Inspire Change SEASON 7-304 Personal Reflections 2025

This week on Inspire Change...Gunter shifts the conversation to Personal Reflections 2025

 #InspireChange #Philosophy #Science #Reflection #Contemplation #SelfDevelopment #Masculinity #MakingGoodMenGreat #stoicism 

Our gratitude this week goes out to our Global listeners list and we have seen a HUGE spike in listeners is South America and we want this weeks gratitude to go out to our listeners in South America and the country of BRAZIL. What we have seen is amazing as suddenly everyone in these Brazilian cities have shot Brazil's place from #18 to #3 on our Global Listeners list. What a feat! CONGRATULATIONS !!!!!   And so a special thanks to our listeners in the cities: 
São Paulo, 
Goias (goy-YAS), 
Minas Gerais (mee-nuhs zheh-hice), 
Rio Grande Du Sul (hi.u grange du suul)  Federal District, 
Paraná (par-uh-NAH),
Rio de Jandiero, and 
Santa Catarina 

Thanks for tuning in and inspiring Positive Social Change: We thank all our listeners for tuning in and promoting positive social change.  This makes you a part of Gunter’s efforts in transforming not only men's lives but lives in general and we are grateful you have joined us.  I, DeVonna Prinzi the Co-Exec Producer and our Show
runner Miranda Spigener-Sapon sincerely thank you and ask that you please take the time to like, follow, subscribe, and share as your efforts make a difference to everyone here at Inspire Change with Gunter.   Please remember If you want to share your story of social change, feel free to reach out  to the show directly. Please see the show-notes for our contact information, but most importantly keep Inspiring positive social change.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/inspire-change-with-gunter--3633478/support.

Gunter Swoboda and Lorin Josephson's neo-noir/supernatural thriller novel Amulets of Power, Book I A Brian Poole Mystery is officially ON SALE EVERYWHERE you like to get book, but if you want a discount please consider ording direct. ANY LISTENER who order's direct will get a surprise gift. https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=3RoOA6kVQ7ZgmqSK9LdnvNyDAZZFsg9IMaLUaprPgXK

Make sure you LIKE SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW our new Official YouTube Channel of Video Shorts series: https://www.youtube.com/@InspireChangewithGunterSwoboda/videos where we will be adding new videos and content every week from Gunter and our guests.  https://www.youtube.com/@InspireChangewithGunterSwoboda/videos

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, listeners, it's good to siboa here with some exciting news.
We're on the lookout for sponsors to join us on
our incredible journey with Inspired Change with Conta. If your
organization cares deeply about meaningful conversations around masculinity, self development,
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(00:24):
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your brand will connect with listeners who truly value thoughtful
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(00:47):
proud to be ranked number one in Australia and number
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health Podcasts. For more information on how to become sponsor,
please reach out to Miranda Spegner sap On, our showrunner
and executive producer. We'd love to explore how we can

(01:09):
work together to inspire change. Now. Thank you for your
continued support, and let's keep inspiring change together.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
You're listening to Inspire Change, the broadcast that strives to educate, motivate,
and empower men to challenge traditions of masculinity to guide
us through the intricacies and intersections of emotions, relationships, and
male identity is renownced psychologists, author and speaker Gunter Swubota.
This is Inspire Change.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Before I begin the actual podcast, I would like to
respectfully acknowledge the gategor people of the Order Nation, who
are the traditional custodians of the lane on which I work.
I would also like to pay my respects to their elders,
past and Presentlcome everybody to another episode of Inspire Change

(02:03):
with gun I'm your host. Welcome everybody to another episode
of Inspire Change with Gunter. I'm your host. I'm a psychologist,
I'm an author, content creator, researcher, and sometimes in a
busy week, I run across the problem of not exactly

(02:23):
being sure about what I want to put out there
into the said ether that you know, not only aligns
with making good men great, but also there's relevance not
just men, but women, leaders, content creators, all based on

(02:44):
the idea of inspiring constructive change. So I was reflecting
on my journey over the last few years, and what
occurred to me is a couple ironies. Because I'm watching
a lot of my friends winding down their careers, and

(03:09):
that's certainly not what I've been doing. For better or worse.
My view is is for the better. I think my
gp thinks I'm a lunatic, but you know, be that
as it may. I need to do what I need
to do. So, you know, having had a fairly significant
medical crisis in my late sixties, I decided that I

(03:34):
was going to ramp things up a little bit rather
than ramp them down. And I don't My wife also
thinks that I'm a little bit nuts, but as always
she fully supports men whatever I do, which I completely
totally appreciate. So what does the actual picture look like

