Good team. I hope your bloody terrific. Welcome to another installment the show. This is the continuation Slow Down, Craig. This is the continuation of the chat with Greg Riley and myself that we began yesterday. If you heard yesterday's show, If you didn't, probably need to listen to that one first. Nonetheless, here's part two. I loved this chat. I hope you do too. So let's open another door, and that is the the conversation around getting into altered states using various things.
We'll just say that, we'll just say that you I've been.
A psychedelic experimenter and but which is ironic because you are, you know, and I love you. But this boring middle aged bloke with glasses who works in a bank, it's so weird. Who doesn't smoke And I don't know if you drink, but you definitely don't drink a lot, and you're in good shape and you're fit, and you're an ex footballer and yeah, it just doesn't So how did how did that happen? How did you open the psychedelic door? Why? Why? Like? What do you? Oh?
Look, it was a client rend me once and she said I'm having these issues, can you help me?
And then after about talking about twenty it's.
Like, I can't help you with this, this stuff I can't help you with and we're talking about, Okay, what are you doing this weekend? I'm going up to this retreat. Yeah, I'm going to have to say, Ahascar retreat. And it's like, really, so you go to South America for that stuff? She said, no, no,
come along. Okay, So it came along this the person I have done anything outside of my other recreational drugs I shoved in my body when my early twenties, I sat in this circle and there was about twelve was in there in someone's garage and up in the bush and you go around. Basically you drink aoh oscar and you go around the circle. And I was second up, and I like to think that due to my history that can probably take a fair bit of you know, substances.
And they gave.
Me a fair light dose first up, and then so the first guy took his drink and then it came to me and I took it and tastes like dirt down to it, and they say it's about it takes about twenty minutes to forty minutes to kick in.
I really got to person seven and I was on the floor. I was dribbling.
I gone, literally, I was out cold like that. Had to basically get me out of the circle, take me outside. The next moment I wake up, this has probably been about half an hour.
I was out cold. I woke up.
I thought, oh, I should kissed myself like I felt like I had actually bet the bed and then Greg okay. So I woke up basically and the Sharman's over me. He's blowing smoking me, someone girl singing, He's got all that kind of stuff, and it's like, are you okay, You're okay?
And I went I think I was just weave myst it.
Guess no, no, you're alive now. I actually felt this thing come out of me. I felt it again. This people gonna go. He finally just flipped his lid. I felt this thing lift out of my body and leave. And the moment that left, I woke, I went, holy shit, I can just see life as it really is now, Like there was there was something inside me that it just I saw it come out through the top of my head. And when it came out, I've never felt well.
I felt good since then, But that was the first time he used a psychedelics.
I felt anything about I.
Was connected to everything, the whole shitting match, everybody, everything, the whole light, and I saw everything. There was a weird experience, and then it was just I went, okay, right, this that's pretty cool.
Hang on, hang on, just fucking steady on back, hang on, hang on. Okay. So you took some iowas car and you woke up half an hour later? Was it actually half an hour?
It was about half an hour?
Yeah, right, And when you said this entity left your body obviously not a physical thing, but like a spiritual or was it emotional? Was it mental?
Was it? It was this thing that like a robotic thing.
There was attached around my spine and my around my head and my neck.
It was. It came out. It was like metallic.
I could taste oil in my mouth when it was coming out, like a sort of a robotic AI implant kind of stuff.
Wow, And I can actually.
See it coming out, and then when it lifted out. I've never ever felt well, have since, but that was the first time I went oh wow.
This and that was that moment. Then, in terms of just an experience, and a feeling. Is that the best you've ever felt?
Wow?
How old were you then?
Fifteen years ago? Now so thirty five?
Wow? Yeah, so you're thirty five years old. You've gone on this. Okay, sorry to interrupt, I'm just trying because you know, I ring the cops if I'm going to take an as bro right like, yeah, yeah, all right? So you did.
That that and then I went, Okay, there's something in this, so I did a learn about it. So I say then to really, you know, dive deep into the there arapeutical uses of psychedelics in that space. So mainly the AOASCAR. I've done five VODMT, which is the is the frog venom, which you actually then smoke as well too. Yeah, actually into LSD, mushrooms, MDMA and all that kind of stuff, right, So so you sort of but it's all about therapeutic use.
So people kind of think that I'll go and have an AOSC experience, I'll come out, I'll be all here and I don't have to do anything.
It's no, that's not the case.
