It's halfs, it's Jumbo. It's Melissa, It's Josh. That's right, that's right, it's Melissa. Before we go and talk to the great man, let's talk to the great woman. Let's talk to the bloody life force of TYP, the blood that flows through the TYP veins the engine room. Hi, where have you? Everybody? Do you know how many people go to me? There's Melissa?
All right?
Where's Melissa? Are you all right?
I am more than all right, thank you.
I'm here.
I've just been hiding in the TYP hammock.
Have you just had your feed up, having a bit of a sabbatical. That's not true. You're working very hard behind this lens.
Between that and the jacuzzi, just kind of, you know.
Alternating hammock jacuzzi, hammock jacuzzi.
Yeah.
Yeah, Well, it is very nice to see you back in the cyber studio, that is TYP. You've been missed. You are loved by the multitudes people. Everyone loved Tiff, of course, but they also love you because you were in the round floor. You were the you were the genesis. You were the beginning of this. So are you okay? I'm more than okay.
Thank you. We've just been chipping it away at a few things behind the scenes. You would have been doing a wonderful job, have we? Yes? Yeah?
And what do we call you? Do? We call you the BDM, the business development manager, the CEO, the head bossy bossy person, head bossy person. There is another name that won't get used on the show that the head bossy person will call her. Just steering the sst yp into into murky waters and choppy waters and then back out into the bay. Dear, Well, we're glad you're back.
Thank you.
Before we go to Josh, your dog sitting at the moment, which is one of your favorite things to do. How's your house guest?
Look, he's great, Thank you. I fed him an early dinner so that he didn't interrupt this, so hopefully he settles right.
Well, good, I'm glad. Hello, Josh, welcome back to the show.
Good a heart, Good day, Melissa, lovely to be back on the show. What kind of dog have you got there? Between you? Hamming and Jacuzi.
Just in the sun. He's a little multi sit so he's thirteen. His name's Hugo, but he thinks he's two, so nobody's told him, so he just runs around like a two year old?
Which is is the.
One that do we call that's the one that's like varying types of pooh. That's a multi ship, isn't it.
A multi ship? I've done many of them myself, but it's a different thing.
I think we all think we all have there so many varying degrees And what are we four minutes into this podcast and we've already digressed here myself for that? You got to own your ship put in my hand.
I don't think this sentence has ever come out of anyone's mouth ever before. What kind of dog do you have between your Yeah, like, for sure you were going to say legs, I'm like, well, no, Hammick and Jacuzzi.
There it is no digress. But I'm not I'm not vile.
No, Well you could have said between your legs, that's okay, Just that's where dogs often just put their head on your knee and just fucking live there when you're trying to concentrate when you're watching a bit of Netflix. Well, mate, welcome back. We appreciate you. I know you've come off the bench. This was short notice. You had a lot of more important things than me, and this and us today. But you you graciously accepted the offer and helped us out.
So thanks. You and I have been hanging out a little bit. You and I've been chilling a bit, all right, more than a little bit. We're pretty much see you more than I see any of my mates. Okay, we've been hanging out a lot, a.
Lot, Yes, and you've been helping me. You've been helping me.
A lot, hartsh I think listeners need to know that, you know, on a macro and micro level what p hahaps is a helper.
He's very very good at helping people.
And so you know, I feel like the journey I've had if listeners have come across me on the previous podcast of you know, playing the Phantom and the Phantom of the Opera here in London and Jean Valjehn and lame Is in London, and these sort of quite high pressure filled big roles in big musicals, the sort of the mecha of them on the West End. Yeah, they
don't come as linear, easy journeys. They come with a lot of stories and a lot of ups and downs and struggles and writing the roller coaster and climbing the summit is never an easy task, and Harps has helped me to put those experiences into words and ways that I can share them in keynote presentations and keynotes with a twist, kenotes with the song, seminars, various stuff because you learn a lot of lessons, you know, experiencing those
ups and downs of performance world like that. So thank you Harps, who've been a amazing help.
Well, I said to you yesterday and this is true. Everyone, we caught up yesterday, and I've never had a better student. Maybe have had a few students who are good, but I've never had a better student. Because we meet and we talk and then I say, great, now go away and do this, and then you come back and everything I've asked you to do is done to the highest standard.
And I'm like, oh my god. I'm so used to people not either not doing what I asked them to do at all or going essentially the dog ate my homework, right, but for you to turn up and do everything, you know. But so what we're talking about, you know, is Josh is going to do a little bit of corporate stuff. He's he's still the world renowned a stage performer that he is, and he's doing a little bit more of stage work or he's going to it's just a bit different.
He's stepping into the keynote presenting and some workshops and a bit of mind stuff and a bit of soul stuff and a bit of human behavior stuff, and a little bit of who are we? How are we? And why are we the way we are stuff? You know. And it is interesting though, because you and I have spoken. We have quite disparate journeys and stories and lives, but at the same time, there's a lot of similarity. Like you're a communicator, I'm a communicator. You're on stage a lot.
