.
So and I get on these um, Idon't know, I I listen to
podcasts and audible books andstuff, but I get onto a podcast,
and if I enjoy it, like I Ismash out a bunch of them until
I'm like, oh yeah, right, I'vegot to try something else.
So I got stuck on your podcastfor about, I don't know, a four

(03:09):
or five week period, and Ismashed out a lot of them.
So I really I really like themessaging that you put out
there.

SPEAKER_02 (03:15):
That was the Building Better Humans project.
Yeah, yeah, because I do twopodcasts, I do one on Kokoda,
which is very haphazard.
Um, and that's just to giveinformation to people on Kokoda.
But Building Better Humansreally, which is what owns
adventure professionals, so wegot that's how the company
structure is.
I believe adventure is the bestpersonal development in the
world.
So, you guys, who you are at thestart of Kokoda versus who you

(03:37):
are at the end will be twodifferent people.
You can't unexperience somethingas amazing as that when it's
done well.
And so the Building BetterHumans project, when I first
started, it was really justaround my belief in personal
development.
That's really how it started.
But now there's 12, maybe 1300episodes.
Yeah, from little short onesthat I do on my own to
interviews and that sort ofthing.

(03:58):
And I haven't interviewed peoplefor a while, but I was listening
to yours recently, and you weresaying your last one you did was
you talking on your own, and yousaid we get a lot of good
feedback.
Well, that was me too.
I did 20 or 30 episodes ofinterviewing people, um, Phil
Debella from Debella Coffee, youknow, Michael McNabb from McNabb
Construction, so um, a couple ofVictoria Cross recipients and so
on.
And then when I started doinglittle episodes on my own

(04:21):
because you know a guestwouldn't pull up on time or
something would happen, thefeedback was really good.
So I thought, oh, well, and nowI talk a lot more on my own.
So I don't have to wait forsomeone.

SPEAKER_03 (04:29):
Yeah, some of the ones I listened to, it sounded
like you're having a good time.
I think you're travelling in acaravan or something, checking
out Australia, and you obviouslyjust randomly pulled up and
smashed out some podcasts.

SPEAKER_02 (04:39):
Well, back in the day, I used to record just on a
phone, and then all this roadgear came out, all this stuff
didn't exist when I firststarted.
Um, and then yeah, so I've got afull roadcaster set up inside my
van.
I've got a I've got the van lifething going on, and it's just a
a VW crafter that a mate of minewho's um he's a mad boatie, so
he knows how to build thingsinto small spaces, which I know

(05:01):
you're into.
And he just fitted this thingout, and I told him I don't want
an internal shower, I didn'twant any of that stuff, I wanted
space, so you can sit four orfive people in there
comfortably.
It's got an external shower, um,which is all that's because
that's all I needed.
And yeah, I sit and recordpodcasts regularly in there.

SPEAKER_03 (05:16):
And you're probably looking over the ocean or up in
the hills or you can beanywhere, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (05:20):
You can be anywhere, and and that's a really big
thing, I guess, because for me,uh I I'm not ADHD or anything,
but I can't sit still for longperiods of time.
And so, and then maybe that's mymilitary background.
Uh my dad used to he was in themilitary, he'd uproot us every
two years to do to be somewhere.
Yeah, and I think that that'skind of caught on with me.
So I love if there's nothing on,there's something on.

(05:41):
I'll get in the van and I'lldrive up the coast for the
weekend or you know, whateverwe've got.
I'm most of the time we've gotyoung kids, uh, Millie, my
partner and I.
So in the footy season, most ofthe weekends are taken up with
footy.
But yeah, when we can, we justlike to get out and travel.

SPEAKER_03 (05:54):
I agree exactly with what you said before, mate.
I think um the best personaldevelopment is is out in the
outdoors, pushing yourself,doing those um getting out of
your comfort zone.
Yeah.
But um, before we get into thatmore, and I really want to know
more about the building betterhumans.
Like, can you give us a littlebit of your backstory?

SPEAKER_02 (06:10):
Yeah, so I moved out of home really young, so I was
like 14 when I moved out ofhome.
There's just a lot of um alcoholand violence in our household,
and and my dad, I guess, being amilitary guy, and that that was
probably pretty common duringthat Vietnam era, I guess,
during all of those soldiers.
So I moved out of home reallyyoung.
I joined the army by the time Iwas 17.
And a lot of people think thatyou do that because uh you know

(06:33):
you want to serve the country,and that's not really why I did
it.
I did it because the first GulfWar started, and I was young and
angry, and I remember thinking,oh, they pay you to fight
people, how could this?
Because I didn't really link tomy dad being in the military, so
I joined the 8-9th InfantryBattalion in Brisbane, and I
remember, and I I mean I was aweedy little kid, I was you know
70 kilos, I couldn't have foughtmy out of wet paper bag.

(06:54):
I've been in war zone since, andI realised I wasn't ready for
that at 17, but I thought I was.
And six weeks or seven weeksinto basic training, which goes
for 13 weeks, this is pre-mobilephones, pre-internet, they come
out with the newspaper, and theygo, all right, man, the war's
over.
And we were all deflated, likewe couldn't believe the war was
over.
That's why we all signed up.
But you'd signed for a setamount of years, and we thought,
what are we gonna do now?
Anyway, life goes on, and um, Iinjured myself very early in

(07:18):
that career, and then they movedme across to medical corps.
And at the time I didn't want tobe in medical corps because I
wanted to be a gunfighter.
I thought I was tough.
Um, so I went into medicalcorps.
It turned out to be the bestthing that ever happened to me
because I had a longer careerthan all my mates.
Infantry is a really toughphysical career.
Um, I did 17 years before I gotout.
I specialised in aviationmedicine.

(07:39):
Um, I joined with a year nineeducation, and they pay for me
eventually to do a universitydegree.
Like, where else does that foryou?
So I did uh I was a paramedic bytrade, and then I did my
registered nursing degree, umspecialized in Iroquois and then
Blackhawk evacuation.
So when you think about all ofthat, like it's it I think about
personal development and whereI'm at now.

(08:00):
I was being given personaldevelopment from a really young
age without even realizing it.
The military's pretty big onbuilding you into someone that's
you think you're 10 foot talland bulletproof.
They need that because of whatwe do, and you'd probably don't
appreciate it enough when you'rein, but when you get out, I've

(09:16):
used so many life lessons.
Um, so I've got four children tomy first marriage, and they're
all adults from 18 to 30.
Um, you know, I've got my seconddaughter, Alyssa, climbed Mount
Everest when she was 19.
She climbed Mount Everest asecond time when she was 21.
And so people think, wow, that'spretty amazing.
But then I've got a 21-year-oldson who's autistic and

(09:36):
intellectually impaired.
So in our household, I guesswe've got both ends of the
spectrum of what a human canachieve.
And then we've got a kid thatcan't wipe his own bum, you
know, and never will.
He will never drive a car, he'smentally, you know, sort of five
or six years of age, IQ-wise,he'll never have a job, he'll
never play a sport.
And I use that to teach mydaughters and everyone I work
with in personal development tosay you owe it to kids like

(09:59):
Christian to live your lifefully.
Because as able-bodied,neurotypical humans, it's real
easy for us to think life'stough sometimes, you know, in
business or anywhere else.
I've been in war zones and Ilook back now and think that
wasn't as tough as Christianwent to high school at Aspie
Special School.
There are kids there that can'twalk, can't talk, they're you
know, they've done nothingwrong.
They were just born that way.

(10:20):
Christian did nothing wrong, hewas born that way.
And then I think, and we dare towhinge about how hard life is.
I reckon those kids, if theycould understand it, would swap
their absolute best day for ourworst day in a heartbeat.
Um, you know, but but they don'tget to do that.

SPEAKER_03 (10:33):
So no small world, sorry to butt in, but we um
Camille and my wife and I we'rebig supporters of the Astley
specialists.
Um I don't know why, but thatthat like we're very lucky we've
got two really healthy kids.
We're healthy, but um I've justgot a soft spot in my heart for
those people, and um so westarted maybe four or five years

(10:56):
ago.
We donate money there regularly.
Yeah, um, we're actually goingback there next Friday because
the last sort of money wedonated uh they've used to uh
restock their workshop with newtools and things for the kids,
and the kids have asked us tocome back and they want to show
us, so um yeah.
When you say actually specialschool, it's a small world, eh?

SPEAKER_02 (11:15):
Yeah, and it's pretty it is pretty cool that so
many people get in and supportthose kids because we're okay
financially, but there areplenty of parents there who have
got nothing, who are lowersocioeconomic, and I think, man,
life must be tough for you.
And I've when he was inTwombury, I was at Tornburgh
West Special School for primaryschool, and in the middle of
winter in Tornbury, it getsbloody cold, and there'll be

(11:35):
parents that would turn up withno shoes on in the freezing
cold, but the kids would be welldressed, and they'd have two
kids sometimes in that specialneeds sector, and you think,
man, that is that's tough going.
So yeah, but these days I've umI've got I'm in a new
relationship, you know, for thelast few years now.
Um, and Millie, my partner,'sgot two boys that are 10 and 12.
So I've I'm kind of getting achance to be a parent again

(11:59):
because, like all of us, you dothe best that you can.
But I spent a large chunk of mylife in the military.
So my kids, whilst I I'm closeto them, they didn't, I don't
think, get the best version ofme, if I'm really honest,
because I was married to themilitary first.
Um, if there was a call up to gosomewhere, I go because that's
what I signed up for.
And I think this time around,I'm getting to, with Millie and

(12:20):
with the boys, hopefully be alittle bit more present.
Um, so I'm pretty fortunate inin that sense as well.
And the boys are 10 and 12, sowe still get to go and play
footy and do all of the things,you know.
They're at that age now, they'relittle fellas, but they always
want to fight me.
And Millie always says, like,you know, don't hurt them.
And and sometimes she wants meto go soft on them, and
sometimes I do get hurt becausethey just don't stop.
And I said, You can you need tounderstand that for men and for

(12:41):
young men, this is just a partof the process of them testing
themselves against me becauseone day they'll be bigger and
stronger than me.
Yeah, but it's not the older boySamuel said to me, I'll be
bigger and stronger than you oneday.
I said, Yeah, one day, I said,but it's not gonna be this year.
He goes, next year, I said, No,it won't be next year either.
But one year it'll just happen.

SPEAKER_03 (12:57):
I think that sort of stuff's really important, mate,
for people growing up.
Like you look, we're all human,we're meant to do certain
things, and a lot of that Ibelieve is rough and tumble and
getting dirty and uh figuringout where you where you stand in
the food chain.

SPEAKER_02 (13:10):
Absolutely, for everyone, but specifically for
boys, because now I do a lot ofwork in youth development.
Um, and the problem we have isthere's always this talk about
toxic masculinity, andmasculinity in and of itself
can't be toxic, it's necessaryin society, and I know that does
trigger some people.
Um and I got asked recently formy podcast what's the difference

(13:31):
by a friend of mine, actually,who's got a few boys, and he
said, you know, what's the linebetween healthy and toxic
masculinity?
And the only way I could reallyexplain it was that masculinity
that lifts other people up, thathelps other people, that
protects people, that's healthy.
But if it hurts people, if ittears people down, if it's
damaging, then that's toxic.
And and so I've had boys jumpingin the boxing ring, which is our

(13:54):
background, and uh and it's nota part of our programs, but they
see the boxing ring and theywant to jump in there.
I say, you can get in there ifyou want, but there's no crying
once you get in there.
So you no one has to get inthere, and they get in and they
all call each other out, andthere's a few tears, and oh
mate, get out.
And and I've had peoplecommenting on our Instagram
stories when I had that gymsaying, Oh, this is this is
where toxic masculinity starts,and I couldn't disagree more.

