I'll get at it's Harps and Melissa, it's the Bloody Daniel's, it's all of us. It's the U Project. It's a Tuesday. I'm sitting in bare feet pair of jocks. I could be wearing shorts. I might not. Melissa high Hello, I'm so good. I'm so good. I'm on my third cup of tea for the morning because I'm a fucking crazy man and life is good. It's going to be twenty
nine degrees today. I'm going to get one of the motorbikes out of the garage, punts around Beach Road like a big dickhead, and interview a few people and do a bit of work. That is my day, So I think very exciting.
But I am happy given what you just said, I am happy that it's kind of from the chest up that we've got happening on sale today.
I'll tell you who's disappointed, Chezy Dana. I don't think you could say that. I'm pretty sure she's curious at the very least good a family. How are you?
Hello, I am curious. Do you have nice toenails?
Is that a benchmark or something for you?
Is it?
I didn't even know this.
Yeah, I'm just really I'm really off yellow Tina lately.
All right, do you want to have a look. I don't want to be bragging at bragster, but I have world class feet. Right, this is terrible on a podcast. Hey on, cheersy, I don't know, I'm not that hang on, hell, I just nearly dislocated me. Hip, I'll send you a shot. I'll send you a shot. Enough about my toes? How are you both well?
I'm pretty horny now those beautiful trotters.
In the queue. Hey, I could have Melissa. What's that called with the special OnlyFans? Only fans?
Why did Melissa know that?
Ye? Are you talking about it the other day? That's bullshit. She's got her own No, she's the most camera shy person in the world. I put up a photo of her yesterday in our Facebook kind of thing, and that would be about the second photo in about five years, and she wasn't happy with me. But anyway, nonetheless, I'm.
Not happy with you because when you when you put your foot up in the air like that, one of your balls for that of your shorts, I know.
But two were all right? Geez cheys, he can you rain him in? Please?
Yeah? I'm pinching him under the chair.
Is that you know? Like, am I mistaken thinking that you guys started out working together and that you were producing slash wrangling him in a TV capacity and that maybe that hasn't stopped.
Yes, you are absolutely correct.
Yeah, we hated each other. We worked together. She was a strong minded, determined person and I was an arrogant little go getter, and we clashed a lot because her ideas were supposedly, in her eyes, amazing, but mine were better. And then one day we brushed hands and then we weirdly fell in love, and I had this crazy tingling feeling that hit me from head to toe and I was like, I can't live without this woman.
Is that a metaphor we brushed hand or you literally physically brushed hands?
Yeah? I remember I brushed hands as I was turning around and just sort of brushed hands with her and I was like, WHOA, what was that? Yeah, but she still hasn't stopped looking after me. That you are correct. I came in this podcast and I had one condition that I have nothing to do with the organization of it.
M Yeah, well that's pretty much my arrangement as well. I get a list each day of all the things that I need to do, and that covers everything from breakfast to podcasting, showering, and I'm allowed to have two shits a day and Welsa, thanks for scheduling that in.
Anytime, because we're still in the phase of having a two year old, so we can't go to the bathroom without like these sort of like alien apocalyptic fingers underneath the door, you know, sort of reaching through like it's an alien attack.
Yeah, or asking to look in the bowl, trying to.
Go mmmmmm yeah. Well, I mean, it's all about the learning. It's their sponges at that stage. And here's Mum's poof for anyone who's interested in You're welcome. He's corn Corn Sorn. And now all of our five remaining listeners have jumped out cheersy. What was your first impression of the the insecure bloke lacking self esteem and confidence was? What was your impression of him?
He was very distracted, He was very focused on motorsport, and what I didn't realize was that he was quite shy. He really wanted to do motorsport, he enjoyed doing TV, but I didn't really care that much about his motorsport career because I was there to produce a television segment and an important one, so trying to get him to focus on what we were doing, I found that extremely frustrating.
It's one of the hard things about producing talent that they're creative and they've got lots of potential and charisma and all of that stuff. Some of them, not all of them, let's be honest, but it's like trying to wrangle a bunch of fucking cats. It's like a dog with three dicks, like he's all over the joint.
Yeah. Yes, I've produced a lot of people in my lifetime, and most of them are like that. But I think Grant was different because he was essentially extremely nice and very humble, much more humble than people realized, and he was just so naturally talented, and yet never really backed himself or felt that he was that talented. He was just kind of more focused on the motorsport. I think for a reason there something.
Yeah, that is a fair assumption, because motorsport was my first love since I was a kid, and you got to remember, I only got into television because we weren't from a wealthy family to get started in motorsport. You know, it's an expensive sport from go karting to whatever level until the sponsors start flowing. So like I got into motorsport purely to just find sponsors to continue in further my motorsport career. So it held my heart and TV I never felt like I fit in, you know, I wasn't.
