I'll get a team. Welcome to another installment, the new Project, Craig Anthony Harper. I hope you bloody terrific, all you guys and girls getting into our Typick typ kickstart program. Seven days of getting some momentum and getting focused and creating a few results.
I hope you're doing that and having some fun with it.
Today I've got I don't know if I'm allowed to say a fellow Bogan. I don't know how as she identifies as a Bogan, but I'm definitely a Bogain she did grow up. Have you ever seen yourself as a Bogan at all?
Leela? Yeah?
Yeah, even when I was doing some training, like with accent training, when I was doing some acting training. I've even labeled my accent vintage Australian Nice.
I like it. I like it. How hard was it?
Like?
What was because? To me? Because acting is essentially high level pretending, right, yeah?
Yeah, it's the opposite of authenticity. Although once you get really really good at acting, it doesn't seem like you're acting not it just seems like that's just you on a screen. What was what was the revelation the learning in becoming an acting student?
It's a being in acting schools like a massive self discovery journey. Really like it's so like, I'm fascinated by psychology. So the psychology behind you trying to access emotions and feelings and you say, like you're acting is high level pretending, but it's not. It's the total opposite. You have to
be so real, right and authentic. And that's what makes the really good actors good because they're able to just become and really feel and be those characters, whereas ones where you watch it and you go, that's shit acting. They're pretending, yes, And you've got to got revert back to a kid and being a kid. Like you know, when a kid's running around and there they're the fairy
tale princess and you know they're running it. They fully believe they're a princess when they're playing, and you've got to be able to do that. So it was this this tapping into just letting go of any self conscious or any abilities of what has created you and made you the way you are and just being a kid again. It was a really good experience.
I make a really valid point, so I stand corrected. Fucking five minutes into the show. You corrected me. No, you do make a good point, because when I'm watching someone who's awesome, I lose I mean on a level, on a subconscious or an unconscious level.
Of course, you know you're watching a film even on unconscious level.
But when they're really good, you get lost in it, right, and so all your emotions and your psychology and your physiology is all wrapped up. That's why when you're watching something that's a film that's not real, I mean, it's not that bloke's not really getting shot. Yeah, my nervous system doesn't know that because it's so well done that, you know, my body is now starting to believe what
my eyes are seeing, and I lose context. That is, this is a work of fiction, and now I'm I guess that's the Yeah, maybe that's the high water mark of creating something good.
Yeah. Yeah. So you want people to have an emotional response to what you're doing and feel invested and empathized with what that character is going through. And if you can make an audience cry or laugh or something, then you've the audience believes you.
Do you think that because you are.
I'm going to be honest, I'd heard of your name, but I didn't know anything really, and so yes saying today I've done a little bit of a deep dive. So I've done a I don't have a PhD in Leila, or I have a Cert three right, I'm.
A SERT three.
Oh how funny, Yeah, I have a Cert three in Leila McDougall. But do you think because you are like all the stuff that I've watched, there's no set of persona like with you know, some people, there's welcome back, it's five past yeh, well coming up next, we've got there's this whole fucking voice and energy. I forgot to tell you, Leila, we're very swear at the project.
That's okay, this whole kind of.
Vibe that's like, you're not really like that, So don't don't like, why are you doing the news with that weird voice? Just use your voice, you know, and everything that I've seen you on it, like I get the sense that if you're talking to a camera like you are right now or you know or you're not, I get the sense it's exactly the same.
Yeah, I'm very I guess it was just being brought up in a country town and you are who you are, like you can't. I was never brought up with in a fake environment, if that makes sense. Like, I think I'm a reflection of the environment that I was raised in. Like, and I did go away to a fancy boarding school in year nine, and I was exposed to that fake world. So I kind of lived in two worlds, you know,
from that age. I was exposed to this high end, you know, parents earning a lot of money, kids having everything, Like I was the only person in my whole year level that couldn't afford a computer for school, Like I didn't have one, or I was the only person that didn't get braces. But then when I'd go, like I was at home in my hometown, I kind of didn't fit in again because they all thought I was a bit too fancy because I was going away to a
fancy school. So I was kind of like, Okay, I don't want to be fake like these people, and I don't want to be one of those, so I've just got to be me. And I guess my dad's just a bit of Alarican and you know, having all of his antics growing up and things. I just, yeah, but I think I was. It took me a long time to really embrace who I was as well, because you kind of think I'm not good enough, I don't fit
in blah blah blah. And it took me until I was probably twenty eight to just be totally comfortable in my own skin.
