Assess, Understand and Improve your resilience with the Resilience Shield: Take the test

The SAS guys with MBA's and Authors of the best-selling book 'The Resilience Shield' join us on the Gold's Gym podcast! Tim Curtis and Ben Pronk are leaders in their field and chat to us about all things resilience. You can also take their test to find out how resilient you are.
Assess, understand and improve your resilience here: https://resilienceshield.com/assess-your-resilience/

Resilience is a lifelong individual endeavour and you can get active in your own rescue. Here's a brief overview of what you can expect to learn in this episode:

• What is resilience and why is it important?
• What is the Resilience Shield and what are the layers?
• How does stress affect your resilience?
• How do you foster an environment to develop resilient kids?
• Fitness vs Toughness
• Show me your friends, show me your future: Why this statement determines whether or not you are flourishing
• Can you train mindset?
• Gut microbiome
• Wim Hof breathing
• Transcendental meditation
• Being curious about who you are and surfing your thoughts
• How self-compassion and self-forgiveness is linked to meditation
• What is the secret to being successful?
• Transferability of techniques

This is an episode you're going to want to listen to multiple times over to absorb all of the information. Download today!

Find the guys on social media: @resilienceshield

Want to get in touch? Reach out to the Gold's Gym Australia team on socials @goldsgymau or via email: feedback@goldsgym.com.au

Chapters

• 1:32 Introduction
• 3:10 When did you meet?
• 7:08 Childhood and enlist in the army
• 11:03 What is the Resilience Shield?
• 13:32 What is resilience?
• 15:40 The five layers of resilience
• 18:24 Fitness vs. Toughness
• 21:57 Resilience is for life
• 24:56 The importance of resilience
• 32:43 How does stress contribute to resilence?
• 36:38 How do you create an environment to foster resilient kids?
• 41:09 Impact of kids growing up and social media
• 42:22 If you could tell the world one thing what would it be?
• 43:54 What's next for the resilience shield?
• 46:44 The Shield
• 50:26 Fast five questions

Transcript

00:02:37:02 - 00:02:43:00

Callum

All right, Tim & Ben and Ben, welcome to The Goodies Go podcast. Tell the people who you are in a snapshot.

00:02:44:16 - 00:03:13:14

Tim & Ben

So you exercise guys with MBAs and we nearly speak for each other and by graphical details, nearly identical, both born in Queensland, both scholarship to the Australian Defense Force Academy, both graduated from the Royal Military College up to Townsville, where we did our formative years, then did essays election at different Tim & Benes mind you, on that sort of half generation ahead of us then and then sold the majority of our military service in the service regiment.

00:03:14:12 - 00:03:37:11

Tim & Ben

And then kind of my path diverged a bit. I spent the next ten years in the Middle East working for the UN as a consultant and then running a group of multinational companies and then came back home in 2014, which is where we reunited. Yeah, unlike Tim & Ben, I couldn't get a proper job, so I stayed in the army, I applied my military career I stayed in a little bit longer.

00:03:37:18 - 00:04:02:09

Tim & Ben

So Tim & Ben was my second boss in the DC Regiment. The best, the best. But I like to joke out of the three bosses I had, Tim & Ben was absolutely one of them. So we had that Tim & Bene together, a year or so together. I then state in the unit, ended up as the commanding officer, which was awesome. I had a really amazing military career, very lucky in terms of a lot of different things.

00:04:03:01 - 00:04:20:16

Tim & Ben

And as I was looking to get out, that was that sort of serendipitous meeting up. Tim & Ben and just come back from the Middle East, I was probably thinking of jumping into a big cool brood or something like that. Team said, Why don't we start this thing together? Yeah, and don't tell me I will forever be thankful. It's been brilliant.

00:04:21:09 - 00:04:24:22

Callum

Wow. And where along that whole Tim & Beneline did you guys meet.

00:04:27:14 - 00:04:41:10

Tim & Ben

So we actually met in 2002 and a mutual friend's wedding. I knew I was going to be Ben Squadron Commander the next year and then we kind of spent 2003 in that. I mean, let's call it master slave.

00:04:41:10 - 00:04:42:04

Speaker 3

Relationship.

00:04:44:08 - 00:05:13:17

Tim & Ben

Because I said Yoda Skywalker yeah. And then we, then we stayed in touch. We probably in many ways, kindred spirits. I'd done my MBA, Ben was doing his standby, so we kind of reconnected on that basis were both mad CrossFitters and so we used to watch each other's performance at the CrossFit Open and get reconnected when we came back more socially than anything else, talking in the eyes and the study.

00:05:13:18 - 00:05:24:13

Tim & Ben

Yeah, yeah. And you know, we kicked off our little venture here in 2008 and it's just been yeah, it's been an amazing nearly five years for us. Yeah.