I've been on stage a lot. Your stages have been bigger than mine, that's for sure. But you know, the things that we have in common is that we want to create a good experience for people. We want to connect with people. We want to tell a story, you know, maybe inspire, maybe move people emotionally. So even though I'm the corporate speaker dude, and you're the you know, you're the singer, you're the stage performer, dude, it's not it's not light years apart, is it.
No, Because the nuclears or where that seed of where my purpose and your purpose lives and what that seed is is very similar. How you go and plant that into the world might be in different spaces, but I say that, you know, I'm a storyteller, communicator, and I want to facilitate stories that enable people to feel the
depths of what the human experience is. And whether or not I'm you know, telling that through my podcast or facilitating opportunities for others to tell their stories through my podcast, or whether I'm playing Jean Valjean or the phantom and embodying a character that enables you to feel deeply and connect with those characters. It's you know, the vessels can vary, but the purpose or the origin of that purpose is
the same. I think we do have very similar perps, which is, you know, to communicate in ways that help people understand their own human experience and help them on that path and hopefully inspire them a bit. So there are some similarities. I want to say on the homework front that.
As an actor, I was a performer. You just can't be shit at doing your homework.
Ultimately, I have a say in what I want to put out there on stage, but a director is guiding me throughout that experience and they're shaping everything and turning the knobs on everything. So every day you come back into a rehearsal room, you're expected to bring back what was worked on yesterday and the notes that were given. And so you become a professional taking direction, a professional doing your homework.
Yes, and so I think I've just got very good at that.
On the flip side, I don't like letting people down and I don't like upsetting people.
And so the appeasa or plicator.
In me which is not always a part of me that I enjoy because that leads me down passing. You know, maybe in relationships and stuff that means that you know, I don't always express everything I'm feeling.
So I don't want to upset the other person.
Yes, there's always account found that, but in this relationship between you and me, it makes me the good student, a little pad on the head, you're a good boy.
Well, a big elephant staff I'm going to tell everybody right so, and it's no biggie, but so one of the things that I've done with hundreds of people who sit down and say to me, you know, I want to I want to get into professional speaking. I want to do some corporate speaking, or I just want to get better and speaking, or you know, I want to open that door and see where it goes. And so I essentially say to people, okay, come up with a couple of titles. Come up with two, three, four titles
for what we would call a keynote. A keynote is just a presentation that you do to a group to inform, inspire, educate, connect, build, rapport, and lighten whatever. Right, And it's it's a pretty uh you know, it's it's most times professional speakers. It's really varied. But a lot of professional speakers have two or three key Comma keynotes that they wheel out and that's about it. And so they have three or four two or three products.
And you know, like I've been at conferences where I have over lapped with or spoken with several speakers, many speakers in fact, that we've been on the same card multiple times. And so some of them I've heard six or seven times, and I've heard pretty much word for word, the same forty five minutes with the same inflections, the same stories, the same pauses, the same video at the
same time. And it's okay, but it's very performative and you're a bit of a one trick pony, and there's not a whole lot of I guess in the moment kind of authentic connection because it's essentially a performance, and of course performances can, as Josh knows, can connect, but when you're basically say, the art of them.
Yes, really, the art of what I do is when you're doing playing the Phantom or seven or eight times a week, he's trying to make it fresh for an audience who are seeing it for the first time. Yeah, and that's my duty. Director's judi is to Keith mincheck and within boundaries, and my judi is to try and push those boundaries so that it feels in new and interesting to me.
But one hundred percent and the divergence for you here is that you are going to get on stage multiple times and basically do a different opera or do a different you know. It's like and I've said to you, sorry, different musical and like you might go to you know, Telstra on Monday next week and you do a keynote and you kill it, and then the conference organizer goes, Josh, that was awesome. Can you come back next week and
do something different? And a lot of speakers. The answer is no, like I only know two songs and I sang them. So so I asked you to come up with ten. No, originally it was five. And then I said to another, so I said, come up with five titles for keynotes and five synopsis or five overviews. So in other words, it's the title of the presentation. Now write one hundred words or so about that or two hundred words. And then we met a couple of weeks ago. You turned up and you've done it and was ten
out of ten. And I went, all right, good, do five more, and then also do three half day slash full day workshops that you might do. Because one of the things that people don't realize is if you are good at what you do, or they like you or connect with you, and they see you as a safe bet for their group and a good investment for their organization,
they want to keep working with you. They don't want to take a risk on an unknown presenter, you know, they don't want to spend however many thousand dollars it is, and hope that this lady or that this bloke is good doesn't mean they're going to get you back thousand times, but it means if you kill it, they're probably going
to get you back. And so having that diversity and having a range or in other words, having a menu of presentations and professional offerings under the banner of corporate work, you know, and also the the kind of the hell what's the word? The bloody the golden leg that you've got is that you can sing in the middle of your fucking presentations, which is very unfair to the rest of us who have no talent.