Yeah.
Yeah, But I think if you can be that authentic you, which is not to say, by the way, everyone that everyone who goes to boarding schools.
No, no, definitely no, no.
There are some lovely people at boarding school, very authentic and gorgeous, and a few fakey shmaky's, but that's in every group in society.
But I think if you can like this thing, this.
Imposter syndrome vibe right, nearly everyone I talked to has it or has had it, and I like you. I know that you didn't feel like you were the sharpest tool in the shed, or maybe you got pigeonholed because you had dyslex here and you had some learning issues which wasn't really you didn't get clarity around until later, which kind of change your life.
We'll talk about that.
But I grew up also feeling dumb or not smart or not this hole, not good enough, not I.
I was a morbidly obese kid, so I was the fattest.
Kid in my school, right, so that you're right, Yeah, that brought Yeah, so my name at school was Jumbo, Like people didn't call me Craig, they call me Jumbo because But anyway, but that that environment and that where you grow up and you're like, oh, I'm not but I think I was one of many. I think many people feel not worthy, not good enough, not pretty enough, handsome enough, lean enough, smart enough, talented enough.
I think that's just consistent with the human condition.
Right, Yeah, and learning. I think a lot of people say that to me, like how how do you take the knockbacks all the time, because you know, I might have had one success, but there's been probably one hundred failures to get to that point, and constantly being knocked down as a kid in getting back up, it's built that resilience, I think, to not be afraid to fail because I know, like if I fail at something, it's not really that big a deal, Like you just get
back up and try the next thing. So you know, like I remember being at school and everyone in beginning like no, and you know, on their exams and I'd be like forty two. I'm like getting closer to a pass like, so I think just that learning to fail, not winning everything. Like you know, if you're a kid that grows up winning everything and you get to being an adult and you lose for the first time, it's hard.
It's so true. Yeah.
Yeah, We've got to know how to lose and fail in life because it's you know, we don't win all the time.
I think sometimes mediocrity is a superpower because I think when you grow up as the kid who isn't the best or the fastest, or the smartest or the whateverest, right, when you're that kid, and I was definitely that kid, and you were probably a version of that kid, you have to be adaptable. You have to fucking figure out Like in your case, I can't read and I can't do maths, but I don't want everyone to know. And it wasn't that you were dumb, it was that you
had an undiagnosed issue, condition, whatever. But you're trying to navigate the world without something that most people have.
So you have to become adaptable, right yeah.
Yeah, Like even now, I'm just starting to figure out that everyone's brain doesn't work at the pace mind does, and I expect people to keep up with my brain and I'm like, oh, hang on, maybe maybe not everyone's brain goes at my speed. Shit like, and I'm still learning it now. I'm thinking wow and tapping into all these different things that I was like, Oh, I thought this was a bad thing growing up. They told me
I was to you know, all over the place. But really it's just learning how to use it to your advantage.
I saw in your by the way, Lela's got a really good Australian story did a piece on you and it's fucking amazing. It's so good, So congrats on that. But in that you said, essentially you said I'm a lot. I think you said I'm quite full on, I'm quite alon. How do people go with that? Some people would really resonate, and some people would be a bit overwhelmed.