The spiritual healing of these plants a lay to access places beyond your conscious mind so you can deal with them yourself too. Many people go into these psychedelic experiences thinking that the plant's going to do the work for me. I can then come home and all my traumas solved. No, the integration parts, the vital part of actually this you haven't experienced.
When you come home, you have to do the work again, you know.
So that's why people get a bit funny with the wrong impression with psychedelics. But but then, yeah, I become an avid, avid journeyer and an avid learner of everything I get my hands onto from a research perspective in the field. So I sort of you know, linked up with some key people in the Australian you know, psychedelic community, and you know sort of become friends with them as well too, and you know, we sort of share stories.
And then yeah.
Went down that journey of experiencing Okay, what can you show me and ceremony about the nature of who we really are and you know, why we're here and nature consciousness. And I've had some experiences and then we's have been literally like I've been crying into a bucket bucket for two hours. Yeah, you know, I've been I've had times where I've seen, you know, I've died and basically from complete ego death and had to say goodbye to my wife and kids.
I was sobbing for two.
Hours and then break through and realize that, you know, it's it's all a contract of my mind. Right when you go deep into that place of reality, is just what you perceive or project based on what you believe, Like it's it's confronting stuff like.
It's it's you can't, I would not if you're not ready for this, it will screw you up, if you're not.
Ready to actually understand the nature of reality, that the fact is that you create the reality to the way you perceive it the way you think.
You just you just you can't handle it. You'll lose the plot.
M Do you feel like that? Like? I feel like our mind is a gift and sometimes a problem, right because we need our mind because it helps us navigate life and you know, think critically and make decisions and all those very fundamental practical things that we need to be a human being. You know, make a few bucks and feed the kids and have a conversation like we're
doing right now. It's important and valuable, of course, but at the other end of the scale, sometimes it's a thing that gets in the road of what's beyond the mind. And it's like, yeah, and by the way, I don't know what that is, but I definitely think that there's more than I understand, more than I can comprehend. And I feel like if I.
Said all there is is the all that I know, what I know, that's all there is, what I understand, that's all there is, well one, i'd be wrong too.
I'd be super arrogant, you know. And that like if there's do you feel like we're psychedelics? It gives you access to something that you can't have access.
To with your mind, absolutely, because most people think they live inside their head, they think they exist inside their brain.
And that's that's the first part, is that you don't like it.
And you know, I think we've had conversations about before about the nature of thought. Lord, does the brain actually think or is it just a receiver?
Yeah?
Yeah, I'm of the perception that the brain is not a thinker. It's just it's just the radio.
You know.
The I think in your recent course you've got out you do that analogy is that the radio waves are already in the air. The radio is a part that actually disciples waves and then translated the music.
Well, that's our brain.
I'm of the similar kind of ilk that thoughts are already in the consciousness. We're just attreating to those thoughts. And I think there's been studies done. The fact is, you know, there's when does the thought actually even happen?
Mmmmmmm, And then and then you love, oh yeah, and then you get weirder and go. Actually, I had to disappoint everyone. But there's no such thing as the mind. Correct, there's no mind. We don't have a mind, just a conduct. There's no such thing as greg.
Or go on, well greg was what I was told that I was, but of a birth certificate. But that's just someone someone called me like you know again, like I'm not my job, that's what I do, but it's not who I am, you know, it's not my bank though it's the car.
I drive where I live.
Those are all constructs of society and constructions to allow us to integrate the three dimensional world. Like we need to have these constructs so we can engage in this three dimensional world to have an experience of life like there is again we go, there is no purpose to life. We have this thing where we're so stuck on. We must have a purpose. Life's purpose is to experience. That's it, no more, no less. But we get obsessed with them.
I must save the world, I must have My purpose is to get ten thousand followers or a million followers. And that's something you do. The only pure purpose of life in itself is to experience life.
Couldn't the band the Ugly Mmmm that?
And if we scrub your name off your birth certificate, if we scrub Gregor and nobody in the world knows your name, you still exist. You haven't gone anywhere. That exactly the bloke that I'm looking at right now, still as as being still traversing the big round blue ball, still doing life.
And what do you change my day? By deep alt to Steve? Okay, Steve, Yeah, all of a sudden I changed. But still, you know, we were so stuck in our illusion of the ego.
Well, it's like me me thinking I'm an ever Last T shirt wearing an ever Last T shirt. Yeah, you know, that's how you go, there's Craig's where's Craig? He's the guy over there in the black ever Last T shirt. You know, that's how we can identify things.
But you need it to drive the car, right, you need you need the physical experience, you need to go to drive the experience. Right, That's that's why it's there. So you need to have these things, but they're not you. It's I think Peter Crone says this, I'm going to rip him off here, right, But it's like us driving a car with me thinking the weather car.