(14:15):
I think boys in particular needrough play.
That's just a part of yeah, youknow, we all grew up wrestling
our dads and our uncles and ourof course you never beat them,
but that was the whole processof becoming a man, and I I just
feel like we're trying to turnour back on that, not to make
this controversial, but that'smy experience since working in
youth space.

SPEAKER_03 (14:32):
Couldn't agree more, mate.
I I think um like I I my view islike I think the the world's got
an agenda, we've got to have awhole podcast about all that
sort of stuff, but um I think weneed to get back to more of our
roots, yeah as humans, like whatwe're meant to be doing.
And I I truly believe um, like Iwas saying to you when you
pulled up about my two girls,like they they love getting out

(14:55):
to the farm and getting dirtyand going fishing and doing farm
work and like all that sort ofstuff.
I think every young person needsto experience some tough work
and and hard work to figure outwho they are.

SPEAKER_02 (15:07):
Man, I take young people out to properties.
I've got a mate that's got 135acres up on the Sunshine Coast
Hinterland, their phones don'twork out there.
Like we've got Starlink foremergency, but we don't give
that to the kids.
And I take some of these citykids out, you know, to some from
pretty tough backgrounds,they've never camped before.
They get excited when they see akangaroo.
It's this at first it scaresthem.

(15:27):
It's just really foreign.
And then when their phones don'twork, there's I remember this
young indigenous kid, Koi Koi,he's a great young kid, and the
first program he came on uhbecause we take their phones off
them, and we're doing a90-minute drive out to Mount
Maroon, and there's two busloadsof kids, 27 kids, and he said,
Oh, can we get our phones back?
And I said, No.
I said, What do you need themfor?
He goes, Well, so we can messageour girlfriends and we can
listen to music.

(15:48):
And I said, No, you're notgetting your phones back.
And he said, Well, what are wesupposed to do?
And I said, Talk to each other.
And he goes, We don't even knoweach other.
Anyway, the bus driver said theydidn't stop talking once they
got started.
Yeah, but if they had all hadtheir phones, they wouldn't have
talked to each other becausethey would have been absorbed in
the world that we were trying topull them away from just for
three days.
Just three days.
And we when these kids comeback, and you'll experience this

(16:09):
on Kokoda too, it's almost likethat was amazing.
I get adults on Kokoda who say,after eight days of not hearing
from anyone, I almost don't wantto turn my phone back on.

SPEAKER_04 (16:18):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (16:18):
Because we these things never let us stop.
You know, we're old enough toremember a time when I would
leave work, I used to be in thearmy base out at Oki, I'd drive
into Toumbo, that might be a 30,40-minute drive with traffic, I
might go to the supermarket, Imight go to boxing training, you
might be uncontactable for fivehours.
If you aren't contactable forfive hours now, people think
you've died.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (16:38):
Yeah.
Mate, that was the mostdisappointing thing.
Uh I I did Everest Base Campeight years ago.
And in my mind, I thought, Ilike I hugged Camille and the
girls.
I was like, you're not gonnahear from me.
Like, once we leave Katmandu,I'll I'll try and contact you
before we get up in the hills,but you won't hear from me.
And we got there and like flewfrom Kathmandu up to Lookla, and

(17:01):
then that first day, like it'sonly two or three hours walking.
Got to this little village up inthe hills, uh, threw our bags in
the room, and then went walkingdown the street, and like
everyone's on their phone.
And that that continued for thewhole trip, and um, it was
really disappointing for mebecause I I just wanted to be
off grid.
So I was the only uh there wasonly myself and one other guy in

(17:22):
our group, uh, because we wetook a group, it was all um
people we knew.
Um, but there was two of us outof 13 that didn't buy a SIM card
and just did not use our phonesfor that trip.
All the others, as soon as theyknew they could get it, they
went to the shop, they boughtthe SIM card, and every night
they're on Facebook, they're onInstagram, they're checking.

SPEAKER_02 (17:40):
It's actually worse now, too.
Like I went there last year orthe year before uh I went to
base camp.
I've done like 18 base camptreks, and it's it's everywhere
now.
All the at least it used to beonce you got up out of Namche or
you know, or Tingbusha, you'dsort of get nothing through much
until you got into a village andyou'd pay a bit extra for it,
which people would still buythese cards back then.

(18:00):
Well, that's all opened up now.
There's cafes up there, and andeven on Kokota, there are two or
three spots along the track nowwhere your phone will work,
yeah.
And people are busting to get tothose spots.
Yeah, yeah.
I had a young bloke on a tripwith me just recently with his
dad, and he's probably 21, 22,and he's on top of this hill at
the Minari Gap and trying toring his girlfriend, and then
they all went down, so I stayedup there with him, not to leave

(18:22):
him up there because I hadanother track leader.
And I can hear her roasting him,like, why haven't you contacted
me?
And he's going, You don'tunderstand, I can't just contact
you.
She goes, Well, that's a reallikely story.
But it's because at 21 or 22,she probably doesn't understand
there are still places in theworld where people can't contact
you.
Yeah, so look, it is coming,unfortunately, and I understand
for the locals they want phoneservice because it gives them

(18:43):
access to medical and all ofthose sort of things.
Kokoda is definitelywesternizing slowly.
Um, they're in a hurry, I thinkthey're gonna regret it.

SPEAKER_03 (18:52):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (18:52):
I was talking to Mike Killer, who's my head guide
years ago now, and I was talkingabout depression and anxiety and
suicide, and he couldn't reallyget his head around it, and
particularly suicide.
He said, What do you mean?
I said, Well, you know, whenpeople kill themselves, like,
because I wanted to know whatthat was like over there.
And he was like, Why wouldsomeone kill themselves?
He couldn't get his head aroundthat, and that's was pre-COVID

(19:12):
days, and it made me realisethat in Western society we're so
far out of whack because mentalhealth is a real thing for us.
Like you drive around Redcliffeand you see all the homeless,
people living in tents, and I'veheard people say, Oh, it's an
eyesore.
Well, where are these peoplesupposed to go?
And it's sad we've created asociety where people can't
afford to live.
I've seen tradies.
There's a trade in um that Iused to see nearly every morning

(19:36):
near my gym in Newstead, and hewas sleeping in a rooftop tent
just because he couldn't get arental, obviously.
Well decked out, he'd come down,he'd have a shower in the
morning, he'd go and get acoffee, fold his tent up and
drive to work, and he'd be thereevery night.
Yeah, it's crazy that we have tolive like that, you know.

SPEAKER_03 (19:49):
And he's got a job.
The um, yeah, being like it'slike they say, like, we're more
connected than we've ever been,but we're really more
disconnected than we've everbeen.
Like the um I look forward tofinding those places that my
phone, like I don't know, it's amental thing now, I think,
because everything's soaccessible.
You just know in your head thatwhen you're in a position where
your phone's not working, it'slike I'm out.

(20:11):
Like I can actually I can shutdown a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 (20:13):
Mate, I've had people on Kokoda who get fake or
what we call phantom buzzing.
They think their phone'sbuzzing, and your phone doesn't
even work there.
They breach up with their phone.
So, mate, your phone's notworking here.
So, where does it work?
You know, like they're just sodesperate for it.

SPEAKER_03 (20:25):
So, mate, how did you go from um yeah, the army to
doing what you're doing now withthe building better humans
project and stuff?

SPEAKER_02 (20:32):
So, I started out initially with just the
adventure side, and I wasworking with a company years ago
called Executive Excellence, andthis was back in the days when
there was three or fourcompanies doing cocoa only.
These days it's about 50.
Some of them are really good,some of them are terrible, like
every industry, and then you gotall your people in the middle.
But back in those days, it waspretty remote.
There was around 900 people ayear with Trek Cocota.

(20:54):
In its heyday, which was aroundto pre-the GFC in 2009, it hit
9,500 people, did it?
And now it sits around the sortof anywhere from two and a half
to three and a half, so it'skind of settled again.
Some people complain about thatand think that we need more
people over there.
I kind of like it because itstops them westernizing too much
with all of us coming through.
But I had a mate, Al Forsyth,and he's I worked with his

(21:16):
brother, and Al was in the SAS,he was um one of Australia's
longest-serving special forcessoldiers, 22 years, Vietnam
veteran right through.
And this bloke was about Ireckon he's about five foot
four, if he was lucky, but hehad a chest on him like this, he
could run a 17 and a half minute5k in his 50s and could do 30
overgrass chin-ups.

(21:36):
This guy was a freak.
And he started doing programsunder executive excellence for
um banks, like he did all theheads of Westpac, and then they
decided to take them to Kokoda.
And back then PNG was a bit ofan unknown.
Now, if you're takingexecutives, you're talking about
millions of dollars worth of thebank's talent.
So the bank freaked out and theysaid we need to put safety

(21:58):
around this.
And I was up in uh Townsville,and so we just got this comes in
all the time.
When you're in medical corps, wecan't just sit around and
practice our jobs, we have to bedoing our jobs.
So when you're not deployed,you'll go and work for the
Ambos, you'll go to hospitals,you've got to keep your skills.
Whereas other soldiers, likeinfantry, they'll just practice,
but we have to be doing.
So I just got this memo comeacross, and I was running an

(22:21):
evacuation cell, and they saidwe're looking for an aviation
qualified medic.
Now that's overkill on Cocoa,but I put my hand up, I didn't
know that at the time, and I putmy hand up and and I went over,
and you know, I convinced mybosses that this would be really
great for my medical skills.
The worst thing I've ever seenon Kokoda is a twisted ankle, a
sore knee.
Like you don't get big injuriesover there like people think.
So it didn't help my medicalskills at all, but I loved it.

(22:42):
And it was the first time I'ddone something where I thought I
could see myself doing this whenI get out of the army, because
I'd never thought about gettingout of the army.
The army was an absolute mylife.
I was very, very dedicated to itand I was very good at it.
But having a son that's autisticand intellectually impaired, I
started to realise like no onejoins the army for the money.
You don't get paid that well.

(23:03):
There's a lot of other benefits,but it's not money.
And I started thinking, I don'treally have the luxury of dying,
and that's a silly term for somepeople.
But what I meant by that is if Iwas to die, my three daughters
at the time, they're allneurotypical, they can get jobs,
they can look after themselves.
But Christian needs me aroundforever, or he needs someone
around forever.
So money and business and thecapacity to earn started to

(23:27):
become more important.
But I knew I couldn't just havea nine to five.
Like you couldn't sit me in anoffice, you can't expect me to
do admin.
And so once I went out and waswalking, it's the same thing: a
backpack on without a rifle, butyou know, putting people into
pretty tough environments andgiving them safety, certainty,
and confidence.
And you guys have sat in when Idid a webinar recently, so you

(23:48):
know how calming that process iswhen you know all the answers.
Well, that's what my team and Iprovide when we're on the track.
So that's that's how I first gotinto it.
And I didn't know back then thatyou couldn't do this for a job.
I just thought, and when I sawtrack leaders out there, because
I'd only ever had one job, thearmy, I thought that all these
people must work full-time, butI realised that most of them
have jobs and then they justcome and do this.

