Welcome to the Energetic Radio podcast. This episode is brought to you by the school of play dotco, hosted by Dale Sibonham and Paul Campbell. Each week, we'll bring to you tips, strategies, and ideas on how you can bring more joy and happiness into your life and those you share with. Alright, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Episode number 339 of the Energetic Radio Show. My name is Dale Cybodham. I'm joined by Paul Campbell. Good morning, everyone.
I'm gonna refer to you as Cambo today because we've got another Paul online. It's gonna really confuse me. Now before I introduce Paul Watkins, the man, the myth, the mad scientist, the one and only adventurer extraordinaire, a little bit of a story. So early this year, I had the pleasure to go down to Warrnambool, where Paul's from, and, do a keynote for a student congress. There's about 35 schools there. We mean about 250, 300 staff and students in the room.
And And I had the pleasure of kicking off the day of the opening keynote, and, couple of the principals said to me that, they thought I'd get along really well with the keynote after me. And they went into Paul a little bit details and so forth. Now I wasn't being arrogant, but I sit through a lot of conferences, and I hear a lot of people talk. And, like, it's gotta do something really good to pull my heart. It's gotta make me feel something. It's gotta make me feel something. And I
was like, oh, yep. Yeah. I look really look forward to hearing him, and, I normally it's a bit rude, but I normally leave after I talk. But, anyway, I had a few more gigs in Warner Bowl that night. So I sat down and I watched. And within the first 5 minutes, I was captivated. Like the other 300 people in the room, Paul is by far the best speaker I've ever heard and obviously got to know him now. And not only that, he's he's a bit of an idiot person with decisions he makes in life, and
we'll talk about it too. But he's a brilliant human being, and his will and determination, storytelling, the man's got it all. So I'm really excited. More importantly, you blew me away, Paul. And I think we've stayed in contact since, and we've got a couple of projects on the go because of that. But first and foremost, do you get that all the time? Because you are by far the
best keynote I've ever seen. Is that something people say to you, and how does it make you feel when you you sort of people come across and say that to you? Mate, what a pump up. How good was that? What? I reckon we should we should make an app that's just dial when you wake up. That's just dialed in your I wanna It's just it's like it just goes off like it's 6:30. You're the best guy I've ever heard. You're amazing, man. Come on up. Let's crush the day. Look, I think that'd be a
good app. We could do that. Oh, it's great. Doing just a little alarm makes you busy. Yeah. Just just cheese you off for the day. Actually, side note, that leadership student leadership congress that Dale and I both did, so one of the projects that the or the project that all those students had to do was go back and do a community based leadership project. And it happens that tonight is the presentation night of all those presenting back to the community what they've done, and
they've done some amazing stuff. So just have to Are you heading down to watch that? No. My wife is going because she's her school is one of the schools involved, and she's the school principal there. So she's going, which means I get the kids at home, but she's gonna go air and be part of that. So That'd be really cool. Like, you know, 250 kids and and staff seeing what they've actually produced. They've all created a video
and stuff, which would just be I mean, these are primary school kids. It's not like they're year 10 kids, and we have an expectation of certain things. These are, you know, grade 5 and 6 kids. Like, my wife's school, they've done this fantastic community thing on cyber safety for kids. Like, they they come out with brilliant stuff. So, it might be it might be a nice little video too from somebody in this, bunker as well. I got the invite, but, obviously, driving down to Warrnambool's,
quite a mission. So We're not next door yet. It's it's a bit of a trip. But, but getting back to the original question Yeah. Back to my original one, mate. Stop just stop diluting and pushing away. Go with what I I don't like talking about myself. Like, it's really I always joke that I'm an introvert who who is really good at playing an extrovert. Like, that's just my skill. I can pretend I'm an extrovert and do that. And people assume that, you're a keynote
speaker, so you must get on stage and just love it. Like, you just go out there and and you crush it all the time. I can tell you, I've I've, a couple of times going to do a keynote, put my heart rate monitor on just to see what the heart rate does, and it's way up there. Like, it's it's not like you just walk out and go, it's another key note, it's whatever. It's like, well, no, there's there's a room of 300 people sitting here.