Yes, yes, And also I reckon there's another part to that, and that is I think the car, the car, the car that we're driving, has got so much more potential than we understand. It's like even with I was talking to somebody the other day, and I need to tread carefully here because this is just what I think, and I could be wrong, but I feel like we humans have pretty much the ability to heal ourselves from anything. You know, there's a few variables and a few caveats
around that. But I think that the problem is that we don't know how to drive our own body. We don't know how to harness our own capacity and potential. We don't realize and I mean realize in the cognitive sense, but also in the behavioral output sense. We don't realize how fucking amazing we can be and that you know you said before you're fascinated with the mind. Me too. I'm obsessed with potential and not oh how many listeners can you get or how much dough can you make?
But just you know, we had a guy and called Professor Jeffrey Retteger from Harvard Medical School. And if you haven't heard that, you'd like that. So he's a research he's an academic, he's a psychiatrist, a medical doctor. And he kept getting over time these people going hey, doc, could you look at this? And it was all of these cases of people who had terminal illnesses who ended up being healed, like not in remission, no nothing, no disease,
and he's like, noth doesn't happen, not can't happen. And eventually someone that he really trusted went hey, bro, check this out. And he went all right, and then he went, well that doesn't make any sense. Give me another one. And he went, well, fuck, that doesn't make any sense.
So he became this reluctant researcher into this area where and this is just in his work, so it's probably millions, but in his work it's hundreds and hundreds of people who have been fully healed from shit where medically there is zero hope for recovery. Now you go, well, all right, so we don't need to understand how that works, but we need to go. But it's possible. Well that's just the exciting bit to me. Oh it's possible. It's not probable,
but it's possible. How do I move from probable, sorry, possible to probable? What can I do? And like even when you know, like part of my and this is selfish, this is my personal agenda. But I don't want to look, feel or function. I don't really care about the look too much, but I don't want to fuel, function, operate like a sixty one year old, not because sixty one year olds are bad, but because most sixty one year
old Australian blokes they're really on the slide. Like they're physically, emotionally, mentally, behaviorally, fucking everything's on the slide. Now. A big part of that, not all of it, but a big part of that is choices and behaviors and lifestyle and food and exercise and mindset and behaviors and patterns and rituals and habits. Right, oh, well, all of those things are in my control. Oh, that's easier said than done. Craig, Yes it is, Brian, yes
it is. Of course, it's fucking easier said than done. Literally, everything is easier said than done. But it doesn't mean it's not possible. And then when you go, oh, what if I can get my self limiting thinking and my shitty beliefs and all that programming and conditioning that I wear around like a heavy coat, a heavy self limiting coat. What if I can discard that bullshit and without being weird or you know, unrealistic, but just push back the curtain and go, fuck, what's behind this curtain?
Like?
Could I Could I be seventy years old in nine years and have the mental acuity and sharpness and psychology and physiology and neurology and you know, cardiology of a healthy forty five year old? Could I do that? Well? The answer is I don't know, but I'm going to see. You know, I'm going to do everything possible. If I get hit by lass next Wednesday, I do.
But let's yeah, that's like most people want to push the barrow about something happened to me thirty five years ago, and I get to push that agenda as to the reasons why while I is like this because it's easy.
Well, it also it gives you sympathy, and it gives you attention, and it gives you validation for the shit that you're not doing. And I let me give your fucking cuddle and a backgrub. No fuck all that.
Like the same thing is about like I've got badgenetics, Like, no, you're just lazy.
Yeah, oh, now you've opened the door. Bad genetics are real everyone. But also some people are lazy. Those things are true, you know. And it's like, I mean some people, you know, five year olds get cancer, So there are lots of variables that are out of our control. The other day when you and I spoke and you kind of touched on this, but I maybe want you to
go a little bit deeper, if you would. You were telling me about this experience that you had where and it's not that you didn't love your wife or kids or your family. You did, but you had this experience where you thought you were dying and you were terrified. This was when you were on a journey. Yeah, yeah, correct, correct me if I get any of this. But you're on a journey, You're in an altered state for want
of a better term. And in this place that you're in in inverted commas, this place you thought you were going to die, and you had all the terror associated with that feeling like you're going to die experience. And then I'm not sure if you said, but I feel like you said in the moment that I just gave over to dying, it was like something magical happened, and you came out of that with a profound love for your family.
Yeah, and.