Maybe yeah, and they are. And you know, my husband's probably the most laid back person in the world, and he just is amazing and just is like, yeah, right, oh, she's on this tangent, this idea this week and not this week. And then some people just find me a lot because I just I'm not someone who talks about I know, little things like I love chatting about ideas and what we're going to do next and how we
can work as a team. And then if someone wants to come on the team, I get really excited because I'm like, yay, how are we going to And I start bringing them in and some people love it and they jump on board and they come with me, and then other people are like, whoa wa, this is too much, like I can't do this. So I guess, yeah, like if you've got the pace to keep up and jump on, Like I've got Kelly Wendell who's on my team at the moment, and she's just as crazy as I am.
So it's just finding other crazies. And we shouldn't talk to ourselves because as soon as I meet someone, I start to go to defend myself and say, oh, you know, I am a lot, I am full on, I am crazy, like kind of pre warning them about what I am. And I'm like, why do I do that?
Yeah? Why do you?
But I think also, and I'm not just trying to make you feel good or pissing in your metaphor or pissing in your metaphoric pocket, but I mean, like, I've known you for five minutes and I watched a couple of hours of stuff on you. But you know, to me, you're gifted to me. And again I'm truly mean this right, you're highly intelligent. Not only are you not dumb, right,
you're highly intelligent, highly creative, highly motivated. Yes you're not good at everything, Yes you've fucked up, Yes you've failed at shit. Yes you're human. Welcome to the world's biggest club. We all fuck up and fail, but I think you know, the challenge is to fuck up and fail and make mistakes and look silly and be embarrassed and be humiliated, and then out of all of that go that's okay, that's okay, that's everyone, like, that's everyone, and you know, and even the kids.
I need to be careful how I say this, but you know, I've.
Caught up with people from school that I went to it one hundred and thirty years ago who were super I mean super smartly la super academic, super gifted, super athletic, and let's just say, for some.
Of them, it really didn't work out at all.
So having that running start may not be the gift that we all think.
Yeah, yeah, definitely, You've got to have a bit of grit, a bit of mongrel, I call it like you've just got to have that fire in the belly to just and I don't know, and I don't know if you can teach that to people, whether it's something you've just got or you don't, but having that bit of mongrel and fight sort of helps you just punch through the next thing. And yeah, sure I have days where I'm like, I don't want to get out of bed. Life sucks, blah blah blah. We're all going to have those days.
But it's about how you wake up the next day and get out. And that's how I just look at it. And I'm just and even used to say to yourself, like I've been to a couple of third world countries on missionary trips with students when I was teaching, and you just think, Wow, how lucky was I to be
born in Australia in the family. I was like, it's like a you know, zero point three percent chance that I could have been born here, like my spirit could be in this environment, yet I am, So let's get kracking.
That's such a great stat I mean, you think I always think about that, you know, looking with it again sounds cheesy, but it's just true. Looking at the world through a lens or trying to look at the world through a lens of gratitude and self awareness and situational awareness. I'm the same as you. I grew up in a great family and a great place. I have great friends, And yeah, I was a fat kid, but that's that was my fault.
Nobody made me fat.
And even though people call me jumbo, there was no real malice in it, right, that was like because I was just Jumbo, Right, But then you think, like a friend of mine got literally blown up by gas bottles in a work in an industrial accident seven years ago, and I see him a few times a week at the gym. I train him and have helped him recover and a whole bunch of stuff. But every day of his life he has pain like he never has He never has a pain like a zero pain day. And
you know, they said he would be a quadriplegic. Then they said he'd be a paraplegic. They said, you know, have a significant massive brain injury. He'd never be able to you know, and all of these things that he was meant to not be able to do he can
now do. He walks with a stick, he drives himself to the gym to meet me, and but life is you know, he's done some amazing shit, but life is hard, and like compared to his life, every day of my life is like a fucking Disney movie, right, And it's like an episode of something, you know, I'm like, Wow, I don't get up in pain. I can press a button and the air conditioning comes on. I can turn on a tap and there's cold water. You know, two billion out of eight billion people in the world don't
even have fresh water, but they can't. I can just go, oh, here's a tap, here's a glass, clean water boom, like a lot of people don't. And I know again, you know this seems cliche, but sometimes we don't value things until we don't have them anymore. And sometimes the things we really really want are just like, oh can I get.
