¶ Intro / Opening
Gary Waltern, Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you good great to be here. We tried last time, but we made it.
This is what.
This is the second crack at the podcast because there was just ridiculous technical issues the last time.
And we don't have technical fairies either of us.
Right, No, no technical fairies. In fact, I'm the technical gremlin. So that's just not.
Far behind you, to be honest.
Now you have written a book called Mastering the Art of Reinvention, right, which I think is pretty relevant these
¶ Mastering the Art of Reinvention
days because the researcher saying, we're.
All going to have more jobs than we used to.
No longer to get a job when you're eighteen and stay with them for your entire life like my dad did actually with the post office for his entire life. And they reckon, we're going to be having two three plus careers.
You've had forty four jobs in your it's now I've had a few. Jesus me at forty four and on.
There is that ADHD or what probably actually, now that we've got sort of the four letters around it, it could very well be that's what it is. But the forty four jobs came about, I actually don't know how they came about other than I've got almost like Bao bird syndrome. So Bao bird syndrome is that shiny.
Thing that you're going to.
And all of a sudden, I'm over there looking at it.
That's pretty cool. And then I've got so this is interesting.
And there is a gene around the dopamine receptor, right, and a certain variant of the dopamine receptor means that
¶ The Dopamine Gene and Novelty Seeking
people are much more likely to love novelty and change. And I have that variant of the gene, and I'm going to beat my host business and children that you have got that variant of the gene, And it means we're novelty secrets and we like new, shining new, and it's.
Like, oh, what's this over here? What's that over there?
Yeah, we can't help but run towards what's different. It's just part of I think of who we are and you know, going with that approach if you think of the Bell curve and yeah, exactly. And we have this problem of the people that aren't as accepting and able to change. How do we help them or how do they find their path to get over there? When things need need to change, because like life comes with all these changes, some personal, some career, some AI but overall
there's a whole lot of changes. And so if you don't have that gene, it's good to know that I possibly have it. But if you don't have that, then you're left thinking what am I doing? Where do I go from?
We will dive in beg into strategies around that. I think it is more important today because even if people think about the change in technology, right, which has been
¶ Navigating Career Changes
massive in the last five years, like huge, what they're predicting, the futurists is that the creative technological change that we have experienced in the last five years is the slowest rate of change that we're going to witness in our life, right. So change is absolutely here to stay. This is an increasingly voca world. It's a term that come out of
the military volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. And I think you're plays into this, But I want to come back to the forty four different jobs.
Yes, So was there big? What jobs give you the biggest learning lessons?
Okay, So I'll give you the interesting ones and I'll dig in some deeper ones. So I've been a school teacher. Was my first real time, real full time gig. Before that was a milkman and did all of the sort of after school jobs, holiday jobs. But from there went into being a topless waiter, which yeah, I know, mate,
¶ Diverse Job Experiences
I know, I get that look a lot where people are going walker, but yeah, I was there. I didn't have the dance moves. So when Jamie Drury and man Power were created, I was in the nightclub and they went, you can't dance, but you could probably take your shirt off, so the top and so that was my gig there, probably about six months after the break of school holidays, and then into Australia. I got yeah, so I got to I don't know whether you knew you.
Knew of Peter Australia back then, I still call Australia.
Yeah.
So he sang that and he rocked up and you know, I got to serve Peter Allen while being topless, and he was offering to help me out by f being part of my life for me, which was lovely. I didn't take him up on it.
Then it was an offer interesting and the school teacher, how long did you last as a school.
It's probably about two and a half years. And the reason why firstly, as an eighty well I came out at twenty and as a male, still maturing a lot during that time. And you're teaching kids who are eighteen or nineteen, and you're trying to figure out who you are while trying to hold a discipline over them and try and sort of go, Okay, how do I take you on this journey? And Mum and Dad are school teacher, so they led me down the path of Hey, school
teaching is great. You get lots of school holidays, so go explore it. I got in it, and I went well, first of all, I suffer from the not enoughs, so you know, not smart enough, not good enough, not attractive enough all or they not. And being up in front of thirty people was a really anxious situation for me. But I also had a passion for business and exploring other things, and so that's where my I was teaching.
But I was always looking out the window, looking at the whole business world and the corporate world, going what could I do out there? And that's sort of what took me out the door eventually, and then from there got into we had a fashion business with my ex wife, got into some consulting and consulted through Aviation, Health Education Finance, set up a bank for famous people with Brand Hackett and Tim Horan, the rugby union player.
Yep.
That was pretty much a really interesting gig, that one, because you've got to understand that when you're talking banking, the banking between a famous person and you and I is basically the same. The difference comes in in how they're treated. I walk into the restaurant with the famous person and all of a sudden the table appears. If I walk in by myself, they've shut the door on me and gone, hey, come back in about a year's time.
So that was fascinating when over got to sort of see all the talent agents and things like that, and then flexed again into running over registered training organization. And you can see that as I unpack this, there's commonalities and links between past experiences. So you know, being a teacher meant that I now could do training and consulting, and then I had the ability to think of strategy
through the next stages of that. And so when you're starting to pitch and talk about ideas and concepts and trying to get people to get on board that journey of change, all of that is about using the skills of being able to present think about how people learn and adapt and evolve, and then sort of go okay, well I can help you through some of this, or I can't because you're not ready to see the opportunities ahead.
