Get everyone feeling a little bit emotional today, and I'm sure exactly what to put it down to it. I think it's twofold. I think it's one. We've got a really exciting guest today who's someone I've always wanted to meet in person. I feel stranger connected to them even than I've ever met before and can't wait to meet them in the flesh. And you'll find out who that is in just a second. And the second thing is I've got my dad staying with me at the moment.
He has just just traveled all over Australia in his land Cruiser, sleeping on the roof under the stars with his partner. He's just done a sixty three night journey up to Cap York from Hobart, so from almost the most southern tip of Australia to the most northern tip of Australia, and we bought a little map of Australia and he's been doing FaceTime with Willow in particular my
five Gelbert Charlie as well. But Willow has really been following his journey closely and putting a little little pins on the map as we have these facetimes to sort of track where Pop is at, and it's just been one of those beautiful sort of ways for them to connect. And he arrived back shaggy and long hair and beard and lots of red dust Avery's car, and he came home and had dinner with us last night. It was just beautiful for them to sort of connect and for
him to spend time with little kids. So I'm sure anyone that's a parent out there couldn't agree with me more. Let's get on with the show. It's going to be an absolute belt. We have the incredible Hugh Van Coleenberg from the Resilience Project, from the Imperfect podcast. He is an absolute just one of the most beautiful, sensitive, intelligent, caring good people I think that I've never met, but I can't wait to meet. So Hughes coming up next, and we've got a question from Julie.
During winter, I didn't really exercise a whole lot. I thought i'd get motivated when the weather got a bit warmer, but I'm finding it really hard. How can I shake this right?
We'll get to that a little bit later. I'm sam with this is the wood life. Let's get into it. I'm not gonna lie, I know I say not every week, but a lot of weeks that I'm very excited about today's guest. But I discovered this incredible, beautiful human being through his own podcast, which I'm sure many of you
have heard, which is The Imperfect. I am thrilled to be joined in the Woodline studio today by the founder of The Resilience Project, author and co host of The Imperfect podcast, former teacher but now educator to tens of thousands of people across Austrain across the rest of the world. Here, Van Coleenberg, Welcome to the woodlfe.
As you mentioned our podcast, I remembered a funny thing that happened last night. I was had a function and a lady came over and she said, I just want to let you know I'm such a huge fan Josh. I just love yourself as Josh. But it was my younger brother on the podcast, I'm not Josh. And then she went, oh, sorry, Ryan, Sorry. I was like, I can't correct her twice, so I just went with Ryan and two friends carriage. She goes, this is Ryan. The guy was telling her this is Ryan. The I was like, OK,
so I was Ryan for about five minutes. So thank you for knowing who I am. That's right, I really appreciate that.
Tell our listeners a little bit about your story first of all, and then let's get into the nitty gritty Ravens.
So, I was seventeen years old. My little sister, Georgie, she was fourteen, and Josh and when I was eleven, Mum and Dad sat us down and said, your sister's got a mental illness. So, as you know, when we were seventeen, that was nineteen ninety seven, and we were not talking about mental illness. In course it wasn't us. I never heard of it, so I just didn't know. I had no idea what they're talking about, and I can't.
I think my memories I could be conflating this in my mind, and I feel like I said, have pretended I got it, but I just didn't because there's just no one has ever talking about it. So I was in a condition called anorexia and eating disorder. A lot of people struggle with anorexia, males and females, as you'd know being a fitness industry. It's brutal and it ravaged my sister, well, it ravaged that family. Anyone listening right now, who knows someone who loves some of the mental illness.
They know full well it's not just that person who suffers, it's the people of her close to them. So I remember thinking, I've been told when she eats food again, she'll be better. And I thought, okay, well, that can't be that serious. It really can't be that serious. It's just and so I just didn't get it. Fast forward four years, she's admitted to hospital for the first time in her struggle, and so she would have been at eighteen.
I was about twenty twenty one, and I remember seeing in the house hospital there with her and I was looking at her, and the doctor explained that I was only allowed to be there for two hours every day, and he said, because I've told her she puts on a certain amount of weight, then you can stay for more. He said, you're her incentive. I need you to leave so that she wants to get out of He used to see her family more, and I remember were saying, well, how much weight does she have to put back on?