Well, you did say that the important thing about these keynotes is that they're unique to you and you're sharing your unique story, and I sort of took that as also, I can share in a way that is unique to me.
And songs are storytelling or a way to sell stories.
So you know, I've got one of the ten presentations I've got now is run from what's comfortable live where you fear to live, and it's about stepping into fear, about stepping into discomfort. And I shared a story with you both yesterday where I'd always had a fear of singing on television, and the fear was big public failure and being embarrassed by stuffing up on television on live TV.
Where you can't get it back.
It winds up on YouTube or on social media and you have a big.
Crack or whatever.
And so I've sung a couple of anthems, but I've never sung a real song on live television. And so I had this opportunity via John Foreman, who some listeners might know. He's one of this country's great composers orchestral A's conductors. If you ever see Carols by Candlelight, he's always conducting the orchestra of Carols by Candlelight, amongst other things.
And we did an album together probably twenty seventeen eighteen, and he contacted me and he said I was in Italy, in Tuscany on a bit of a holiday and he contacted me and said, hey, we're doing Australia Day Live, which is an annual concert they do on the fore Court Sydney Opera House. There's about eighty thousand people across the fore court there and along Circular Key and wraps all the way around and there's you know, the state government put it on. It's a fifteen to twenty million
dollar budget or whatever else. And it's live on ABC or Channel ten every year and so there'll be you know, a few hundred thousand people watching, maybe you know international as well. Would you like to sing NESSA and drdmer which is the most famous aria, it's the Pavarotti aria or song. It's you know, and it just has that you know, massive note at the end you don't want to stap it up. So it's not like Gus out there and see bar bar black Sheep and not nasional people.
It's seeing one of the most challenging songs ever with
the City Sympody orchestra. And so I was like every part of me wanted to say no. Every single part of me wanted to say no. Because when you get an offer like that and you are you've imprisoned yourself in fear for that many years and set know to these opportunities or said yes and then got sick or whatever it is, you just feel that fear, That adrenaline kicks in and that fight or flight response kicks in, and you just want to do this these I was just say no, and somehow, for some reason I felt
all that and just said yes. And for the ensuing month was October. So for the next three months, basically all I sung, all I practiced with my coach.
All I did was ness and dormer.
I lived and breathed ness and dormer to a point where it was impossible for that not to live inside my bones, my blood, my muscles, my nervous system. Even if everything went wrong, muscle memory would kick in in performance and I'd still sing it to a great standard. And that moment of before Steven out on stage, I remember I had some sort of mantras to myself, like I am free, I am calm, I am adventurous, I'm present,
i am limitless. It's this sort of and I remember there's a sort of moment midway through the song with a choir kick in, just before the final part, the big ending, and then the final big note, and the choir is there, and I just looked around and went, I'm looking at a sea if people, and the backdrop is the Sydney Opera House and the fireworks about to go off, and I knew they're about to go off, and I fucking out, this is my life. This is
the most wonderful thing in the world. I fifteen years ago had never sung a note, and here I am facing the Sydney Opera House singing one of the greatest years of all time on national television. Let it fucking rip, kid, and I just went blistic at the end, like and the fireworks kicked off, and it was and I held the last note for you know, twice as long as I've ever held it for. I went to town on
it and it was a life changing moment. It literally changed my life because within months, a couple of months after that, I was over in London. The footage had been seen by Sir Cameron McIntosh Andrew Lloyd Webber and they were like, get this kid over, we need to see him for Phantom of the Opera. They gave me the role and I was playing Phantom of the Opera on the West End and from then on I went playing it from there for how many hundreds of shows
played at the Sydney Opera House. I've got to go into the Opera House And it was just sort of looking back on that moment and going shit, if I didn't do that.
Sours, I wouldn't have done this indoors Yes, played in Melbourne.
Then they got me straight back to play the leading Lambers are up in London straight after Phantom finished, and so that was a five year period of doing all these extraordinary things, or because I said yes to something that was so scary and was full of fear and was full of discomfort. And so I just implore people you are always going to feel fear, but fear, as Craig says, is an optional, but courage is optional. And that was maybe the most courageous thing I ever did,
was saying yes. It doesn't mean the work's not going to be. It doesn't mean I didn't have to put in hours and hours and hours about some of the area before. But I've been the ten tenors. It's sung with so many times, but not solo and under those conditions. And yeah, so running from what's comfortable and living where I feared to live literally changed my life.
I love it. And there's one keynote. Yeah, yeah, that's it. I would imagine this is a technical question. But the obviously the acoustics outdoors in the acoustics indoors are different like outdoors. There are no acoustics of sorts at.