(24:09):
And so I started doing itfull-time without realizing that
you actually can't do that.
But because I didn't know youcouldn't do it, I did it, and
I've been doing it ever since.
So I'm pretty fortunate.

SPEAKER_03 (24:18):
I think it's an incredible job because you don't
you don't just do Kakato, you doEverest and Yeah, I do Everest
Base Camp, Mount Kilimanjaro.

SPEAKER_02 (24:25):
Um, when there's no wars on, we go and do Mount
Elbrus in Russia.
Um, we do we've done the BlackCat track in PNG, we do the
Aussie Ten Peaks in Australia,we go dog sledding in the Yukon.
So we give people their own sixto eight dogs and we teach them
how to run them for eight daysthrough the Yukon and run along
the Yukon Quest Trail.
That's pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_03 (24:43):
I'm I'm super keen to put my hand up for that one,
but we'll see how Kikada goesfirst.

SPEAKER_02 (24:47):
So, yeah, we we do a heap of different things.
Um, people often ask me whydon't you go to New Zealand or I
don't go to places where peopledon't need me.
And so if I'm gonna gosomewhere, my skill set of
getting you into and out of acountry in an emergency, that's
pretty important.
Um, you don't need that in inwell-westernized countries that
and New Zealand's got adventurepretty ironed out, but on

(25:08):
Everest Base Camp, on Kokoda, itcertainly comes in handy.

SPEAKER_03 (25:10):
Yeah.
The um and so how's the BuildingBetter Humans program?
Where's that come into all this?

SPEAKER_02 (25:15):
So I was running adventures for a while, um,
probably not making enough tomake a living, and I had a gym
as well in Toomba when I wasliving up there when I first got
out of the army, and then Istarted getting more and more
into the mindset stuff andstarted studying that.
I just had a real fascinationwith it, and I did a psychology
degree, not I didn't finish it,I just did the whole degree

(25:36):
minus the last year, where yougo into a placement because I
didn't want to be apsychologist.
I just was fascinated by the waypeople think, and I did that
during COVID when degrees werecheap as chips, so I were just
trying to sign people up tostuff, and I did that with
Swimburn Online.
So I started going down thatroad, and one day I was doing a
talk.
Um, so a mate of mine, he's anex-sniper, and he bought me into

(25:57):
a corporate group.
Uh, I can't remember the name ofthe company, but it was a
massive company in Sydney on thetop floor of this building to
meet with this big CEO aboutpotentially running adventure
for his corporate clients or hiscorporate staff, I should say.
So we just got chatting aboutall that sort of stuff, and I
just had said to him that, youknow, my job really isn't to
help your staff be better atwhat they do for a job.

(26:18):
I don't know what they do.
Like, I couldn't help you be abetter builder, or that's not
what I do.
And I just said to him, what Ido is is help people be better
humans.
This is really all aboutbuilding better humans.
It was just a throwaway line.
And then we kept talking for awhile.
And when I got, I left there andI jumped in a cab and went home
and went back to the hotel.
And my mate rang me.
He said, The CEO has not stoppedtalking about this building

(26:38):
better humans line.
And then I thought, when Idecided to do a podcast, maybe
nine, ten years ago, I startedthat.
Well, what do I try and do?
We try and build better humans.
And the other side of it was oneof my best mates in the
military, um, he was a specialforces trainer, a physical
training instructor, and we'ddone our courses together, we'd
deployed to T War together.
And he said to me one day, youjump all around the place, you

(26:59):
do fitness and gym stuff,because I used to own a gym, you
do adventure stuff and you domindset stuff, and um you should
just do one thing.
And I remember thinking, well,no, they're all tied into the
same thing.
They're all about buildingbetter humans, physically,
mentally, and emotionally.
So that's where the BuildingBetter Humans project came in,
and we use that to runspecifically now youth
development and adventure, andit's personal development, built

(27:20):
on fitness, mindset, andadventure.
So, you know, we work onpeople's mentality, and you
would already experience that ifyou're inside the adventure
professionals private group.
I talk about why are you doingKokoda?
Like, what's the why?
Because when people get overthere and it's a little bit
tough, that why is reallyimportant.
Yeah, you know, it just becauseit sounds like a cool thing to
do, it's not gonna be enoughsometimes.

SPEAKER_03 (27:40):
Yeah, I think it's really important, mate.
But I I agree totally.
Like, I you get so caught up inthe day-to-day life and um just
business and family andrelationships and all those
types of things, but getting outand doing physical activity, I
don't know what it is, gettingthe blood pumping or something,

(28:01):
but I know these days like I canbe having the shittest time
ever.
But if I just get out, like Ijust go around here, some hills
and heights and stuff that I do,uh, or even just like each
morning I've got a pretty setroutine, and even if I am
stretched for time that morning,I'll still just pack it into
like five to ten minutes, andjust getting that physical

(28:23):
activity, getting the bloodpumping, like it just sets me
up.

SPEAKER_02 (28:26):
I think people forget that we're an animal,
we've become cidified.
Um, obviously, you're out on abit of land here, but when you
get in the city, people justbuild on top of each other.
People don't have backyardsanymore.
People we've become reallycidified, and if we do have
yards, we've got big fences tokeep the rest of the world out,
and that's the world we live in.
But we are an animal at the endof the day, and I think it
grounds us to be out in nature.

(28:47):
And I find even with youth, whenI take troubled youth out or
just any kids out, they becomereally calm out in nature really
quickly.
Um, there's a really good bookthat's worth reading called The
Adventure Revolution.
I can't think of the name of thelady who wrote it, but she's a
psychologist, and the wholething is is about the benefits
of adventure, of challenge, orputting yourself in situations.

(29:08):
The thing about adventure is youcan you guys can prepare as well
as you want for Kakoda, but youstill don't know what she's
gonna throw at you.
We can get there and have atotally dry trip.
But if we get rained on hard,it'll add two or three hours a
day.
If you get sick, if you you justdon't know what what's gonna
happen.
And people often say to me, Whatdo we do if it rains?
And I say, Well, we get wet.

(29:29):
That's that's our only optionout here.
We're not stopping, we're notchanging our itinerary, we just
have to deal with it.
And I look back and I think thatwas the military too.
We would get given a job to do,and typically we would um tell
the our bosses what we needed,equipment-wise, manpower-wise,
and so on, vehicles, the wholebit.
And they might give it some ofit to you or all of it to you,
they might not, but you stillhave to go and do the job.

(29:51):
It could rain on you, you stillhave to go and do the job.
You can be in the middle of thesnow, you still have to do the
job.
So it taught us that whereveryou get put, the mission doesn't
change.
So, Kakoda, the whole or any ofthese adventure experiences, if
you get hit with some severeweather, you realize how
insignificant we are as ananimal, yeah, and that Mother
Nature always wins, and itteaches you to adapt to whatever

(30:11):
gets put in front of you.
So, what I teach kids on theiradventures is solve the problem
in front of you.
Too often in life, we're tryingto solve the problem, even in
business.
People are trying to think aboutand they catastrophise what's
what's six months down the trackor what's ten steps down the
track, and they haven't solvedthe problem that's right in
front of them.
And I just say solve thatproblem first, and then let's
look at the next one.

(30:32):
Because sometimes people, youngpeople, and even people in
business, they're trying tosolve a problem that doesn't
exist yet, and they've probablycatastrophized it.
And I'll say, for that thing tohappen here that you're worried
about, how many things have tohappen first?
And there'll be like 10 things.
Well, why don't we focus onthese two?
Because if we fix those, thatmight never happen.
Yeah, and so then we tend tostress ourselves about things
that may never happen.

(30:53):
So I try not to I'm a I dounderstand forward planning, but
I try not to solvehypotheticals.
Yeah, if it's not happening, I'mnot gonna put too much energy
into it right now.
But adventure teaches us thatyou have the capacity to solve
whatever gets put in front ofyou.
You will work it out.
And a good example of that iswhen I first started running
youth development camps, I nevertell parents what the kids are

(31:14):
doing.
I tell them what equipment tobring, what time to drop them
off, and what time to pick themup, and nothing else.
Parents freak out about thatinitially.
And then I the very first time Idid that, I had that was a time
I had 27 young boys.
I had a couple of mums messageme.
I didn't know them, they justbooked their kids on the thing,
and they were like, you know,what are we doing?
What are we doing?
So I eventually told them, theseare two different ladies, and I
told them what we're gonna do.

(31:35):
And one of the things we weregoing to do is go and climb
Mount Maroon in the middle ofthe night.
So we were getting to the topmidnight, one o'clock in the
morning, which would freakparents out.
I understand that because we tryand protect our kids.
And so I told them that, andthen both of them come back to
me with their boys having severeanxiety.
One lady said, He's been soanxious about this.
Um, he wet the bed the nightbefore coming in, he was 14

(31:56):
years of age.
On the drive, he said, I wishI'd killed myself rather than go
to this thing, which is allreally extreme, because she had
told him all the things we weregoing to do.
And I said, I asked you not todo that, and I trusted them to
give him that information.
She said, But he gets reallyanxious, and so I thought if I
tell him, he won't get asanxious.
I said, Well, how did that go?
He got worse.
Once I took his phone off him,because then for the first two

(32:17):
hours I don't take their phonesjust to let them settle in, and
then she messaged.
Me at one stage and said, Youcan take your phone if you want,
because he's messaging mesaying, You have to get me out
of here.
So we took his phone andeveryone's phone.
And by the next morning, he'srunning around with the other
kids, he's smiling, he's notthinking about what's going to
happen later in the day, he'sjust focusing on what's
happening now.
And I sent a photo to her, andshe said, I haven't seen him

(32:38):
smile like that in two years.
Yeah.
So we think we're doing kidsfavours by giving them these
things because everyone's gotone.
I don't agree.
I 100% do not agree with that.
Um, I've got a really good youngathlete I've been working with
since she was 12 years of age.
Her name's Shalom Suasso.
She just debuted for the Broncosthis year.
She won the NRL W debutant ofthe year.

(33:01):
They won the grand final,obviously.
She's playing for Samoa.
She's 18 years of age, this kid.
She's played two seasons ofSuper W already because the NRLW
wouldn't let you play it untilyou're 18.
So at 16, she's playing Super Wfor the women's team.
Uh at 17, she wins theQueensland Reds attacking player
of the year.
This kid never had a mobilephone.
At 16, she was saying to me, Ireally want a phone.

(33:22):
Like all my friends have got aphone.
And I said, Lomie, I thinkyou're as good as you are
because you don't have one, ifI'm really honest.
Because she focused on training.
Everyone else is TikToking andfocusing on how they look on
social media, and there's a lotof bullying goes on in schools.
She ended up getting one at 17,and I you know I talked to mum
and dad about that, but by thenshe had enough maturity.
They're just not they don't havethe brain capacity to handle.

(33:43):
I don't think we have the braincapacity to handle them.
How easy is it to get down arabbit warrant on these things?