And then coming to the realization that you sometimes just have to accept that some people don't want to change, and that's okay.
What was the register organization? What did you and the only divisional maskings? Are you still in the register train organization as well? We taught so three and four in fitness.
Yeah cool. We did serve three and four in business and it was called First Choice. I did legal studies business were the two ones in that one?
Interesting?
And tell me this, So when did you realize along this journey of forty four jobs that reinventing was your thing.
I don't know that. And I had this conversation that's fascinating. If I go off mark a bit, bring it back. I had this conversation two weeks ago. I had this conversation with somebody. Two weeks ago. There was a guy that works in marketing, and he's got his own business in marketing, and he was telling me that his business is not going to be there in three years time, and so he was working and planning for that and I was talking about the book and I said, oh,
you know reinvention. He said, reinvention. Gary. I don't wake up in the morning and think, oh, reinvention. I said, no, you don't. But what you do do is you wake up in the morning and you think about opportunities, and you see about the things that you need to move towards. And the process is reinvention, not the end. Going Wow, that's a lie bulb moment for me to be able to break it down so that people know that reinvention is that sort of process that you can use that
¶ Personal Growth and Challenges
gives you a framework to ensure you're moving forward knowing that you're getting somewhere versus being stuck in the past. And stuck is one of those words that means you know, life is not going anywhere.
Just don't do it if you like it. I like process for me. I talk a lot about this process s.
Beach goals every day of the week, right and focusing on the process. Was there a big moment, a big learning lesson in any of your forty four jobs that you have taken with you to this point.
As you can imagine, the biggest lessons are from the hardest geeks or jobs. So where I've had people that I've reported through to, and quite often i've by the reason I say reported through to is because I will have worked for them, but I'm not a full time employee, So as a contract or, a consultant, and the ones that will find holes in absolutely everything that you're doing, you will still continue because we're competitive. We'll be going, Okay, how do I work this?
How do I.
Get the right outcome that is going to tick the box for you but still maintain the goal of what we need to achieve. And so getting that balance. I hated it during the time because you're going, I don't feel like I've can find my way through this wall. But when you get to the end of it, you go, you know what, that was a really good growing experience for me because I wouldn't have got there easy.
Absolutely, those growth experiences, they are the ones that we keep with us, right, that we continue to learn from.
And So, has there been.
A kind of a personal or professional upheaval in your life that actually tested this philosophy of yours, this reinvention where you're thinking, oh, Macanell, I really need to focus here and walk the talk.
Yeah. And it was when I separated from my wife, divorced, and then got into a new relationship. That period of going between those two was really confronting. And my new wife, Ezra, she was very much about holding me to account of the things that I got away with in the past and we're not acceptable now. And so that evolution of Okay, who am I and what do I want to do? Because one of the things I'm a big believer in I call it my superhuman or superman syndrome, is I
try to save people. I try to save situations. I try to help I love. That is something that I get a big intrinsic reward out of. But to go and have an affair as an example, you are hurting multiple people in that sort of situation. In our brains at the time, we might be you know what, that's okay, it's yeah, it's just this. And Bob I call my mind part of me Bob as in boss of Brain, and Bob's sitting up there going, yeah, that's okay, surely it's okay, Like there's no harm in us. Yeah, exactly.
So that reasoning part becomes part of that thought process that Bob uses to justify actions or things that you want. Because Bob's like an over protective parent sitting up there going Okay, how can I help you and protect you? And so protecting you may be lying to you, not telling you the hard truths, all of those things that our brains are really good at, or our minds, sorry, not our brains, two separate things, which I totally agree.
But Bob has this knack of telling us bullshit. And you know, he doesn't want us to suffer physiologically, psychologically, emotionally, and to do to protect us, he'll just bullshit. So when it comes to something like the affairs, then I was, you know, held to account on those, and I think that there was the point that I went, you can't
be the person that you've always been. You need to move past what you were getting out under first understand what is it that you were getting out of those situations that enabled you, that fed some part of your ego, because that's really what it was. I mean, if you think about an affair, it's kind of sex with another person, but equally you could almost have sex by yourself. So what is the other part of that feeding that you're getting in that in that sort.
Of time, how long how long in thesation did that light.
Bulb go off?
It wasn't a quick one. It needed to have pain, It needed spotlights put on it. It needed me to go to some pretty deep dark spots to go, Okay, what do I need to do with me? Because reinvention is not an easy path, like it takes huge amount of energy, So why would you do it unless.
You have a great to do it.
It's something that is really important for people to understand is that we have behaviors and habits and behavioral processes that have been with us for a long period of time. And sometimes those behaved and those thought patterns served us well and then often are not serving us well. Not but they're really hard to break because they're just so
wired into your behavior and they become automatic. And I think understanding that our brains are just so bombarded with so much bits of information that if we were to slow down and process at all, we wouldn't get anything done. So we have to have these heuristics and shortcuts and and and thinking styles and behaviors that are running on autopilot.