This is what we're saying is going into these journeys, it's not you'd be very very careful how you do it and who you do it with, because it can go very badly, very quickly. And like you were, with you, I've got a very number of skilled people around us that can help us out. And in that space, one of my mates actually helped me out because I was in a bad place.
But that was the thing. I I was the on the couch.
And I was like, I thought that I was not coming home. I was I had died, Like, all right, I'm dead, and I'm in this place of going through this year thing and I'm seeing this thing in the future about Vanessa waking up the next day. I haven't come home. She's freaking out what's going on? The kids are screaming because my Daddy's dead. Daddy is dead, and I'm ball of eyes out, literally ball of eyes out. What have I done?
How stupid am I?
And then going through and seeing their life without me being there, and I was just continually just one of the guys. Guy's wives are there, said like I was literally sobbing, like for it.
It wasn't growing. It was sobbing.
And then I just had this moment, well, if I'm dead, I'm dead.
I'm just get used to it.
I was just accept the fact that I've died and this is what's happened. And in that moment, I actually just let go and just went, Okay, I'm dead. Then then it shifted, like that's the thing with psychedelics. It pushes again to the edge and you have these layers of things you let go of and then reveals on the other side that you're what you're afraid of was nothing to be afraid of. It didn't go through that
gate per se to open another part. And then on the other side is that then I saw that you know the construct of my reality is, you know why they're in my reality and how I've created them and know what they are and the profound love that we have together and and I you know, again melted into the universe and it went beyond that into another place where you know you and this again, this is pretty weird, but you're in this place of going, well, I just
created a universe and everything in here is a construct that's a game, and I created all the construct of the game through through an experience for fun, just because
I could. And I was thinking about and even that space like, well, we had the question about what is God, and it's like, well, God's created in this universe to play the game, to play the construct of this universe, because without a supreme divine being, then that doesn't play to the game code, right, So so it's sort of like simulation theory kind of stuff.
Is that I created all this stuff inside this.
Universe which create which has codes in there so we can actually play the game to have the experience. So for me to have this experience, I don't have all these other things that he'd actually to do that. So and there's the universes I've created to have different experiences.
So it gets weird.
I love it so I wanted to ask you, you know, when you're not being a weird you know, psychedelic cosmonaut fucking exploring the outer reaches of I was going to say the human experience, but the human experience and beyond you're a boring banker, Well you're not. But you you work in that space and you're working with, you know, people in the corporate space, and what is what is it that what's the intersection of greg both gregs and
bringing both gregs into that space? Like, for example, I think what I bring into the corporate space because I'm not a corporate, but I play in the corporate space regularly. But I understand corporate. I can talk corporate. I understand business. I've owned my own business, so I've built, developed, been an entrepreneur, employed hundreds of people, so I get it. So I can plain that space. But I can also
talk like the bloke next door. And I don't wear a suit, so I bring a certain you know whatever that seems to work, right. I'm not the best at it, but I'm okay, what is it that you are bringing into that space now? And how do you integrate some of your more you know, out there stuff for want
of a better term. The term didn't come to mind, but you know what I'm saying in integrated into a model or a service that helps people not only at work can be good at what they do as as the managers, but also help them self, regulate and look after them.
So it probably goes back and you know the whole slow is the next stuff. Why do you do this?
Why are you're so passionate about bringing you know, high performance, you know, with a certain you know, EQ plus intuition plus human behavior into the workplace. When I was you know, this is between the jobs in the banks, was working Oerica. We had a a stuff survey that came out and was we had a probably very poor rating.
So they had the whole.
Of the department, one hundred twenty odd people there with HR asking about why the you know, the rating was so low on the workplace feedback and the HR chit come out and she basically said, you know, it's we don't understand it. All that kind of stuff. You know, you can walk into my office anytime you want to. You should be able to come in here and talk about this stuff. You're really concerned about this, you know,
you should be able to trust me. And remember there was a lady sitting next to me, Rosie, and she just laughs. She goes, she's got no idea how she and me. At that stage, I was young Mark. I thought I could just put my hand up and say something, so I did. I said to the tage Hila, I said, okay, right, you've said all this stuff, but if you wanted us to come into your office and actually talk about some of the issues we've got here, you have to have trust.
I said.
To have trust, you must know our names. I said, what's my name? You couldn't answer it.
I said what's her name? She couldn't answer it.
Two hours later, I was officially told to leave the company. I went to the general manager's office. You said, Greg, your career here at is effectively over. I'll write your a glowing reference, but we'll get you a job somewhere else.
Really, they seem like good questions to me.