The last keynote I did last week, there's 300 people in this room, and they're expecting absolutely to be blown away. And the organizers are expecting you to do that. So you need to turn up and absolutely deliver 100% because that's what they expect. Fortunately for me, I love what I do. And mine is really around a lot of storytelling. So for me, it's a very personal it's not here's the stats and here's what Harvard Business Review said or whatever,
you know. I tend to open up and go, right. Here's a photo of me with a massive frozen load of snot on the face. Let's talk about that. Yeah. And you can get into some fun. And it puts people off guard, and all of a sudden, they're like, oh, this isn't what I was expecting, and it's interesting, and then we can get into some some stuff. So for me, look, I love it. That's really handy. Thankfully, so far, people say I'm relatively good at it, which is very handy. So I'm gonna
keep doing it until they tell me to shut up and get off. So that's Awesome. Can can I chime in there? Because you're not alone. You're not alone. And and Dale and I, we we present in front of people all the time, and I'm the same. I still get anxious before every single one. And Dale, obviously, in his workshops, he'd he does a clapping activity start, and he discusses and he explains the reason I do that is to relieve
my anxiety a little bit. Have you got a is there the one thing that you go through that that sort of relieves you of that anxiety and that stress a little bit and then you're off and running? Do you have a go through or does it change every time? You're gonna laugh. This this is an insight into how wrong my brain is. So a lot of a lot of keynote speakers
will tell you that they have a very structured opening. Like, they have I always know what my first three lines are because that gets me into the rhythm and away we go. I always adlib the first few minutes on purpose. Like I will go up there going, it's got to be just relevant to what did the emcee just say or the presentation before you, what did that guy say or what have you. And it's like that way I get up and I know I've got to be on my
feet. I've got to be on the toes the second I get on the stage and go, and it tells the audience that you paid attention. So the last conference I got up before me, they've been giving out awards, and this it was one of the execs who was giving out the awards, and he had trouble with the lectern getting the mic down to the right height. So I got up there and said, you know, thanks, Andrew, for introducing me. Hey, Brownie, I totally
feel the pain, man, getting this mic down. It's a nightmare when you're my height. Two words, lapel mic. Problem solved. It just just and it gives you an immediate connection with people in the audience that you were here and you were paying attention. And for me, it forces me to bare my toes because I don't have a set script for the first kind of 30 to 60 seconds. You've got to go up and just, you know, free wheel it, make it relevant, and then people have a bit of a
laugh and then you can get into your patter and then away you go. So, that that puts the pressure on, but I just find it really gets me in the right head space and gives you a connection, a fun connection right off the bat. Yep. Love that. Love that. So, Paul, we're gonna talk about, the event we've got coming up in Melbourne, which I'm really excited. We're both going to talk, and, we both got different presenting styles, but both pretty engaging, I would have thought.