In order to navigate the world, but often we end up just with repetition, with deeply burned in behaviors that may sometimes have served us well in the past but just aren't serving us well now. And they're really frigging hard to break. And people actually go, why am I still doing this shit?
Right? But it's hard to break it?
Eh, yeah, totally. So I'll talk about my coc addiction like I'm a real mix but the good part is right, so okay, totally. Yeah, we've all got it. And you know the facade that people put up and try to be pretend that everything's perfect, and.
I eventually you see that, especially on social media, where people have this facade on social media, it may be a relationship that looks like it's blessed and that you know, they're putting up a post in the next week they're freaking divorced, right, Oh, people who look like they have everything and then you find out they just fell apart, right.
Yeah, that authenticity that's lacking in those For me. You know, my wife and I will regularly talk about this because you're a look at a photo and say, hey, look at these guys. They're having the best time, And I went. They are today, they're having a great time, and I hope that continues for them. But really that's just a moment in time, and shit happens. Life happens, you know. It could be that you get bored with me or whatever those things are that mean a relationship gets challenged.
Then the facade that we see in social or digital media is really just that, And the problem is we get caught.
Up in comparison language comparison where you're comparing yourself to people who seem later their life's the whole heat better than yours, and it then brings you down. But sorry, I kind of hijack the conversation a little bit about the contection.
So let's let's not just bring this back to the co co addiction. Let's explore that.
Yeah, I feel it's not going to be as big now as I painted it out toime because it was Coca Cola, who line and sinker, But it's true, even though it's Coca Cola, I was.
A day though. That's probably worse for you than Colkie every nine.
And then right totally when you think about the research now on sugar and how addictive it is and how bad it is overall longevity.
Five to six liters a day. Holy quite a mouley.
Yeah, And so I went from you know, I probably started that I'd say sixteen, and then it just kept going. And then there was points there that I would go, you know what, I'm going to try and break that habit or see what the cycle is, and in my head, I'm going, well, surely it's okay. And so exactly what you were saying before, where you start to justify behaviors, That's what my brain was doing in the coke space, going Okay, surely you know it's great to have It's
okay to have that. And it was only that when I started to really think about, okay, what is it that I need to do for myself, that I was able to break that habit. I'm still an addict. I am still literally a coke addict. I can walk past the fridge and if I see I'm a six hundred
millis sort of a guy in the bottles. I can tell you whether the fridge is at about two degrees by the amount of condensation in the coke bottle, and my little brain starts going, Bob starts going, you know you want it go on just well, what's it going to hurt? Just one go on, just do it. It's not going to hurt anything. And that's the part of the addiction where you're starting to get into the trigger of addiction and whether you start to get into you know, yes,
I'm craving it, But what do I do then? Can I put a different routine in there? So going back to the affairs, what was I getting out of an affair? Yes, there was sex, but there was something else that you know, let's go way back, and I talked about.
Them not enough. You're getting validition and.
Maybe correct totally. And I can see I'm hurting over there, hurting people that I really care about. I'm hurting people that I'm connecting with who are trusting me in that sort of situation, but I'm still hurting them. And you know, as you said, values are a really critical thing for you. And that was against my venues, but a behavior that I kept doing.
And you know, whether it's a furze Co connection, ultra process food, alcohol, drugs. I think lots of people, if they're being honest, have have behaviors that they really don't want to do, but they they can't help doing them.
And they do them more when they're stressed.
Right, And that that's the thing, because when you're if you've had a stressful day, your will part becomes a lot lower. Right, If you've had a day of meetings and difficult conversations, it completely drains your will part. And then you're walking home and you walk past the shop and you see the fridge out of the corner of your eye and the coca cola.
And that's it. And that's the degree stuff Bob was saying. And then the next thing, you know what, you're in the right?
Yeah, totally, and I can I've even now, so I've been clean for probably I think it's fourteenth.
Do you haven't had any coca cola for fourteen?
No, because I know that as soon as I have that one, I'm back off the wagon, I'm bathing in it, and I'm pouring it down my dog and all those sorts of things.
That's that's interesting. So what was what did you what strikes? How did you did you use to wing yourself off?
It was very much a mental game, but I was also able to tie a consequence to it. So in this case, I made a commitment to my now wife that I would change my behaviors, and this was one of those indications of that I had changed the behavior.
So you asked before about that milestone moment or life changing event, and that was where we'd broken up deservedly so, and I was working to get our relationship back on track, and there was multiple commitments I made, and that happened to be one of the You know, it turns out inconsequential off to the side, but it's a measure that I have and I still use it as to my commitment and my own mental strength in my reinvention of who I am in relationship.
Interesting stuff.
Let's talk about the because we had a very very brief chat on her before we came on and the word values came up. So I am, do you think that values are in behavior, particularly trying to change behavior.
That's the first part of the question.
And then I want to dig in, dig into helping people discover their values if they're not already clear, because there's some people who'd be listening to this, Yes, I'm very clear on my values and other people going not so sure.
Yeah, And I mean, I think you've got me nervous now that my values are going to hold up against the the scrutiny of Paul. But I'm happy to go there.
Now.