Literally to hour, I was literally walked in the general manager's office and said, your career is now officially over.
Why What was the reason? I think we all knew, right, so they didn't explain it.
No, no, but we knew I've embarrassed the crap out of her like millions, because it was I'm seeing your people in that room, like real senior people, and I had really embarrassed. I'd see what everybody else was wanted to say, right, And that's sort of my personality. I'm happy to stick up to the little guys. Right, it's probably my you know, my family's all labor politicians, right, that genetics in there, and but.
It really it really irks me, like I have this sort.
Of value I'm very sometimes righteous, but very value driven in the space about people, and I love. I want people to be the best they can be. And where we're having situations like that where people are just full of share it, I just had to speak up. I couldn't sit there and not say anything, otherwise I would have not been able to look in the mirror.
The next day. Hidesight greatest Togever. Right.
I walked into a job two weeks later and double the salary, right, thank you very much. Right, But that really set the terms of Okay, well, why is HR there? Are they there for the people who are there for
the company? So I sadden really delving into that stuff and then going okay, well, what's the leadship about you know, and then I'll start going into Okay, most companies, most businesses have managers in place because they can do something or achieve something, or bundance a spreadsheet, or governance requests or stakeholder engagements. They can do a lot of stuff.
They're not people leaders, and they're different roles. But too often in businesses and corporations, we let these people who are very analytical, who are very good at their job, we're given roles that include managing people. They're not the same and they will never ever be the same. And I think it's unfair on people in those positions to be giving people leader roles because they're ineffective. And this is where you get to all these places where people
are miserable. And we talked the other day about, you know, people going to work in these corporate environments, are they just rocking up or they really inspired in the job, And most people aren't. Most just rocking up to pay the bills. They're not motivated to be there. So I'm really fascinated about that. And then I remember walking in to one room with their leaders one day and I say,
you guys, are all people leaders? Tell me the effect of stress on the brain and how it affects your team's performance.
All of them can answer it. Not one.
It's like, oh, okay, right, do you understand any of this stuff? Like they had no idea, like none, and these they led teams of forty to fifty people and then realize why their.
Teams are crap.
And I said, look, do you know that person out there who's on any depressants what that does to her work.
Ethics and what work performance?
You have any idea what's going home on a home for her behind the scenes, because that's affecting her work performance as well your people.
Leaders, you don't know this about your staff.
There's a there's a real lack of connection and so and a lot of places don't actually want to do it. They'll go and do an r U okay day, put some cupcakes out, put themselves on the back and say, hey, we're doing you know, we're doing We're doing what we need to to tick a box that says where we're a progressive company that cares about people's you know, mental well being. They don't, because two hours later they're going back into the same ship they came from.
It's so fun.
Leaders are so afraid to do actually make the that the stats back it up. You can look up any gartner, you know, McKinley, Harvard, Yale, across the board. What having you know, proper leadership in your business does for performance and profit and happiness and staff turnover and innovation like it's but they just don't want to invest.
No. And also, while there are great leaders, there are terrible leaders, and there are leaders that can't even get their own shit together. There are leaders people in leadership positions at least or management or senior positions, who are no hate here but themselves their they're train wrecks and they can't get their own shit together or manage their own life for whatever reason. And then they're put in
charge of a whole lot of other people. And it's not that it's their job to manage everyone's lives, but as you kind of infer, like, we need to at least understand our people and genuinely care for our people, like genuinely, like not be seen to care, actually not fucking simulated empathy, real empathy. And I have this conversation regularly, Greg, where I have you know before I've told you this,
but for the listeners. You know, one of the things that when you're a corporate speaker, everyone pretty much every time you do a gig, you'll have a meeting a week or a month before or whatever it is, and they will want to brief you on the event. Okay, Craig, this is the name of our conference, this is the theme. You'll speaker number one or ten or you know. Next week, I'm going away and I'm the only speaker. I'm doing a half day with an organization. And then there's the Okay.
So like a lot of times, it's especially with companies that I'm new to. Essentially, we want you to come in and rev them up and get them all pumped because the culture is a bit shit and the energy is a bit flat, sales are a bit down, and we want you to just fucking you know. The bottom line is we want we want to sell more shits and we want to make more go and whatever you need to do to them to get them to do that,
that's what we want you to do. Like, Okay, how about we don't treat them like they're a cog in a money making machine. Let's start with that. Let's start with how are you feeling let's start with how's your health? Are you sleeping? Are you eating well? Are you moving well? Here's one? How do you feel when you're at work? Here's another one? Do you look forward to coming to work? Do you feel safe? Do you feel seen and valued? Are you okay? Do you want to be here? Oh?