SPEAKER_03 (33:48):
It's insane.
Like our our young girls havegot them, and the only reason
they have them is because theycatch the bus.

SPEAKER_00 (33:53):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (33:53):
And um, but they're like they're incredibly um like
we're not strict with it, butthey've just seen how we use our
phones, and like they're they'revery rarely on them.
And it's like we went up thefarm on the weekend, uh,
brother-in-law had his 40th upthere, and like they have their
phones, they take them becausethey use them to take photos and
things, but they don't do a loton there.

(34:15):
And from my oldest daughter,she's 15.
From one of her friends, she had243 messages over the weekend
from one person, and a lot ofthose messages were why aren't
you responding why like whyaren't you texting me?
What's going on?
What are you doing?
Like, I thought you hadreception at your farm.
Like, yeah, my daughter's justout having a fat time enjoying
life, and and like then we getin the car to drive home, and

(34:37):
she then they ask, Oh, can wecheck our phones?
And she's like, My friendsmessaged me 243 times.
I was like, Well, that'sprobably a friend you might not
want.

SPEAKER_02 (34:45):
Adults do that, like, yeah.
I um our boys have got them,they're 10 and 12 for the same
reason they do a lot, andthey're very physical, they're
outside all the time, so we usethat to justify.
But have I seen some negatives?
Yeah, we do have to control theusage because they can't, yeah,
they they won't.
So, and if we say that thephone's turning off at this
time, say oh no, so we say 8p.m.

SPEAKER_01 (35:04):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (35:05):
At and at 8 p.m.
when you try and take it, it'slike just one more minute, just
one more minute.
You think you've been on it forages, but so their brains aren't
really built for it, and again,I don't necessarily think ours
are, but it's hard to have thatlevel of discipline.
So, again, adventure and outdooractivities are I think are
necessary to ground us.
Yeah, you know, we do you thinkabout all the stuff people doing
now, we're doing the ice barsand the breath work, and the and

(35:27):
there's so much benefit in that.
But what is all of that?
It's all us getting back to ourbodies.
Yeah, well, that's what natureis, yeah, getting out around
trees, um, you know, like we'remeant, we're an animal, and we
just we've become cidified.

SPEAKER_03 (35:39):
Isn't it insane that like people like for hundreds of
years, thousands of years, thatwas a way you jumped in a cold
river to have a bath, and likethat that was just what you did.
You you chilled out with therest of your community, did some
breath work, like sat around acommunal fire.
Like it was just all life.
That's you'll love that onKokoda, because that's literally
Kokoda.

SPEAKER_02 (35:59):
And my partner Millie's from PNG, so she was
born there and she moved toAustralia at 15 to go to finish
schooling up in Cairns.
So she grew up in village, shegrew up, and when she comes back
to Kokoda, she says, This isthis is just home.
Getting in a river to have abath, that's just that's natural
for them.
Yeah, and when you get onKokoda, I would love to do a
podcast at the end of that withyou because a lot of things will

(36:21):
change.
Like what however good you'reexpecting that experience to be,
you'll 10x that.
I will confidently say that toyou.
Yeah, for a few reasons.
One, because that's theexperience, two, because from my
brief knowing of you, that's thehuman you are.
You're looking for thoseexperiences, you'll find it.
Yeah, but what you'll notice isyou'll see three generations of
families sitting aroundtogether.
You'll see mums and dads andgrandparents, and you'll see

(36:44):
sometimes mum and dad and thegrandparents will go out and
work on the on their what theycall their farm, but it's they
grow their own vegetables in ain a crop area, and then kids
sort of 10, 11, they'll beholding little babies on their
hip because that's their job tolook after.
Like in Australia, we wouldn'tdisappear.
I'll see you in eight hours,you're ten, keep an eye on your
one-year-old brother.
We just of course we wouldn't dothat.
It's a different society, butthey can, they've got this

(37:05):
safety.
You see kids, they live in grasshuts, mud floors.
You they're happy.
You give them a footy, but youbring a couple of footies over,
you give one to a group of kids,and they'll kick the skin off
that thing in a month's timewhen I get back there.
They have a ball, they theythey're happy about everything.
When I take Westerners throughKakota, they'll often say, What
are they doing?
Because they're just sittingaround, they seem to just be

(37:25):
sitting around.
Like it's a our perception isthat's a lazy society.
And our brain says it's Monday,nine o'clock, why aren't they
doing something?
Well, I'll tell you why, there'snothing that needs to be done.
But if it needs to be done,they'll build a house in two
days.
Though if if you everyone has abasic entitlement to a home.
So if your house burns down,which happens because they run
fires inside their houses, uh,if the house burns down, the

(37:47):
whole village comes together andbuilds your new house, and
they'll do that in two days.
And they do it at a you guyswill appreciate the level they
do it at, considering thatthey're in the jungle.
They'll just chop the treesdown, they've got food, they've
got water, they've got wood,they've got family, they don't
need anything else.
Yeah, um, and and COVID, I thinkabout how we all responded
during the COVID period, how asin Western society, out there it

(38:08):
was like nothing happened.
They just this is just normal.
All that happened was noWesterns are coming over.
So if the world fell aparttomorrow, those are the people
that would survive.
Yeah, whereas we were fightingover toilet paper, bread.
Uh I did a job for the woman whowas the head of HR for
Woolworths during that COVIDperiod, and the story she was
telling me with her HR team, um,because they were limiting how

(38:29):
much milk people could buy, andand the one of the worst stories
I thought anyway was a 16 or17-year-old kid, and a woman
had, you know, a trolley full ofmilk, and she said, You can't
have all that milk becausethere's a limitation on how many
you can get.
And it it became a little bit ofan argument, and the kid stood
around because that's what shewas told.
This woman threw a two-litrebottle of milk, hit the kid in
the face, and smashed her nose.

(38:50):
I just think that is ludicrousthat that was your response to a
kid who's clearly not in charge,she's just doing what she's
told, saying you can't have allthat milk because someone else
might need it as well.

SPEAKER_03 (38:59):
It's crazy, mate.
And to me, COVID just reallyshowed how backwards we've
become.
Yeah, like we need to get backto our roots a lot more.
But from my um that's somethingI'm really looking forward to
with Cakoda, and you're 100%right.
Like, I I search for thesethings, like I um doing Basecamp
really like it changed my life,but um I got so much gratitude

(39:23):
out of just well, I I can'tremember who it was, but uh
someone I knew before I went umgave me some advice and he said
just like don't take it forgranted, don't try and be at the
front of the pack.
And he said, Every corner youget to, take the moment to turn
around, look back, andappreciate where you are.
And I did that, and so we wouldget to the lodges or huts or

(39:47):
whatever they were each night,and the only thing I was using
my phone for was photos, andlike I'd get me and another guy
would we'd be flicking throughphotos, and then like other
people would see them like, oh,where was that?
Where was that?
Where was that?
And like three-quarters of thegroup completely missed so many
opportunities to take in theview to to acknowledge the

(40:10):
villages.
So, one of the things I I'malways up for anything, and one
morning we started walking, uhputting our boots, and the rest
of the group just put theirboots on and started going.
And out of the corner of my eye,I've seen these blokes chopping
a tree down, and I'm like, ohI'm gonna have a crack of this.
So I'm like, oh, get back here,get back here.
And and half the group comeback, we jumped the fence and we

(40:32):
went over, and these villagershad this very dodgy scaffold set
up, and they had a log laying ontop of it, and one was
underneath, and one was on top,and they had this massive big
saw, and they're chopping theselogs.
And I couldn't talk theirlanguage, but I'm like saying
with sign language, like, can Ihave a go?
Can I have a go?
And they let us have a go.
So, like, I've got theseincredible photos of me in my

(40:54):
hiking gear with this massivesaw, um, working in with the
locals, chopping these trees,and to me, those experiences
like changed my life.
But to the thing that I reallytook away from the trip was how
happy they were.
Yeah, like they just they didn'tneed much, and they were just
the happiest people ever.
And I did a thing with my girlsbefore I went, um, and I just

(41:17):
said, Every time you guys arenaughty, you you have to give me
something small, and I'm gonnatake it off you and I'm gonna
give it to kids over there thatdon't have anything.
So I ended up with this littlebag of like plastic bag of
things, and then another mate ofmine Justin, who he's also
coming on this trip.
Um, he just went to the toyshops and he bought some of
those.
Remember the old foam, like youpeel the top open, you pull it

(41:38):
out, and you make a plane?
Yeah.
And he, I don't know, he boughta couple of dozen of them.
And uh each morning when westarted walking, it was around
the time that they were going toschool.
So, like, if you did it here,you'd go to jail.
But like, we would walk along,and these little kids, like,
we'd we'd say, Do you like doyou want something?
Do you want something?
And mate, these kids were justlike they could not stop saying

(42:00):
thank you.
Like, they were so grateful,they were so happy.

SPEAKER_02 (42:03):
Kakoda's the same, people appreciate everything.
Yeah, and people make jokesabout certain things, like
you'll see them wearing twodifferent thongs or one thong,
and the joke is like, Why is hewearing that?
Because if if it's not broken,I'm not throwing it out.
They don't waste anything overthere.
Yeah, whereas we're a throwawaysociety, we need to replace
something straight away.

SPEAKER_03 (42:19):
But just seeing that amount of gratitude and that
happiness, like I and yet, likeyou walk around wherever here,
like you go out to dinner or yougo to the shops, like people
can't even sit there and take inthe moment.
Like, how many times do you goout and both couples or the kids
are all on the phone?

SPEAKER_02 (42:38):
On the phone, yeah.
Like no one's and people won'tmake eye contact when they walk
around all the time.
So Millie and I are interesting.
We uh, whenever we go outanywhere from a cafe to a fine
dining restaurant where we'refully dressed up, we take a pack
of cards and we play a game.
It's a PNG game called LastCard.
Yeah, and so we play that, andit's a really quick game.
It's kind of like Uno, but withjust a normal deck of playing

(42:58):
cards.
We play that.
I would be every day we'll playthat somewhere, and it doesn't
matter where we are, we could beat the airport.
The amount of times we've beenout to Moo Moo restaurant, we're
playing it, the staff getinvolved.
They come in and they talk tous.
We've I don't drink, but Milliewill have a drink, and we were
at a restaurant in the city uhonly a few weeks back, and they
come over and gave us freedrinks because and they were so

(43:19):
enamoured by the fact that we'replaying this card game.
But the thing is we never touchour phones as a result of that.
Whereas people get bored, theycan't.
I like deep level conversations.
I'm not gonna lie, Millie and Ihave deep level conversations,
but some people can't even holda surface level conversation
without having to start to, youknow, they're looking for the
thing, or they'll share reels ormeans of shit.

(43:41):
We do that too when we're nottogether.
Yeah, we're not laying in bedsharing reels with each other
because we're actually having achat.
And I'm not disrespecting peoplewho do that, I'm just saying be
more conscious of being we callit being where your feet are.
And and it's funny you mentionedthat whole experience you had on
base camp because right beforethat I'd I'd been thinking to

(44:02):
say to you that one of thethings I'd love you guys to
experience on Kakoda is to bewhere your feet are, don't rush
the experience because I alwaysget people that want to be right
on.
I'll normally lead the trip andI'll have another staff member
at the back, or vice versa, justfor the pacing, because
otherwise people go too fast,they miss things, and I'll have
people breathing right down myneck, they just want to go
faster, they just want to gofaster, and this trip will be

(44:23):
over like that.
Yeah, and on day one, two, orthree, particularly if you're if
you're finding it a bit tough,it oh, there's forever to go,
and then all of a sudden it'sday six, day seven, and all of a
sudden you think this trip'sover.
Like that's life.
Like I'm 53 years of age, yeah,and I know how fast life seems
to go, and so I don't know whywe're in a hurry.