And he said, well, when she gets now she's I don't know how tall she's. She's not a short person though, and he said, when your sister gets back up to it. She gets back up to thirty one kilograms. I can still letting you stay for more than two hours. So
that's the moment. And I remember walking from there's the Austin Hospital in Melbourne and there's a bridge that you have to walk over to get back to the car park and it goes over a main road and as Mum and Dad, Josh and myself and I remember walking ahead of them and I was bawling my eyes out. I just didn't want them. I don't know why. I think as a back then I didn't want to see me crying. I just I remember my hands off my
face and I was balling. It was about five minutes in front of mom and dad and it was we got in the car and then I couldn't hide anymore, and it was I think that's when I first realized, first of all how bad it was, but then also I realized, I think that I hadn't really given it the seriousness that it deserved. I didn't give it the attention kind I was kind of a bit annoyed at my sister at that point. I thought, can you not
see what you're doing to Mom and Dad? And that night I remember was sitting at the didy the table and Dad, I reckon, I reckon. I'd seen him cry once before that, and it was when our dog died when I was about ten, and Dad was doing the dishes and I turned around and asked him a question. He didn't answer, and so I asked him again and I didn't answer. So I turned around and he was and he was. I'll never forget the figure of his
the silhoueut of his body over the kitchen sink. He wasn't washing up, his just shoulders dropped and he was just bowling his eyes out. And I remember then going, shit, we're just not a happy family anymore. Like we had such a we were so happy, and then all of a sudden, we just weren't. And I had this really and this is coming back to your question about where the resiliance projects started, but I remember I just had this really strong fascination, the question, what is it that
makes people happy? I need to know what makes people happy. Not for my sister. I knew that was well beyond my I knew I couldn't help there, but I did want to make Mum and Dad happy again. I miss seeing them happy. And I wanted Josh he was eleven. This is just this is not you know. I was side the best time as a primary school kid in a high school kid. I didn't want Josh to be robbed without either and I just thought, how do I
make everyone happy? And I had no idea. But that was when I was twenty and that's when I first became fascinated with the question. It influenced me to go and do primary school teaching because I thought, well, if I'm a primary school teacher, I'll stop kids getting a mental illness. I have no idea how, but that's what I want to do. And I remember my first day
as a primary school teacher. I was twenty five years old and I was sitting there and I was like, right, time to stop these kids getting I have no idea how, and I didn't know what it's doing. I had no idea. Fast forward three years. I was in India and I lived in a village volunteer teaching. And this is a village. You're no running water, no electricity, no beds. Everyone's sleeping on the floor. And first day in the school in the middle of this desert community, there's no tables and chairs.
The kids that sit on a dirt floor. There's no pens or pencils for them. They just sit there and listen. Half hour into the day, I thought, never in my life have I ever seen joy like this before? This is out of control. How are these kids so happy? I don't understand this? And I was meant to be there for two weeks. On my last night, I thought, I can't leave here. Oh you to leave here. I want to live here as long as it takes me to work out. What are these kids doing every day
that makes them so happy? Is there anything I could learn of them? I can maybe talk to my sister about huge granted of the long shop, but we were desperate. My sister had been sick then for oh it was a long time, over ten years, and so I yeah, I lived there and I saw them do these These people did these three things every single day. They practice gratitude, They practice empathy, the practice mindfulness. There's a whole lot of other stuff they did, but those three things really
stood out to me. I don't know why, but they just did. And I came back to Melbourne wanted to tell everyone, went back to UNI to study them because I was like, well, I don't want to go to school, and so I do this if it's not going to work.
And there's heaps of evidence and heaps of science to say these things will improve your mental health, they'll make you more resilient, and so I thought, yeah, I'm going to start doing this and I want to be about only twelve years ago, I went to my first schools at a presentation and I went well, and I thought, this is my business, and I quit teaching. And I didn't even know I was starting a business. I didn't someone.
I remember someone saying, oh, wow, are you're starting a business and I said, oh, no, no, I'm not doing that. I'm just going to schools to do talks. I didn't even know it was that at the time, and no one was interested. Like the school I went to and yeah, I love to have it in the school I taught out, I said love to and I was like, I'm on fire. Two from two. This is going to be on me doing like three schools a day for the rest of my life. And then I reckon, I got yess to.
I only did five or six schools in the first year, and like had no money, and my housemates let me took out my bond at one point so I could and they put chipped in so I could get something there. Then they paid my rent at a certain point because I was really struggling like I hadn't and I kept getting enough worked, and I was doing emergency teaching as well, two days a week to just try and get yeah way, which is anyone who's been emergency teacher, although it is brutal.