My values are an evolution from what I learned from my parents, plus what I inherently have as who I am as a person. So authenticity is such a strong thing for me. Now, did you want to give me a definition of your term of values? Because I know quite often I can have believes.
There are different things. There's virtues, there's values.
The way I look at it is that things that are important to you that actually guide your behavior. And actually authenticity is a big one of mine. I've got little story once you've finished, So.
My authenticity kindness is huge in my scale. I can't say I think honesty is in there, but having affairs and the things that we do that sometimes are self serving means that honesty gets compromised.
Asperience day, Well.
I think it is for all of us, because if we are all honest. I had this conversation with somebody years ago where they're going, I never tell a lie off, And how can that be something you're lying about? Life? Hard work is another one, and it's not a value, but it's an ethos of getting shit done.
And talk to us about how.
Important they are in the whole process of reinventing, Like, how do people use them in that process?
Yeah, I mean there's different levels of reinvention. So if you're talking about true to the core level reinvention, such as something like you may have been given a health diagnose that is cancer, heart conditions or whatever, that's when you really start to get deep into who you are and it challenges the beliefs that may be built on
other people's stories. So Mum and Dad might have told you a certain thing about you know, it could be gay people, it could be whatever, and all of a sudden, you're now seeing the world through your eyes and you're going that was just an uninformed view of the world. So now I want to build up my own values that relate to who I am, because whilst you brought into this world and I'm made up of your DNA, the person I am is not the person you are, and so the values that I get will be both
¶ The Role of Values in Reinvention
in the way I process and think. Plus also there's a core component which is really hard to describe, but it's core because it's almost like you're born with them. And that adventure part that you and I said we shared the genon is something that we might be born on. So you know, accepting mediocrity might not be something that we're able to do because one of our values is to challenge ourself.
So little story about mine.
So I think my kryptonite over the years has been alcohol, right, being iris and ex military.
And even as I say that that's.
Justifying, right because I'm an irishman, I'm ex military.
You know that's what we do.
We drink, right, And I was brought up in Ireland, massive drinking culture, massive drinking culture at university, particularly in those days. Thankfully it's different these days, I think for a bit when I look at my daughter at university, but then joining the military, which in those days was a massive drinking culture in the British military, and so those behaviors were heavily embedded in me and continued to
I would say, have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. When I said I was an alcoholic, certainly not, but I would be probably drinking definitely four days a week, right, And I used to have and drink three days a week, right, Monday Tuesday were generally easy to not drink.
Then Wednesday was the fucking.
The Will Parr fight from hell, And then Thursday it was just like, hey, it's thirsty, we'll have a drink.
Friday, Satday, Sunday, We're yeah, exact.
Sometimes Tuesday sneaked in and then sometimes I find like it was every night and I wasn't a huge amount.
Maybe me and Carl would split a.
Bottle of wine or something like that, and then sometimes there'd be a second bottle come out, which I would drink more of. Right, And then you know, I always had a you know, when you're going out, you go out to get drunk, right, And and probably still do a little.
Bit of that, but not The thing that really.
Reduced my alcohol consumption was it started when I was training to become a boxer, and I was training heaps and getting myself fit as for a pretty big fight. But alcohol was still the thing, right, and I was justifying it because hey, I'd work my ass off and training and I could have a few drinks.
And it was really sitting.
Down and with doing an exercise on my values, and one of mine is authenticity.
And wondering, I'm like, hold on a minute, you fuck her. You're not being authentic.
You are a peak performance corporate speaker who is going and talking about piak performance and you're drinking four or five six nights a week.
Like that is not authentic.
And so I had this. I got my bathroom mirror where I had all of my processors, rituals, had my goal up there being a professional boxer, and I had authenticity written right up there right because two things. I wanted to get into the ring as an authentic professional boxer, and I knew that that word authenticity would be the
one that would influence my alcohol consumption. And and then post boxing, I kind of forgot about it, started probably drinking a little bit more, and then I actually brought it back one day and said, you know what.
You need to be authentic here.
You need to walk the path otherwise stop seeing that authenticity.
Is a value of yours.
And that is the thing that has made me drink like I'm not ris next military.
And I'll still I'll still give it a note wat with me.
It's but the social drinking in our household has just fallen through the floor, right, and now you can have blonde glass of wine and it's most.
Nats a week, not touching any of it.
But it was linking into that value of authenticity the thing that helped me to get over the lane.
In terms of my behavior.
And isn't that interesting that it's one thing that gives you the key to go, okay, I need to change this. And authenticity, if you peel away all of those other words, you think about what I was talking about from an affair and hurting people, I'm lying, I'm cheating, I'm doing those things. I'm not being authentic to who I am. And it's like buying a Rolex watch. For me, I
can buy a fake. I can't afford the real thing, but I can buy a fake, but I still know and therefore the value of me wearing the watch doesn't work for me. I just can't see. I can't see past that I'm wearing something that isn't the real deal, and you know it cheapens it for me. And yeah, I bought one while overseas and I went, you know what, that's just not me and I think, guys, and that's my view of that. Cool.
So we talked about the power of values in helping guide behavior. Let's let's just switch tacks a little bit, because you talk in your book for a bit about AI, right and and and.