I wasn't as serious as the rest of them. They were all quite you know, particularly in those early days. They were a little bit more pompous really than I felt comfortable being. And for all those listening that I've walked alongside.
Shout out to the wankers and their names are alphabetically Larry am Darne. Shout out to Laze. We love Larry. Just fucking with you, Larry.
Yeah, oh good, No, give it back twice as hard.
No worry about that.
So I kind of felt like I was a pretender in that scene and not the real deal. I didn't. Yeah, So motorsport was was my crowd, that was my community, and I never felt like I had one until I got into motorsport and I found I found my people and I found my confidence. So TV I could kind of take or leave, which actually ended up working for me because you'd be a little bit naughtier, or you take some risks, or you do things a little bit differently,
you talk a little bit differently. And that worked for me, and that's because I actually just didn't give as much of a shit about it.
Yeah, I reckon the more desperate you are to do something sometimes the worse, because the more desperate you are, the less you are yourself, and the less we see the authentic.
Queue, particularly in television in those days, you know, like it's it's still pretty formal, but you no one would to be successful in television, you need as many people to not hate you as possible, right, So you need to round off a lot of rough edges so for your show to have the most amount of viewers, which is our only gauge of success really in this game, people have to kind of at least not hate you.
So therefore you end up sort of putting yourself into a gray zone where you don't necessarily go out on a limb and you take no chances, so you end up just being this vanilla product. So I didn't value it as much because I could take her to leave it because I had something else going on, which was the most, so I was like, fuck it, I'll just say it, or I'll just do it, or I'll just go nude, or I'll jump out of a helicopter a
bungee jumping or you know what I mean. Like if my barometer was when I was on Sunrise as the weather man, if I could make Koshi or Mel, who was the host at that time, uncomfortable, I would gain an extra ten thousand fans. So that was my yardstick every day, which I pushed.
I think people would pigeonhole you as I'm doing a very long range assessment, but an extrovert, But I don't actually think you are. I don't think you're a pure extrovert. I think you'd probably be closer to the introvert end of the scale. But you're very fucking socially adaptable and aware, am I right?
Chez He he is not an extrovert at all. He is very socially aware. But he's also a huge impath and it's taken us a long time to recognize those. I guess, you know, parts of Grant because when he would go out in big group settings or you know, and people would expect this real high energy kind of full of himself, you know, full of confidence personality. That was a performance which took an extremely huge amount of energy and we didn't recognize that for a long time.
But he's definitely not an extrovert, are you No?
No, yeah, well I think that like I have, like you, whatever you do, right, if you're sting a TV show, you need to bring a certain energy and so there's a persona. But that's not being a fraud. That's like you're doing a job. You have to bring that energy and bring that personality, and you need to bring it all together and you need to make the show work. But that guy is not the same guy that's sitting at home with the kids, right.
No, definitely not. I see some people think and believe, and I've been around a lot of these, particularly in the early days of my career coming up. Some people believe it's enough to just be on camera. I'm on camera, therefore I'm a big deal. Therefore I'm better than you. There's a lot of that. I look at it as this is a very fortunate opportunity for me to have
a career and pay off my mortgage. People need to watch this show, so therefore I need to be so thankful that they're watching that I need to give them my absolute best right. People's lives are hard. Paying the bills is hard. Kids are hard. When if they sit down to watch, say your game show at six o'clock, to say family Feud, I feel like I owe them something special. I owe them a show. I want to take their mind off their troubles. I want to make them laugh if their day's being shit. So I feel
that's my duty. You can't take that for granted. So that is the utmost of the highest of importance for me, is I need to deliver for that one audience member who's tuned in to watch, because that's a fortunate privilege. But some people aren't always like that. So but to turn it up to eleven like that does require a lot. So you know, Therefore, it's took me a long time, and it took me a lot of personal crashes, to be honest, I run into a brick wall a lot.
Even when he was first doing Family Feud, he was really upbeaten, you know, high energy, and people would always comment on, God, how is he at home? Is this energizer bunny? And he'd come home and almost sleep for two days. It just took him that long to recover from being so on.
I think also when you are very empathetic, which like I don't know, I feel like in the first five ten minutes just getting to know you a little bit, it's like I think that that doing as well you basically just said that cheers you, but doing that high energy stuff where you've got to go and you know, some days I do full day workshops with a company where I speak for eight hours, you know, and then coming home from that, I'm nearly in a coma because
for eight hours you need to be fucking amazing because they're paying, you know, you to bring an energy, to create an experience, to coach, to share, to do what you do, and to create an experience that hopefully will be a catalyst for good stuff.
Right.
Yeah.