I wanna how do you describe you, mate? Because I know you do, like, you describe yourself wearing many different hats as we all do, and you aren't your business title, you aren't your business card, which I absolutely love. But for you, I think you're probably most renowned for your adventures, your crazy ultras through the Arctic Circle and, you know, days on end under 30 degrees, carrying your sled, you pack, you sleep out there, you've broken records. You're world renowned for
this. How do you describe yourself as being a Harry Potter lookalike in a nutshell, as a mad scientist that, you know, used to drive a forklift? How do you describe all that in a really short period of time? Yeah. It takes a little bit of time. That's why I can't do a keynote in 10 minutes, but, I think what I and look, I I tell a joke, like, I put 2 photos up early on in my
presentation. One of them is me doing, like, cool adventure stuff. Like, hey, here's me, middle of the Arctic Circle, it's minus 40, and I'm dragging a sled. Yeah. Yeah. It looks really adventure. And then I put up a photo of me in high school, and, like, uber nerd, like, gangly teenager with coke bottle glasses on. I just it's not
great. And I put them up there for a purpose so I'd say to people, like, if you don't know me, you have and you read my bio, you do get an expectation that, oh, this guy's climbed these mountains, and he's won these huge races. Like like, you know, David Goggins is gonna walk out, man. It's gonna be amazing. And then I walk out and you kinda look like, you know, I look like what you get if you ordered Harry Potter off Wish. It's like, what's what's
up with that guy? That doesn't look right at all. But the point is that if you if you go listen to an Olympian or an astronaut, like, it's fascinating, But you can give yourself the excuse going, look, that that guy was fascinating, but I'll never be an Olympian, so it doesn't matter. I have an excuse now to go, I don't have to do that because you're an Olympian. Fascinating. Love the story, but I'll never be that level. So it's okay that I don't do those things. But and I go up and go, well,
look, I did a lot of this stuff, and I'm really normal. Like, I'm short. I've got poor eyesight. Like, I'm a I'm a work from home dad. Like, I'm not allowed to anything. I'm actually stunningly normal, which means you don't have that excuse to go, well, he can do that, but I don't have to. Oh, shit. No. He's actually feeling normal, and he's done some weird stuff. So if I'm normal, what what could I be doing? Yep. And then we unpack kind of, well, how
have I done that as a, you know, a nerdy dad? How do you how do you do these kind of things? Well, okay. Well, let's talk about some of the tools we use. How do you build the story in your own head about what you're actually capable of, what you'd love to do, what you want the next year to look like, what do you want the next 5 years to look like? And let's start operationalizing that and make that happen and actually make that come true. And so we look at that from a fun point of view.
And I think it gives people a more realistic view of going, if you go, oh, look, you've got to get up at 4:30 every morning and I train for 10 years and, you know, this is what you've got and have your kale smoothie every night. It's like, no one's doing that. But if you go to people, hey, look, it's hard, man. Like, you know, my wife works and I've got kids, so if I want to train, sometimes I've got to train at night and
sometimes it's not perfect. And, you know, you gotta juggle this, and I've I've gotta fit this in here, and you gotta give yourself some grace that it'll work, and sometimes it won't. People go, oh, that's starting to sound a lot more like my life. Yeah. Okay. Now I can start to see how I could actually do some of that stuff. So it's a bit of a joke thing, but it it kinda has a purpose in it to say, well, you don't have to be
a lead anything. You can do whatever you want. It's just a matter of finding your way to navigate through to build that story to do that, Whatever that is. Yeah. And that's what I think people relate to you. Right? Like, you're you're not an Olympian. You've got a 100 people working for you. You've got so many things on your plate, but you you dig deep and you prioritize things that will lead towards your goal you've set for yourself. And, yes, sometimes things
get in the way, and that's fine. You fall off the bike, you get back on it. But if you can do it, anybody can do it. Right? And it's just Yeah. I talk a lot about value. And that grit and and and as I said, prioritizing those, you know, the effort to make it happen. And you can do it right. And it's habitual. And not you're not gonna get it perfect every time, but, eventually, consistency, repetition, and all of a sudden you're there. Right? So, yeah, it's cool. It is. And
it's also, I think, that I'm very open to talk about failures. Like, here's stuff that I tried, big ticket, real public stuff, and it it went very badly. Like, it did not work. I failed at that expedition. This I just couldn't do it. Literally, I didn't have the stones to do it. Like and that went wrong for this reason. So you talk about those things, and people start to actually relate to that because they go, oh, I've filed that stuff, and so has he. Oh, everyone has. Oh, we've all filed
that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's part of the course. Welcome to the human race. That's how it operates. I was listening to a podcast this morning, David Epstein, and he was talking about the fact that to get to your, you know, that optimal zone of push of of finding what you can do, you should be failing about 20% of the time. Like, if you actually wanna progress, you kinda gotta screw up on the regular because that's how
you keep pushing the boundaries and find out what you can do. And I think when you're public about your failures and the the fact that that's okay and it's part of the course, people relax a little bit more about their own misgivings or their own failures or things that didn't work, and they start to to label it a bit differently. Yeah. A good example is if I've like, I've failed at races and then gone back and done in the following year and and been successful.