AI is big and it's here to stay for sure.
And you talk about harnessing the power of ar so we're gonna we're gonna switch from personal and eye to to to people's professional things. How can people harness the power of ar AI effectively in their job and maybe if they are looking to reinvent themselves.
Sure so is becoming so intuitive and a great tool. And I think you've got to keep in mind the tool part of it. But you know, we have the opportunity, unlike any other part in the world or sorry, any other time in the world, to get into creative fields, fields that we've never thought of before, and explore them without having to go and do the university degrees. And you're doing your PhD. I did a couple of masters
along the way as well. And the answers that I would get out of going into AI, I'm giving a good prompt are better than what my three year degrees do as and also probably a senior associate in a knowledge creat So right now, it is crazy. I was talking with my wife the other day and so we have a business on also longevity for women, and we were working on a business plan and I said, hang on, se let me just jump into Gemini Deep Research and have a look at that. The get them to create
the business plan. After it's searching three hundred and ninety five websites to a deep level of detail that would have taken me probably a year. It then pops out this strategy that is, oh, this market here has these challenges, but it also has these opportunities. And the assessment was at the level that you would expect from a senior partner in one of these firms that you're paying sort of between five and ten grand a day for so and then I will hold the book up because it
does come through. Forget the media part this section here. Last time on sort of shit out my last book, I paid I think it was two thousand dollars for the cover to be designed. This time, I went, okay, chat GBT, let's see what you got jumped in and amongst other things. So it gave me a whole selection. It came up with this and I went, oh, I think I love that, and I think I love it because it captures the puzzle.
Pieces that we do with our lives.
Now a year ago I couldn't have done that, But now I'm getting to that point where this tool is letting me be more entrepreneur. And if we go back to I can't remember the exact official term, but I'm going to call it Bourberd syndrome, where I can go I want to explore how much a nineteen sixty four Combi would sell for in this market and what my restoration costs would be. Instead of me going googling, I can type that prompt in and have a full report
of past sales and everything within about three minutes. It my decision making is so much fun.
And it's all about the quality of the prompt, Isn't it that when you're getting the information?
But it is today it's like going and saying to somebody that you're getting a Sarah's going to say a heck cut, mate, and I'm not sure. I'm far behind, So I don't know that's a good example. But let's say going into the barber and you go, hey, I want you to just trim there, and they go okay, So they just do whatever they're thinking, but you haven't given them the instructions. I want my brows done, I want,
you know, whatever else. So it's about being able to communicate and communicate efficiently, and so that's what we will learn, just like were going and learning a second language. If we go into a new country, we're going to learn
¶ AI and the Future of Work
how we best communicate by the responses we get back and we go, oh, I don't remember ordering that vanilla slice. I actually ordered the sausage roll. Let me try something else now. And as we do that, it's kind of like mini reinventions because we're learning by a mystats.
It's a crazy world that we're getting into.
But yeah, I think you're right. Is this stuff is here to say and we need to use it effectively. And I've used it for some stuff and it just produces some really cool shit. There's also it can produce a little bit of nonsense, but I think you can sharpen it up like that and then feed it back that it's produced nonsense and it learns, doesn't it.
So yeah, we've become the director in our own lives on this one.
And now let's talk about so with the whole reinvention and challenges, and I think we're very aligned on this one in looking to turn life's challenges into growth opportunities. Give us an example, either from you or someone that you that you know, there's been a big challenge that they've fierced or you have fierced that has actually turned into a growth opportunity.
I can probably only give you mine because I think mine are my real stories. Everybody else's would be an interpretation of their own story. So for me again, I will go with this epara of leaving somebody behind that I had cared about significantly and loved deeply, and then moving into a new relationship. So for those things there I needed to firstly, I use a bit of a six step project process. In this number one was I
needed to accept that change had happened. There was a period of time of just you know, feeling sorry for myself, even though it was my affections.
Led me down. You can't get can't move it anywhere.
No, exactly. So you need to be able to go accept change happens and accept this one happens. And you would know this from all of the stuff that you've done as well. The acceptance of change becomes easier the more you do it.
Yes, I'll tell you what, it's not just me and you saying that. Two and a half thousand years ago, Confucius said the change is the only stealable reference point in life, and the change process can be easy and natural for us if and only if we embrace it and then talked about the more often the embrace change, the easier it becomes.
Right, Yeah, it makes sense if you think about our physiological adaptation. The more we do something, the better we get the more and I'll call it neural pathways, but you're going to blink at me and go Gary, that's not the right term. But neural pathways are strengthened as
¶ Exploring AI in Book Design
part of that process. So, like going to the gym, the more we do it, the stronger we become and
the more we're able to use it. And so then from there, the next part is the give yourself a good hard look because the reality check means that what you've done you played a role in wherever you are right now, and it could be the most traumatic thing that was done to you, but there was a part to play in there that you need to assess for yourself and decide what's the stuff I want to go forward with, good, bad, and ugly.
I'll call it.
What's the good stuff that you want to keep going, what's the bad stuff you kind of don't want to do, and what's the ugly stuff you just want to make sure never happens again.