But at the same time, you know, I'm very empathetic as well in that I feel what people feel. And if there's one person in the room who hates me, but nine hundred and ninety nine who loved me, the one affects me more than the nine to ninety nine because I'm a big fucking baby, right, And people don't realize that when you are confident on a mic or in front of a camera. People think that what they see on the telly is the totality of the person. But it's not the case.
No, definitely not. And to prove your point and to agree with you that you're right, I can't MC events for that exact reason. So I can talk to two million and a barrel of a camera, but I can't talk to a room of twenty. It is paralyzingly crippling. And I'll spend a week leading up to it, like in agony in my stomach, in nerves and anxiety, and
I can't do them for that one reason. What if this is a room that just doesn't give a shit, and that maybe they're all chatting and they're clinking glasses and they're having a great time, but no one's listening. And I feel like I'm not doing a very good job for the person who's paying me to be there, and I can't handle that. My skin's not thick enough to be able to just turn up and take the cash because I was taught the belief as a kid. Like I didn't go through university or anything like that.
I worked in school holidays for free, so I would work in a country TV newsroom, washing the news cars, bloody, carrying the tripods. And I needed to find a way because I was never going to be smart enough to get an academic score to be able to go to UNI for journalism, so I had to find a backdoor. So I appreciate every rung of the ladder because it was unlikely that I would ever get there right, because it was against the odds. Everyone else was smart, was
more worldly, was political. I had none of that. I was just a goofball. So when I now get to these roles, I feel like, because I was told the place, the way to get somewhere is to be a good person to be around, be the employee that they want you to be, and if you can't be good, be cheap. Right, So those three lessons I get to the top. So therefore I feel like I wanted to del for the company.
If say six o'clock Family Feud, if those ratings are high, then the show afterwards is high and the advertising is high. I feel like, you know, I've got a bit of the company on my shoulders, and I'm responsible to deliver, So I kind of like you. I feel like I have to and they deserve me. My one hundred percent.
But you know what I think is great about you saying what you're saying is it makes you relatable and real and authentic, and it's like, oh, Grant's insecure. Fuck good me too, Like I'm insecure when people because I'm confident and I can talk, people are blown away that I still have impluster syndrome, that I still feel not good enough, that I still all of those normal human things.
And you can simultaneously be on Telly and nationally known and have a brand and have a profile and have people think highly of you while also feeling completely overwhelmed and anxious and unhappy and not sleeping and feeling like you're not good enough. Like those things not only can they coexist, they often coexist. No.
I don't know why that is the case, but I think is it the insecurity and the lack of self belief that just made me try that extra ten percent harder than everyone else than the person next to me. Possibly the fact that I didn't think that I was enough meant I had to try harder to try and make up for that, And therefore you can you kind of just you're just going a little bit harder than everyone else at the same level as you, So you stand out from the pack a little bit. Possibly those
painful things that you're talking about. Are you part of the success.
As to why I reckon, there's two bits. So the first bit is I think that in our culture very much, we get our sense of self and identity and self worth from what we do. Right, So if you're awesome at something, oh, that's Grant the TV host, Chezi the produce said that whatever. Right, So that what you do becomes who you are and that can be taken away
from you. That's my first thing. And when you and I'm not saying you did, but I know for a long time, for example, so I set up the first personal training centers in Australia, I wrote the first course. I was arguably maybe the first PT in Australia in nineteen eighty six, right, And for a whole long time, my sense of who I am came from my business and my brand and my body and my biceps and
all this bullshit. But in the middle of that, I was fucking horribly insecure and riddled with self doubt and imposter syndrome. And it just took a long time to differentiate between what I did and what people thought of me and who I actually was in the middle of all of that. And when you do a deep dive on who am I beyond what people think of me? For me, that's the beginning of opening the door to self awareness.
Yeah, I would agree, and I've done a heck of a lot of work on that because I hid behind my identity for who I was, because I didn't believe there was any substance in here that worth two minutes, you know. So I surrounded myself in those vight Supercar race suit and trophies, and I surrounded myself in that family feud suit because I didn't think the sum of any of my parts were worth it. So, yeah, I needed those And I think that comes from, you know, a single mom. So I lived with my mom. We
had a very very very modest means. I was living in an area where I looked around and no one had a life that I aspired to. No one was living a life while I was like, God, that's cool, look at that guy. Why wasn't that unreal? There wasn't a lot of aspiration around, And so I made a commitment to myself that I was like, I need to pull something out. I need to pull a rabbit out of a hat to get myself out of here and make a go of it. So every step was a
precious step. But it was a conscious decision at about fourteen years of age to go, fuck this, there's got to be something better than this. I'm going to go for broke to try and reach it. Yeah, but it comes at a cost. It comes a cost of friendships, comes at a cost of family relationships. Yeah, you burn a lot in a way to make it, go for it.