00:05:24:24 - 00:05:28:17

Callum

Psycho And is it, would you say it's 50% banter. 50% work.

00:05:28:17 - 00:05:30:21

Emily

Yeah. How much work is getting done with you boys?

00:05:30:21 - 00:05:31:20

Callum

What's the ratio.

00:05:32:09 - 00:05:55:21

Tim & Ben

Well I do think, I mean the litmus test is why certainly I don't ever feel that sort of, of shit. I've got to get to work. It's a massive part of what I enjoy about it is people we get to work with and clearly, you know, Tim & Ben and I get along, but we had the real joy of building this little team around this that we've got working with the working super interesting.

00:05:55:21 - 00:06:03:00

Tim & Ben

So we generally get more or less to choose the compounds we want to work with. So yeah, maybe 80% better.

00:06:03:00 - 00:06:04:15

Emily

20%. Okay, that's perfect.

00:06:05:19 - 00:06:11:10

Tim & Ben

Yeah. I mean philosophically we, we believe that the day you're not leaping out of bed to go to work today, you should.

00:06:11:10 - 00:06:12:14

Emily

Change 100%.

00:06:13:10 - 00:06:34:18

Tim & Ben

And when you do body of work really early on in the genesis of this company where we deliver this work to a client, I was super happy. It was about two in the afternoon we thought, Hey, let's go and quickly debrief. What were the things that went well? What could be improved? We did that Nirvana and sort of Ben looking into his pint glass, said, How can our lives get better?

00:06:35:04 - 00:06:45:15

Tim & Ben

And that's now that's now code. And in our manifesto, which is our version of the staff handbook, can we ask that question a lot? Will is make our lives. Yes, no more money, not more sounds not so.

00:06:45:15 - 00:06:46:04

Callum

Good.

00:06:47:02 - 00:06:51:12

Tim & Ben

That that nearly intangible question of will it make our lives better?

00:06:51:13 - 00:07:09:03

Emily

Oh, it's so good. And like even just speaking to you guys already, you can just tell that you guys have such a big connection towards each other. And it's actually just so cool to say because Karl and I work together and it's like it's just like having a friend right next to you being able to do business with you in life with you.

00:07:09:03 - 00:07:10:15

Emily

It's actually so special. Hey.

00:07:11:19 - 00:07:32:15

Tim & Ben

It is. It's funny. And I mean, you know, the parallels today to a marriage, I guess in terms of, you know, it's not all excellent. And, you know, there's this bumps, but guy, I was affected by my marriage and the business partnership. I actively try to take that helicopter view and say this is pretty good. You know, if you are thinking of having a little go about something.

00:07:32:16 - 00:07:54:09

Tim & Ben

Yeah, you know, check yourself because to Tim & Ben's point, you know, how is that going to make it better? And particularly, I mean, part of this, I hope will talk about sort of resilience and stuff cos part of that journey for me, it's been this sort of checking of the ego and kind of working out what really important and what's just pride or point scoring.

00:07:54:09 - 00:08:12:23

Tim & Ben

And there's a few of those things. I reckon in any relationship that you see people just ride him into. The end of the day, you, they stick onto something for no real point. They're not able to sort of mate halfway and recognize how good they've got at me. That's certainly something I hope to do. You know, like I said, like my marriage in my and my, my partnership team.

00:08:13:02 - 00:08:36:07

Emily

Yeah, I think that's so cool. And before we do get into kind of that resilience showdown and speaking on that, I want to ask you guys you know, you guys both come from military backgrounds and family in in military. What was kind of like your childhood growing up before you knew you were kind of going to get into the military with the.

00:08:36:15 - 00:08:36:23

Callum

First.

00:08:42:17 - 00:08:44:18

Emily

So that we just standing there staring at me.

00:08:46:11 - 00:08:47:14

Tim & Ben

In front? Yeah.

00:08:50:17 - 00:08:51:10

Emily

That's a good question.

00:08:51:10 - 00:08:54:12

Callum

Do well, yeah. They got them stumped.

00:09:00:18 - 00:09:03:09

Callum

Then you yo you up.

00:09:07:18 - 00:09:09:05

Emily

It'll be awesome if they can hear us.

00:09:10:01 - 00:09:13:09

Speaker 3

That's I remember uh oh.

00:09:13:11 - 00:09:16:16

Callum

Like, aren't we going to stitch you back then.

00:09:16:20 - 00:09:18:15

Emily

Yes. I'll just ask the same question already.

00:09:19:15 - 00:09:37:14

Callum

Recording paused Rodger unsure. Seems as though Perth's internet is not as good as it so jumped up to be.

00:09:48:16 - 00:09:50:00

Emily

Please my.