Well, if you failed at it and stopped, well, it's a failure. But if you failed at it and you went back and did it again and was successful, well, that previous failure is no longer a failure. It was just a lesson. So all of a sudden, you relabel it and it becomes a different story, and it's no longer a failure. We're in a hurry to put a label on it and go, screw it up, failure, can't do it. It's all. I'm out.
That's it. I'm done. Well, hang on. Let's put that in context of what else you might do next, and it may end up being a lesson rather than just a straight up and up failure. Yeah. And I I strongly believe society and their communities has gotten so much better in the last 5 years about embracing failure. I saw in the education system, we started delivering lessons on failure. You know what I mean? And the importance of acknowledging that failure
is okay. I'm looking at our wall right now, and we've created a curriculum at the school plan. We've got an activity, you know, called the failure wall. And I think as a society, we've gotten so much better at talking about it and embracing failure. And I think it's brilliant. It's a brilliant message to send, especially to young people, but adults alike. And, yeah, what you said there was absolutely
perfect. And social media doesn't make that easy, though. Like, it makes it we I'll talk about this being when you look at social media, you're looking at someone's highly polished, filtered, finished product. Mhmm. But you don't see the work in progress stuff before it. And everyone's a work in progress, so don't compare someone else's work in progress oh, sorry. Someone else's finished product with your work in
progress. And we do that all the time, particularly kids, like on social media, it's very easy to go, well, this person's already made, you know, they're they're 12, and they've got 4 side hustles, and they're making $3,000,000, and they've got 2 books and a podcast, like, no, they don't.
Stop that. It's it's too easy to just compare yourselves to someone who's either completely not real or is just a very highly filtered snapshot of one point that doesn't show you all the journey of the crap that they went through to get there. So I think you're right. I think we're getting better at it, but it's a constant battle to remind ourselves that don't don't you're a work in progress, and you're gonna do that until it's all over. So have that mentality.
Mhmm. I I think that's good because that narrative we tell ourselves, it can it can always get better. It's like so many aspects of our life. It there's no such thing as perfect, and it'll never get amazing, but it's a work that you continually work at. The thing I wanna know is, so people I think there might some people could be skeptical, you know, coming along, hearing 2 people speak about well-being and, you know,
like, improving your life, elevate your life. What can people expect, mister Watkins, from what you're going to deliver? I said what quite a lot there. But what can people expect from the session that you will deliver for what like, ideas and takeaways for their own life. I know you've obviously, you know, mentioned a couple there, mate, but give them a little bit of a a spiel, a
nutshell. What's your what's your elevator pitch of my great man? The elevator pitch is the first thing is, at the very least, you're gonna get great stories of adventure. So people love stories of adventure. So we talk about that in pretty detail with, you know, high res images of some amazing stuff. Like, I've ended it up in some very weird corners of the world doing kind of bizarre stuff. So we talk about that in
terms of just, just tell me a great story. But then we unpack some of those, particularly the failures and where it's gone wrong and look at, well, what did we learn? What did I, what did I take away? What was in the toolkit that I took away with me? And how do I use that to start changing the voice in my head? Because in the end, a lot of these huge expeditions, there's just you and the voice in your head, and that's what's going to determine the outcome. So how do I
get that voice to talk to me better all day? And we don't look at it from a work context, like, oh, you know, how do we get Dale to be better at work? It doesn't matter. How do we get Dale to wake up the morning, look in the mirror, and go, that guy did a great job yesterday. He's doing alright. You know, we're we're making progress versus looking in the mirror and telling yourself another story. If we can start to build a toolkit around feeling better about who you are, what