Without piercing in your pocket. What you have maybe deep down you know this. I'm sure shares you know that he has it. But what you do have, like you spoke about not being smart enough for UNI or this or that, I doubt. Firstly, there's fucking I'm in the middle of the academic system at the moment. Trust me, mate, There's a lot of people that are way fucking less intelligent than you, way less that they're doing good things academically. You could if you wanted to, but you don't need to.
But what you do have in spades is emotional into us, emotional intelligence but also social intelligence. Like hardly anybody could stand in front of a TV or a bunch of TV cameras doing, for example, family feud, all the stuff that you did, like people don't. I did a tiny bit of Telly on Channel ten with David and Kim on the Morning Show. I used to go in each week for a few years and just sit on the
couch and talk a bit of shit. But what you did and continue to do periodically is such an ability that very few wouldn't matter how much training, how much reading, how much prep, how much encouragement and coercion, ninety nine point nine per cent of the population got me included. We couldn't do what you can do, Like, that's an innate talent, and yes you've developed skill and knowledge and confidence,
but that's an extreme form of intelligence. Social intelligence, emotional intelligence arguably the most important kind of intelligence you can have. It's just not rated in the academic kind of world as much as it should be. Anyway, steps down off soapbox.
Well, I remember, I remember my family. I'd hear him on the phone, you know, when I'm in high school going what the fuck are we going to do with this kid?
Like Jesus, what about Dumbo?
What the fuck?
Yeah?
Well, like I was like, like I said, I was, I was working in school holidays, but they're like, we ain't going to get this kid into any anywhere, Like is he going to be is he going to be the bin collector? Like what kind of what are we going to do with him? And I could sense that, I could feel that hopelessness that they were, like, this kid doesn't fit in a system. He's not he's not he's not working in the system. He's not he's not
going to make it in the system. And I just remember the remember I won't say it was disappointment, but fear that they had, like shit, we're concerned for this guy because what's he going to do? What's he going to contribute to society? And I think I heard that and it hurts so much that I was like, I'm going to have to manufacture something here, and that I think when you're working in the early days, I think you never The one thing I never did is always well,
I made sure I always ask questions. I always asked for chances. Can I help you, can I can I do this? Can I work on weekends? Can I come in after an hours? Do this? And those little bits. It's amazing what opportunities come if you just go that extra extra bit, and they were the breaks. You know, I wasn't the smartest in the room, you know, when I was a cameraman, I wasn't the greatest shooter. When I was an editor, I certainly wasn't the fastest editor. When I was a journal you know, I could out
one story today everyone else could knock out three. So I was underperforming in every single area. Yet that willingness to offer myself and just work that little bit harder or do someone a favor was the only thing that pulled me up the ladder. And because people you'd be surprised at how far someone will go to help you if you offer yourself. And that was the only ace that I had at my sleeve, the only ace, and
no one else was doing it. Everyone would turn up and think that they were bigger than the role, or this is below me, or stuff this. I'm going home five minutes beforeward, dud to knock off, and I was the one that was there two hours later. And that was the only ace I had.
Do you think people in the space that you played in for a long time and continue to have a sense of entitlement and because of that, maybe the work ethic and the the prepper or the ability to get uncomfortable or the willingness to get uncomfortable again and again is not there. Yeah, yep, because it's in the shit that you grow. Right, Like my background literally working with athletes, and you are slash. We're an athlete of sorts, believe
it or not. Everyone motor car drivers are athletes. Don't worry about that. And like how you build strength in the gym literally is working against resistance. Is doing hard stuff. You go to the gym or whatever your training environment, you do hardship. The byproduct is physiological physiological adaptation. You get stronger, you build resilience, you build endurance, you build awareness and understanding, and then you come out the other
side better. And so too emotionally and psychologically. You can't build strength in that space without doing hardship and without putting up your hand for what most people want.
And working for free, working for free, but also putting in the effort to figure out what everyone else's roles are around you that all work together in unison to make you look good. Like I said before, people would go they do their piece to camera. Maybe they might be a news journo, and that was the biggest thing of the day, not how great an interview they did, not whether they did a good story, but it was just get about getting their head on camera. That's what
they all looked forward to, because that made them famous. However, I was more interested in, Okay, how can I make the cameraman's job a little bit easier so we can get better stuff? How do I make sure the editor has what is needs so our story is just that little bit more engaging than the other journos. So you teach yourself to edit, teach yourself to shoot, so you have a broader understanding of all the pieces that conspire
to make you who you are. So therefore you have a greater respect for the lighting crew, for the guy who pulls the cables, for the catering mob that keeps everyone fed to keep their motivation up and energy. You know you, it's I think a complete picture of those around Youunderstanding that you only are the sum of many parts, and you are a cog in the machine, I think is an important thing to learn and understand, because that's when you your rising tide lifts every boat.