And what were you charging your school to going ah her mummy housing, Yeah, it was.
At first I was saying, I'll go and speak to every level in your school, and so it was like five one hour sessions i'd do. I remember, I remember one school. I said how much is it? And I didn't know yet, you know, for five sessions it would be because as a maniacy teacher, I was charging you woud get two hundred and sixty five dollars before tacks a day emergeny teaching, and I went, I was like, it's a whole day, okay, So I said, I thought,
I'll make it sound like a bargain. So I said, it's two hundred and twenty nine dollars and she has half for one session, and I went, no, the whole day and she went, okay, done, I book you went, and then so I'm charging John trn Dollson to do this like forteen bucks first session.
Yeah, yeah, ridiculous.
It was just a dollar a student, no fifty cents a student for some of the schools I was going. It was just like but I didn't know. I had no idea what I was doing.
The thing was you cared about the message? Yeah, yeah, we weren't a business guy who recognized an opportunity. He cared about the message. She going back to those three pillars that you discovered in India. Yeah, that are now still to this day for three core pillars. Yeah, this behemoth, incredible thing that you you know, you should. I know you're a very very humble person, but what you've achieved is nothing should have incredible. Thank you and you're doing
so so much good. This is your accurate acronym gratitude, empathy, mindfulness jem. Yeah.
So there was some really beautiful research downe In two thousand and one. Lady called Barbara Frodickson over in New York and she wanted to know what is the most common characteristic amongst resilient people, the people who cope well and bounce back, what do they have in common? And she had thousands of people. She had she did personality profiles on them and she had it already go so she had all their personalities mapped out. And then she
was sinking, right, how do I test these people? Like, well, what can I do to them? Which is to like? And what can I get past ethics as well, because you can't just do something awful to people to just for the sake of research and to And she couldn't get she couldn't work out what it was. And then nine to eleven happened and she went, oh, now this is completely stuff. Now I can't do this. This is a terrible time to test people. This is just an
awful thing that's happened. And she was on the train, I think she was on the train and she saw a couple the day after crying, like hugging and crying, and she was again thinking, this is just I can't this throws everything completely. The people that my subjects are completely in a weird headspace, say, And as she turned around and she saw them laughing five minutes later, still in tears but laughing, and she thought, actually, this is the perfect time, this is the thing I've been waiting for.
So she went back to the data, and over the next five years, what she established was the most common characteristic amongst people who bounce back well from challenging times and not only bounce back, but bounce forward become stronger is positivity and positive emotion. Not to say those people bury their head in the sands and go it's not happening,
it's not happening. They're fully engaged in what's going on, but they still find reasons to smile, they still find excuses to experience joy, and they still find reasons to laugh. And the story she tells in her research is that there was a couple she was interviewing who'd lost one and four days later someone emailed them and said, oh, we won't do a book club this week, obviously, and they said, now we've got to do it.
We have to do it.
We don't feel like we got to do this. So these are the people who still seek out positive emotion. And I'll tell you that story now, because that's what gratitude, empathy, and mindfulness do. There are ways of cultivating positive emotion. So gratitude the ability to pay attention to what you've got not worry about what you don't have. And most people in Australia, the vast majority, myself included, are so guilty of If I get that car, then I feel happy. If I buy that house and I feel happy. If
I get this promotion, ENO feel happy. If I can run this time in my race, then I feel happy. I look at that person, absolutely gosh, if I had that, then I'd feel happy, and then we're.
To get it.
Yep, I'm not any happier. Nothing's changed. I'm just now I'm looking for something else I don't have in order to feel happy.
So kids change that for me was I was a shocker, real, I don't know. You must have the house, must have the car, must at whatever, And I just chased it and chased it and chased it. And I was chasing it because so much was missing, like I didn't have the relationship, I didn't have the kids. So that just I just told myself this lie that almost like I don't have that stuff because I've been so laser focused
on work or whatever it was. And when I get all this stuff, the rest will sort of fall into place, or the happiness will be there, or the boy it will be filled or whatever it was, and it just wasn't.
It's a beautiful example you share. Then there's nothing wrong with wanting all those things.
I think.
It's like they're healthy things to aspire towards, I think. And it's obviously served you really well. You know you're doing so well, but we just can't attuch happiness to them.
With this positivity. How much of that have you learned through all the work you've done, is born versus learned? Yeah?