Can I just jump on in before one because a brilliant little tool from Japanese psychology I'm stealing this off
¶ The Power of Prompt Engineering
my wife called a ni can reflection where and you can do this on individuals and situations. So take your break up for example. We're at that point because a lot of people get very bitter over a breakup and it's like that person's the devil in cornate, right, But then I can reflection, and you can do this in five year chunks or over the entire relationship.
Is three questions. What did I give? What did I receive?
And what troubles and difficulties did I cause? All right, And it's that third question that is really important, that tends to be the one that people avoid, But this is exactly your have a.
Good hard look at yourself. What was you rule in this? Right? I think that's hugely important if we're going to lane and grill.
And as a side note, I've been incredibly fortunate that the people in my life some haven't come along the journey with me. But my ex wife Julie and her husband Alan live about three minutes away from us, we would catch up with them at least once once a week probably. Yeah, it's so cool and I really cherish and value that relationship that's built on. Yes, we had a deep love for each other, it turned into friendship, and my behaviors meant that we broke what we had,
but it probably needed to be broken. And then moving forward, we've been able to build a world of trust that Alan, Julie's husband, and my wife Ezra are able to trust us in this relationship of good friends. And so Julian Azra will go bootskooting every Wednesday night and I almost every Wednesday go How lucky am I that these people have been able to accept them find love for themselves.
Yeah, it's super cool. So let's talk about the next step. Stand in your process.
You think you said you had a six step process for sure if we just recap the first couple of years.
Yeah, So the word we're creating is called create and so we've had change happens and change acceptance reality check.
¶ Turning Challenges into Growth Opportunities
The next one is empowering yourself because once we've done all of the self reflection and everything else, we now need to start to think about where do we want to be? What is it and who are we going to be in this next form of ourselves because our old normal no longer exists and we now get a choice to create our new normal. We don't get to choose everything, but we get to create a lot of it based on the views, the approaches, and the choices
we make in this. And so by empowering yourself, it may be you know, listening to you talk today, I'm learning from you and there's things that I'm taking forward into how I approach life. The books I read, the programs I watch, all of those are about empowering me. And so that's great. So now I am I've done training, I've done all of the things that make that I'm ready to move forward. And you would know this from change and resilience, and I know it from transformational change
¶ The Six-Step Process of Reinvention
in organizations. People won't change when there's a fear of failure. So how do we help them get over their fear of failure? Well, we train them so that they know that they're capable of performing in this new world, and we communicate with them regularly so that they understand where they're heading and what the unexpected may be. But they also have a voice in being able to express to
¶ Embracing Change and Building Resilience
themselves or to us, Hey, I've got uncertainties. Can you listen to me and let me help and then sort of move me forward with that and understand why I'm so nervous. You go, yep, that's great. That's part of helping their bob talk this through. And then we go into the next part, which is the where a lot of people will fall down. So we've done the analysis, We've started to think about Okay, I've done all the training, I'm ready to go. I don't do it, No, let's not.
So action is the next one, and this is where most people will fall down because action means stepping into the unknown, into territories and lands that we have uncertainty, and there's a well, sorry, no, there is a certainty. We're going to take missteps. We're going to take wrong steps. We're going to do the things that we didn't think. They didn't play out the way we thought they would. So failure again comes into this equation. And the only way to deal with failure is that growth mindset or
a reinvention mindset. And so I've taken a step.
Everything's an experiment, right, It just need to be your
¶ The Importance of Self-Reflection
own and just run experiments rather than sitting and procrastinating.
Is it's just I'm big on this.
You just get into action because motivation follows action, not the other way, right.
Yes, totally. I don't know whether you follow the rocket program that we've got in Australia. So there's you know, they're sending rockets up and testing them, and we've got some really create an amazing scientists here. They send rockets up knowing that it's going to fail. It's data, but they've also got the measures there.
Everything's everything's ex and they going Okay, what did we learn?
Yeah?
And I love that approach of be the scientist of your own life because it's.
All that's just it's just it's.
All about Yeah, it wasn't ten thousand light bulb.
Yeah.
And then you've got Michael Jordan with his I've failed nine thousand times. I think it is all.
Absolutely yeah, just and it's that mainset of just running experiments and learning and growing and developing through the process and not being a free to feel to your.
Point right Yeah, and if you hit a roadblock, you go yep, kill what about I learn? And you then divert unless you kind of need to do it a second time because you're not You're kind of like me, not that smart. So you bump into the wall twice and they go, oh that hurts second time, shouldn't a third time? And now the pressure is on. And then of course the action part also falls into that tri
track component of failure. And then the final part, which is something I really have struggled with, is enjoy The.
Tea is try try again, and so it's to get into actually, don't give up, learn your learn your lessons, go again.
And reset yourself, start doing the last enjoying the process and now enjoying. For me, I couldn't do it because I'd set myself at the tender age of eighteen and with no I suppose foundation to put this promise on myself was I would be a millionaire by the time I thirty. I was thirty, so each birthday that became part of the journey to thirty was actually not a celebration but a milestone.
Yeah.