Concert like this, Speakers everywhere, and I was on a big catwalk along the catwalk there's fallback speakers roll all the way across like right, and I had in ears in. It's like it's popping with sound. In fact, it felt amazing to sing out there that the sound that they create for you, right, it felt like a boomy concert hall.
It was awesome.
So yeah, yeah, Mike, you know how your mantra, what was your mantra again before you went out? What were you what were you saying?
I am calm, I am infinite, I am present. Yeah, I think there's one of the often that's like, I am love for me. That's just like state, don't contract, interfear, lead with your heart open, keep your heart open, keep your heart open because as a performer up you know this is making sound, but all of what's inside of you, your soul and your heart is actually what you what you're communicating.
Min mind mantor would be don't fuck it up, don't fuck it up, don't fuck it up. You knew I was going to say that melisted you don't fuck it up.
I don't about what what I've learnt about mantras in terms of communicating with yourself, the make the positive not negative. It doesn't operate. It only hears the fuck it up. If you say don't, it only hears the So you're beginning.
Fuck it up up?
You don't, so only working positives or only actually only work in present moment, not I will, I will, I am they now?
So So that so doing that thing, that thing that you were scared of, and being courageous in that moment, you know, apart from the practical outcome of getting a phone call and going basically around the world and becoming a fucking superstar, which is awesome, but what did that do for you in terms of, you know, resilience and confidence and self awareness and self understanding and having a different perspective about your own ability and potential?
Yeah, potential is like it's like talent, right, It's just a seed that's.
A beautiful looking seed.
But if you don't plant it well and nourish at well and fertilize it and water and give it the sun it needs, it just ends up being a seed of potential. It just ends up being potentially wasted talent. So I've always been big on because I wasn't that talented.
To start with.
Really, I had a little seed, but I work took us off the water and fertilize and feed and put the sun that needed to be on it to make me the best I could be. What I struggled with was my own academic mind and getting in the way of what lives beneath that mind, that could talk me into it or out of it. And so what that opportunity gave me was just trust, trust of my own capabilities. That you know my mantra. Since then, there's many times
just spent I'm capable. I am capable. I'm so fucking capable. Yes, And I can reflect upon those moments and go, what did you feel, what happened? What was the outcome. I've got a history bank there of going you're going to be okay, no matter what it is, it ain't going to be.
As big as that.
And I've said to you guys, I've sat on tables with King Charles and sung for him. I've done opening nights of big shows on the West End, and I've sung Boxing Day at the mcg and all subsequent things Final at Rod Labor Arena and all subsequent big, big performances, And nothing has ever felt as scary as that first one because and it's not that I don't get nervous, of course, you get a nerver, you know, the fucking line gets nervous. Before it's about to eat a zebra
because it cares. So if I wasn't nervous, I think there's something worrying about it, because that's just me caring about it.
But those stabilitating nerves and.
That that part of me that goes, no, don't do that, that fear republic failure, I don't.
I don't get that like that anymore.
It's more I can't wait to get out there knowing what I'm capable of sharing and that feeling because I wasn't really in life. You know, all these things that we achieve and all these things that we're striving for, they can be replaceable, but the feeling you can't replace. And that feeling is of transcendence, that amazing, blissful feeling where you're beyond your own self and you expand to this other level of self.
And I love that feeling.
And I know that the only thing that stops me from having that feeling is getting my own way. So it's taught me how to get out of my own way. Just step into that space.
Yeah, yeah, tell I don't know if you can tell us everything you told me about sitting at a table with the king in Charles called kinghy and singing for him. But tell my listeners about that, because I loved that story.
Yeah. So it was the Friday, I'm going to call it like that, sixteenth of March or something, twenty twenty. So I'll be playing the Fantom for you know, six or so months, and COVID was coming.
You know, we sort of knew that was coming.
But it was the Friday before the Monday that Boris called everything. Boris Johnson called everything closed. And I'd say that sort of like writing. At the top of a career, I get a In fact, so Cameron Macintosh gets a handwritten letter from the Australian High Commission asking that I be released for a night performance to perform for Prince Charles. Prince Charles at that's a beautiful, hand handwritten letter and it was for.
The book. It was a bush fire appeal.
I think we all remember those hideous bushfires at twenty nineteen twenty. And as you know, King Charles is a big advocate for climate action, and so he was the keynote and the guest of honor and and so they plumped me on a on a table with him. I didn't get there until a bit, a bit later through the main course because I was warming up and whatever. And so it was at the Mayor of London's place in this grand ballroom for some of the.
Most distinguished guests.
You could like, there's a song from My Fair Lady and it's the as Scott Gavotte and it's ever really duke and pr and it was literally like that every duke and and I was just like, this is ridiculous.