Well, the beautiful thing about gratitude, for example, all the things we can talk about you can practice them. So the way we started practice gratitude. There are many ways, in really beautiful ways, to write someone a letter months a month to let them know why you're so grateful for them. And the research or the science says that things like increased optimism for a month over a life satisfaction will go up, symptoms of depression, anxiety can go down,
and that lasts a month. Or if you want to practice daily, you could write down, what are three things that went well for me today, not three unbelievable things, and also not three things you're grateful for, because that won't last long. What went well today I had a nice coffee, went for a nice run. I enjoyed the run in my face today when I was running. Didn't think I was going to but it's quite nice.
Just little things. It went well, that's it.
And if you do that every single day, the research says what happens is you actually start to rewire your brain to start scanning the world for the positives. And so that's how it can work.
And so when you say we can practice it, which is the good news, and you're saying from a gratitude perspective daily.
We've been saying daily for a long time. I met a psychologist literally two weeks ago who said it can be more effective to it once a week because a lot of people will do it, try and do it dali, and then they find themselves finding it hard to find stuff. So they get a bit pissed off about it and think, maybe I'm not that a grateful person. Maybe I'm actually
not that grateful. Maybe there's not that much good to find. Yeah, but if you do it once awake, maybe some days for fifteen minutes four bed, you journal out and you go, what went well for me this week?
So gratitude, What about empathy?
Empathy is quite simply when you feel, when you can feel what someone else feels, when you put yourself in someone else's shoes. And the reason this is important is the more empathetic you are, the more likely you are to act in a kind way.
And are there tips or tricks to get better at that, because I feel like that's something that some people naturally do and other people struggle with.
Some people message me and say I don't think being too empathetic is a good thing, And I understand what they're saying because my wife Penny is so, so so empathetic, and I see moments where.
Asin she carries other people's weight.
Yeah, what you mean, she's watching news and yeah, it's going to take a couple of hours to cover from it. We had a magpie baby magpie fall out of a tree the other day and to have a backyard, and we didn't thing we could to keep it away from the pool, and we're so worried about it, and we're literally sapping away from the pool NonStop, and then when out for breakfast, came back and there's a baby magpie
floating in our pool and there's parents. Sorry, there's a bit triggering for some people, and there's magpie parents just sit on the fence just looking at it, and it was awful. And we're got a five on or two older trying to explain it to Penny, still having a couple of ye She's still shuttered, shuttered, So I'm not saying that's a bad thing. She still shouted, but her mood was so affected by that. But I do get a lot of people saying, but too much empathy is
not a good thing. I don't know. It's not my own expertise. I know that Brene Brown would say empathy is so important because when you're empathetic, you're more likely to be kind. And the neuroscience behind kindness, as you would know, like when you do something nice to someone else, your brain releases oxytocin, one of the four feel good hormones.
And I'm not talking about out rageous acts of kindness, small things holding the door for someone, shouting somewhere, coffee, letting someone into traffic, a compliment like a nice, genuine, comp half felt compliment. Those things, from a selfish point of view, they're also very good for you. Your brain unless it is oxallytocin, you feel joy. I did this I did a talk for a group of neurosurgeons literally brain surgeons. That's an intimidating audience. Also not the best
on it or didn see I'm banging us. A guy put his hand up as I was talking about the brain, and I went, I'm in trouble here. And he said, the kids you're talking about in India, there's one kid I spoke about in particularly. He said, is he kind? I said, without exaggeration, he's the kindest person I ever met. And he said, and that from my point of view what I know about the brain, that's the reason he's so happy. And then he said, I don't mind the
attitude stuff. I'm going to walk out before he starts being about mindfulness. But the empathy stuff, that's why he's so happy.
That's it.
That's the reason. And he said because his brain doesn't discriminate. His brain doesn't say, look, you're sleeping on a dirt floor. You know, one set of clothes, no running water, you don't get oxytocin. He said, if you do something nice to someone else, he said, it's a lovely reminder. We always get access to joint happiness, and it comes through doing things for other people. Which is a lovely kind of I guess validation from someone far more intelligent than I,
far more qualified, but it's fascinating. I don't want to patronize people and say so, here are some strategies to be kind. I think we just got to get better at looking out for the opportunities to be there from other people. We walk past a lot.
I reckon when you do that stuff, and this is not to be a hero. Shock is the look you get, Yeah, because it happens so frequently, especially.
When you're doing it when we're going was that same, Oh my god, the Bachelor.