SPEAKER_03 (44:42):
One um I well, this is it's probably we'll talk
about it on the podcast becauseit might help someone else.
But um, the other thing I wastired with base camp, which I
want to do for this trip, is tomake sure I'm fit enough that
I'm not staring at my feet allthe time.

SPEAKER_02 (44:56):
I literally talk about that in my fitness
program.
Yeah.
Because I've taken people, Itook this guy years ago, and I
don't know if I talked about himon the webinar, but um, he just
didn't do the training, and hekept telling me he was doing the
training because I checked in onhim every now and then.
We got there, we walked thefirst sort of hour and a half
coming from the Kokoda in ispretty flat, and then we stopped

(45:16):
at this little village calledHoy, and so we'd maybe been
walking for 90 minutes, and wesat there for half an hour and
no sign of him, or the or my guythat was at the rear, my medic.
So I just left the group andwith my boys, and I've got a big
team, and I just went back and Ifound him a ways up the road,
and he was blowing and he wasstruggling, and I'm like, he I
knew he was gonna be troublebecause as soon as I saw him at

(45:36):
the airport, I went, okay, hejust hasn't done the work.
Yeah, and I said to him, mate,what's going on?
And had a chat, and he's going,Oh, I think it might be my heart
medication.
I'd checked all of hismedications, I'd checked all of
his scans, and he was fine.
But the truth is that I and Isaid to him, You just haven't
done the work.
And he goes, and I said to him,I'll be really honest, I think
you need to lose a bit ofweight.
And he goes, Yeah, that's what Icame here for.
No, no, not here.

(45:56):
I would do that before he gothere.
Yeah.
Just to enjoy the experience.
But he had the whole trip wherehe was just looking at his feet.
He was he got to the stage wherehe didn't have a pack on, which
is fine, but I would have astick and he would hold on to
the stick when we're going up ahill, and then one of the other
boys would be behind pushinghim, and we just pushed and
pulled him up the hills to gethim through it.
We would stop at certain pointsto go and talk about something

(46:17):
of military significance, andhe'd say, I'll just stay here.
He would just stay in the camp.
So he missed all of thesethings.
He was a real estate agent, andthen real estate agents buy, you
know, advertising space in thoselift-outs in the paper.
And when he got home, he usedthat.
I was still in the army at thetime, he used that to write a
whole Kokoda story, but itwasn't his experience.

(46:38):
Because he talked about backthen there was still a fuzzy
wuzzy alive, one of the oldfuzzy wazzies, and he said, Oh,
we went and met with a fuzzywazzy, and he didn't speak
English, but when he spoke toyou, he was communicating with
his eyes.
Well, everyone said that, butthis guy never experienced that
because he just sat in his tentand went, No, I'm not going
anywhere.
And I think, what a shame thatyou didn't get to actually
experience that.
And yeah, you I just say topeople, I want you to be fit

(47:00):
enough that at the end you go,Oh, that wasn't actually as hard
as I thought it was going to be.
That's ideal for me, yeah.
As opposed to looking down atyour feet going, I cannot wait
for this day to be over, Icannot wait for this trip to be
over.
And I've experienced both ofthose.
And I started the Kokoda Trackpodcast because I wanted more
people, because I'm a tinycompany, they're much bigger
companies than us, and I seepeople all the time unfit,

(47:21):
unhealthy, struggling.
And I just wanted them to have abetter understanding of what
they were doing so that theywould have a better experience.
Because I don't like it whenpeople have a bad experience out
there, even if I'm not takingthem.
Yeah, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (47:32):
Um because yeah, it's not just struggling looking
at your feet.
Like if you're looking down,you're not taking it everything,
right?
You're not looking at the views,you're not meeting the people,
you're not making eye contact.

SPEAKER_02 (47:48):
Those are the experiences.
Yeah, you know, that justgetting out and having a good
time with the locals.
I can teach you everything aboutthe history, I can make sure
that you're safe.
But if you want to learn theculture and the people, you've
got to talk to the people.
Yeah, and and that's what weencourage people to do.
But also, I'll say to people,and you'll get this when we get
over there and do the briefing.
When you're walking, if you seesomething, you think, Oh, I
should take a photo of that,stop and take a photo of that

(48:10):
because you may never be backthere.
And some people just go, I'llget I'll get it later, but uh
there'll be a similar photo.
There might not be.
And so and the track changesevery time I go over.
So stop and take the photos,stop and talk to the people.
No one cares if you got infirst.
When you finish Kakoda, I'llguarantee this to you that
there's not a single personyou'll ever speak to that'll
say, Did you win?
It's not a race, no one cares.

(48:31):
You know, they just what was theexperience like?
You know, even when it comes tocarrying backpacks and using
porters, which a lot of peoplehave ego around, no one says,
you know, did you carry yourpack?
No one cares.
They just want to know what wasthe experience like, mate?
Like, what did you take out ofit?
What were the people like?
That's all the stuff they careabout.

SPEAKER_03 (48:46):
Yeah.
Well, mate, you must be prettyproud.
Like, you've you've like so thetrip that we're on is going to
be your 100th Picada.

SPEAKER_02 (48:53):
Yeah, well, so you're there's two trips.
I'm not sure which one you guysare on, but I'm back to backing
for Antex.
I'm doing 99 and 100 together.
Uh, and that's been a long timecoming.
People go, oh, that's amazing,but that's over 22 years of
doing it.
So some years I've done 10 andsome years I've done one.
COVID years I did none,obviously, but um I don't know
when I'll stop.
Uh 150, 200, I don't know.

(49:14):
I'll just keep doing it.
People have often said to me,like, you does it get boring?
Does it no, it doesn't, becauseit's not about just walking the
track anymore, it's about youguys, if I'm really honest.
So it's about the people youtake, it's about the local
people over there who I've got amassive passion for, and
everything that we're doing.
Obviously, with Millie comingfrom PNG, we're very, very

(49:34):
passionate about the customs,the culture, looking after the
people.
Um, you know, there's a lot ofthings happen in these
countries, Nepal, Africa, um,PNG, where a lot of Westerners
come over and they rip off thelocals, and uh, and that happens
unfortunately, and I would nevername companies because it's not
my place, but we don't do that.
Um, and and that's one of thethings I'm proud of, and

(49:54):
particularly even before I metMillie, but with Millie being
from PNG, she loves that we getto employ her people, they get
looked after.
Um, killer who runs that side ofthe business, it's called
Adventure Professionals in PNG,but I don't own one percent of
it, it's all his.
And I think, as far as I know,he's the only um porter and PNG
guy that lives on the track thatruns his own company.

(50:16):
And we had to set it up for him.
Um every trip I do, you know, Iget a whole quote off him, but I
have to write it.
Yeah, send it to him and hiscousin, and because his cousin
reads about it as they gothrough it and make sure the
pricing's right based off what'scurrently happening, then they
send it back to me.
Yeah, so I still do a lot of hiswork for him, but how cool that
he gets to employ his ownpeople.
Yeah, everyone that he employscomes from or is married into

(50:39):
his village.
Yeah, so they're normally fromKokoda up to Alola.
That's pretty cool.
So they're not being ripped offby anyone, they're being well
looked after, they've been wellfed.
Um, we're pretty proud of that,more than I'm proud of the
hundred troops.

SPEAKER_03 (50:50):
Oh mate, I think it's uh it's amazing.
So, what like what sort ofpeople do you have come on your
adventures?
Like, what are they or what arethey looking for, do you reckon?

SPEAKER_02 (50:58):
The sort of people we have is that's a really hard
question because it's changed alot over the years.
When I first started, womendidn't really do adventures, it
was mostly blokes, and nowthere's a massive shift.
I we tend to get more womenacross the board of a whole year
than what we than what we domen.
And I don't know if that'sbecause my daughter climbed
Everest and and that's but womenare just out doing more.

(51:21):
But mate, I get people who areprofessionals or business
owners, I get people that bringtheir kids over, I get I had an
apprentice hairdresser, and Ithink, imagine how much she had
to save to do a Kokoda trip.
Because that's that's a bigchunk, you know.
We're at ages where we canafford these things, but a
20-year-old or 19-year-old doingan apprenticeship, that's a
pretty big thing.
But typically the people whocome to us are people that want

(51:44):
professionalism, they wantpeople who are passionate about
what we do, and they want toknow that the local population
is being looked after.
That's that's my experience.
Mostly they're looking for, inmy experience, anyway, they want
to have an an experience, butthey also want to know that
they're safe.
Yeah.
See, you're gonna be fine overthere, you're not gonna think
about it too much.
But the safety aspect is aboutour husbands, our wives, our

(52:07):
kids, our mums and our dads backin Australia who don't hear from
you for 10 days, and things willhappen.
So every every now and thensomething will happen in the
news.
People occasionally someone'sdied on Kokoda or and there
could be a 30-year-old thatsomething's happened to and
they've been air vaccine, itgets in the newspaper.
Your wives, your husbands, yourmums and dads, even if I'm 53,
they think well, it could behim, maybe they've just got the

(52:27):
age wrong, and our phones blowup.
Yeah, um, and so we provide thatsafety.
You know, we've got people knowthat you're safe.
We update our social media dailybecause I ring Brooklyn every
night, my daughter, and tell herthis is where we are, because we
might not be on itinerarybecause things happen.
Um, so then she just gets topost a little post saying, Hey,
the group's made it to here andthey're all traveling well.
And then your family can see youdon't consider it because you're

(52:49):
out having the experience.
So the safety is not about you,it's about everyone else feeling
comfortable.

SPEAKER_03 (52:53):
I like that you talk about as an experience because I
I think everything in lifeshould be an experience.
Like even in my buildingbusiness, we we aim to give our
clients an experience.
Like we go, like people come toour farm, I want to give them an
experience.
Like, people come over fordinner, like I want it to be an
experience.
Like, no, and that comes back tothat whole connection thing.
Like, you want you want peopleto think back 12 months, five

(53:14):
years, 10 years, and go, wow,like can you can you remember
that dinner we had with withDwayne and his family, or can
you remember that trip we did atCakoda?

SPEAKER_02 (53:21):
Like, but as you get older, which we're we're on that
side of things, well, certainlyI'm on the back back half of
life, unless I live to a 106,which I I don't know.
But time is more important toyou, who you spend time with,
where I my time is more valuablethan any money in this day and
age, so I make a lot ofdecisions around that.
Because I work in the personaldevelopment space, I get a lot

(53:43):
of people through social mediawho reach out and say, I made
love to um shout you a coffeeand pick your brain.
I'd prefer to buy my own coffeeand have an hour to myself if
I'm honest.
So, and it's not that I'm allabout money, but at some level I
need to be paid for what I'mdoing if I'm gonna take time
away from my family.
And then on weekends, you canoffer pay me whatever you want,
and I'm not taking time awayfrom my family.