00:09:51:00 - 00:09:52:04

Callum

You in your home being.

00:09:53:16 - 00:09:55:09

Tim & Ben

Phone number anyway. What?

00:09:56:03 - 00:09:58:09

Callum

What's up? Sorry, can I have a for research purposes?

00:09:58:14 - 00:10:01:13

Emily

What did you say? Sorry, please. Shane, I know this.

00:10:03:09 - 00:10:07:12

Callum

I will be. That's good that I have a meg possible resource to get a.

00:10:07:23 - 00:10:24:22

Emily

Couple a couple of hot plots. Yeah, sugarcane as well because she wants to help people you know, we will we lost her.

00:10:24:22 - 00:10:28:20

Tim & Ben

That was. Yeah, that was us. We had a system malfunction.

00:10:28:23 - 00:10:31:02

Emily

Oh, no technical difficulty.

00:10:32:06 - 00:10:32:13

Tim & Ben

Yeah.

00:10:32:20 - 00:10:35:19

Emily

Yeah, that is so fine. Did you hear what my question was?

00:10:36:12 - 00:10:37:10

Tim & Ben

Missed the question.

00:10:37:10 - 00:10:39:10

Emily

Oh, so good.

00:10:39:20 - 00:10:43:09

Callum

I thought. I thought to be honest, four or 5 seconds. I thought you guys were pausing because you was stumped.

00:10:43:16 - 00:10:51:03

Emily

Sam. Like, I was like, you know, I. I got. Well, I will, I will kind of re ask that question. I'm told by Kim.

00:10:51:03 - 00:10:55:03

Callum

We're on. Yeah. Cool with backup. Yes. All right.

00:10:57:14 - 00:11:11:03

Emily

So before we do kind of get into that resilient side and the resilience shield and everything like that, I do want to ask you guys, I know you kind of grew up in, in military families. What was your life like before you actually got into the military yourself?

00:11:13:08 - 00:11:39:23

Tim & Ben

For me, I was always going to join the Army. I was that little I was actually a fat kid. So that little black kid would dress up in Army gear. And I just seen how much dad had enjoyed it. He was a helicopter pilot and he had these amazing sort of stories. So he just missed out on Vietnam, which is a little different to to Tim & Ben's dad, who had said that he'd finish flight school as as Australia was sort of ceasing its involvement in Vietnam.

00:11:39:24 - 00:12:04:09

Tim & Ben

So he hadn't deployed operationally but he done these incredible sort of, you know, mapping survey trips to Papua New Guinea, North Queensland, Australia. And he'd been sort of done a lot of work with the Bush command in terms of that sort of survival stuff. And so these incredible stories of flying and just the experiential stuff that I figured you couldn't get in in any other job so I always sort of wait on that.

00:12:04:18 - 00:12:25:15

Tim & Ben

So I think for me it was a pretty linear Tim & Bene and yet so my father spent 35 years in the military, so I was an army brat as well. He was like then also the commanding officer of the regiment. And so in my formative years I was running, you know, no shirt, no shoes around the size barracks that were building his counter-terrorist capabilities.

00:12:25:15 - 00:12:43:04

Tim & Ben

So all of these assaulters were practicing taking down houses in the neighborhood that were full of terrorists. And yeah, I think I think that just it is see is into your memory is still a bit like that. And I want to join the army. Yeah. I had some way about being a lawyer, being a teacher, doing other things.

00:12:43:13 - 00:13:03:02

Tim & Ben

But ulTim & Benately, yeah, that that's the path that I chose. And even when I joined the Army and you go out into pasture and a light infantry battalion, you need to spend three, maybe four years in the system before you can apply for any size selection in those three to four years. I was really yearning to do selection to be part of the science regiment.

00:13:03:08 - 00:13:19:21

Emily

Did you ever feel like you was there ever a part of you that were like, well, like, you know, both of your dads have grown up in that or you've grown up in that with your with your fathers. Did you ever think that, you know, like did you ever feel forced to kind of get into that.

00:13:22:03 - 00:13:45:14

Tim & Ben

Not at all. And I mean, my brother, who also ended up in the Army as a doctor, he took a much more security. It he he was the person the least likely to to join the Army as a teenager. I was the fat kid dressing up in Cairns. He was a little punk skateboarder, was kind of three quarter length shorts and Spray-painting the sort of the murals around him.

00:13:45:24 - 00:14:13:10

Tim & Ben

So there was no there was definitely no pressure. Yeah. And it was kind of funny. You know, look, any organization, it's a generational, cyclical thing as always, getting the Army dad was getting out and he was by no means did it had a wonderful career, but he very much was. You know, I remember him saying this isn't the Army I've joined, you know, the sort of fun place to come in and things changed and it's not as kind of, I guess, independence and all that sort of stuff.