So I don't do birthdays well, and it's still a thing that I have to go. I've got to just accept that life is live. But the one thing I have learned is having gone through those really dark spaces in that journey of birthdays and whatever else might happen, and also then looking backwards, but blame and you know, oh, well I could have on that differently. Well you didn't, and you don't get a second shot because it's in the past.
It's gone. Let it go.
The future hasn't happened. Now, let that one go too. You'd like focus on it, but if it doesn't play out the way you expected, then you're pretty much on the money. All we have is here and now. And when I'm finding myself getting really anxious or stressed, that's because I'm either looking forwards or backwards present.
That's such an important statement and it is completely backed up by science and philosophy. Epic Titus two thousand years ago said we have no business in the past of the future. All we have is a series of present moments. The Stoics new two thousand years ago that depression was lamenting on the past. Anxiety is a strong concern about the future, but they've become problematic because we bring the past of the future into the present moment. That's when
it creates difficulties for us. Right, It's like, and you know, if we think about it, for me, it plays back into.
To attention, and it's where your attention is. And yes, we have to be future focused to be able to plan. I think Seneca picked that up the other story. He said, foresight is man's.
Greatest gift and his greatest achilles heat, which I love that because it enables us to plan for the future, but it also enables us to catastrophize and be anxious about shit that doesn't actually happen. And a lot of people are just living in the past or living in the future, and they're not good places to live your life.
And Matt Killing's worth Actually he did a study with Professor Dan Gilbert around happiness and they had people have an app and was basically sending them a little question about raising their happiness and also what they were doing and what they find. They've got so many data points that someone's levels of happiness was about being in the moment, even if they were stuck in traffic, but they were fully present, they were much happier than if they were
daydreaming about the future or are thinking about the past. Right, and yeah, all the meditators are there in the monks and we going no shit, guys, how long did it take you to work that.
Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean talking two thousand years back. We're talking five thousand years back. The other thing i'd I'll like to sort of unpack there a little bit is that is the illusion of happiness because we chose it.
This is so much violent agreement here, and I think we are we have a society that is obsessed with emotions. We are chasing one emotion, happiness, and we are medicating
¶ The Role of Action in Overcoming Fear
other emotions sadness, nervousness, which are now depression, anxiety. We just we are a nation that is freaking obsessed with controlling emotions.
And emotions are just like clouds. They come and they go. You can't be happy twenty four to seven.
And anybody whose goal in life is to be happy is completely and utterly bunkers and likely heading towards failure totally.
If you focus on happiness, you can beyond that individual. And you know, that's one of the things that I've learned in the in the journey and the many reinventions, is we keep putting happiness as this aspirational thing, whereas a contentment it just still goes back to again.
Contentment should be the good content totally.
You know if you've have gone through and you've suffered, like let's say you've got had major surgery like the which.
I had, which I hadn't but it's on its way.
How did you get?
But I view it's a challenge, right But anyway, show you what you were saying about going.
Through me surgery.
Yeah, so when you go through major surgery, you will be expressive. There will be a level of pain that you have and quite often, and I've had, I've torn off biceps on both sides and also the peck off this side as well. When that happens and I've gone through the surgery to reattach, I look with a fascination of wow, this is an interesting thing from a pain perspective. But equally I then go, am I okay, Like I could worry that the pain's going to get worse, but
right now, is that pain bearable? And if so, then I'm okay. I'm okay. And that is something that I use regularly, which is almost like a little checklist of I feel myself and my anxiety and my stress levels coming up. And I'm assuming from having open heart surgery I had, I'm in the nineteenth percentile for the culture is getting blocked as well. Yeah, yeah, sclerosis, I think it is. Thank you. Yeah, that's why we've got you here as well, so you can pick up after me.
So you know, that was a life changing thing for me of you know, some of the behaviors again had to.
Change, and you were talking about the pin and reframing the pain, and the whole thing was about the operation we.
Got there from, about being in the moment.
Oh yeah, And so I can stress about those things of the future, and so I'll get anxious. But if I do three things, I think it's three, let's see how we go. Number one is am I okay right now? Am I breathing?
Yeah?
My breathing is pretty good, even if it was a financial issue and I'm facing impending bankruptcy. Am I okay?
Right now?
Have I got enough food to eat?
Yeah?
I do? Have got people that I care about and they care about me. Yeah I do. Okay, take another breath. And those things help bring back bring me back to the present, because I am a future liver and the past dweller, and I need to remind myself on a regular basis.
Of that when people have difficulties, the words this two shall pass.
Are very powerful, right, just to know that you will get through this, this too shall pass.
And the thing we were talking, you just reminded me about something with open heart surgery right when I knew I was going into it. And this is about the future and catastrophizing, right, So clearly what I did first when I first found out that I had to have because I was born with a dodgy valve that get picked up by chance, right, because I played soccer with a cardiologist, and you know, I came home, I wrote
a couple of things in my bathroom murror. One of the things I wrote on my bathroom murror was, and it's a line from Monty Python, you lucky, lucky bastard, right, is written on my bathroom murr because I could have gone,
¶ Living in the Present Moment
oh fucking woe is me, I've got to have open heart surgery. But I was like, I got this picked up, this thing that would definitely have killed me, and I got that picked up because I was being proactive about my health.