I have a lot of people said, Josh, when the h is the best flock? Gratitude, empathy, mindfulness. I do think people misinterpret what mindfulness needs to be to be effective. Yeah.
We interview a guy called Jeff Warren on our podcast who has a big contributed to the Calm app which is and he's a genius and he's just come muffled.
This is his thing.
He said, this is what it is. He said, it's the ability to just be wherever you are. And I said, oh yeah, but without you have to say without judgment and he said, no, just like God, just stop stop. It's just being wherever you are. He said. We spent so much time thinking about tomorrow. We spend so much time thinking about two weeks ago or yesterday.
He said.
We don't spend a lot of time being wherever we are. He said, we've got to get better. But we all know what it feels like. We're not bad people, but we seeing at the dinner table, kids are chatting about the day. Two minutes in we go. I haven't listened to a word anyone said. It's that, you know, it's those little things. So just it's just for me from the people I've chatted to who I respecting it, it's just being wherever you are. You want to meditate at a Buddhist or treat, sure.
Go for it.
If you want to walk all up of the block and pay attention to what you can hear, and then every time you get distracted by what's happening tomorrow, you go ooh, I'm thinking about tomorrow.
What can I hear? Go for it.
If it's by MP in the morning and doing a ten minute meditation, great. Every single time you try to practice mindfulness, you're improving the ability to concentrate, your clarity of thought will improve. Equanimity, so the ability to let go of things like someone cuts you off in traffic. You don't get angry and hang on to the rest of the day. You go, Oh, they might be like for a job interview. God, if you are like for a job interview, you go in front of me every
day of the week. Or maybe it's more serious, maybe someone's in hospital. Go for it, get in front of me rather than just going what how they do that to me?
What's?
And then the fourth one is care. Your ability to care will improve And that's all from practicing Minfet's however you want to practice it.
Mate, Thanks so much for coming on that.
Thank you, Thanks for having me. I loved watching in the Bachelor life, so we've better fan since then.
But to finow episode them and here unpack.
What could have been if I walk down there, No, it's better pleasure.
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Thank you.
It's funny you feel like you know people sometimes before you've actually met them. And listening to his podcast and following his stuff, and I don't know, I just felt very connected to it, to a person I'd never met before, and it was so lovely to finally meet him and to get a better understanding of what Jim really represents and just how simply all of us can integrate into our lives. That was just brilliant. Next up, we've got
a question from Julie on motivation. As I've been motivated like many of you have just from that chat with you, Julie has a question about motivation.
Hey, Sam, during winter, I didn't really exercise a whole lot, and that made me fall out of my routine. I thought I'd get motivated when the weather got a bit warmer, but I'm finding it really hard. Do you know how to stay motivated and how to work on it?
How can I.
Shake this rut?
I think this is the million dollar question, and I would love to have a miracle answer for you. I'd love to sugarcoat it, but I'm not helping you if I do that. The answer to this question and not just from mutually from everyone that asks me this question, from all of our listeners that may be thinking the same thing. It needs to be gloves off and needs to be blunt unded to hit you right between the eyes with the absolute truth. And I promise you, if
you accept this truth, things will get better. You have to stop waiting for motivation. And you ask the question, how do I stay motivated? You don't. You do not stay motivated. Motivation does not generate movement or momentum. Movement and momentum generate motivation, so it needs to start with you, not the other way around. The magical motivation fairy does not exist and is not coming along anytime soon, So
you need to get up and get moving. The good news is from an exercise perspective, and I honestly believe this. Three exercise days in a row and you'll be back. Move your body just for a little bit, even three days in a row, and you will have your mojo back. And if I worked out yesterday, I'm more motivated and I have more chance of working out today, and so on and so on, and that beautiful snowball momentum starts to build, starts to build, and it keeps building, and
it reaches the point where it's not about motivation. It's about consistency. It's not about motivation. It's about good small habits that we do every day. I had a great quote this week and it said it is better to be consistently good than occasionally great, and I think people that go up and down and they're either zero or one hundred, it does not last. Those that have habits, those that have consistency, those that just try and do a little bit every single day, are those that get
to where they want to get to. Julie, thanks so much for that question. I hope I wasn't too harsh with my answer, but as I said, brutal honesty is what is needed when it comes to understanding motivation and where it plays a role and where it doesn't. As always, if anyone has any questions, I would love to hear from you, There's a link in the show notes. It can be about food, or fitness or mindfulness. Whatever you want to ask me, I'd love to help you. That's
all for me. Another episode done and I will see you next week.