00:14:13:21 - 00:14:33:00

Tim & Ben

And I remember this. I think that's crazy. This is awesome. This is cool environment. Yeah. You're bonkers. And then, you know, clearly as I was getting out of so, you know, it's different when I was young. So there is that generational thing. But no, no pressure from from dad either way, you know, he enjoyed it and he was happy clearly for us to follow.

00:14:33:00 - 00:14:54:10

Tim & Ben

But yeah, equally, he would have been happy if we'd done anything. We always very luckily the team was his well, very incredibly supportive parents and also no pressure from the one star general. A Hey, you always said you forged your own path. And I want you not to compromise your morals and your principles. And that's really stuck with me throughout my life.

00:14:54:10 - 00:14:55:02

Emily

I've got good.

00:14:55:06 - 00:15:10:02

Callum

Strong, that's strong and I liked that a lot. Okay, so you guys founded The Resilience Shield. Um, tell us a bit about that. What's the, what would you say is the, the the crux of the resilience shield?

00:15:11:19 - 00:15:34:02

Tim & Ben

It very much came about from our own experiences and our experiences in uniform. So we'd seen our colleagues sort of being exposed to all sorts of different stressors, including in combat and having really different sort of reactions. And that struck us as a bit strange. You know, on, on paper army, we were kind of identical humans. We kind of look the same.

00:15:34:02 - 00:15:54:06

Tim & Ben

We've been selected with the same staff, we have the same training, all that sort of thing. And yet people reacted quite differently in, in the moment under extreme pressure like combat. And then in the days, weeks now is that that followed. And so that sort of piqued our interest that there's going to be something to this thing, this resilience concept.

00:15:54:19 - 00:16:19:17

Tim & Ben

And then I think in particular, the my brother Dr. Dan Pronk, the coauthor of the book and co-founder of the methodology, he had his own experiences with post-traumatic stress symptoms. He as a doctor had some some really harrowing experiences on the battlefield, including one rotation, 12, where three of his mates were were injured while fighting all three of them.

00:16:20:08 - 00:16:49:08

Tim & Ben

He rushed to the side, applied first aid, and and none of them was actually able to say he essentially died in his arms. And so that obviously shook him. But the strange thing with that is that didn't manifest for a number of years. In fact, it didn't manifest until he was out of the army living in this tropical paradise in north Queensland, in a civilian job, in a hospital, learning, I think exactly twice as much as he did in the Army, just welcomed the child to the the world.

00:16:49:08 - 00:17:11:19

Tim & Ben

No one was shooting him or trying to burn up. And yet this was when the sort of some of the symptoms started to come on. And again, this got us very interested in how this whole mechanism worked and importantly, how we could get proactive. Like it seemed a lot of the ease of pushing the attention on resilience was only ever sort of implemented after people were having these negative stress debates.

00:17:11:19 - 00:17:26:00

Tim & Ben

And we thought, why can't we to use Mark as a really as the Tim & Bene in Roman Stoics Prize, why can't we get active in our own rescue? Why can't we get proactive in developing some tools and mechanisms that could stop us from having that negative stress?

00:17:27:12 - 00:17:31:18

Emily

Yeah, it's what what exactly would you describe resilience as.

00:17:32:02 - 00:17:33:22

Callum

And what does it look like to you both.

00:17:35:01 - 00:17:54:19

Tim & Ben

Yeah. This is where you start when you write a book on it. And in many ways, we were fortunate. Ben and Dan had a discussion over Eggs Benedict on what is a model look like. Yeah, you know, it's a 220 kilo deadlift. Is it doing yoga or have been great mates or not sucking at your job. And our theory was, well that's kind of all of those things.

00:17:55:09 - 00:18:17:02

Tim & Ben

But at the outset, what do you do? You try and get a definition on resilience. And there were three schools of thought. The first academic school of thought was You need to have this thing called resilience before you went to a stress event. Well, that made no sense because we'd already seen how people in high pressure situations performed completely different, even though they looked identical.

00:18:17:02 - 00:18:37:06

Tim & Ben

They'd been through the same training. I followed the same doctrine and procedures. The second school of thought was, No, no, no, not You get resilience from coming through a stress event. Now, in many ways, that made no sense at all. Why am I waiting for a stress event to build resilience? Yes. And then the third school of thought was the bit from both sides.

00:18:37:19 - 00:19:07:21

Tim & Ben

But the definition that we settled on was actually with our research partner at the University of Western Australia. Dr. Lee snowed about herself, a psychologist, and she introduced this definition that resilience is a better than expected outcome given the adversity faced. That's brilliant. You can have everything taken away from you, you know, professionally, health, social loss, you know, you married your kids, you can be confronted with the most chronic of adversity.