(54:04):
Whereas go back 10 or 15 years,I'd be available 24 hours a day.
If you message me at 10 o'clockon a Sunday night, I'm answering
you.
And then one day I got a mentorand he said, mate, you've
conditioned people that youanswer your phone no matter
what, and you need to stop doingthat.
Because I was getting to thatexpectation.
Yeah, I was getting to say to usa bitch, oh mate, people just
message me all the time.
He's going, Well, do you answerthem?
I said, Yeah.

(54:25):
I said, Try not answering them.
And I've had clients push backagainst that.
I had a lady years ago and I'dsay to her, you know, I don't
answer my phone on Sundays.
And sometimes she'd message meand say, Great episode of the
podcast on a Sunday morning.
I don't want my phone to ping atsix o'clock or at seven o'clock
in the morning on a Sunday forsomething trivial.
And I'd say to her, you can justtell me on Monday when you see
me at the gym, because I had agym back then, you could just

(54:46):
tell me on Monday that you likethe podcast.
She goes, Yeah, but what if Iforget by then?
I said, What changes?
Nothing, nothing changes if youforget.
We're right, we're okay.
Um, and I slowly had to trainthat into people that I'm not
just going to drop everythingand answer everything because
every second, well, I I when Idid my degree in psychology,
they were saying that um withkids, like every time you look

(55:06):
down at your phone, that's adisconnect from them.
Yeah, and they just have thisbelief that whatever's happening
in there is more important todad than this conversation
they're having with me.
And I've done it, and I knowother people have done it where
we're having a chat and then allof a sudden the phone pings.
We look down.
Oh, sorry, mate, we get back toyou, and the kids just think,
well, whatever's happened thereis more important than me.
That's a terrible thing.
I don't want my kids to feelthat, and I don't want the boys

(55:27):
to feel that, you know.
So I'll spend hours at the skatepark, I'll spend hours at footy.
Years ago, I used to think, oh,I don't want to spend hours
doing that stuff, but now that'sthe stuff we live for.

SPEAKER_04 (55:36):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (55:36):
Plus, we also take the boys out and climb
mountains, you know.
We take them out and do things,and when you first take them
out, they're like, Oh, we don'twant to do this.
This is the kids' latest, I knowour kids are 10 and 12, so
they've got all these wordsyou've never heard of.
The latest word is buns.
Apparently, when something'sbuns, it's crap.
So, oh, we don't want to dothat, that's buns.
I was like, What are you talkingabout?
That's crap.
And you get out there, they'rehaving a ball.
Can we do that again next week?
Yeah, but yeah, once you getthem out there in nature and

(55:59):
doing stuff, but yeah,everything should be an
experience.
Actually, everything is anexperience, it's either a good
or a bad one.

SPEAKER_03 (56:04):
Yeah, so yeah, definitely.
So, what's the work you're doingnow?
You're doing a lot of work withkids still, aren't you?

SPEAKER_02 (56:09):
Yeah, so we did a lot of youth development work,
and funny enough, um, that'sRyan's tied into that story, and
I think I might have told youthis off-air, but um years ago,
I took all of the top-performingpharmacists from Terry White
Kemmart across Kakota, the mostalpha humans outside the
military I think I've everworked with.
Very successful people, andpeople don't succeed
accidentally.

(56:29):
So I took them all out, theirCEO and everyone, and I remember
at the time um Ryan's wife Karencame and she's a very successful
businesswoman and and was a verysuccessful athlete, um, you
know, professional netballer,the whole bit.
So she are pharmacists tend totry and do um development or

(56:51):
health care and mental healthand all that sort of stuff.
But for blokes, we don't tieinto it, but women do.
So when young girls are oldenough to have their periods,
they're talking to someone.
When they're going throughpregnancy, they're talking to
someone.
When they reach the other end ofthat and be menopausal, they're
talking to someone.
We don't talk to anyone.
So she started running theseinformation nights and she'd get
footy players in.

(57:11):
So Alistair Clarkson, one year,Wally Lewis, because blokes will
turn up for that, and then theysneak in a bit of mental health
and a bit of health stuff.
And then after we did Kakoda,she said, I'd love you to come
and do one.
I said, Well, no one's gonnacome listen to me because I'm
not anyone, as far as famous, orI don't have a footy story.
But she talked me into itbecause she's very convincing,
so I went and did it.
And there was, I don't know, Ican't remember, a hundred or so

(57:32):
people turn up, so a lot lessthan when Wally Lewis spoke.
But they took so much out of itbecause I had to deliver real
content because I don't have afooty story to tell you.
So I delivered what I normallydeliver, and they were just
blown away by it.
And she said, You really wouldyou consider doing some stuff
for younger people like youthdevelopment?
I just I don't have time, Ilegitimately don't have time.
I like the idea, but I don'thave time.
And then COVID hit.

(57:53):
And the thing about successfulpeople, they're successful for a
reason, they just don't give upon stuff.
And I remember her ringing meand she said, Um, I reckon
you're not that busy right now,which which hurt a bit because
the adventure business had juststopped.
And so we started running talksfor young kids and then we
started running camps.
She actually came on and ran acamp with me, she sponsored a
couple of the camps.
Yeah, um, but the problem we hadin the early days was valuing

(58:16):
the camps.
So we were charging 400 bucksfor three days, where we've got
24 hours of staff members, sowe're all doing it for free,
myself and all my team.
Yeah, and one of my youngblokes, uh, he's a footy player.
Um he plays Super League in theUK now, but his wife's a school
teacher, Krista, and she kind ofdid the numbers and she said it
costs about 900 bucks to runthis camp, and you're charging

(58:37):
400.
But if you had to pay people,900 to break even if you've got
X amount of people.
So 68% of the kids who came inthe camp couldn't afford it.
So we used to sponsor them.
We'd have people that would giveus money to sponsor them, and my
accountant eventually said, Youcan't keep doing this because
you're going backwards.
But we put 3, uh 648 kidsthrough camps, or or 3,468.

(58:59):
But anyway, those are thenumbers.
And so 3,500 people.
And then we stopped doing themfor about 18 months.
Um, I sold my gym becausethey're knocking down that
building for the Olympics, andwe're just starting to relaunch
that now.
But this time we've done itdifferently.
We've got we're getting thegovernment involved at some
level, so we're doing kidscoming out of youth detention,
we're doing uh at-risk youth totry and help solve the youth

(59:22):
crime problem because we're acommunity, that's what we
believe.
And then I was just at Churchythe other day talking to their
team because they want to startrunning them through Churchy as
well, so the whole spectrum.
Um, and we'll get back intothat.
So that's our main focus.
And how it started was I thoughtwe call this uh an upstream
program.
So, what happens for most of us?

(59:42):
I make used to make my livingout of sort of 40 to
55-year-olds who struggled whenlife didn't quite turn out how
they thought it would be.
And so to my mindset was they'vefallen in the river, and we've
kind of pulled them out andtrying to help them out, work
their way through that, which ismost of us, you know, when we're
40 and life hasn't quite donewhat we thought it would.
And then I thought, what if youcould give these skill sets to

(01:00:04):
young people before they evenneeded them?
So this is upstream beforethey've fallen in.
So if they fall in the river,which they will because that's
life, they've already had someintroduction, they've already
got some skill sets.
And I've had, I'll give you agood example.
I did a job out at Marsden HighSchool where I had 24 kids do a
leadership program, it wasvolunteer, they didn't have to
do it.
So we're running this program,and I had this young young girl

(01:00:26):
who I can mention, Anna, and shedid the program, and they got a
really good outcomes.
But I gave them a book calledHigh Performance Habits by
Brendan Bouchard, it's one of myfavourite books around personal
development.
We got 24 books, we gave it tothe school.
They initially tried to put themin the library, we said, no,
that's for these kids.
So she didn't read the book, butshe did pretty well in the
program.

(01:00:47):
Then I was she's quite big onTikTok, this kid, three, four
hundred thousand followers.
And so she's a rugby player andwhatnot.
And then I watched her, and shewas doing the 75 Hard Challenge
earlier this year, so you know,three or four years after she
did the program.
She said, I'm doing 75 Hard.
And for those that know theprogram, you've got to uh
exercise twice a day, oneindoors, one outdoors.
You have to follow some sort ofdiet.

(01:01:07):
They don't tell you what tofollow, but it's just about
discipline.
You have to drink, I think it'slike four litres of water a day,
you have to take a selfie everyday, but you also have to read,
I think it's 10 pages of a somesort of personal development.
And she in this TikTok said, I'mgonna read this book.
I was given it on this programlike four years ago, and I've
never looked at it, but now I'mgonna read it.
So you don't know when thisstuff's gonna land for people,

(01:01:29):
but it was cool to watch that ithad landed for her a few years
later.
Yeah.
Um, so that's really the thebackground of the hows and whys.
And now we're just reallypassionate about.
I think about this youth crimeproblem in in Queensland in
particular.
We've got the worst youth crimesets in Australia.
And if we want to pretend itdoesn't exist, we're kidding
ourselves because if you're inbusiness, it's costing you

(01:01:50):
money.
At the end of the day, when thewhen the government struggles to
pay for a thing, they take itoff the small business owner.
So it affects all of us, sotherefore, we should all try and
help solve the problem.
Um Millie works as a youthworker in residential youth
care, so she's first hand on thefront line of this stuff, and
it's pretty tough.
We can bag these kids all wewant, but they've had the most

(01:02:11):
incredibly hard lives, and soyou need to understand why they
ended up where they did.
They didn't, they're not badkids, they're just in bad
situations.

SPEAKER_03 (01:02:18):
Yeah, I agree 100%, mate.
Like they A lot of these kids,as you said before, like you get
them out in the the outdoors,you sit around a fire, you have
some good conversation, youteach them some good skills, and
they'll come out differentpeople.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:29):
Yeah, but I've had Millie come home from work
crying when she's read some ofthe things that these kids have
been through, and you think,man, how's this kid got a
chance?
But they'll have a chance ifeveryday people, you and I,
people watching and listening tothis, put their hand up in some
way, shape, or form and help, asopposed to going lock them up
for longer.
That's not necessarily theanswer.
I'm I'm all about the adultcrime, adult time for certain

(01:02:51):
things, but also how can we tryand stop them from happening in
the first place?

SPEAKER_03 (01:02:55):
So how can people get behind that and support
that?

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:58):
Well, we're in the middle of setting it up as a
charity, so that's a processright now.
But once that's up and running,if they just follow our stuff
through the Building BetterHumans project, we're building a
residential youth housing modelcalled Wantok House.
Wantok, and you'll learn whenyou go to PNG, um, is a word for
family for community.
So if someone's your Wantok, itmeans they're normally from your
village.
Um it's what Maldives would callFANU, um, some owners called

(01:03:22):
Iiger.
It's just that realfamily-community feeling so we
wanted to use a word that tiedinto uh PG because we we're
passionate, and because ofmilitary's uh sorry, because of
Millie's history there.
And so eventually there'll bethe capacity for people to chip
in and help, and we'll needpeople to.
We don't have the capacity.
It'll honestly it'll cost ushalf a million dollars to set
this up properly, but no oneelse is doing it.