(03:54):
that I'm talking about. Well, you basically take on a
whole new research degree, you commit to writing more books,
you look at becoming part of a significant academic research project,

(04:19):
and as always, in the background, my clinic, my practice
is ticking over. Okay, So what's the message here, Well,
there is a word of caution, and that is you
need to be very clear about where you are at mentally, physically, socially,

(04:41):
and spiritually. To me, my work is deeply, deeply connected
to the person that I aspire to be, to the
person I want to be. So it's not just psychologically important,
it's not just about per purpose and meaning in the

(05:02):
sort of humanistic existential sense, but it's to me spiritually
important because my belief is that each and every one
of us who commits to creating change in their life,
and if it's full the better, we'll have that resonate
within their environment, and often the case is that it

(05:25):
also resonates about the environment. Instead of owners of things,
we become stewards, and in that context, we allow ourselves
to relinquish the concept of acquisition for acquisition's sake. Now,
don't get me wrong. You know, I like nice things

(05:49):
like my watch broke, so I bought another one, which
was significantly more expensive than the previous one. But it
has a whole bunch of stuff on it that I
find I would really use, So there's a utility in it.
And in this case, I am hoping that it's going
to last the same length of time that the previous

(06:11):
one did, which is over five years. So to me,
in our technology age, that's a fairly long stretch. It's
a bit like I apply the same principle to our cars.
So at this stage, the other part of the lesson
is that if you tick the boxes and you have

(06:35):
something that is important to you, something that's meaningful, and
you haven't done it, seriously, think about doing it. My
wife gave a talk last night at the Story Room Global,
and the topic was throwing caution to the wind, now

(06:58):
for her from writing a fiction book with me, but
she did a majority in many respects of the work.
Throwing caution to the wind was getting up and speaking
to a whole a room, a room full of strangers
about something that's personal. She is brilliant when it comes
to speaking academically about therapy, about philosophy, about work, but

(07:25):
when it comes down to being open to strangers about
her personal experience, she gets stressed and anxious. And having
said that, she did as always a brilliant job. So
let me recap. If you need to throw caution to

(07:49):
the wind. Sometimes we need certain elements in our life
to come together to make certain things more meaningful. I
always had this, you know, trivial sort of comment about
why am I not an academic? And I'll go well,
because essentially I like doing and you and I enjoy,

(08:10):
and I'm good at what I do. Clinically, I'm a
good therapist. I don't need to be an academic. Well,
in the six weeks of reflecting on my life and
where it's going, I came to the conclusion that I'm
bullshitting myself, that it actually is something that I haven't achieved,

(08:33):
but I want to do. I need to do it. No,
I don't need to do it, but I want to
do it. It's part of my idea of leaving a legacy.
Making good men great. To me is a model, a framework,
and a movement that goes beyond me. Hopefully at some
point someone else is going to step in and begin

(08:54):
to operate with the same framework. And one way of
making that happen is to actually get involved in the society,
in the community of thought, leaders, of academics, of researchers.

(09:14):
I'm speaking about this too from the lens that our
culture has become by and large very anti intellectual. You know,
in a lot of areas, certainly in Australia, a good
intellectual conversation is about the financial markets, real estate and sport. Now,

(09:38):
don't get me wrong, I think those things are important,
but without the overarching framework of why those things are
important and what the downsides are to our hyper focus
on these things. We are going to lose the plot
and it's coming out. I'm seeing our societ id become

(10:01):
vulnerable to the assault of the ultra right wing, the
fascist thinkers out there, who, by the way, are strongly
anti intellectual. They don't want to know about that, because
if you learn how to think critically, you will see
through the bullshit that they disseminate within the media. And

(10:22):
I mean they've got a massive platform on which to play,
and it's taken care of by significant amounts of money.
You know, if you want to really get a handle
on where a lot of this stabilization of democracy comes from,
follow the follow the money. It's blatantly obvious where it's

(10:47):
coming from. And you know, when I watched and follow
the various medias, I keep going, you know, how come
you know, for example, like Russia isn't going completely broke.
I mean, they have to have exhibited themselves as probably
the worst military in modern history. There was a glimpse

(11:13):
of it in Afghanistan, but the whole debarkle with the
Ukraine is staggering and there is no rethinking this that
Putin's government is only too happy to sacrifice the next
two generations ultimately of well being of the citizens, of

(11:39):
his citizens, because he treats them like he owns them.
There is no sense of, you know, let's consult here.
It is his egocentricity, his malignant Machiavelian narcissism, that encapsulates
a deep seated belief of his almost divine right to