How many you know? And news cameras and all this sort of stuff, and it was a big bloody deal.
I was getting five fed on Channel nine back to Australia and so Adam Hills actually.
Hosted it.
He was the MC and so I performed a few songs and and it was awesome, and then just sat on a table like like just next to Prince chow king charts and just had chats about.
He's like, you know, how do you go with all the pressure and all that. I was like, how do I go with the pressure.
I'm just getting pressure on my performance, You're getting pressure on your existence And he goes.
Oh, yes, different, very different.
Well then he's like sort of talking about I sort of talked about that with him and dealing with external noise and studden. We sort of had a human experienced conversations buddy awesome, but subsequently he's very overtly gay. P A was like lovely guy, but he just proceeded to get more and more drunk throughout the night. And I was with my exit at that stage.
D'm Charlotte, and he he just he would not allow her to be my girlfriend.
He was just like a mate, Oh, your friend, your friend, you know, and like he sort of off started offering me these gigs, and he was touchy everywhere.
Anything he said.
Had to be like a hand somewhere. And yeah, I was just and he works for the king, and he was just so overtly affectionate touch you.
But it was just, you know, there was gigs in Rwanda. It's like you can come in a couple of.
Months and and so it felt like he was sort of setting me up to become you know, the King's you know, private entertainer, which would have been a gig.
But then but then Rona, the old mate Roner kicked.
In and the world, the world's gone on to do.
I forget his name, Scott, Scott I for anyway, it's it's a double barrel surname. Yeah, he's gone off to do other other things. So I don't have a I don't have a direct line to the.
King to Kse.
But you know, yeah, maybe I'll get to sing him again. Do you remember we just talked about pressure. I have a technical question. So with the the the style of music that that you're singing, the style of songs and that you perform, you step in to a.
I don't know, an R and B band or a rock band or and.
Curlling stale on the door.
Yeah, well there you go.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, of course you can, like once you understand.
I mean, I don't sound like bon Jovi because bon Jovi, you sound like bon Joviy. But once you understand the mechanics of the voice, and it is very technical, you understand what is going on in the human voice and how to alter it and whatever. All classical training is is a training that opens up the space at the back of the throat so that there's more breadth and width and richness and roundedness to the sound. Yeah, so no time like, it's just space, whereas rock singing there's
no space at the back. It's really thin like and the cords are like it's all going out that.
Way rather than opera that's operating. It's all space at the back.
So that's I mean, that's a very it's an untechnical way of talking about the pharynx and the vocal tract and whatever. But you geek out on all of that and then you just learn how to manipulate that. And so I've got a really good understanding of the human voice, but with how it contains to everyday people.
And we talk about this yesterday.
This is one of my seminars, is that you have so much power if you know how to use your voice, and yet ninety nine percent of humans don't know how to use their voice. You have so much power speaking at a dinner party, speaking with your partner, speaking in a room of people, giving a presentation, giving a speech if you just know how to use your voice, and that I'm talking about pitch, rage, tone, cadence, or speed.
Where it's resonating.
You know all of these things, All of these nuances can pull an audience into you.
In a way that gives you all the power.
And it's it's so easy to learn, and yet so few people know how to do that. It's a technical thing it's a skill, a quiet skill. It's not just a talent, you know. Oh my god, he was wonderful. I felt his voice was great. And this isn't that like, it isn't a quiet skill, and it's something that literally I could feel like I can teach you anyone a few houts, Like it's not challenging.
You just have to know what to do.
And then there's that there's like what's happening with your voice? But then there's also I guess, knowing when to talk and not to talk, you know, like that kind of situational awareness as well.
Well, yeah, that's fine because I've been talking straight to the last twenty minutes.
Yeah, but you're doing okay. You're the guest. Now feel free to tell me to fuck off.
Yeah.
Is there any chance that you could sing a bit of something, whether it's like anything? I know, this is an I had, didn't I just sing the Living on a prayer for you? Well, I mean, feel free to say no because I feel like I'm I'm exploiting you. Uh, feel free to say no and we'll take this out. Could you sing a bit of something from Phantom or or whatever, or Ness and Norma or anything what does.
Nice time shuts each sense.
Darkness and weeks in the U shue sign to me the same sense abandon.
The Wow, dude, Wow, that's buddy. How long did it did it take for you?
Because you said fifteen years ago or fifteen years before that, you didn't even know that you could sing? Yeah, how did you? How did you even open that door? We spoke about this a bit last time, But when did you start to think, Oh, I'm a singer, not like I'm a guy trying to sing. I'm actually when did that happen?
So?
I never thought about singing growing up. It wasn't even on the radar. Couldn't be further from the truth of my existence.
I was a very.