Then happened to play soccer with a cardiologist. Right.
But the.
Thing about.
When you're going into something like that that I obviously looked up the risks, you know, being and that that's probably the ex military helicopter navigator. We were always a bit about risks and doing assessments on risks and mitigating risks. But the whole point of looking up the risk is, okay, so what's the chances that I'm going to die on the table here? And it was less than one percent was what the data showed, and I thought, well, I'm pretty fit and healthy, so I'm probably it's even less
than that. But the whole point of doing that risk analysis wasn't to get anxious about it.
It was like, okay, so what needs to be done? Right? So that is a less than one percent chance.
But again, we were always taught you look at what's the what's the risk of something happening, and what's the potential impact.
So for me, the risk is pretty.
Low of dying on the table, but the potential impact
is fucking massive. So that's where I went, Shit, I need to get my furze in order, just in case, right, And I need to record some videos for my kids for their eighteenth and their twenty first birthday is just in case, right, And so I did that to mitigate for those risks, But then all of my energy was directed towards the challenge, right, And I actually wrote on my bathroom mirror worthy opponent, and I'm like, this open heart surgery is my worthy opponent that I need to
train for that's going to bring out the best in me. So that I think that that's important when people are going through big changes, isn't It's it's the mindset that
¶ The Illusion of Happiness
they have to look at as a challenge to test and develop you, rather than as a stressor or a bad thing, because that massively changes your physiology, your motivation, your engagement in the task, all of this shit.
And I'm I'm sure you've come across that.
Yeah, totally. I joke with my wife when I because we're very competitive, and it'll be something like walking or you know, bush walking through really tough terrain, and I'll say, give me all the packs. I'll take them, and you go, why because I need to know that I can and you know what happens if I ever get drafted. She's going, you're sixty years old.
I'm going, you here, you never know interesting stuff.
So, Carrie, what's so going through the process of writing this book? Because I've just handed in my manuscript for my second book, right, and actually writing that will, I learned some stuff that I've then gone and applied and it's kind of stuff that I knew. But when you write it, Dine, and you're talking about your thinking, fucking hell, yeh, I need to do more of that right And one of my big like was more time in nature.
As I was I was writing about the chapter on it.
So is there anything that when you wrote this book that you actually looked at it and went fuck, I need to take that on board and I need to double down on this bit in my life.
Enjoy enjoy. That was it.
But like you, the process of writing a book, if listeners haven't ever sat down to just try and start writing something. You may start at the first word thinking you know where this story is about to get up. The story evolves and tells itself through you as you start writing. And you know, Bob, you talked about Monty Python. Bob's is the reason Bob came into my head in the first book was the definition of oh sorry, the
that Blackadder said, Bob. And so I'm sitting there writing away, going okay, I need something to name the mind Bob. And then afterwards, when the book was all finished and printed, all of a sudden, I realized, Bob is the acting for Boss of Brain. That that's pretty good. And you get all of these revelations that you sit back and you go, I'm not sure where that came from, but it's come from me. So it's built around the stories I have within me. But the story has told itself,
and I'm as surprised as anybody else. And sometimes I looked at my writing and my wife was reading the most recent one. He said, you're actually a good writer. I think of a surprise in a voice, and I read read some of it and I went, yeah, you're actually right. And it's that thing of being authentic, of using the stories that are within you to reflect and tell the stories that or the messaging that you need to get.
And look, I think, well, we'll finish it there, but I just want to revisit your enjoy thing because it came.
Up on the podcast a few weeks ago and it's something that when I remembered it, I was like, fuck, yeah, that that is so true.
And it's a quote from a book called Zen in the Eye of Motorcycle Maintenance by Martin Persi Michael Persic, It's Michael Percy anyway, and somebody persing and he talks about that we're all trying to climb the mountain. Like everybody's trying to climb the mountain, you know, these big goals. And he said that lots of people miss the journey because they're so focused on the destiny issue.
And he's like, sometimes it's better to travel than to get there. And that's really about joining the process, isn't it.
You got a one in four hundred trillion chance of being born, fucking waste it?
Yeah, can I have one more point with enjoy is also laughed. You know, when my mum lost a leg to cancer, we laughed when she was dying.
We laughed.
When my ten year old niece was lying in I think it was Marta hospital with meningitis. She eventually died, we laughed. And the reason we laughed was we needed the stress relief. Our brains were so in such a dark spot. The being able to laugh and just be in that moment with people that you care about and laugh and enjoy sounds weird, sounds kind of all like gallow humor, and it is, but that's the stress release and that's.
Yeah, we did a lot of gallows humor in my time in search and rescue, and it is very effective as a stress reliever one hundred percent. Yeah, this has been awesome. You're like a brother from another mother. So yes, over a beer maybe so Master The Art of Reinvention is the book presumably available in all good bookstores. But what else you do consulting that sort of stuff? And
where do people go to find out more? And on what other services do you offer for anybody that's out there, whether they are individuals or companies.
Yeah, sure so. Gary Walden dot com is my website and speaking and also consulting the things that I do that help share and get to get people to change and track, and it is something
That definitely all need to do because the journey is just so much more interesting if you reinvent right awesome than cat