And they're like, what what I go? How about we just look after them as best we can, right what is appropriate, and maybe the byproduct is maybe that they'll just be better at whatever it is that they do. You know, like, if I'm my job is to sell widgets, and I'm physically, mentally, emotionally a better place than I was before Greg came to talk to our team. And now Greg's been working with our team for the last ten weeks and giving me advice and us as a
collective strategies and insights and tools and resources. And I've been operationalizing all the theory he's been downloading. And now ten weeks later, I'm sleeping like a fucking winner. I feel good, I'm less depressed, I'm more happy, I'm more solution focused. I'm problem aware, but I'm solution focused and now I'm great. So guess what without even focusing on my job. I'm way better for the company. Correct, And nobody even needs to talk about the bottom line or
productivity or efficiency. You don't even need to talk about it. You just need to go, hey, Craig, how are you?
You know where people have those awkward conversations like you to sit down and have a conversation across a cup of coffee.
That's you see.
Leaders, they just they don't know how to do it driving They hey, give me a Stutter's pack to update my program's performance and my But then in the human contact they struggle at massively, Like it's a skill set that if you learn emotional intelligence and you know and how humans work, that's the next.
Frontier for most people. Everybody should be learning this.
And I think, just like you and I are talking, it's like you, you, Greg and me, we need to do a deep dive on ourselves, which I think we both constantly do. I need to make sure that before I tell anyone else or share it with anyone else or direct or coach that at the very least I'm doing all of this for myself first, so that at the very least I'm doing my best to walk my talk. Because you know, as without going back to my research,
but it's very relevant. When I go in and I say to a boss, him or her, what do you think it's like being around you for them? Yeah, the response is generally somewhere in the I'm not sure, or I've never really thought about that, or I don't really care. They just need to do the job. I'm not their friend. It's very very few of them say, well, that's a fucking great question. Let's lean into that together. Craig let's and I'm like you now, that's not saying we need
to worry about whether or not people like us. That's a different thing. What we are talking about is awareness, situational awareness, context awareness. What is the Craig experience? Like you know, It's like, imagine, I thought I'm pretty good at podcasting, and every time I do a podcast, everyone thinks it's fucking diabolical. Well, three episodes in, I don't have a podcast. I don't have an audience, right, Which is not to say I think i'm acid it because
I'm two thousand episodes almost down. It's like, I'm still aware that I've got to learn and grow and evolve and be better. I'm working to do that. But I must I know, I must be doing something okay, and so too with leaders, like if you're not walking your talk, I'm not going to listen to you because I pay way more attention to what you do than what you say.
So when you are, even if it makes sense, and even if you're clever and articulate and you've got leadership skills, if I know that you don't do what you tell me to do, one no trust, no respect, and two I'm probably not going to do it because it's not the culture.
Here correct exactly right, and you mention the word trust. They are like augustly the other day is like, if you want to leader the people, you have to have led yourself first. You can't get people to do things you're not willing to do yourself. And people can see it, right, people will call the bullshit media straight away. They consider the fact that if you're just telling people to do the work and you're doing yourself, you're a hypocrite and
the things will fall around you very very quickly. But even to the point where look, I walk in the people's place, they go, Okay, what's your personal brand? Talking about greet that's my brand. It's like you know, what is your brand, which is your values?
How you act?
What do you stand for? People just don't have them like this. These are the questions I don't ask themselves. Yeah, they are great questions.
Yes, yes, yeah, how do you talk?
So if someone said, you know, my brand is you know how I articulate myself as the magician of the sage and the outlaw. So you'll see that I'm about transformation, deep wisdom, and I call a spade of spade and I break the rules. That's how I talk, right. Yes, that requires certain values associated with that as well too, So that's how I will, you know, sort of lived my life in that space. Some people have been more caregivers,
some people, you know whatever, they ask more jovial. But there are questions that the eternal investment on those questions are huge.
They're massive.
Yeah, all right, we're nearly done. I've got a couple of questions and I'm going to let you get back to your family. What is something in the last however many years that you got wrong, absolutely wrong. That's question one and question two, and they may or may not be related. Question one is what did you get wrong? Question two is what have you changed? Your mind about or perhaps one of you, what have you done a one eighty on.
Well have I got wrong?
The hardest thing is working from home is because I'm here, but I'm not here right. And some of the things is that I'm not sometimes the best listener.
Right, that I will actually be.