Passionate, charismatic young kid who like to play sport and that was it, footy, basketball, tennis, cricket like they were before. I like balls, and that's that's what I did. That's what I cared about. I was thinking about doing sports physio or maybe sports and medicine or something like that. And then I then I got into a little bit sort of role at a what's the end of whatever we do at the end of the school a speech? No, right in year ten and I had learned how to
moonwalk that year because I got right into ax. So I did a little bit of that and then subsequently in year eleven, did the same morve just trying to attract some attention and the school cafeteria and got a tap on the shoulder from the guy who directs the school musicals.
He said, we're doing a musical called Fame. You do you ever heard of it? I'm like no, you know, just like that's sort of sixteen year old, like you know the type, and you're like yeah, yeah, yeah, doing the stuff. Yeah, And I just he just said, well, this is this is what it is.
You know, if you can come and then you know, as I often do, just came around and I said, okay, I'll go for that and got a roll on it. And I couldn't believe how cool is you know, when you when you are in a community in sport, that community is generally unless you're playing co co sex sports, it's just a bunch of bunch of blocks. Suddenly all these all these girls, and the girls I didn't know that were the theater girls, right, and the music girls.
There's a whole bunch of different girls and I was the flirtiest kid going around. I'm like, oh my good, how many people are.
Going to get your kids?
And so I get to be front.
And center all that passionate charisma, you know, you get to literally, you know, like what what what does?
What does? Maury Bolstein saying in Zoolander heads are.
So heart right.
Now we can take a ship in some tinfoil and self like Queen Elizabeth's earrings, like I could.
You could do whatever you wanted out there, and.
To all your peers, They're like, yeah, Josh, Like so you're getting all this adulation, You're getting all the.
You know whatever, with the with the.
Various girls you've met for the first time, and it just was the funnest thing in the world.
Plus I was like, I'm creating this character. This is cool, and so I just sort of got into the world of it.
And then that world led to like getting geeking out of learning about all the musicals and studying. All I wanted to do from then on was doing musicals changed my subject. In year twelve, all I was thinking about was playing the lead in the musical, which was Jesus Crist Superstar, And I'm going to go off and study this, I still had no idea how to really sing. And then I had a really great singing teacher that was given that was I was told to go to in first year at UNI in Melbourne. I stat it in
Ballorad and he was amazing. He just as I said, if you've got a really good coach who understands the voice, they can communicate like, that's what good coaching is. It's not giving you information you can't find elsewhere. It's speaking to you in a way that helps you to understand and you know that from your world.
Of coaching and whatever. That's what good coaching years.
And he talked to me in a way that I really understood for my voice, and it just in a year I went from a shit kicker to someone who could sing a fair bit. And in another year I became one of the sort of top two singers in the UNI. And by end of third year I was ready to go out there and work. And so I was very diligent. You know, they were going out and to pubs on you know, lost people. In my year, lots of nights of the week I was doing my scales.
So I had that sportsman work ethic, but with great teaching a seed, some talent there, and a lot of desire to get better. I improved very very quickly, and then improved again sort of in the subsequent decade a lot as well, to a point where you go, by the time I'm in my early thirties, I'm playing leads in the West End.
Yeah, incredible, incredible. Let's put that pause. Let's pause on the music stuff for a minute. I was fascinated when you and I sat down because I thought you were just an interesting dude who could sing great, which was well, I probably didn't really think that that much, but I had no insight into who you were beyond music and beyond I didn't have much.
Insight into who you were beyond your gyms. Yeah, I knew of Harpers gyms. Yeah, I think we all know of that, if you know.
I'm into fitness, relatively into fitness, and I had no idea about this whole other world. I think we don't like unless you ask questions.
Yes, teachers, I sat down with you and we spoke, and I was and I'm not saying this to make you feel good, because I just wouldn't bring it up if it wasn't true. But I was so impressed with your curiosity about your understanding of human behavior, in the human condition, and psychology and spirituality and for loss, fear and stoicism and and you know, not a superficial kind of glancing kind of interest. It's like you are you are.
You've done a very very deep dive and continue to do this deep dive on not only understanding others, but understanding yourself in the middle of others. What was the and anyway? And I came back and I rang Melissa, and I went I told her, and she's like, oh, that's cool. I go, no, No, you don't understand like he is his Like I can sit and talk. I can open all the doors because you know, and I mean
this respectfully. You know when you sit with some people when you're like, I'm obsessed with all this shit, right, so I need to I need to rain it in a bit. I need to be careful. I need to be careful which doors I open or people think I'm a fucking lunatic, right, So I just you know, you open the door a little bit and you see them look at you quizzically, and I just pull that one shut and then I'll just open a let's open a
cupboard door, not the bifold doors. And you know, but with you, like I was just I was impressed, as a dumb word, but I was I was intrigued by your intrigue, your curiosity, and your level of competence, confidence and understanding around all things human experience. Tell me about that, Tell us about that. Where did that come from? Because you've you know, you've studied, you've researched, and you've got a lot of hands on experience.