Then yeah, chezy, So you guys have a podcast on the same platform as us over shout out and over and over called it's all true? How wide? So I mean, you know this is a public thing right now. We have thousands and thousands of listeners today and shout out to our listeners, thanks your ace. How wide do you open the door on your real life, on your real thoughts, feelings, emotions, struggles? Do you open it all the way? Is it like
ninety percent? How do you decide where to go and where not to go when you are talking to the public about personal stuff.
That's a really good question. When we first started the podcast, I was quite pregnant and on a lot of medication to stop me from being sick because I had hyperemesis. So I was just very unwell.
So I would like a really bad time to start a podcast, A very.
Terrible time to start a podcast. I couldn't even drive properly at the time. A number of.
She got six fines, six lines in a period of four weeks. So wow, that's right, Thank you?
Do you want wine down the window? Window and guts? Did you do that?
I was oblivious to the world.
Our little baby though. When she did get pulled over and the police officer was standing at the door. It goes, please don't take my mom to jail.
We need her.
That's true. So at that point, I don't know, I was just I was very loose on you know, the on the stories, and just Grant would come in unprepared because that was kind.
Of well, sit down.
Really, that's what we wanted for the podcast because I think he's always been so prepared for everything that he does. You know, he tells family feud, he does TV, like he gets into the zone and he's fully prepared and
he's you know, he knows what he's doing. Whereas what I really love about him and what I love in the podcast is him He's just a really great person and a really great talker, and I really wanted to kind of capture that, so, you know, having him just be his personal self and me being extremely loose, just you know, starting conversations that we probably should have started off air before we started on, and then Grant just
patting them out. Nothing is really off limits. We have spoken about, you know, things that I wouldn't even tell my parents on the podcast.
And most of the things, Yeah.
And it's like like give us a one for example, I.
Always go back to this one story which I really wish that we didn't share, The.
Time you shut yourself in the gold class cinema. No, that time, that one, that.
Story, best story ever home, A lesson my days just got great. I can't believe Grant has just thrown his missus under the bus project.
That's not thought you were going.
But now I'm not that one you dighead the other one.
People do come up and say to us often, you know that they remember that story. You know. I was just talking about how before we were getting married, I was on the road and somebody said, if you tried this Brazilian seed in water. You cut this Brazilian seed into eight parts and then you drink it and it basically absorbs all the fat in your guts. You're on the road, eating in pubs every night, traveling, right, So I thought, you try this and try and lose a bit of weight before the wedding.
What could go wrong?
And because I had diagnosed ADHD back then, I thought I'll take half a seed, not the eight. Yeah, so that, you know, ended up in an explosive situation that I'm not proud of. That Grant very kindly mentioned on the podcast, but that was not the story I was thinking of. But there's plenty, there's plenty. That's why we can't go back and listen to what we've said, whether it's.
Like anxiety or post natal anxiety. And you know, Chezy's been very open about, you know, the things that she's encountered, you know, in our long life together.
As we both have post traumatic stress. We've spoken about Grant with his impostor syndrome, you know that filters into every part of his life with.
Broken backs, pain, medication, addictions. Yeah, it's just codependency, codependency. She's finishing my sentences, I says, codependency.
So that's absolute. But don't you think though, when you are like, I don't know, I've never really met scripted, prepared, planned Grant. I've only met you now, right, And for me, this version, well, I guess it's a situation dependent. But I think in a podcast, the less planned, the less prepared, the less scripted, the less choreographed, the more people are going to connect, Like, the more raw and real the conversation.
Like people say to us all the time, we're not the most I'm not the smartest, for sure, we're not the most polished. We're not the most professional podcast, but hopefully we're one of the most authentic in that there's zero prep. I'll have a bit of a read of who I'm chatting to, but there's no list of questions, there's no there's no pre planning. I don't bring up you guys, And like I get asked to come on other podcasts, they send me the questions. I go, I'm
not going to read your questions. I'm not going to do a pre planned fucking conversation. And they're like, oh, but I go, no, just talk to me and see where we go. I think that's part of the appeal of you two.
Thank you.