00:19:08:04 - 00:19:38:04

Tim & Ben

But if you have a better than expected result, then you were defined as being resilient. And so we then entered into one of the components of resilience, and this was the logic couldn't just be that physical fitness in the mental toughness because we can't have same people with both of those things pulled apart. And so we did this literature review and we looked at our own anecdotal experiences and we developed a model that had these six, what we call the layers of resilience.

00:19:38:23 - 00:20:10:05

Tim & Ben

So an innate via nature nurture genetics and epigenetics, the stuff in scientist, a mind layer, all the spiritual and psychological components that help you, you get through a body like physiological aspects, essentially like diet and exercise, social life, social support, professional, what you get from what you do on a day-to-day basis. And then we added a lot of cool adaptation, the ability to transfer resilience you might have developed in one domain to to the unexpected for the novel challenge.

00:20:10:21 - 00:20:32:10

Tim & Ben

So we think that these six things were probably the components of resilience, but it was really important to us that we validated this. The last thing we wanted was another sort of book. I used to be a tough guy in the Army. Dave, this is how you should get resilience. Yes. I because we didn't we didn't think we were tough guys and we seen a lot of tough guys having resilient challenges.

00:20:33:00 - 00:20:54:09

Tim & Ben

And they because we actually were interested in it for ourselves and we wanted to have that scientific validation. And so we applied for one, a federal government research grant which allowed us to to do this research in conjunction with let's talk to Dr. Least not about and essentially we published the results last month. Yeah. Yeah. In a peer reviewed journal article.

00:20:54:19 - 00:21:14:22

Tim & Ben

And the bottom line is that those six layers do each contribute independently and in a statistically significant fashion. Towards microbes. Its bottom line is you need all of those things. They all contribute. And while they interrelate, you can't just pull one out and expect to have a complete sort of resilience shield in our parlance. Yeah.

00:21:15:06 - 00:21:38:19

Callum

And I mean, going through what I would call is like, I think when you talk about SAS I think resilience is like it's a hard core place. And how much of your life experience went into what you've you've built like from your own, let's say, quote unquote, resilience, you've experienced real life. How much did that go into? Yeah, the resilient shield.

00:21:40:19 - 00:22:07:12

Tim & Ben

A massive amount. Yeah, but ignorantly. So it's not until we did the right. Yeah. Did it kind of all make sense. And one little example so it's nice collection cause I know Mark Wells has spoken on a previous episode about this largely goes for 21 days and day one is about 150 candidates they are supremely sick guys and girls are like something off the front cover of a fitness magazine.

00:22:07:23 - 00:22:30:15

Tim & Ben

But debate by day two, three maybe for all of the really fit people have withdrawn themselves. And at the conclusion of the course the tough ones remain. And so philosophically, what's the difference between fitness and toughness? It's what's between your reads short. The tough people have to be seated, but if the fit people aren't tough, they're not going to make it through.

00:22:31:06 - 00:22:53:19

Tim & Ben

And so, you know, our first truly modifiable liar is the mind lie. You can't do much about that baseline layer of resilience. And you sit there with some of that right now, but it's not particularly modifiable. And so Ben has a wonderful line. He talks about the mind layer being the first among equals because that mindset component is what does drive.

00:22:53:19 - 00:23:10:08

Tim & Ben

You do go a little further. And ulTim & Benately when you're carrying what you think unbeliever pulling the ridiculous loads or being asked to do things that is unfathomable, it's the mind that gets you through. The body just follows what the mind wants to do.

00:23:10:23 - 00:23:32:13

Emily

Absolutely. And we actually we took your resilience test online and look I got 78% resilience and I'm, I'm, I'm happy with that. Like I was quite, I was strong. Okay. Thank you, boys. And Callum. Callum wasn't happy with his house.

00:23:32:21 - 00:23:52:08

Callum

I was healthy. I, I own it. And so like answered honestly I got 60%, you know, so 60% and pretty much almost equal across the boards, across the mind body work side of things. And I said to him I was like, Are you kidding? Like I thought not. I'm a tough guy, but I thought I was a pretty resilient bastard.

00:23:52:08 - 00:23:58:09

Callum

But can you, I mean elaborate on, you know, you can't write down my score necessarily.

00:23:58:12 - 00:24:00:05

Emily

Tell us how resilient we are.

00:24:00:12 - 00:24:01:24

Callum

Should I really do it in like we're not.

00:24:02:07 - 00:24:26:16

Tim & Ben

You know. Well, yeah, yeah. If you want to feel good, then, yeah, exactly. I noticed and like any so is it test there's that sort of potential for error. We've wrestled with how we present these results the first thing that we want everyone to understand is that in a bill, it's not, you know, 90% of people cannot be above 50%.