Yeah. I mean, it's.
Probably not disimilar to anyone who has had to look inside their own soul and learn some really, really hard truth about themselves. It comes not from a series of easy moments gifted to you, where you go, hey, here's this great book about the soul and stoicism or the human experience.
Haven't read it?
And you go, oh my god, Yeah, I can't wait to learn because anyone who is going through the experience obviously has that accent. It comes from crisis. It comes with crisis. It comes with looking in the mirror of your own soul and not liking what you see, and.
What have you said that you didn't like?
Narcissism in a toxic way, control like a controller, a bully.
Wow, I saw parts of myself.
That I couldn't bear to be and I couldn't bear someone behave like that to me, or that I had to witness that behavior.
And that is extraminated. That is very good.
Storry to interrupt. That is very good self awareness, dudent, that is very good. And it takes courage and humility to say those things about yourself that you just said.
Well, we're not perfect.
And the only way I've learned that we moved through perfection and rid ourselves of the shame of our imperfections is by opening up and being vulnerable about those things.
Because I think that vulnerability is the antidote.
You know, if you can own your stuff and have the capacity to openly express it and work on it, then you can free yourself of the shackles of your own shit and your own perfectionism.
And so a.
Narcissist who is a boy and a control freak who thinks they're perfect, it's it's the trap of all traps, isn't it, Because no one's perfect And if your perfectionism is leading to those sort of behaviors, you're not going to last very long. So I got in twenty fifteen, and that was a catalyst.
Right. I was going to say, you will tell us about that, like, what did that? So you have that? To have that awareness is one thing, but then too, how does one work on that? Is that a conscious process is a very hue process. What does that look like?
Yeah, so it's firstly realizing that.
Most relationships, in fact, all relationships are two way street, where at least fifty percent of what's happened is a result of your behavior in some way. If you're owning up things like narcissism and it's bullying and controlling. If you're a pure victim, and well then it's a different story altogether. But and some people are a victims of domestic violence of abinis and this doesn't, this isn't. So you know, I'm the perpetrator here, not to say that my ex and shit put it out up and go.
There were things that I do with it, but these were my tendencies.
And so to actually go, hey, this is this is my stuff, and then you go, all right, how I'm going to work on that?
You got?
I went to a SiGe and I saw a therapist regularly, but meditation was the key, And a lot of people think that meditation is simply this thing to stay present, this this you know, tool to get rid of thoughts or whatever. I mean, no one's getting rid of your thoughts unless you're a fucking munk in a Tibetan monastery meditative eighteen hours a day. And even then, I question, you know, if you have to travel to Times Square, whether you wouldn't start getting some thoughts cook.
So it's not functional unthinking.
So it's about understanding your thoughts and then understanding that there is one who is the thinker to the thoughts, the witness observing those thoughts and those feelings and those emotions and those actions and those behaviors, and our thoughts become our words, and our words become our actions, and our actions become our habits.
And if those habits are.
Narcissistic, bullying or whatever, they really hurt people, and they all come from a lack of self awareness.
They all start with thoughts, thoughts about yourself. Thoughts.
Ye, So I had to learn who I was beyond the thinking mind, and that took a lot of meditation. When I say a lot of meditation, I mean twice a day every day for years practice as the practice of practicing certain diligence and dedication, and that that is the that is the work.
You know, the work isn't I read the secret and now I've done the work. The work is.
Every single fucking day, and the work never ends. And then you're Then you're humbled by the fact that you're just a student of life.
Then you see yourself.
As you know, the drop in the ocean, and the entire ocean as a drop. You see, you see yourself as this whole universe.
Yes, it is you, and you're.
As big as that because all of that is inside the molecular level of you.
You're seeing.
You're suddenly looking at this world at this quantum fucking level, and you see how important your life is and how fucking insignificant you are at the same time. And I think that was a huge wake up call to me, and so it just got me interested. So I ended up studying meditation, become a teacher. So if I pitcher, I ended up stud eating a lot of Yunian psychology stoicism.
I just got interested in lots of things, and I'm constantly interested in lots of things, and things grabbing my attention and you gave me a book that I'd never heard of, Yes, the forty eight Loads of Power, Laws of Power. I can't wait to read that. And that's some reading. And I'm constantly studying and wanting to grow.
The other part of it is that what I was noticing is as I opened up the channels to my own authentic self and went deeper and deeper inside my own soul and went through the dark knight of that, I noticed that it opened up the characters that I was playing, And in fact, I began to start getting roles that were far deeper, that were far more complex. That asks me to be really vulnerable and go to some really dark places.
You know.
The phantom is not just a dude to sings music of the night. He's an abandoned boy who has a deformed face, who is a murderous, narcissistic, self indulgent, selfish tyrant.
And I used Jung's.