Out of bed?
Yeah?
Am I pain free? Oh? Can I? Is this person still in my life?
You know? Like that looking through that lens of awareness and gratitude, I think that is more life changing than actually the situation.
Yeah, definitely. And I've been I've got in trouble for saying this before, but it's it's so true. Like my dad always said to us as kids, there's always someone worse off than you. It's so true. But then I've been I've got in trouble for saying that sometimes because they're like, oh, but you're diminishing other people's problems. But I'm like, but if we all looked at it as
the way of I am lucky and genuine gratitude. Like there's a lot of ingenuine gratitude around where people are like, oh, I'm grateful for this, and you know, they do their reflection and their gratitude journal and all this sort of stuff. But I'm like, are you genuinely glateful? You know, you can say you are and you're living a life of gratitude, but are you really And there's that's that difference between it genuine gratitude and not genuine Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's like when people say I'm really spiritual, I'm like, if you were, you wouldn't say that exactly.
I love that one. They're like, I live a spiritual life area if you were, I could just look at you and and yeah, yeah, I don't have to tell me.
It's like I did a humility workshop on the weekend. I was the best. Yeah, but I think, you know, to your point of when you say that you diminish people's pain or whatever or problems.
I'm with you in that.
I think we can acknowledge people's problems of course, and go, yes, you do have it hard, or you have had it hard, or we're acknowledging that you have real issues and challenges and problems. We're acknowledging that. And here's some empathy and here's some care, and I mean that genuinely, but also at the same time, what do you have to be grateful for?
Is there anything you know? Is there you know?
Can you get out of bed? Can you walk? Can you walk to a fridge and there's food in there? Do you have that option? You know? And look, I mean at the same time, we've got to interweave the practical realities of living life on planet Earth. And it can be tough mentally, emotionally, physiologically, you know, socially, all of those things. But that it's like I put up a post this morning on my social media this is a bad thing to do in the middle of a podcast. I'm going to find it and I'm.
Going to read it to you.
So if anybody doesn't follow me on Insta it is Craig Anthony Happer. So I put up this post which you can't see, but it says the problem with the when you do this you make me feel that mindset is that you make me feel. Part of the statement is telling the world and yourself that someone else is in control of your feelings.
You know.
It's like, when you do this, you make me feel, I'm like, well, maybe that's again. I'm not saying that you know that people aren't insensitive or nasty.
Of course they are. Of course people are mean and nasty. We get that.
But then at some stage we need to have some kind of for one of a better term sovereignty or responsibility for our own feelings and responses. Right, Ultimately, you need to manage you. You need to manage your mind, your emotions, your body. And of course Craig Harper might say something that's insensitive because he's a fuck right he might.
He might, Right, there's a good chance today.
Right. But even in the middle of that, there's still what you do with that, right, Yeah?
Yeah, And that's it. Like, as you can only control your own actions and your own thoughts, you cannot control someone else. You cannot expect them to always be thinking of everybody else and what they're how they're making people feel. Because are you also thinking about everything you say and how that affects the other person. No, So it's like this whole thing. We're all like, I'm the victim. Don't say this to me because I'll be triggered or it
might do this to me. It's like, but are you also putting out what you want to get in?
I'm going to tell you something that my listeners will hate me telling you because they've heard it too much, but you have never heard it, right, Fuck it, So I'm going to tell you. Everyone else, get yourself a chocolate, come back in two minutes. So my PhD Leila is on a thing called metaperception, which is your ability to understand the Leila experience for everyone else. So the question is, for everyone else in my life, what's it like being around me? So for me, it's like, what's the Craig
experience like for Lela in this moment? What's the Craig experience like? For my audience or for my mum or dad or my business partner, what's the Craig or my friends?
Right?
And so it's understanding us through the eyes and experiences of others, and it's kind of an interpersonal superpower. So it's where we start to think. So when we think about thinking, that's called metacognition, where we just start to think, why do I think the way that I do? Why do I react to what?
You know? Why when?
Why when you know, my dad does this, or my friend does that or says that, why do I think that?