I think so it's not how we used to go about it, but because you know, if you were say the Sunrise, we're the person at the time you you were on for three minutes every half hour, so you had to make those three minutes short and sharp, scynct. And I was kind of the professional that was like, make sure leave no stone unturned and make sure that no matter what happens, you've got something, You've got something right. So particularly if you're if you're hosting like a Grand
Final for Australia's got talent or something. It's a big, live thing and everything's resting on you. You're driving the ship, so you have to know everything about the show in case it goes wrong, because you're the one who's got to carry it when if it all falls apart. So I was always an over preparer who had a lot of things in his back pocket, and case this, I wanted to do the opposite because I found that actually
quite an exhausting way to work. And then also, you, particularly for the early stages of your career, you end up acting like, you know, the saying you'd dress for the job you want, not the one you've got. I would sort of behave for the job that I wanted, not for the one I got. So you're sort of pretending like, all right, I was a little bit of Daryl Summers. I was a little bit of Larry end
There was a little bit of Roe McManus. I take pizzas of other people and I put them together and go, well, I'll be that, but you're really still only the sum of other people's parts. But whereas this podcast came along, I don't have to talk in three minutes anymore, and I don't have the responsibility of saving a show if an act falls over, or the light drops from the sky or a camera doesn't work, and you still got to push through because it's live. It was like, fuck it.
I don't want to work like that anymore. I can't just want to see I just want to riff. I want to see where it goes. I want to see where my mind goes. Whereas I needed to know the next three steps ahead of where I was previously, and this is you don't have to do that here, and it's so much more enjoyable.
Doesn't come with the same risk, right CHESI, Yeah, yeah.
Well it depends. It depends what we're talking about.
One is one is paralyzing perfectionism, and one is just doing it for the pure enjoyment of doing it. And that's what we're doing with these podcasts.
The authenticity that you were saying before is what I love about your podcast, Craig, and that's that's exactly what we we feel with our audience in our podcast as well. We just it's real and we over the years, we've had so much shit written about us that's so far fetched, and you know, the people who know us well, they know that, you know how far fetched it is, but you know it's it's fun.
Our used to be our only chance of a right of reply because previously, you know, the magazines could write whatever they want and you had no say, you know, prior to Twitter, prior to social media, prior to podcasts, they could just have their absolute way with you, and they could determine whether your career failed or succeeded just
by whatever they made up. But we tried to take the power back a little bit, and often our stories were actually way juicier than the ones they were making up, and that's a true So it ended up being you know, fun. And then we've evolved from that from being you know, let's tell our true stories to now let's get interesting people on and sort of and here we are because we've made a fuck ton of mistakes in our life and we're at a point where we're okay sharing those now.
And we used to we were part of the problem. You know, we used to be a part of a breakfast television show, which is fake, it's made up. I think the damage that news does to us as a community and to humans is terrible, and I used to make those stories. You know, I think it trades in fear and and it hits our human impulses, which is, you know, back to our cavemen days, we had to be so hyper aware of what was going to kill us next that we're constant, you know, in a state
of high alert, you know. And I think news delivers that up. Just what do I need to be afraid of next? And all they do is they give you so much fear so you return tomorrow night to find out what you need to be afraid of tomorrow night. And I don't I feel bad about that now, and I don't want to be that bloke. So I'd rather be offering something that might you know, maybe it helps someone, Maybe it makes a difference in someone's life, rather than just make them afraid of everyone and everything.
Yeah, I love that well. And also I think people forget that the news is a product, Like it's a product and it needs sponsors, and it's you know, it's not objective, it's you know, it's not objective, it's it's
it's anyway, let's not get into that. But you know, I think to your point that the brain is literally like the primary function of the brain is to keep you safe it's a risk risk detection machine, you know, and so you're always trying to navigate life from that point of view, you know, especially as parents for yourself, but then also for your kids. What how do you reckon both you, either of you or both of you?
And to this like, how are you different now from say, five years ago, whether or not that's emotionally, whether or not that's your outlook, your operating system, your lifestyle, your intentions moving forward. How do you think you've changed?
Well, me personally, I have in five years. The biggest change for me, I think was being diagnosed with ADHD. After the pandemic with Lockdown, we discovered that our eldest daughter had ADHD, and before we put her on medication, I thought, I better, you know, go down this route because I think that, you know, I possibly could have it.
And even before I started medication, which was life changing for me, I started researching and listening to podcasts and watching webinars and learning all about ADHD and the things that I struggle with, you know, and kind of normalizing that for myself. It definitely had a huge effect on my confidence, which I you know, shared around the house and with my kids and you know, and then starting the medication. That was a massive change for me.
It's huge.
Yeah, tell us shares you pre and posts, so before what was happening and as much or as little as you want to share, but massive difference, how like what what was the post? You know? Medication life like?
So I have all always been extreme, like extreme chazy, so very black and white thinking it's either all or nothing. It was always late to things because I had just loaded myself up with so much stuff. Chronically, I was a chronic worker, just constantly juggling probably ten things, but not doing any any one of those things particularly well.
I was very stretched, really overthinker. Ah yeah, yeah, I would say I was an overthinker, but I'm more hyperactive, so just constantly moving like I was being driven by a motor. Do you say that even if I was tired, I was off doing you know, god knows what, always leaving covered doors open.
Yeah.