Idea of the archetypes to play him because he is a king in his shadow, is a magician in his shadow, he's a warrior in his shadow.
He's a lover in his shadow.
So he's an addict, he's a saddest, he's a manipulator and he's a tyrant. And to go that way, I had to understand Jungian psychology to it and understand the shadow self to play, to lean into the shadow, and I just am fascinated with the world of the human experience, the human condition, understanding what it means to be human, and ultimately what I feel like the purpose of it all is is to help other people understand their human experience.
And so, as I said at the start, whether my purpose is a storyteller, as a communicator is to help people understand that, and whether it's by having a podcast, having these sort of chats, by coaching people, or by stepping into characters that, through their artists free enable people to see themselves or feel things that haven't felt or need to feel.
I have a lot of opportunity to help people on their journey.
And when your life becomes about helping others, not what you can get for others, then I go all right, I really start to step out of narcissism. It's like this becomes a world of service and giving rather than a world of purely receiving.
What was that is so well articulated? And thank you? As we wind up with the narcissism, the control, the bullying. What was the upside for that? Like, what were you getting from that? What was that doing for you at that period of time.
It means that.
You get to have everything go the way you want it, right what you think is and that's generally the easy road, means you don't have to really compromise. It's not a relationship. That's not a relationships are all about compromise. So you get everything it's my way or it's a dictatorship. It's a dictatorship. And when you start getting everything you want, the ego loves that. The ego is addicted to getting everything else, so you're constantly getting everything you want.
But yes, well it's not about.
Yeah, so so that was that was the benefit, But that was that's not a benefit, Yeah, because because those around you pulled away. So also, oh didn't have very many meaningful relationships. I didn't have depth to my relationships and there was no vulnerability in right issue. There's a lot of toxic positivity, but not vulnerability. So yeah, that's I much prefer my life now. But it's still as
still student, like never stopped being a student. I mean Pavarotti said he was a student to the day he died of singing, and it was a pretty great singer, so to be become a better person. But I don't think they ever stopped. I hope it never stops.
Well he was no Josh Pitterman, but like he was all right.
I mean, it's actually like there's a voice that I listen to. It just hap to sit down and listen to it and like that, like I'm transcended by voice. I think it's fun. And John Farnon' is another one too. Something about that voice that like the they're the voice. I just think, I don't know, I can listen to fancy seeing that Beatles cover of Help just go fucking hell, Like I just I'm somewhere else.
So well he was. I mean, obviously Australians love him and understand his ability, but he was like he could have been a global you know. I know he did all right, but he could have been a global superstar with that voice because he had to. He was.
If I compare it to like, you know, Steve Perry or bon Jovi or you know, like it's better voice than any of those or maybe Freddie Mercury, like Freddie Mner was a great showman and a great voice, but Fansi's voice was it was I sort of put up there as some of the great one of the greatest voices of all time. But on that point about could have been that if he was that would he have lost that sort of ossie alaric and humble charm that also made him great, so awesome. I think whatever he
was what is because he hasn't gone. I'm just don't seeing anymore. Yeah, I've seen him twice live and unforgettable inspiring moments.
Is also very inspiring.
Just performance.
What she's been through.
God, that's a weird thing. That's another topic for another comedy. Yeah, what's that called, Melissa? Is it like stiff body syndrome or something? Yeah, stiff person? Yeah, crazy. We love you. You're amazing.
Tell people big chats, Yeah, all of them. Next time I jump on, can I trill you? Because maybe people have heard your story, but.
People have been more story too much. But feel free. We'll do another one. I think we're booked for next week if you want to, if you want to take over the t y p Rains for one episode, fucking feel free, like you just.
Make it a little bit more too way Street.
No, No, you have to intro and outro the show, okay, and you need to up you're swearing a little bit. But you did pretty well today. The fuck quota was better than last time. I see.
I swear much more in this podcast than I do on my podcast.
Of course, I always say I open the fuck door and people come stumbling in. I've had people on this show who buy halfway through the show and they've never ever sworn ever on a podcast. By the end of the show, they're saying fuck every third sentence, and then they get off and they're like, that was quite liberating. I don't mind that. I'm like, right, Yeah, how do.
People connect to Welcome to the Fun Project.
That's it. How do people connect with you? Find you, follow you listen? What's the name of your show, what's your website? How they follow you on socials?
Yeah, so you can just go to Josh Pittman one T and one in in and one je and one agent Josh just in case you didn't have to spell that one, Josh Pittman dot com, dot a you all. My podcast is Behind the Mask. It's at go behind the Mask on Instagram. TikTok and YouTube. You can watch it, you can listen to it, where all good podcasts are found. But yeah, start with that Josh Pittman and pretty much everything's there on on Instagram you can find you at.
All the Olypics.
Thanks Buddy, love you you mate, Thanks mat
Mel, thanks for having me, guys,