00:24:27:05 - 00:24:48:13

Tim & Ben

You know, statistically it doesn't work like that. And so particularly the shape of this bell curve in terms of their responses, 60% is actually wrong up the, you know, if you look at all the responses left at that, yeah, you know, it is well and truly above average. The point though is that there is so much variance in terms of how people answer and how people interpret questions.

00:24:48:14 - 00:24:49:03

Emily

Exactly.

00:24:49:04 - 00:25:13:15

Tim & Ben

So we, we offer that the bigger value is looking in terms of the differences in between your own individual lives because there is variance both in terms of how people answer the questions but also in terms of people's own perspectives of resilience. So it's almost counter-productive comparing schools, even though we are where we give you a school that compares you against the population.

00:25:14:13 - 00:25:18:13

Tim & Ben

So we really stress to people don't get hung up on the.

00:25:18:13 - 00:25:19:02

Emily

No, hang.

00:25:19:02 - 00:25:41:20

Tim & Ben

Up your boots on the back you go to great 78 is a great school in the percentages, but have a look more about what it means to you and if if Callum if you're pretty even across the on the yeah. Kudos I mean bad that to me I would take that as a as a much okay I just a better sort of result than any sort of number in the overall school.

00:25:42:01 - 00:25:51:02

Tim & Ben

Yeah. And you know 78% kudos to you Emily. 60% kudos to you Callum. Whoever got 20% kudos to you the opposition.

00:25:51:03 - 00:25:51:20

Emily

Exactly.

00:25:51:21 - 00:26:06:13

Tim & Ben

Resilience. Resilience is a lifelong endeavor and 99% can go to 48% in the space of 12 months if you have a whole heap of things taken from just looking at your body language, you know. Exactly. It's not a competition. But Emily.

00:26:07:16 - 00:26:08:21

Emily

Anyway, it's.

00:26:09:05 - 00:26:09:19

Callum

If you're.

00:26:10:05 - 00:26:13:00

Tim & Ben

Going to say no, I want my mind ahead. Yeah.

00:26:13:09 - 00:26:14:15

Emily

No I actually.

00:26:14:15 - 00:26:15:16

Tim & Ben

I basically.

00:26:15:21 - 00:26:18:10

Emily

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before the honestly.

00:26:18:10 - 00:26:20:20

Callum

The first Tim & Bene she's belittled me. Oh.

00:26:22:16 - 00:26:28:08

Tim & Ben

It was any consolation. I think the last Tim & Bene I did it up about 68 or something, it's, yeah, it's comparison.

00:26:28:11 - 00:26:31:11

Emily

We go, well we don't compare, but everyone must say our scores.

00:26:33:01 - 00:26:37:20

Tim & Ben

It would be interesting to find the person who's at 99% and actually.

00:26:38:03 - 00:26:48:04

Callum

I mean is it possible to be like not possible in a sense of. Sure it is. But like if you could answer the questions in a certain way to get to just on an upset.

00:26:49:11 - 00:27:10:14

Tim & Ben

You could game it visually. Yeah. And that's sort of Ben's point. The idea of the resilience survey is not to answer aspirations and not to answer in a way that I know yesterday I had. Yes. Vegetables. Oh well, yeah, yeah. In the aggregate in the aggregate, what are the behaviors, the habits that you absolutely do all of the Tim & Bene.

00:27:10:17 - 00:27:16:01

Tim & Ben

Yeah. And so yeah, you could, you could game it, but it's not going to be helpful. It's not the idea.

00:27:16:11 - 00:27:17:14

Emily

To be honest.

00:27:17:14 - 00:27:37:00

Tim & Ben

And when considering when considering resilience, like, where do I start? That's the whole idea. And it was Ben's brainchild, the survey which is administered by the University of Western Australia. It's free, it's private, it's confidential. And if you want to do it, Jillian, she'll dot com for a link gives you that breakdown of your overall resilience.

00:27:37:01 - 00:27:37:11

Emily

Definitely.

00:27:37:11 - 00:28:03:05

Tim & Ben

But more importantly, yeah, the score of each of your life. So don't do things heroically to make changes, just identifying okay. Well, where am I? Wait, where am I vulnerable? I don't want bolster that layering thing. Doing things that are more sustainable. Yeah. That aren't faddish, that aren't gimmicky, just make a little contribution every day and then more broadly, zoom out, make a contribution every day to every layer.

00:28:03:06 - 00:28:22:20

Tim & Ben

Yeah. You know, yeah. I'd try to sleep better, eat better do some exercise, try and stay connected with friends, family, colleagues, you know, try and work on your mind sitting so far as that might be possible by kind of recoding activities, do some meditation and mindfulness and you know, in your professional lab, do things that improve that. Yeah.