you've done, and where you're going tomorrow, everything gets better. The whole 247 gets better. So we wanna look at it from that aspect. And so we talk about the story you're telling yourself in your head. How do I build a toolkit, a mental and behavioral toolkit to make me do that? And then last of all, we talk about confidence. Where do these people get this stuff from? Why are there some people who walk around that seem to have bucket loads of it? Should I fake it till I make it? Is
that gonna work? So we look at those things in terms of real life stuff, as in what happens when I fake it till I make it? Does that work? Does it not? When, you know, how can I improve that? Where do I find some confidence for just me as a human being and all the stuff I'm trying to deal with? And we have some laughs along the way. There's a lot of really awkward photos of me covered in frozen stuff or carrying things which are questionable. You you you'll get
some stories. I I was and then from there, I started coming in, I didn't know you, Paul, like, down to you coming in to say, right? And I'll be honest. I'm stoked that we've got you in our podcast. I've read your book lost and found. For anyone out there who has not read Paul's book lost and found, get a copy of it and give it a read because it's, I use I'm happy to be honest with you, Paul. You're sitting in front me, but, I use it on my runs all the time. I see this
society a few times. I'll be going, I love to run. Yeah. And sometimes it gets hard. Right? You're in the middle of it, and it's and you're in a headwind or whatever it might be, and it gets bloody hard sometimes. And you jump into my head all the freaking time. And for me, it's one word. It's I know. And I'm like, I just picked a little Harry Potter, and it goes but it's I I it's one word, and
it's grit. And that's I always say for anything, if you a keynote presentation, a podcast, a meeting with somebody, a book, if you take one thing from it and you can apply it to your life, that's a win. You're never gonna take everything from it. Everything's not gonna relate to you. And the one thing that I took from your book lost and found was grit. Just that sheer determination, you know, to to push yourself through the boundaries and whatnot, and that stuck with me. So I wanna I've got the
opportunity to thank you. So thank you for imparting that on my life, and it sticks in every time I go for a run. It's my pleasure to annoy you in your darkest moments. I love I know. 100%. You get me through some of these darkest moments too. So that's alright. But, yes, everyone listening at home, you
know what I mean? As you said there, you're you're spot on. People, if you come and see the show, you're really gonna walk away with some seeds being planted about how you can improve what's going on between your ears, how you can strengthen what's going on between your ears, and put that into everyday life. Not you said before, not about your business. Right? Not about your career. It's about you as a human being. And I spot on. I I'm
pumped. I can't wait to to listen to it and see you in person. I've read your book. I've met you a couple of times now. You're on podcast, but I can't wait to see you live, mate. I'm really excited. It's gonna be awesome. Gee, mate. I'm I'm stoked. I've never maybe I should change my bio. Maybe it should be just, you know, if Harry Potter was a, you know, army drill
sergeant. Maybe that's what it should be. I don't know. This this this little Harry Potter guy just screaming at you to do more poops and push ups and It'll open up a whole new realm of, of fan swing that, I reckon. That's for sure. You get the Harry Potter world on board. I I love so Felicity's out there. The full metal jacket. We will. This if you want do wanna come to the show, it's Friday 18th October 7 PM at Parkdale. Shirley Burke Theatre. It's about 50%
sold already. So I think there's about 80 tickets left, from last check. So, make sure you go and check that out. Obviously, this is gonna be the the number one show that we do this year and more of a sorta sample size as well because I know we've spoken quite a lot, mister Watkins, and neither of us have done something like this, which obviously we get booked, we go to places we speak, we give them what they
want, and we leave. Whereas, this is probably more and why we're really keen about it is we wanna get people that, you know, may not be at a corporation that could sit through a keynote. We don't want people to maybe get PD all the time at a school or a workplace or a sports club that are really big on it. We want families, friends. We want parents. We want workmates, colleagues, anybody out there that just wants to get something better to strengthen some aspect of their life.