Why do I you know?
So that's it's kind of almost doing a deep dive into understanding your own mind. And then the next level on that is understanding the mind of others, which is called theory of mind, which is your ability to just understand, not necessarily agree with, but how other people think, right yep. And then the next layer to that is understanding how
people think about you. And you being a public figure now like it or not, it's in your interest not to be worried about what people think to you, but to have an awareness of, oh, what's the.
Me experience like for them?
And that's something I've had to deal with and navigate because you know, in the same show, I'll get feedback from people going, thank you so much, that was fucking amazing.
Blah. Blah blah.
I love how real you are and the swearing and the you know, the authentic and someone else will go, please stop swearing, it's offensive. Yeah, you know, and you're like, of course that's because it's the same stimulus.
But there's these myriad of individual responses.
Yeah, And that's something that like I've probably struggled with a lot in my life is like what is another person's experience of me? And getting used to the fact that, Like, I think I went through a point where I was like a real people pleaser. I just wanted to do everything to please everybody and make sure I was liked. And then I got to a point where I'm like, why am I changing my behavior and who I am? Like I've totally lost my creative spark. I'm not doing
anything that really makes me happy anymore. How do I get back to being me? Because I am a bit eccentric and you know, like and moving to a place where you didn't grow up and everyone in the community just knows you because they watched you grow up, I
think it's really hard. Like everyone in Walker just knew I was a little bit creative, you know, they knew my struggles and what i'd gone through with schooling and they were all really supportive, and to this day that little town is like my biggest fan club when I love it. But then coming to a place where I had to try and fit in and please everybody, you'll lose that and then sort of going no, I want to be me, and then the people that do like me will come to me, and I can't make everybody
like me. I can try and be as pleasant to these people that I don't have the same opinions and views on life as, but I can't change myself to just make sure that they like me. Does that make any sense again?
One hundred percent? Yeah.
And I think it's just about, you know, being authentical. I mean, we can still be sensitive and aware to others' needs.
You know.
It's like my mum doesn't like swearing, so I don't go, how the fuck are you merry?
Right?
Yeah, even though I normally swear.
Yeah, I'm aware.
I'm sensitive to my mum's needs and likes and dislikes, and so that's just to me, that's just respectful. But yeah, but if you and me are hanging out having a coffee and we talk for an hour, I'm probably going to say fuck twelve times, right, and I don't do it for a fact or you know, and maybe I should or maybe I shouldn't, but it reminds me when I first started. So my main job, Leila in Inverted Commas, is corporate speaking. And when I first started, you know,
so I'm sixty one. I did my first corporate gig at twenty six. By the time I was twenty seven, twenty eight, thirty ish, I was, I was wearing fucking suits. I hate suits and I hate suits, right. I own one suit and if I absolutely have to drag it out for a wedding or a funeral, have to, I will, but I really don't.
And that's just me, right, And I just got.
To a point where I went, I mean, unless the client or the company, unless they absolutely like, unless it's a deal breaker, I'm not wearing a suit. And so when companies book me, now I go, what's the dress code? And if they go, you know whatever, I go cool, I don't wear suits, And they're like, I go, I don't wear business attire. So I'll be wearing boots, jeans and a shirt.
Is that okay?
And they go all right?
And if I can I'm going to go black T shirt, army shorts and sneakers. They're like, all right, And I've been at many corporate dig events where yeah, I'm.
The only person in the room in a pair of shorts and.
That I'm I don't yeah, yeah, I mean it doesn't have but for me, I don't know.
I feel like and.
Again this is just completely individual, not right or wrong, but when I wear a suit, I feel like I'm pretending that I'm something that I'm not pretending to be something I'm not. But all right, speaking of fashion, there's so much to talk about with you. So you grew up thinking you're a dummy, and you're not a dummy. But at some stage, and we'll jump back and forth because I know I'm not going chronologically in your story, I realize that.
Tell us about you and fashion. When did that door open?