(12:01):
use and manipulate and sacrifice human beings on the battlefield
and then also at home. Now where else do we
see that sort of behavior. Well, we're clearly seeing it
in a place like the United States, where universities are
assaulted with a demand that they cannot teach anything that

(12:26):
is against the current regime. And I use the word
regime deliberately. He was voted in essentially by a minority
of people, but pretends it's the collective, the whole of
the United States, who has voted him in and ordained
him as president. The delusion that rests within that defis

(12:54):
reason and logic, but it also shows that there is
a deliberate intent to disregard human principles, humanistic principles, ethics,
common sense. He was quite right when he made the

(13:15):
comment about I can go into Times Square and shoot someone,
and I wouldn't lose a vote. Now that might mean
not the case these days. He's really pushing things to
a limit. But we do need to come together if
we want our secular democracies to survive. You know, we

(13:37):
have situations where on the one hand we're chastising Israel
for genocide, yet on the other hand, the same countries
that are complaining about this are selling the Israeli is arms. Now,
if that is not like crazy, I don't know what
it is. It is thepitome of hypocrisy. And when governments

(14:03):
are that hypocritical, we have a very very serious problem
of not just not no accountability, but no shame, no guilt.
We have had a Prime minister in Australia who initiated
probably one of the worst programs in the world called robodebt,

(14:24):
and he's walking around freely. He and his henchmen should
have been in jail. And there's lots of journalists who
will agree with my position. But again we come back
to this lack of accountability. If I look at society
as a team, which it should be, we should have

(14:47):
a high level of cooperation so that we can trust
each other. We should be getting better in dealing with conflict. Constructively,
we should have a commitment to the principles of the
separation between church and state and the rule of law,
irrespective on which side of the fence you sit in

(15:10):
Parliament on We should then hold ourselves accountable, not just
to performance. And at the moment all that seems to
matter is how well you know the country is doing economically,
where I could say, well, you know, the top end

(15:31):
of town is doing brilliantly, but the lower end of
town is suffering people holding down two jobs but they
can't afford rent, let alone often food. So you know
that level of accountability is lacking. It's been undermined eroaded
by neoliberal economics by catch phrases like oh, there'll be

(15:57):
a trickle down if we just free up the core
operations to do whatever they like, the market will regulate itself.
The market never regulates itself. It actually, when a market
is disregulated, it leads to the depression, of physical depression.
So we need to do a retake. We need to

(16:18):
educate ourselves, and we need to put our education into
action to be able to not just critically analyze things,
because a talk fits saw very well unless it leads
to action. We need it to lead to action, the
right action. We need to take a very clear look
at the stuff that we're being sold by the tech

(16:42):
end of town. You know, AI is going to be brilliant.
Smartphones are really good for us. Well, you know, they
came out at a time where know what could make
a statement about whether what sort of effect this is
going to have on society. But it's becoming clearer and

(17:03):
the story is not a positive one. You know, people
are arguing that well, you know, children's and adolescents anxieties
are not necessarily related to smartphones and social media or
device use. Well, it's just seems to be a little
suspicious that it's now worse than what it ever has been.

(17:26):
And we've only had smartphones for just over ten years really,
so there's got to be some relationship there, And it's
not just correlation. I would venture there's a strong part
of causation. When I was teaching, I would tell my
students basically, don't type on the computer Handwright, why because

(17:49):
it integrates better into your memory. Now sometime later, because
I was teaching in the early nineties, the research that
supported that, Now I came from a place of common sense.
It just seemed logical to me that if you involve
body and mind, you get a better result. If it's

(18:14):
just the body doing it and the brain's on holiday,
not a lot's going to happen. And I have students
who have come to me and said, I'll put what
you taught us into practice, and then I try it
out the other way, and what you know, what you
teach is solid. Even in therapy. One of the things

(18:39):
that makes a difference, especially in areas like in a
trauma anxiety attachments on is the first signal we get
in our state of distress is thematic. The body gives
us the clue. So then we move on into the
conscious and even subconscious realm to put the pieces together

(19:02):
and create new meanings around that. This is not, in
some respects rocket science. It comes from a critical analytical place,
and yes, I'm all for scientific methodology, but I'm also

(19:25):
very interested in the connection between understanding lived experience thematically
as a narrative and how that can be teased further
into empirical research, and so very very few elements are

(19:47):
actually necessarily analyzed from that angle. It's getting a bit
better in some areas, but not so good in other areas.
You know, I find it really interesting that you know,
there's only a handful of people in medicine that I
see who do that. This tends to be almost the
expert bias in that. That is because I've had all