I didn't even know that that was an actual sign of ADHD. And so I just leave like kitchen cupboard doors open and will notice.
Yeah first sort of, you know, ten years of our marriage, I'd be just get around just closing proper doors all the time.
And I was. I was exceptionally good when when I was in full adrenaline mode, So if there was an emergency, I was extremely clear. I was great in emergencies. But I had real difficulty processing very emotional situations, which I always seemed to find myself in. You know, I kind of retained a lot of that emotion and just could not start jobs, jobs like cleaning out the kid's cupboards or unpacking boxes or things like that. I just found
it was just so difficult to start, so paralyzing. Yeah, so that's a snapshot of what it was like beforehand. And then I just from remember the first day I started the medication, and remember I'd been doing podcasting and I'd been kind of really trying to work hard on myself before I started it. I also changed my diet, took sugar out, increased water, increased a Mega three supplements
and flaxeed oil. Started the medication, and I remember looking around the house and thinking, oh my god, this place is a dump. How have we lived like this? It was like I can't even explain it. It was like somebody cleared the windscreen and I thought, oh, I've just got to I've just got to get stuck into this. So just started little jobs. You know, the kitchen draw that had been messy, and like every time I looked at it just felt chronically overstimulated by it. I just got in and cleaned it.
Have you guys heard of that book by Gary Chapman called The Five Love Languages? Oh?
Yes, I think we've got a copy of doing.
No, I'm not familiar with it.
Why so I think of you two, and I'm just curious. So this guy created this model for kind of explaining. It's science, it's around human behavior, it's psychology. It's about the way that people give an express love. I'm getting deep here, but I'm interested with you too, So I'll quickly explain to you and the listeners what it is. Melissa, If I fuck this up, can you because I might
get one of the five wrong. Right. But so, the idea behind it is that we all show love and express love in a way that's unique to us, in that not everyone else does it exactly the same as us, so and we receive love differently. So if I want so, let's say we'll go through the five different love languages. One is physical touch, one is quality time, one is words of affirmation, One is gifts and one is acts of service. So what this means is physical touch might
be romantic or sexual between a couple. It could be a hug or a cuddle from a friend. Could be a hand on the shoulder, could be a rub on the back. But it's physical where people find that comforting and people feel on some level loved through that quality time is obvious. What it is is I feel loved when the person that I love sits with me, gives me attention, spend time, spends time with me. Words of affirmation, grant, you're amazing, mate, I love you. You're so fucking good
at what you do. I wish I was more like you. Blah blah, words of affirmation, gifts CHESI I made this for you. I hope you like it, blah blah blah, and acts of services. Mate. I'm going to come over to your joints, tomro and clean the gutters because there's shit hanging out everywhere. And I know you're as bud as handy as an ashtray on a motorbike. I'll see you at twelve, right, so we all. So, my old
man's love language is words of affirmation. So if you're tell him he's fucking amazing, and he's an artist, the best artist in the world. He feels loved, but if you give him a hug, or try to give him a hug, he fucking runs into the backyard right now. Ironically, he never tells me great things like I'll tell him he is brilliant. He would never do that to me. Right, So my mum, for example, I bought my mum her last two cars, and it's not even about the cars.
It's just that, well one she loves the cars, but she loves the fact that her son loves her enough to do that for her. Right, So I want to go through him again. And obviously acts of services doing stuff for people, words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, So grant, what do you think your love language is?
Like?
How do you like? What do you need from the people that are close to you that makes you feel most loved? So I'll go through in physical touch, quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, and acts of service.
I think it's quality time or acts of service, right, physical touch, I've got an issue with that at the moment, which I'm trying to get to the bottom of, which I don't really like that.
That's interesting.
I can give it. I can hug anyone right, someone that I work with, someone that an acquaintance of a friend, I can hug. I hug in a professional sense, not a drama. I find hugging with my wife very different.
And it's all true because everybody hug it in and he's like, I have to.
But at the same time, what brought you together was physical touch your hand on hand.
Yeah, And I can't figure out what's happened to that as to why. I almost have an allergic reaction to it. And it's weird.
And unless I cancel my next re appointments, we can't deep with this. Motherfucker fucking hell. Here we go, fucking batting down the hatches. Everyone, get yourself a beer, get the bean bag out. We're not going anywhere. I have a.
Theory, and I'm not sure if this is actual right, and I'm moving away from this theory, but it's my most recent theory. My most recent theory is I won't let my wife hug me because if I come dependent on that, and if she leaves me, then I have nothing. So if I don't allow our connection to get stronger, it'll hurt less when she goes Wow.
So that's that's mentally very insightful.
Yeah, And I think that that plays back to the imposter syndrome. I'm not good enough, I'm unlovable. I'm unlovable. I think is a core belief that I have, which I've been working a hell of a lot on because i know that damage is my relationship with my wife because it makes you act in certain ways. But I think I'm not ensure. I'm not entirely sure this is right, and I'm still doing work on it, so it's all new.