I guess it's a family thing. Like all the women that have ever come before me have been very creative and make things like and I guess you know, I'm probably the first generation of my family where we have access to just buying stuff because we want it. So everyone else in my before me, if they wanted something, they'd make it. Themselves, So I've got that. So my mom, my, Nan, my great grandmother, they were all sewers and knitters and everything,
so I just naturally had that flare. But yeah, when I went away to my second school in Armadale, they had they actually had textiles as a subject, and I just was like a duck to water. I loved it. I loved sewing, I loved making clothes. And then when I look back at it at my life as a kid, like I used to make all my dolls little clothes out of bits of scrap fabric that Mum had laying around, and yeah, so I just have always had this fascination with clothes and and fiber. I think I loved fiber
more than I loved fashion. I kind of didn't want to work in the fashion industry after I'd gone and studied it because I sort of resented everything that it was like this fast fashion, manipulated people to buy your product or that sort of thing, Whereas I fell in love with wool. And I guess that's mainly because my parents were fine wool growers, and I was like, how am I going to make my dad rich? I'm going to make clothes out of wool very nice. But yeah, that's that was my plan.
Didn't work well, but you did it did go on to win an award, so you must have some talent.
It tell us what did you win? It was something when you're at school, wasn't it.
Yeah. So I remember going to this Woolf Fashion Awards in year nine and I just I even remember distinctly sitting in the chair. I know exactly where I was sitting in the audience, like I've got a memory like you wouldn't believe, Like it's quite it freaks people out sometimes, but I remember exactly where I was sitting. We were watching this fashion show with all these other you know, fashion things in war coming down. I remember saying to myself, I'm entering this year next year and I'm in it.
And so I did, and I entered it and I didn't win anything that year. But the following year I entered and instead of entering the kids like the student section, I entered the wedding dress section because I found this really amazing fabric, white woolen fabric, and I made it into a wedding dress. And I didn't think I was going to win anything with it because I wasn't in the student category. But yeah, I ended up winning a scholarship to study fashion design.
And did you do it?
Yeah, yep, I went on to do It was kind of like my key to getting anywhere, because I wasn't going to get into UNI with my grades at anything, and to get into study fashion design because it's so competitive, Like you needed a it was a UAI when I was at school. You needed a ninety eight UAI. Definitely wasn't getting.
That only if you added up all your subjects.
Yeah, yeah and put them all to it. So I got forty nine point five. So I was like, way off.
It Isn't it funny though, that you can be based on certain criteria, I mean you're not but on that criteria or system, you know, very very sub average, right, Yeah, But in a depending on what protocol or tool or measurement we use, you might be the smartest in a group of one hundred, depending on what it is we're measuring. I mean, intelligence is such a it's such a spectrum of stuff, isn't it.
And I think something the other day where they said there's a difference between intelligence and knowledge. Intelligence is we just have it or we don't but knowledge. You can give yourself knowledge, and I guess that's what school is, that they're giving us knowledge to then regurgitate it in a way. But just because someone has all the knowledge doesn't mean they're actually always intelligent in every situation.
One hundred percent. That is beautifully said. I mean that is true, and there are some people that are knowledgeable and smart. There are some people that knowledgeable and not smart, some people that don't have the same academic prowess. I would say you and me. I was probably probably marginally better at school than you, but not a lot, to be honest. And I'm even though I'm doing what I'm doing now with my PhD, I'm not actually an academic.
I'm more a pro academic, right, So I naturally understand stuff, then I need to almost reverse engineer it to say, oh, what does research say about this? Like I start off with something that I intuitively or instinctively or experientially know, and then I go, what is science or what is research or academia say about this is the thing that I know naturally, is it supported by any kind of evidence?
You know?
And that's the that's the thing, because we could there are so many people that I need to say this carefully, but Okay, so where I study and they're great people, They're great and some of them are like, depending on the conversation, I could feel like definitely the dumbest person in the room because there's just I'm like that is I've got no idea what you're all talking about. Or there could be another conversation and I might be the smartest person in the room. It depends what we're doing
and what the subject matter is. But I think that overarching kind of idea of is can I what do I know? What do I understand? And then most importantly, what am I doing with that knowledge and that understanding and that intelligence to create something good in the world or me or good for my family or good for the people I care about? Like, am I operationalizing this stuff to produce real world results?