Here, but I won't be here because I'm actually my mind somewhere else. And something I'm very much aware of I have to sort of work on a lot more is that, you know, my thing is my family, but I need to actively listen a lot more than I had because there's so much going on, especially around that time, those last three ideas. There's so much going through my head that I need to be more present.
And again like it's I'm not.
I'm grateful that I did that, because it's again it's showing me a skill set that I need to develop. Like without not listening, I listen to my clients very deeply, but then I wasn't doing it with you know, at home. And I can get into this whole thing about Greg. You're an idiot, gregor're a dick, You're doing it wrong? You know, the whole poor me syndrome or you can go that is showing me the ability to develop a skill set.
Yeah in other ways. So so that yeah.
I got that wrong, and I had been for a while, and that has its impacts in its way. So especially when you're having this deep, you know, listening aspect with clients and they're going like, God, just listen to me. I never people, just you care so much, and then you know I'm blank with you know, in other aspects.
Right, So so that balls it up completely completely.
And something you've changed your mind about where you thought X, and now you think why perhaps if.
Anything political.
Let's say left versus right stuff right, as far as you don't there's some of the one same as the one thing. Okay, they're they're fighting for the same stuff, just in different aspects in different ways, but the they both need each other to exist, and one kind of exist without the other. But they also provide a very
very you know, amazing sort of duality. Whereas I was always probably probably more center right in the space, now I've sort of been trying to understand the the experience of the of the left side of stuff and see what you're coming from and kind of go, well, maybe I do have that part wrong in what I thought previously, so so in that space.
Look, and that's the thing is about you.
If you I have a fixed mindset and you always come from that way, and you say, like I said before, my way is the only way, you know, you sort of just you can't grow from that place. Yeah, as be challenged by some of the aspects of different thinking to what I've got that the way, rather just dismiss it, try and actually understand why they're actually saying what they're saying.
And yeah, in some ways that.
Okay, I can see why that's that's there, and I have empathy with that, but I can accept that as well too.
Last question, probably every I mean if people are fit and healthy, not injured people or sick people. But in general terms, every human can run at some stage, right, you know, if I can go outside and run. I don't run like the wind, and I don't run beautifully, but I can go and run. Everyone but not everyone is a runner, so to speak, Right, does everyone have potential for psychic ability? Like obviously you know some people have a gift. Not everybody has a gift. But yeah,
is it trainable? Is it teachable? Is it a skill? Is it a gift? Is it a trait. Explain it to me.
So I'll give you another metaphor anology kind of thing. I can learn to play the piano. I can train hard enough, I can learn. I can learn the scales, I learn the frameworks of it. I can play good tune. I can play some really good music. There'll never be Mozart. Yeah, sometimes people are just born with shit that yeah, far beyond what other people can experience. Does that stop them from actually learn to play the piano? Play the piano?
Right?
Right? So do you think like you obviously have a gift?
Do you?
I know it's not the last question, but it's the last topic, so it's almost the last question. And so you won, you won a TV show which was called The One, and on that you were crowned for what a better term, Australia's best psychic, right, and then you said you kind of did that. You worked as a psychic for a year and full time ish was it?
Then?
Yeah?
And then you went nah, after a year, why is the guy with that gift? Is it? What is the I feel like that could be really fucking exhausting or like, why did you stop.
I think from I couldn't let people walk out of a room, knowing that I could have helped them a lot more that they hadn't. They got what they thought they wanted, but obviously going that's not really what needs to happen, because that's the problem with you can just do the normal psychic stuff, which would be oh, okay, okay, Sally, come in here, you're here, okay, you're looking for a likeationship. I see in October that there's a guy coming forward.
His name is Dave, and Dave's going to be this guy who swoops you off your feet and you live happily, going to have two children, one boy, one girl. Was going to green eyes, want to be very intelligent, and you're going to then travel the world. Right, Everyone wants to hear that story. Every person wants to come, especially you know, females when they came for a reading. Was about mostly about relationships.
And it feels good. It hits that dope. For me, it was okay, right, I'm going to I am going to be okay.
You know, a psychic told me I'm going to meet this person sometime in the future and that I don't have to do anything, and he's going to be the nineteen Shining armor that I want now. Ninety nine point nine nine percent of the time it wouldn't even happen. But I was sitting in front of Sally and go, Sally, you've just come from three relationships. One cheated on you, one was abusive, and one showed you no connection. How about we deal with that? No, Greg, that's why I'm
I'm not here for that. I want you to tell me where my new soul made is. No, Sally, your soul I ain't coming. The only person coming your way is more trauma. Greg, Am I paying for this? I want you to tell me where's my soulmate?