And I think that's the best thing about it. So if you go to episode number 339, I'll have a link there that you can check out the event. Also, I'd highly recommend watching both our TED Talks if you haven't done that. Different in a lot of ways, like, I think our presenting style is, but also pretty insightful. You're probably not gonna like both of us. You might like one of us. If you like both of us, you're a unicorn. But go and check that out, and you can
have a look at it. Now, I've got one question for you, mate. I've obviously had you on another podcast before. Yep. Do you have a favorite, like, crazy, you know, ultra that you have done for any aspect? You know, like you said, you you may not have completed it first, and then you come back and you've won it. And I know there's a couple you've done that, you know, under 10 people in the world have only ever completed. But is there something is there one that really sticks
out to you, mate? It's a really good question. I was thinking about this the other day because it comes up a bit, your you know, functions and stuff and people go, I have all the expeditions and races
you've done, what are you most proud of? So here's another example of why my brain's broken, but the one I'm most proud of, like we're in Victoria, so during COVID, like we were the like the most locked down humans in, you know, the entire universe, and I had a whole bunch of races stacked up, and I just kept getting cancelled and cancelled and cancelled and cancelled, And I kept training, and you end up like you're training with no there's no race.
Like, there's nothing. You're not training for anything. And I remember going out on a run one morning, and, like, the voice mail said, what are you doing? Like, there's not even a race. Like, there's we're gonna be locked down till the end of time. Like, you may never run another race again. Like, what are you what are you doing? Like, there's no point training. I just went, no. We we train. That's what we do. We go out every day, and
we do it. Because at some point, one day, they're gonna open up, and we're gonna get there will be an event. So for months months, I trained for absolutely no reason at all for because there was no race whatsoever. And I was really proud of that because when life got back to normal and they opened racing up again, you went out and you crushed it because all these people had gone, there's no point. I can't do anything. This is crap. It's beyond my control. I'm not allowed to
do this. So, you know, toy's out of the pram. That's it. And I'm like, no. I'm just gonna keep training. I'll do whatever I can do for as long as I can do, even though there appears to be no purpose whatsoever. And I think that is an exercise. Put me in good stead to then go do whatever I wanna do in any field post that. So, yeah, in some cases, the race I'm most proud of was a race that didn't exist at all. That's awesome. I love it, Ray. That is really good. Good. But a great message in there
too. Right? Like, don't, I'm a firm believer in this. And you go to the gym every bloody morning, Sadie. You're not going to the gym every morning because you got a competition coming up. Right? I got Horrocks boy over there. Horrocks boy over there. Hell down. I know. Dominated. But you know what I mean? You you kept that exercise up, and you probably did it because it made you a better human being. It made you a better
father. It made you a better husband. You know what I mean? It made you all those other things that you get out of exercise in a regular basis is the reason why you continue to do that as well. So I don't feel as though you need a race. It's a good thing to work towards, but just make it habitual. You know what I mean? For you and and for those around you who care about you, that's the reason why you do it as well. Yeah. So for those people out there, I don't think you need an event to
be training for. Just do it for bloody you. You know what I mean? If you if you're right, Some of us need the the carrot out the front Yeah. Thing that you gotta do it. But if you, you know, you can go I definitely agree with you, but you can also go, look. Sometimes it's the case of going, well, why are you staying fit? Why are you training all the time? Well, I'm a parent. Like, that's that's part I've got kids, mate. Like, I have to stay healthy, right, because I wanna play with the kids
on the weekend. I wanna be as alive for as long as possible to spend as much time as possible with my family. So you're damn right I'm gonna stay healthy because that's my goal. You don't have to I'm gonna run a marathon to run an ultra and beat David Goggins. No. I just wanna be healthy for my kids, mate. And and I wanna wear that suit that I wore, you know, 6 years ago, my wedding anniversary. My wife said I looked fantastic. I wanna get back into that. Well, that's that's a goal,