Yeah? And I remember just being at school and having these these thoughts, you know, where there's girls in my year level that were just so smart and they'd get like ninety eights and like be so clever, and I'd get so frustrated at them because I'm like, you have I would give anything to have what you have. In beginning those marks but you're just you're always getting in trouble and you're not really pushing yourself to your best ability.
Yet you have that potential, and it used to just frustrate me so much because I would have just given anything to be able to just get the marks that they were getting and go and have the opportunity to study whatever they wanted when they left school, and I just didn't have that. They used to frustrate the shit out of me.
I can imagine.
What.
So when did the.
Dyslexia curtain get pulled back and you and your family went ah this? Yeah?
Year nine? So because yeah, I went away.
I went to.
Away to a different school because yeah, I just wasn't getting anywhere at the current one I was at. But the one that I was at, my best friend was there, and we'd worked out a way of hiding everything. So, like you know, when you're in like, dyslexics are really good at disguising themselves because they don't want to stand out. And I wasn't doing that consciously. It was just something that I was doing because I thought I had to fit in. So my best friend was kind of like
my safety blanket. And when I went away to the next school, she wasn't there sort of helped me and hide it. So what you know, when like it's the worst thing teachers do. They're like, you read out a sentence, you and you go around the room. And we'd go around the room, and so i'd like count how many people were in front of me, and then i'd count the sentences and then be where I am, and then i'd practice the sentence to make sure I had it.
So I wasn't hearing anything else going on in the classroom. I'm just concentrating on making sure that when it gets to me, I can read out my sentence. But then there's always some smart ass in front of you who thinks I'm going to read too rose the whole thing, and you're like, now I've got to try and find the next one. Now, where's the next one? But my girlfriend used to sit next to me and she'd whisper the words to me, and I just repeat them so
they could A great friend. I know, she's my best And then in all our mass exams, I'd sit next to her and I'd just copy her answers and wanted it. No one ever worked it out, And we were so good at it that some of them I'd make difference so that it wasn't an exact her exams and stuff. So when I went to the new school and like the teachers that said, oh, she's okay at mass and blow and my marks, like they were like, this kid can't even add up because I was didn't have her
there to copy. And one of the teachers I kind of worded up another girl. I'm like, oh, can you just help me read this because I'm just a bit nervous and I don't know how to read. And she was whispering it to me and I was repeating it, but the teacher heard her doing it and was like, what's going on here? Like this isn't she's yeah, And then that's when they started testing me and yeah they were like you know there were letters back to front.
My whole handwriting was tilted like the wrong way. And now even to this day, like Pete, when you read my handwriting, it's like you've put that around the wrong way, Like what are you doing?
Like were they were?
They?
Were they good though? Were they empathetic? And oh?
Like it was amazing. I had a learning support teacher, missus Ashley. To this day, like I still stay in touch with her. I used to spend an hour every day with her go back learn different ways, Like she really encouraged the creative side of me and like not concentrating on just you know. She just said, like, you're never going to be the best reader and writer, and
that's fine. We're going to play to your strengths. So like I did all my creative subjects, I did really well in those and there's always writing components to those subjects. But she just was so supportive in the fact that she's like, you know, are you going to write an essay when you leave school? I was like, probably not, oh, but here I am writing things. So it was good to have that support. And then my textiles teacher in
year eleven and twelve, she was just amazing. Missus Thomas definitely Thomas a stale state in touch with her and having those people that believed in your strengths, not and playing to your strengths rather than always telling you you're not good at something and trying to make you better at the thing that you're never going to be good at. They found was good at and helped me get those Yeah.