00:28:22:20 - 00:28:28:17

Tim & Ben

And last but not least, you know, our bonus layer is that adaptation layer find a meaningful challenge.

00:28:29:06 - 00:28:29:16

Callum

Yes.

00:28:29:16 - 00:28:51:03

Tim & Ben

Something that is going to take you out of your comfort zone, perhaps like something you don't really like doing because the adaptation layer is what's going to allow us to do things that we never thought were possible to confront the unknown and the unknowable. You know, to, to get rid of all of the zombies when they descend upon us with nothing more than what you have right now.

00:28:51:19 - 00:28:58:24

Emily

Is that why you think resilience, having resilience is so important to every everyday humans?

00:29:00:20 - 00:29:21:15

Tim & Ben

Yeah. One of the really interesting things we did early in the piece and in one of the early chapters we talk about is the concept of happiness. And I do think it's so much of even just the tools to improve, for example, sorry, mind layer. So meditation was something Tim & Ben and I came to very late in the piece, something we both derived a lot of joy from.

00:29:22:01 - 00:29:45:12

Tim & Ben

And while that sort of builds our resilience, it also builds our happiness and contentedness. Likewise, gratitude practices and being in the moment, noticing small things, you know, enjoying this conversation and thinking, Gosh, you have got to do it. Yes, yes. All of those are resilience building tools, but they also make your life that much better in the moment.

00:29:45:12 - 00:30:07:23

Tim & Ben

And so I think that counts as team mate. You do all those little changes to challenge, choose your struggle, achieve little incremental goals, and enjoy the journey. You know, that's to me and a definition of resilience and happiness and I think there's that really strong relationship between that and the errors and failure to I mean, yes, I worry.

00:30:08:07 - 00:30:08:23

Emily

About failing.

00:30:09:00 - 00:30:09:15

Callum

Totally here.

00:30:10:21 - 00:30:35:04

Tim & Ben

You know, we're living in this society. I look at it with my kids. I want to be instant expert. Yeah, well, there is no such thing as an instant expert. You know, anyone who's a virtuoso or a master in that field didn't sit down and become an expert in an hour, you know, to coin. And as Eric and I spent the 10000 hours in increments of 30 minutes, one hour, they change their habits, built those good routines, and we're consistent.

00:30:35:16 - 00:30:50:03

Tim & Ben

So that's kind of the key to these two is what can you do consistent every day to your resilience to build you into being a better human, but importantly make you a better father. Mother. Yes. Later on. Yeah. Right.

00:30:50:18 - 00:31:00:12

Callum

Do you do you think resilience is a term that's like just throwing around super lightly, like in both professions, professional sense and personal sense is like.

00:31:00:21 - 00:31:02:03

Emily

Like is it just a buzzword? Yeah.

00:31:02:20 - 00:31:12:13

Callum

Oh, you got to be resilient. You've got to be more resilient. Like, I hear that all the Tim & Bene now, but like, what does it truly mean? And I mean I mean, you go ego. If you got on.

00:31:13:00 - 00:31:41:19

Tim & Ben

Now, I was going to say we do, too. And we've given that's our business. We're not that we're not sane by the things that it's it's going to be. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I don't know whether they're thrown around lightly. I think there is definitely a lot of an increased sort of awareness of its importance and I think, you know, a global pandemic is shopping people's attention to the fact that, you know, we have got a lot of pressure in our lives to, you know, it's always been that way.

00:31:42:09 - 00:31:51:03

Tim & Ben

I think we're focusing on it now. I think it's probably, I was going to say poorly defined, but that it probably can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

00:31:51:03 - 00:31:51:12

Callum

Yeah, I.

00:31:51:12 - 00:32:00:24

Tim & Ben

Think what we did yeah. And what we did trying to we've had a definition and a model is get as holistic. Yes. An approach as we could.

00:32:01:09 - 00:32:22:13

Emily

And I think like it just makes sense what you're saying. It just makes sense. It's not something where it's really hard for me to understand what resilience is or how I can continue or become more resilient. It's actually like it, although it's not easy. It is easy because it's just something that's just like you boys have said. It's just so perfectly it just makes so much sense.

00:32:22:14 - 00:32:36:11

Callum

Yeah, you can actually pull it in. And I remember when I did that question and it got to like the family. Yeah, like the friends and family. Well, was like thinking, What does this have to do with resilience? So in an incident and it was one, it was like, do you have a family member you can talk to?

00:32:36:15 - 00:33:01:02

Callum

And I'd like I couldn't I couldn't actually agree with it because I don't have someone I have a loved one, I'm sure. But like, I don't have a tight connection. My family don't. I was like, Oh, what the heck? Yeah, what is this got to do is maybe resilience. And it is really now that you've said those like kind of foundational block points, that it isn't just you got to be the biggest, toughest, baddest motherfucker know, you know, like around in the room it's.