(01:03:44):
And so I'm not scared to put myhand up for stuff.
I'll publicly talk about whatI'm gonna try and achieve, and
I'll do everything I can toachieve it.
But my long-term goal is tobuild enough finance into what
we're doing that we can takesome of these kids to Kakota
because you will experience andyour mates will experience a
life-changing experience.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:03):
But hopefully all the level uppers, mate, will get
behind you and start followingGlenn on Instagram and see when
this happens and we can allpitch in.

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:10):
But I think we take them all to Kokoda after you've
done it, we'll get your leveluppers over there, right?

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:13):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:14):
It's life-changing, but they can afford to change
their life.
Yeah, these kids can't.
So then I think, well, what ifwe could?
So the idea behind having acharity too is when Sir Churchy
wants to take a group of kids.
So what if they chipped in anextra couple of thousand dollars
each that would go into thecharity that eventually three
kids can take one extra kidalong and so on whose whose
parents can't afford to go?
That's the idea.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:34):
Yeah, I think it's fantastic, mate.
Because that like everything, alot of so everything we've
talked about today all comesback to just there, like we're
animals, like we need to getback to our simple instincts.

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:45):
More importantly, we're a communal animal.
But we've kind of Westernsociety has made us very
protective, yeah, verysuspicious of each other, uh,
and for good reason in incertain places, but I would just
love to see us get back to beinga bit more communal and saying,
you know what, my life's prettygood.
I've I've been I've had somelevels of success in business or
whatever.
Maybe I could help someone else.
And that's where my mind's at atthe moment.

(01:05:07):
And I'm conscious that as goodas I feel at 53, I am 53, in 10
years, 63, in 10 years 73, and Ihope to still be doing this, but
you don't know.
And so I want to make as muchimpact as I can and bring as
many people along that journey.
So I've got young athletes Iwork with, I've got school
teachers that I mentor, I've gotpeople in businesses that all
have capacity.
You think if everyone that weknow in our circles chipped in

(01:05:30):
one to five thousand dollarstowards changing the world for
the better, that's actually alot of money.
It's uh yeah, it's you know thatyou can't rely on the government
to do it.
You just can't.

SPEAKER_03 (01:05:37):
Do you um I think we're very similar, Glenn, in a
lot of ways.
The um, like one of my bigmottos is like, if I'm not
right, nothing around me can beright.
100%.
I truly, well, I don't justbelieve it anymore.
I'm seeing it happening.
Like the the better I am, thebetter I the more I do on
myself, the more exercise I do,the more I get out in nature,
the better I feel.

(01:05:58):
The the better my businesses do,which then allows me to help
more people.
And I'm addicted to it.
Like, I just want to help asmany people as I possibly can.

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:07):
But I bang this drum all the time, and I've had
people attack us about this.
Um, Millie and I do a Mondayepisode on our podcast, which we
call Mayhem Monday.
She's a boxer, so she'srepresenting PNG at the
Commonwealth for theCommonwealth Games next year.
Um, she fights amateur andprofessional, she's the current
PNG champion.
She's fighting for theAustralian title in a few weeks,

(01:06:27):
so the professional title.
Yeah, and so Mayhem's hernickname.
Uh controlled chaos, we callthat.
So we do Mayhem Mondays, whichis just us talking about stuff,
but we do a thing called NGL,which is a not gonna lie.
And so it's a link where peoplecan ask us anonymous questions.
You'd be surprised how often weget attacked by people who go,
Oh, it's all bullshit.
This personal developmentstuff's all bullshit.
And yeah, hey, I'm not here toconvince you otherwise, I just

(01:06:49):
know what works for me.
Yeah, I run online programs,like I run a 12-week design your
life online program, so it's allbeen written by me, pre-filmed
by me.
You just buy the program, it's$400 for lifetime access.
And people go, that'sridiculous, that price.
And you go, What?
Like you you go to a TonyRobbins seminar and you spend
five grand.
I'm not bagging Tony Robbinsout, I'm just saying you'll

(01:07:10):
spend a lot of money, and that'sif you do the base level of the
program.
I run a 28-day habit builder umprogram that people can buy
online for like 90 bucks.
Like it's it's designed to becheap enough to to not deter
people, and it it wouldn'tmatter if it's ten dollars,
someone would think it's a wasteof time.
I'm not here to convince themotherwise.
I've been attacked abouteverything and anything, and
that's all bullshit.

(01:07:31):
Okay, like who am I to convinceyou of otherwise?

SPEAKER_03 (01:07:34):
We get the exact same thing.
In my um training business, wedo a um one we've got a small
entry-level sort of thing, it's190 odd bucks, we call it launch
pad, and it's um it gives themfour sort of key things that
like they get the document, theyget a recorded video to watch to
talk them through that, and umthe builders that have taken

(01:07:54):
that, listened to it, watchedit, done the documents, have had
a lot of success.
And so we've got this um it's anautomated system.
So I get a uh calendar inviteput in my calendar um 30 to 45
days after um they've purchasedit, which should be more than
enough time for them to do it.

(01:08:15):
And uh I give them a call andjust say, hey, just touch and
bass in, how you're going.
I would say 70% of people thatpurchase that do not even open
it.
But the amount of people that Iring up that they haven't even
opened the email.
And I say to them, look, youobviously bought it for a
reason.
Like you you want to improve,like, and it's always the same
old excuses.
Oh, I got no time, I got youngkids, I uh life's busy, work's

(01:08:38):
busy, I haven't got enoughemployees, I can't get away from
site, like all these sameexcuses.
But anybody, like my I believeanybody on this planet can have
and be and do whatever theywant.

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:49):
100%.
You can't they I believe you cando anything, you can't do
everything.
Yeah, so if you find your timepoor, you've got to work out
well, where am I spending time,maybe wasting time on things
that aren't important, yeah.
And then it's about being reallyhonest with yourself around
those things, and you've got it,you've got to commit.

SPEAKER_03 (01:09:05):
Like if you want change, you have to do something
with it.
You can't um you can't justspend money on a program and
then blame the program when it'slike signing up to the gym and
not going, and then so I'm justnot getting any fitter, but I'm
paying me membership.

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:16):
Well, okay, but you've got to go and do the
thing, so and you've got to geta bit uncomfortable to do the
thing.
So, yeah, I'm really big on allof that sort of stuff.
I'm big on morning routines andafternoon routines, and if
people start to cleanse theirlives a little bit, I'm not
saying we need to become monks,but just tidy up a few things.
You'd be saying, Oh, I actuallydo waste a bit of time on this,
that, and the other thing.
And what's your morning routine,mate?
Morning routine for me, whichthe most basic one I teach

(01:09:39):
people is just move, motivate,and hydrate.
It's not about getting up at 4a.m.
because that's what the rockdoes, or it's about what works
for you.
Yeah, um, so move, motivate, andhydrate is just move your body.
And it's I'll often say topeople, do 10 or 20 burpees.
People go, oh, burpees becausethey're thinking CrossFit
jumping up and down.
No, if you lay down and standup, lay down and stand up ten
times as slow as you want.
It's called blood shunting.

(01:10:00):
You it just starts pumping theblood around your body.
Um, motivate is just listen orread something motivation.
If I read it, I read it outloud.
If I listen to it, I've gotgo-to videos on YouTube that
I've saved, or things that justinspire or motivate me in
someone, so I'm puttingsomething good in.
Because we don't all wake upevery day feeling amazing.
So I'm trying to change myphysiology and then hydrate's
just you know, drink a litre ofwater or half a litre or

(01:10:22):
whatever it is for you.
I used to be the guy that wouldjust get up and and uh skull a
can of Pepsi Max or drink acoffee and grab a piece of toast
and run straight out the door.
I've got my caffeine, and andtruthfully, I can fall back into
that if I'm not really careful.
Um, I'm someone that gets upvery early, 2:30, 3 o'clock some
mornings.
I'm just crazily inspired, andsometimes I need to temper that
a little bit.

(01:10:42):
Yeah, um, but just move,motivate, and hydrate, just get
your body primed to dosomething.
These people that hit snooze,hit snooze, hit snooze, and then
now we're behind the eight ball.
Uh and I always joke about this.
I say, so after eight or ninehours sleep, what you really
needed was a nine-minute nap.
But that doesn't make sense tome.
So if that's true, you haven'tslept well.
There's something else going on.
Because when you hit that snoozebutton, that's what it gives you

(01:11:04):
that magic nine minutes.
Yeah.
Um, and and there are strategiesaround that.
And you know, put your clothesfurther away, put your alarm
clock further away.
I say to people not to keeptheir phones in the room because
people check their phones.
When I say that to kids, theygo, Well, that's my alarm clock.
I say for 15 bucks from Kmart,you can buy an alarm clock if
that's the issue, right?

SPEAKER_03 (01:11:22):
No phones in the room.

SPEAKER_02 (01:11:23):
Just try and give yourself every opportunity to
succeed.
And I I have this underlyingbelief that the world wants you
to win, you've just got to getout of your own way.
Maybe that's true, maybe it'snot, but it's not a bad belief
to have.

SPEAKER_03 (01:11:34):
I think that's definitely a good belief to
have.
Mate, tell us a little bitthat's not dead yet.

SPEAKER_02 (01:11:39):
So, not dead yet is our belief system for the
adventure business.
Initially, it started thatpeople go, like, why would you
track Kokoda?
Or why would you climb MountKilimanjaro?
Because it's hard and it'suncomfortable.
And we just sort of said, Well,we do what we do because we're
not dead yet.
And how that came about reallywas um I was I was at Bomana War
Cemetery where you guys would goafter you finished Kokoda.

(01:12:01):
It's the biggest war cemetery inthe Southern Hemisphere, it's
the biggest Australian warcemetery in the world, 4,000
graves there.
And I saw this laminated umpiece of paper that had some
photos in it and had some wordswritten on it, and it was a guy
who at fought on Kokoda at 2021with his mate, and his mate was
killed.
And so he put this whole storyand he laminated it and put it

(01:12:24):
up against his mate's grave andjust outlined his whole life uh
into his 80s.
And he basically said, I dideverything in my life, every
decision I made was because youdidn't get to do any of those
things.
And so that I've got mates,particularly coming from a
military background, who didn'tmake it to 50.
So I'll never complain about myage, whether it's through things
that happen in war zones ortaking their own lives after

(01:12:46):
war, which which happens.
Um there's plenty of people thatdidn't get to 50, so I'll never
complain about being 50, andI'll never complain about being
60, and because that's aprivilege.
Um, the other side of that iswhen I think about kids like
Christian, and when he was atAspie Special School, there were
131 kids there.
Um, these kids, again, like Isaid earlier, they didn't ask to
have the situation that was puton them.

(01:13:06):
And so it's almost a disrespectto them, it's a disrespect for
mates of mine that aren't aliveanymore for me to sit around and
mope around about my life andnot go out and do things.
When my daughter wanted to climbMount Everest, she was 14 when
she made that decision.
We're coming down off MountKilimanjaro, she did Kokoda when
she was eight, Everest Base Campwhen she was 10, and then coming
down off Killy, she said, I wantto climb Mount Everest.