Well, shout out to missus Ashley and shout out to Missus Thomas, shout out to mister Ryan, who used to tell me. Mister Ryan, my year eight teacher, who used to when I was fucking round, it'd go Harper. I'll be like, yes, sir, you don't be a dickhead. I'm like, yes, sir. But you know what I loved because I was being a dickhead. I mean shock, everyone's everyone's like, oh my god, I can't believe it.
But he would go.
What I loved was there was no bullshit. He's like, don't be a dickhead. I'm like, yes, sir. And that was it, and I'm being a dickhead for solid twenty minutes.
And then he helped me again. But he was an ex cop who yeah, he was a policeman, and then later he became a teacher. So I bought that that kind of cop energy and that authoritive kind of and I needed it and I responded to it. So and isn't it funny? Like I mean that we're talking two thousand years ago, but isn't it funny?
I mean, missus Ashley and Missus Thomas are probably for you, like twenty years ago plus, but you still you still remember them and still value them, right yeah, yeah.
And it's and that's when I like, cause I started teaching because you know, studied fashion design and married a farmer and needed a job, so I did my dip D. And that's what I said to myself, I want to be that teacher in a kid's life. Like, I'm not going to be that to everyone, but if there are kids that I know are like that were like me, I want to help them. And like my first two years of teaching, like I still stay in touch with some of those kids and they're great and I love
seeing them grow. But my art class, my first ever art class, year eleven and twelve, they were just the coolest kids.
So when did you start and stop? Oh, so you taught art.
You didn't have to teach anything else though, Like I'm thinking, you don't want to be teaching bloody Australian history or something wherever you go.
But I think I'm better at teaching that because I have a different way of teaching it, Like I have a different sequence that kids can understand, rather than someone who's just really good at history teaching history, someone who struggled with something and has to work out how to understand it can then explain it in a way that helps other people understand it. I think it's quite an interesting but no, I don't teach history and things. I teach art, textiles, would metal food like the fun stuff?
Yeah, definitely the fun start, you know. I think the thing also about I can't remember the exact stat but I think it's this, although I could fuck it up, but thirty percent of all millionaires or around thirty percent of all millionaires or not that that's necessarily a big deal these days, but a dyslexic, like there's a disproportionate
number of people who are successful who have dyslexia. And when you go you google famous people who are dyslexic, it's like so many really famous, high profile people.
I reckon. Part of it is exactly what you did.
You have to go through life solving problems, and when you become a big person, you know, like you you have your own business, you did your film which you will talk about you like being a human. A big part of being a human is just figuring shit out in real time because life gives no fucks about your results or your feelings or your happiness, and so you know, It's like before the U Project, I did three other podcasts,
three other shows. They didn't work, and then I started this one and I made no money for like, not one dollar. I lost money for two years. And you go, oh, well, you could call that a failure, or you could call that part of my apprenticeship to become a black belt instead of a white belt, you know, and so you're you're produced. Like even when you spoke about failure before, I was thinking, when we reframe failure without trying to sound too cliche again, you just go, well, there was
an outcome. Yeah, I learned from that outcome. Well, next time I'll do more of that and less of that other thing. Or that was completely wrong, but I reckon, I've got more of an eight like.
We're always you know.
For me, I got to the point where I can talk to you, who I've never met, for maybe an hour and a half comfortably. Not because I'm a genius or you're a genius, but because I've done this so many times and I've had so many conversations, and I used to be shit at it, and now I don't think I'm brilliant at it now, but now I've got skills and knowledge and awareness and understanding and insight that I didn't have.
But I couldn't get the knowledge skills, et cetera unless I went through the shit.
Yeah yeah, And like you could have read it in a book on exactly how to do it, or watched a documentary on how to do it, but you still would never have learned what you've learned until you go, oh, that's not the way you do it. The book did say that, but I didn't understand why it wouldn't work. But now I've done it and it didn't work. I get it.
Now, I get our champs.
It's me just interrupting the flow of the conversation because the lovely Leela and I.
Banged on for a long time. We had a very long chat, an hour and a half or thereabouts. So we're going to call this the end of part one. I hope you're enjoying it. We'll be back tomorrow with a second bit.