But I think I'm shutting down affection from my wife because I'm worried that I'm not good enough to love in the long term, so therefore I can't let her get closer to me. Wow.
Man, I appreciate that so fucking honest and real. But vulnerability is strength, dude. So you know, even though that that's scary for you, we don't have to do anything, but I'd suggest you open that door and just be scared and let her fucking hug you in the morning. Just lean in, broy, what what about you? And tell, like one, what's your love language and what do you think about what Grant just said?
I already picked Grant for quality time. Yeah, I definitely know that that's his. Yeah, because I've seen him sometimes when I'm out spraying weeds or something and he has to go away. I'm outside and I'm like, I've got a Dade's fans line, and he's like looking out the window, like, who like a little puppy.
My dad's going off to war and he's fucking waving at the window.
Yeah, And so I know, and and I do try to take that into account. My love language, I feel like mine is it's sometimes a bit more fluid, like sometimes it's words, you know, but then maybe acts of service, you know, to back that up, because I do know people who just give, you know, spew rhetoric and there's nothing kind of behind it. Yeah, So I feel like mine's kind of flexible. But I don't remember reading that in that book.
I gave two. You shifted between two. That's I think that's fine.
Okay, Yeah, wow, Now I.
Know you guys have got to go soon. I'm disappointed because I can talk to you for hours.
Do you have diagnosed yet? You need to finish? Yeah, regardles.
Yeah, now I'm we need to come back. We need about seventy four podcasters or you two fuck us out because there are so many I'm going to call this episode all the issues, So right, mad, I'm the captain of the issues. Do you two have a this is a fancy term that needs nothing. Do you have a parenting style or is it free range? Like do you strategize, do you talk about things or do you just do your own thing and it works out.
I think if we thought about it, we probably do have a strategy, but it's not like a deliberate or we've sat down and dot pointed it on an a four piece of paper.
That's pretty much. I am the boss. I'm the disciplinarian, and Grant is the fun parent.
You have four kids chas, Yeah.
Definitely, no, we're here the Yeah. I probably am the mean one, but that's more because Grant traveled a lot with the first two, and so I had to be kind of mum and dad you know when he was away, and so when he would come home he would get to, you know, play with them. But we both have a very strong moral compass. We we're flexible. We let our kids, you know, get away with some things, but you know, we're firm on other things. We just want them to be nice people to hang around when they grow up.
I think self talk is something that we work on with them because I know that it's something I'm very guilty of. I have horrific self talk. So trying to ensure that they establish better relationships with themselves by how they refer to themselves in their mind is something we kind of work on a fair bit with them.
And I think we've also learned to be quite open with them. You know, we're not exposing them to things that are well beyond the years, but being honest. That's something that you know, we definitely go into their rooms and say, hey, you know what, I was a real dick. Well, I might not say I was a real dick, but I was. You know, I was wrong. I yelled and it's just because I'm tired and I'm maxed out and i'm you know, x y Z and it wasn't your fault and I'm really sorry, I really love you.
And that sort of lets him know that it's okay to make mistakes and mistakes are recoverable. I think knowing that mistakes are recoverable means that you won't do anything to avoid a mistake and mistakes are inevitable, as we know, but the best stuff that ever happens to you is often mistake, because it'll end up re routing you back down the path you're supposed to go. Mistakes are wonderful, like a roadblock that you reach and go, oh, thank god, now I realize I don't need to get on this path.
I'll go down this one instead. So treating mistakes as gifts is what we're try instill.
Yeah, I love it. I love it. We've done over eleven hundred of these eleven hundred episodes, and you too, are going straight into my top twenty. I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. You're both fucking great, and I you know this. I think this is an insult and a compliment. I didn't. I mean, I don't overthink it, but you guys are so so good to talk to, like really genuinely, and I loved it, and I love you both. You're both fucking awesome, and you're
brutally authentic and real and lovable and grant. When I see I'm going to spoon you on the couch. I'm not going to let you go because I'm definitely fucking bigger and stronger than you, so watch out, your son.
Of a bitch.
You will too, Grand j Daniel. They have a podcast podcast called It's All True, which I don't believe. I think some of it's bullshit, but that's the name. Anyway, we'll stay there. We'll say goodbye, Affair, but thanks for coming to play on the You project.
Thanks for having you my pleasure, Thanks for having me mate, Thanks for everyone listening. So hopefully we didn't lose you in the first couple minutes talking about Chezy shitting in the toilets. That's right, that his feet, that's.
Right, Ulessa. You said that'd be shipped. I told you that'd be all right. But that was brilliant. Don't know me. See everyone