Right?
So I struggle with the ethics behind what I was doing. I really struggle with the factors. She's in the world of pain she doesn't know about, and I'm trying to help her to realize that she needs to work on herself and do this before she could even go into another relationship.
But that's not what they get.
Most people go to a mind, body, spirit or some kind of psychic and they get told what they want to hear. The dopamine, the ego boost, it's going to be you're going to be rich and famous, all that kind of stuff without any kind of sense of you know, why are you there in my seat, why are you sitting here in front of me right now in this place? Because they need something, they want something, There's something there from the work on.
It's so interesting because even in the world of you know, changing your body, often the thing that people need to hear is not what they want to hear. Yeah, you know, I can tell you. I've said this to audiences, you know, when we're maybe we're going around in circles with something and I go, or someone's asked something and I go, look, I can tell you the truth, or I can tell you what you want to hear. What do you guys want? And they go reluctantly true. I'm like, look, you know,
here's here's the deal. Like, the path that you might need to take might fucking suck, but you'll learn and grow and evolve and build skill and understanding and awareness and resilience and maybe you'll create an amazing outcome. But sitting on the couch on your phone or watching Netflix and eating shit and doom scrolling and complaining and being a victim and throwing yourself a pity party thirty two times a fucking month that's that's it's understandable, but it's
completely unhelpful. And even though in the moment it's a bit comfy and there's a bit of dopamine and a bit of familiarity, I get all of that. But maybe you need to throw all the shit out of the fridge and the pantry, and maybe you need to go for an uncomfortable job, or maybe you need to have a hard conversation, or maybe you need to look up and own up, you know, and just say hey, I'm
you know, without self loathing. I'm the problem. That's the awareness, because there's a fair chance if your life shit, you might be involved.
Yeah, that was unfortunately part of the I suppose that you're in this world where I was before actually doing readings. I was already doing you know, coaching, you know, before that anyway, So the children stuff was sort of on top of that. But the Psychic show threw me into the psychic world of tarot readers and that, which is all about predicting the future, and that's not how I worked, and that's why it just felt like I just can't do this. Like I still do readings for people, but
it's very few and far between. But it's more in that coaching space where you're coming from a brutal reality check on what's really going on, and people who do value their value, they like, this is the greatest thing ever because it's a deep, deep sense of intuitive knowing about what's happening. But I couldn't sit there anymore and just go, I can't do this. I can't sit here forty sessions a week going no, you're not going to meet Dave in.
October, but tell me.
But the amount of times people came to me and be like a Psycha told me this, But that's like because she's got no idea what she taught me talked about before, Like most of them are just fake. Like I can get someone of the read I can teach some of the red Tarot cards and make them look fantastic. They'll have no psychic abil let's read the meaning of the cards. It's yeah, But also you got that thing about I was I was seeing people I didn't want to see.
I was seeing people who just wanted to be told it.
Was going to be okay without doing any work, and it burnt me out, Like I was, I hated it. In the end, It's like I was not doing what I wanted to do, and I was not working with people I wanted to work with, and it just became this complete. I just hated it. I hated doing it. Going well, why so I stopped?
Have you ever met anyone? Last one? Then we're gone. Have you ever met anyone who's just got like a true supernatural, freaky gift where you're like this person is is that is the motart, that is the you ever met anyone like that?
Or no, not the in person something like say John Edward, I've never met him, probably has some gifts of the kind of stuff you know, you've got, Paul Seligg's all the world You've got. Uh, there's a few people that I could probably say probably got something, but I've never met them personally, so I don't know. So I can't sort of say I keep to myself quite a fair but I don't sort of associate in those kind of worlds too much.
So but yeah, it's it's it's fee and father to me.
Well, mate, I love chatting with you, and thanks for not keeping to yourself today. You did the opposite of keeping to yourself today, so it could have been a pretty short podcast if you had a hey, do you want people to find you or connect with you or follow you on some social media thing or do you not do that?
Most of the stuff I do is on LinkedIn these days, especially around the leadership side, I think, so it's just you find me on Greg Rolly on LinkedIn. I quite often post three or four articles a week about leadership and poke the bear in that space. Otherwise she's going on my website, which is Greg Rolly dot com DoD au And yeah, so most of my stuff's pretty one on one and small group stuff.
All right, So you heard him. If you've got heaps of cash, just reach out mate. We'll say goodbye, affair. But thanks for Ben on the You project. I loved it.
Thanks Bartie, appreciate it.