(20:09):
this training, I don't listen necessarily to my patience. I
was on the front end of that when I had
my medical crisis. I experienced at firsthand. It may be furious.
I was told that they're not interested in whether my
hospital state that they wanted to extend that nauseum was

(20:31):
actually stressing me out. I'm thinking, well, that's a bit peculiar,
because I thought you're in the game of healing. Part
of healing is the process of reducing stress. That's why
we have informed consent. That's why we educate people about
what's going to happen, why it's going to happen, and
what that can expect. Now, yes, there's going to be

(20:52):
individual differences, but an informed person about their condition who
feel trust in their clinician is going to do better
than those who don't. And where does that trust come
from by me as a clinician working together with my client,

(21:17):
or in the medicine or in medical terms, my patient.
It is the days have gone where my status within
a community gives me some sort of magical power that
people just simply go along with. You know, we have

(21:40):
now the problem where people have become cynical about the system,
so that they forget why we have vaccinations, for example,
because they go, oh, you know, they're bad. I'm using
a short hand ear And so what we again running

(22:03):
into is that ignorance is driving us to the potential
level where we could get extinct simply because we're stupid
enough not to educate ourselves. And yes, you may go,
he's angry. No, I'm passionate. There's a difference. I do

(22:25):
experience frustration and anger, but basically, and most importantly, I'm
passionate about stuff, and I want to inject that passion
into others. Get passionate, get up there, and I'm so
pleased to see voices of discontent rising again. I grew

(22:51):
up in the seventies. We were on green peace marches,
we were against wailing, we took stand against nuclearment, made
a difference, but then we got usurped by neoliberalism, which
just wanted us to be good little cogs in the
machine that were productive, irrespective of whether it was healthy

(23:13):
or not. Secular democracy, which is probably inadvertently the best
model we got to date that's going to keep a
society relatively healthy better than in anything else, requires passion
and action, and we need to safeguard it. It is

(23:37):
the heart and soul of a strong, connected community. And
on that note, I'm going to sign off. So if
you take anything out of this, take the lesson that
there is always something to do, you know, cast caution

(23:57):
to the wind, throw yourself into it. But make sure
that when you do that you're ticking the boxes physically, emotionally,
and in your relationships. It shouldn't come at a massive
cost to those So until next time, stay inspiring, stay inspired,

(24:18):
and spread the word. So one more thing is that
I really want to share about the fact that we
have two books at now, actually one really the other
one's coming of which I'm very very proud. The first

(24:41):
one is Ambulance of Power Brian Pool Mystery, which was
written by me and my wife, Lauren Josephson. It's a
story that's character driven about the length of memory of
power and the cost of conviction, about you know, what
if magic means it needs the science, technological age of today.

(25:04):
So if you enjoy a mystery with moral stakes and
a real atmosphere, this belongs on your nightstand. The other
one is I'm flagging that right now is making good
Men Grades Surfing a New Masculinity, the second edition, which
is also by myself and my wife Lauren, And essentially

(25:25):
it's a practical guide to purpose, relationships and leadership and
there are some clear practices in that that you could
start from the moment you get the book, put it
on your desk and use it. And not only will
you change, but we will create a community change if

(25:47):
we pull this together. So until next time, this is
me signing.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
Off, Hello and welcome to all our listeners. This week
we take a look at our global listeners list and
we've seen a huge spike and life listeners in South
America and we want to see this week's gratitude go
out to our listeners in South America and the country
of Brazil. What we have seen is amazing as suddenly
everyone in these Brazilian cities have shot Brazil's place from

(26:15):
number eighteen to number three on our global listeners list.
What a feat. Congradualations and so a special thanks to
our listeners in the cities of Sal Paulo, Goyas, Minus
Zieheis Hehu, Granddisal, Federal District, Prana, Rio de Janeiro, and

(26:38):
Santa Catarina for tuning in and inspiring positive social change.
I Devana Prinzy, the co executive producer and our showrunner
Miranda Speigner s Oppone sincerely thank you and ask that
you please take the time to like, follow, subscribe, and
share as your efforts make a difference to everyone here

(26:59):
at Inspire Change with Gunter, and please remember if you
want to share your story of social change, feel free
to reach out to the show directly. Please see the
show notes for our contact information, but most importantly keep
inspiring positive social change.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Love to hear from you, and if you interested, please
check out my work on www. Dot goto Savoda dot
com or www. Dot gutman Grete dot com.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Thank you for listening to Inspire Change. A broadcast is
for us to educate, motivate and empower men to challenge
traditions of masculinity. For more information on the making Good
Men Great movement, or for individual or group coaching sessions
with Gunter, visit Goodmangrade dot com.