mate. That's important for you, and it's valuable and valid. Go do that. Like, that's okay. It doesn't have to be epic. It just has to be valuable to you. I remember I remember and it stuck with me. It's funny how things stick with you, but when you were on, the podcast with Jack and myself and you said one thing that if your kid's running down the driveway and there's a car coming, you wanna be able to get up and run and get them. And I'm like, bloody earth I do. Like, it's
all looking good and feeling good or whatever, but, mate, life or death. I wanna be able to sprint. I don't wanna pull a car for or something like that or not be able to run. And and and it's really stuck with me, like, why do you do what you do to be the best possible version of yourself? And that means when you are that best full version, you can be there in all different avenues and aspects for situations that aren't always positive. Love that. Yep. Yep. Yeah. It is. And it just it
means you get maximum value out of life. Like, went to the pool with my kids in the weekend. Like, dad, get to the pool. Come on. Like, because I got swimming lessons. So, like, yeah, righty. I only get in. I had, like, a stack of kids hanging off me and you can stand up and move around and throw them in the pool, and you can do all that kind of stuff. And they see you doing that stuff and being part of that, and I think that's
really important. I mean, my kids know that I train every day. So often if I'm on the bike or the treadmill or something, they'll come in and they'll get on a piece of equipment. Now they're not training. They're just farting around. But for them, normally is, oh, we do exercise every day. And for them, exercise is being monkeys and hanging off a bike and being ridiculous. But they just see that and normalize it and go, oh, we do something every day. Yeah. Fantastic. Cool. You didn't have to sit
down and give them a lecture, go to a parenting course to do that. You just had to take care of yourself and make sure they saw you do it. Boom. Massive win. Yep. I think that's it's so simple, isn't it? And I think that's I love taking my boys to sit at the gym and watch me train. Like, I know people go, that's probably mean. My wife just gone to Pilates, and they're both going with her. Why? Because that's the best role modeling you can do. It's not Yeah. Anything else. It's what they're
sponges. They watch you. They watch what you do and what's important to you and how you move your body. That's the key. They miss nothing. No. Absolutely nothing. And I guess I can feel pressure sometimes as a parent, you you beat yourself up going, oh, I've gotta do this, gotta do that. If you're working around just being the best version of you, that works for both of you. Like, that works for you and
that works for your kids. You don't have to you don't have to Einstein it, come up with some magical formula or have a PhD in parenting. It's like, you know what to do. Take care of yourself, you know, be healthy, eat your greens, you know, get your sleep, all the just to be a normal human being, and your kids will model off that. And 99 times out of a 100, most of that stuff will take care of itself, and you'll be fine. And that's it. So true. Have how old are your kids,
Paul? 9 and 6a half both going on 15. I'm intrigued. The especially the 9 year old. Do they have have they got good aerobic capacity as well? Are they running? Are they are they getting into it at that early age? It's chalk and cheese, mate. Are they? Absolute chalk and cheese. Yeah. So, Cameron, my oldest, he's more a thinker. So and I don't you know, like, they do cross country at school. I don't wanna be because everyone goes, oh, your kid's gonna
be like you. And I'm like, I don't want that pressure on them. So I'm like, just do your best at it. And so Campbell's more of a thinker. Now the younger one, he's he's more a baller gate kind of kid. Like, he's a flat stick kind of kid. So he he school athletics phoned it in, totally phoned it in and still came second. And then cross country, I'm like, he'll probably do really good because he's he's got an engine on him. And he got halfway around, he started walking.
So I'm like, well, I'm not gonna be the dad, you know, screaming from the like, just got him, make sure he's okay. Mate, how'd you go? You alright? We're bored, dad. It was just boring. I got up. It's just boring. They just kept running. Boring. Like, well, I can't disagree with you, mate. Like, you're not wrong. But, you know, you're 6a half. I probably don't need to impart the wisdom of Seneca on you about being
stoic. Like, yeah, you got bored, mate. That happens. Alright. Well, you know, we'll have another crack next time. You know? The kids as long as they're at, like I I make a point every day, you know, if the kids are being annoying, our solution is you're annoying me outside. Go outside. I'm gonna shut the door. I don't wanna see you for an hour. Go away. Love that. And we've got plenty of land here, so they go outside.