(01:13:28):
Now I'm I'm a nature over.
She's been to the top.
Yeah, she summited.
She summited Mount, she's theyoungest woman, she was the
youngest Australian, someone'sbeaten that record now, and
she's the youngest woman to havesummited Mount Everest from both
the north and south routes,which she did by the age of 21.
And when she wanted to do that,I knew nothing about climbing
Mount Everest.
I'd trekked there, but I'm notthe guy that's going to say no,

(01:13:48):
because I think, well, Christiandoesn't get those opportunities.
He can't even play a game offooty or a game of cricket.
When I drive past kids at schoolplaying a game of cricket, and I
think, well, Christian willnever get to do that.
And I always said to the girls,whatever you decide to do, you
should do it to the best of yourability because you owe it to
him.
Whether that's if you want to bea hairdresser or a doctor or an
accountant, I don't care whatyou want to do, but just do it
100%.

(01:14:08):
You you owe it to kids like himto do that.

SPEAKER_01 (01:14:11):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:14:11):
And that's kind of what the not dead yet philosophy
is.
And then we've transitioned itinto the youth, particularly the
at-risk youth, to say not deadyet is about staying in the
fight.
You know, life's handed you ashit sandwich.
There's some things thatshouldn't have happened to you
that have happened to you.
But as long as you stay in thefight, you're every chance of
coming out the other side andtaking control of your life.
Yeah.
And so we use not dead yet forthat.

(01:14:32):
I wear it on bands, I wear it onshirts.
It's it's deeply ingrained intowho we are these days.
But really, it's just aboutliving life, having a crack.

SPEAKER_03 (01:14:40):
Oh, I think it's fantastic, mate.

SPEAKER_02 (01:14:41):
When I was nursing, I went to a nursing home when I
was 30, 31, when I first startedmy nursing degree, and that's
your first placement.
There were people 60 years ofage sitting around in a nursing
home waiting to die.
And I remember saying to thisguy, man, you could live until
you're at least 85.
That's 25 years you're gonna sithere.
And yet I've taken a 79-year-oldlady across Kokoda, a group of

(01:15:02):
blokes in their 70s who wereVietnam veterans years ago.
I took to Kokoda.
One of them had two bustedknees, and his surgeon said he
needed both knee replacements.
But I'll do it after Kokoto.
Man, he struggled, his kneeswere swollen, it looked hard.
Yeah, but he didn't just it wasa hard ass.
He just went out and got itdone.
And yeah, I've seen 40-year-oldsgo, oh man, I'd love to do that,

(01:15:22):
but I'm too old now.
Yeah, stop it.

SPEAKER_03 (01:15:24):
I used to think, like growing up, like, and my
parents are quite young, like myold boys are only bloody 67 or
something now.
But um, I used to, and even myboss, like my boss was in his
mid-40s, maybe late 40s, and Iused to think, man, they're old.
Like, look at like 50's old,like, I don't want to get to 50.
Yeah, and like I've just turned45 a few weeks ago, and I this

(01:15:47):
year I've definitely put theyards in, but like I got a
trainer, I'm eating well, andmate, I feel better than when I
was in my 20s.
And I just think, like, if I'mfeeling this good now, like I I
want to make the most of thenext 20-30 years, like, I want
to do as many adventures as Ican, I want to have experiences.
Like, to me.

SPEAKER_02 (01:16:06):
A funny story about that.
Years ago, when I first became aphysical training instructor in
the army, that was a dual role.
I was 21 or 22, and I wasrunning PT for our battalion,
and there was this corporalthere who had been around for a
long time.
And as we're out running uh anddoing stuff, he goes to me, for
fuck's sake, Azar.
I'm nearly 35 years old.
I remember thinking, Oh, that'spretty old.
Then I got to 35, I thought,what's he talking about?

(01:16:29):
So you are what you believeyourself to be, I guess.
I'm there.
Mate, I'm not like I was 20 or30 years ago.
I'm at that lucky stage of lifewhere people go, you're fit for
your age.
I'll take it.
I've got injuries, galore.
I've as you guys know, I wastelling you, I've torn my pec
minor when I was over dogsetting, I've torn both of my
biceps off, neither of them areattached anymore through stupid
things I did in my 40s.

(01:16:49):
So there's a heap of stuff Ican't do, but I can do a lot,
yeah.
And so I'm not never going tocomplain.
My body's not like it was at 20,but I've abused it, so so it's
doing alright.

SPEAKER_03 (01:17:00):
Mate, I uh honestly I can talk to you all night.
I'm I am so looking forward toour trip.

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:05):
Um, do we get to hang out like uh each night or
sit around a fire or yeah, we'llget into camps depending on the
days between sort of 2 and 4p.m.
Um and then there'll be a lot ofjust sitting around the fire, go
and have a tub, um just peoplechatting.
And because I'm so involved inpersonal development and people
who come on Kokoda typicallyhave listened to podcasts, they
know that that's what we'reabout.

(01:17:25):
You you're not gonna hang aroundwith me and not have those
conversations.
But as a result, we also attracta lot of people that are into
those conversations.
Um, and when I first starteddoing the Building Better Humans
project, I did it as a marketingtool in a way.
I wanted people to know who Iwas, so then if you want to come
on an adventure, you know whatyou got.
Because I'm not for everyone,and I'm okay with that.
And what I found was beforethat, people didn't know who you

(01:17:48):
were.
Every company looks the same,all their websites look the
same, pricing's not that muchdifferent when you add it all
up.
And you just get some peoplethat really needed to be
mole-coddled that, and andthat's I'm not that guy.
Um, and I remember I had yearsago, this guy rang me up and he
wants to do cocota, and he said,My wife is enamoured with your
daughter, and you know, shewants to do cocota with you for
that reason, and they wanted togo south to north, and I said,

(01:18:09):
Well, I'm personally not goingthat way because I like to go
the way the battle unfolded, soI'd like to put the battle on
the ground.
So I gave him some names of somecompanies that go the other way.
He rang me back two weeks laterand he said, mate, look, I've
spoken to Sam and she's decided,no, we're gonna do it with him,
so we'll go the way you'regoing.
So no rose.
He said, She wants to talk toyou first, and she gets on the
phone and no hello, no anything.
And she just says, Sell yourselfto me.

(01:18:30):
I said, I beg your pardon.
She goes, Sell yourself to me.
Why should I come with you?
And I said, Yeah, I don't reallydo that.
So maybe go with someone else.
So she went with someone else.
Yeah.
And I ran into her on the track,and she gave me the greasiest
looks.
Yeah.
But I just didn't want toattract people that required me
to have the whole experience forthem.
And you'll learn on the track.
I want you to have theexperience.
There'll be things that you'llwork out, particularly.

(01:18:50):
I've taken people over that havenever camped before, and then
two or three days in, they'restill trying to work out how to
pack their bags and how to dostuff.
And I'll give them some tips andmostly let them work it out.
After two or three days, if theyhaven't worked it out, which
most people have, then I'll helpthem.
They go, Why don't you tell methat three days ago?
Well, because it's yourexperience.
We're here to facilitate it,we're here to keep it safe, but
I'm not here to have theexperience for you.
And sometimes you get peoplethat want the red carpet rolled

(01:19:12):
out, and that's not adventure.
So the idea of the BuildingBetter Humans project was if
people know who I am.
I had a mate that used to workfor me, and he said, When people
ring up, they just ring up withtheir credit card and pay their
deposit.
I said, because they alreadyknow who I am.
We're not trying to convincethem of anything.
And if they don't like me,they're not ringing me.
And that's also okay.
Yeah, I you have to become okaywith people not liking you.
Yeah.
So yeah, mate.

(01:19:33):
It's gonna be a crackingexperience.
You'll love it.

SPEAKER_03 (01:19:35):
I am really looking forward to it, but um, I'm also
just looking forward tocontinuing to follow your
journey, mate, and I I hope wecan do some more adventures
after Kakada.
Definitely keen to get on thisYukon uh dog sledding thing, but
um mate, just keep doing whatyou're doing.
Like I I love it, I loveeverything about it.
You, I love what you're for.
Um, I love that you're helpingthe youth and that sort of
thing.
So um, yeah, just keep smashingit out, mate.

(01:19:56):
Just um last thing before we go,mate, what's level up mean to
you?

SPEAKER_02 (01:20:00):
Level up to me, if I was to think about that, would
be no matter what level we're atin life, and we're whether we're
down here or up here, there'salways going to be another
level.
So if we're really, reallyhonest with ourselves, there are
things that we can improve.
I feel like sometimes people,when you're in this industry,
will talk about you being a guruor something.
I'm so far from that, and I'm avery average bloke.
Uh, I think we're all prettyaverage, if I'm really honest.

(01:20:22):
But in order for you to levelup, you've got to have some real
brutal honesty around somethings, and I've struggled with
that over the years.
So personally andprofessionally, and the way I do
everything, I run at a prettyhigh level.
But as an example,relationships, I've always
really struggled withinterpersonal relationships, as
in with intimate relationships.
Um, and there's a lot of issuesfrom growing up.

(01:20:42):
I understand psychologically whythat is, and Millie's someone
who's very brutally honest, likebrutally honest, she'll just hit
you between the eyes.
And I found that reallychallenging at first, and I
tried to kind of ignore it orturn it away.
Um, and I had to really facethat with a brutal honesty,
which I still haven't ironedout.
And so, level up to me means bewilling to look at yourself and
say, is there another level inthis for me?

(01:21:04):
And if you're honest, yeah,there is, there always is.

SPEAKER_03 (01:21:07):
Yeah, that's awesome, mate.
Really appreciate you taking thetime out.
And um, yeah, I think we willget you back for another one
after we've done this track andcan chat and uh see what's
happening there.
But guys, look as usual, thanksfor um watching and listening.
Um, make sure you go check GlenAzar out on Instagram, uh,
Adventure Professionals onInstagram as well.

SPEAKER_02 (01:21:25):
Yeah, so there's Building Bit of Humans Project.
There's my own personal GlenAzer, which is where I do most
of my stuff, and then AdventureProfessionals.

SPEAKER_03 (01:21:31):
Yep, and uh go to the DuanePears.com website, make
sure you get your merch.
And uh, as always, if you've gotany questions, you want to jump
on the podcast, you want to knowsomething, make sure you reach
out.
And we really appreciate youhelping us make this Australia's
number one construction podcast.
See you on the next one.
All right, guys, I want tointroduce you to a really
exciting new product that Ibelieve is going to play a

(01:21:52):
massive role in Australiabuilding healthier homes.
As you all know, I am extremelypassionate about healthy homes,
and I'm doing a lot of researchand putting a lot of time and
effort into making sure myconstruction business is leading
the way when it comes tobuilding healthy homes here in
Australia.
We've teamed up with the guysfrom Highwood Timber.
Highwood Timber are pioneeringcondensation management with

(01:22:15):
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While tackling condensation toimprove building health and ease
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(01:22:38):
When it comes to dealing withcondensation and ventilation,
high-flow batons will help youcreate continuous ventilated
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They reduce condensation riskand support healthier, longer
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Highwood timber battons are alsoin alignment with the proposed
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(01:23:01):
house ventilation requirements.
Being an engineered LVL product,they are stronger, straighter,
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Howard timber batons areprecisely manufactured, meaning
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(01:23:24):
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The part that I like the mostabout these batons are they are
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These are the exact buttons thatyou want to be using on your
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(01:23:48):
hand.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}How To Transform Your Mindset and Life with Outdoor Adventure | Level Up With Duayne Pearce