And you don't see them for an hour, and they're out just hanging off stuff, chasing the dog or the chooks or the sheep or what there have been kids getting filthy doing whatever. Perfect. Problem solved. I got a little bit of time, and they got out and got their vitamin d and whatever and did their stuff, and we're just kids. Yeah. And isn't it funny? My my kids are chalk and cheese. I don't know. I've my my mom always like, what are you gonna do if your kids wanna climb Everest? Probably
probably carry their bags. Like, I'll go with the I'll do this forever. Hey. Look. They'll they're gonna do whatever they wanna do. Like, god knows what the future will go. I said that my kids the other night, I said, mate, there's a fair chance in your lifetime. You'll either see people go to Mars or wouldn't surprise me if you went there. Like, who knows what the
future holds for these kids? It's gonna be amazing. So I'm I'm just trying to make sure that they're they're fit, healthy, and they've got open minds and can make good decisions. And other than that, I I think that's all I can do. Yeah. Mate, I love that. Now listeners out there, this is a snapshot of what you can expect. The evening of all evenings, elevate your
life. There's more to it than that. Obviously, we've got a really flash website made up for it where you can read more about, obviously, Paul and myself and what you're going to get from the night. Watch out TED Talk. But more importantly, if there's someone out there and you you're thinking, what could I get them for Christmas, or is there something that you wanna do with your friend or you wanna do with a partner or someone struggling or you've got a kid that you
wanna reconnect with? Something like that. We've got 80 tickets left. Don't miss it. This is gonna be the only show for 2024. It is going to be a flag staff night. I tell you what, people will be talking about this when your kids are going to Mars, mister Watkins. It is something you do not wanna be. So And I'm gonna Are you gonna talk about the fact that you did your Ted Talk in your pajamas, or you're not gonna tell me? They're they're actually very, very flash. That's it. Like a onesie kit. I
might even John, what? Oh, I wonder who I'll even go. He's a good I've got a couple of spare ones because, obviously, you spoke about COVID. I was supposed to go into a world tour, and I had 3 really big keynotes across the states. So I've got 3 different suits all ready to go. Never been worn. So I tell you what, mister Watkins, the listeners all have a brand spanker on. There you go. New pajamas. I hope people realize that this is the tone they're gonna get on the night. Like, it's
not, we're gonna sit you down and lecture you. It's like, we may well laugh as much as everyone else does. We will. We get to hear you. 100%. And that's what I wanted to try, Mimi, before when you're when you're reeling off why
they should come. For me I'm ranting. For me, no. For me, like, come say that somebody needs to, but bring a mate or bring a bring your son or bring your daughter or whatever it might be because it'll be a really fun, energetic, memorable experience for you both to share in together, and it'd be a bonding moment, and you'll take little snippets
of gold from it that you can keep each other accountable with. I reckon I reckon it'd be I reckon if you can grab a friend or bring your daughter or your son, whatever way, it'll be a great bonding moment between the 2 of you. You'll have a heap of fun together. It'll be something you talk about long after the show. And you're definitely gonna get something out of it. And it'd be a heap of fun. It'll be energized and and a heap of fun. So yeah.
Like, getting back to your kids, your kids are the darnest things. Like, it's always amazing to see what they get out of things. Like, you'll both sit there and listen to the same speech, and then they'll pull something completely out of left field out of it that you've never thought of. And as a parent, I think that's really handy. It gives you that window into their brain. Like, you know,
you're going, what were you thinking, kid? And you're like you they say something like, oh, that's that's important to you, or you wanna talk about that, or that's something you want. I never knew you had that dream of wanting you to do this, that, or the other. Particularly teenagers. It's really like I know the parents of teenagers. We've got some family members who've got teenagers. Like, their mind is a closed book. Like, you don't have no idea what's going
on in there. But sometimes when you go do those things together and it's just that, what do you think of that? And all of a sudden, they bring up something out of left field, and you suddenly get an insight into that's important to them or they're worried about that or they'd love to go do that. And now you got something shared that you can talk about. It's nothing about, you know, dad's giving me a hard time about this or school or whatever.
It's something like 3rd person removed that you can kinda dig into and have shared that might open some doors for conversations and stuff, might make life a bit easier. Oh, so true. And that shared experience is something you can't buy unless you're in the room. So I think one better way to, finish off there. Paul Watkins, as always, mate, you're a superstar. This episode number 339. Thanks, Cambo. Stay well, listeners. Check out the link. Come along. We can't wait to see you.