00:33:01:23 - 00:33:18:05

Tim & Ben

This was why it was important for us to have that that science underneath it. And yeah. And you know, the science does say that human connections and whether they're family, friends, significant others but you know, where you can be vulnerable in front of someone and you can tell them, you know, sort of you open your heart to them that that is important.

00:33:18:05 - 00:33:31:00

Tim & Ben

And the one like I said, we sort of stumbled into meditation through this. I think if you asked us ten years ago, you know, why don't you try meditating, I joke that my mind would have gone straight to sort of hippies and mung beans.

00:33:31:00 - 00:33:31:22

Emily

Yes. Yes.

00:33:33:00 - 00:33:55:17

Tim & Ben

And I think I could have thought of that. But again, looking at it in the through the prism of the research, this is Jim trying to pick your brain up. This allows you to make better decisions under pressure. It actually rewires your brain to overcome the amygdala response, the thought of light type response. It's absolutely the best thing you should be doing if you're looking at being a decision maker later in combat.

00:33:55:18 - 00:34:19:21

Tim & Ben

Yeah. And so the science has been a real eye-opener for us and has introduced us to concepts like meditation and gratitude, which I think would have seen in excusable. Or maybe they've got a bit of a PR problem among Australian miles or whatever. But that for us has been a great means to make sense of some of these things that have really subsequently helped us personally and does help others.

00:34:19:24 - 00:34:46:03

Tim & Ben

Yeah, and I know the fascinating thing, Al-Monitor on the social psychosocial, it's just angering some fascinating research and without boring essentialist on it. Yeah. So we want people for us and we want to be there for others that, you know, head of Harvard, there's a body of work by a gentleman called Dr. David McLellan who worked out that 95% of our success in life is attributed to who we hang out with.

00:34:46:03 - 00:35:11:03

Tim & Ben

Yeah. And we'll colloquially people have picked up on that you find your friends and show you is huge or you're the sum of the five people you hang around that there's research saying that who is in your social layer. Yeah, absolutely. Moved the needle on how successful you are. Yes. Which therefore logically also moves the needle on your happiness, whether you're flourishing or not.

00:35:11:06 - 00:35:11:14

Tim & Ben

Yeah.

00:35:11:22 - 00:35:27:03

Emily

I love I love that in something that I live by is like how I do. One thing is how I do everything. And I just believe that like it's, it's so cool because how you do one thing or the social circles that you're in actually impacts so many other things over here as well.

00:35:28:08 - 00:35:50:07

Tim & Ben

It's and there's I mean, again, there's research behind this done. It's a political angel Duckworth. You write a book called Great which is a great read on on aspects of resilience. But she talks about the trains. It's their ability. There's a thing called the Greek study talking about a transfer ability. So exactly what you said if you are able to stick with on and on carrying your shopping bags to your car instead of putting them in a trolley.

00:35:50:08 - 00:36:14:07

Tim & Ben

Yeah. You know that is absolutely setting you up to then, you know, stay through high school, which is absolutely setting you up to stick it out through a tough job, which absolutely helps you exactly. Extend your marriage. You know, there's all these statistics that that show the transferability of these things and that folksy wisdom you just espoused. The way you do one thing is the way you do everything is a cool way of looking at these tiny little challenges.

00:36:14:07 - 00:36:25:03

Tim & Ben

We get presented with every single yeah. And it comes back to that question. Can you train mindset? Will bench just rattle off things? You can do that sound physical, but they're absolutely trying to say.

00:36:25:05 - 00:36:42:12

Emily

Yeah, exactly. I want to touch on the, you know, the meditation and kind of like when we meditate to clear our mind, you know, it does a lot of anxiety and stress and all of these things that happen in our every day to day life. How do you think stress affects being resilient.

00:36:45:12 - 00:37:11:13

Tim & Ben

Well, it's necessary in our life. If we didn't have stress, we they made us feel like we're pretty pathetic, the human being. We get to paraphrase some of Ben stuff here, but we don't have an arm, we don't have claws, we don't have poison. We can't run very fast. So stress is enables us to get to the top of the food chain, largely because we're incentivized by neurochemistry to collaborate at large scale.

00:37:11:13 - 00:37:47:22

Tim & Ben

There's no other animal on the planet that does that. There's books in Dodson to academics looked at performance and stress. If you think about the Tim & Bene that you've performed the best in your life matter, whether it's physical academics and your family lives, there undoubtedly will be a stress or stressors involved. Let me rephrase that. Think of the Tim & Bene you you are proudest of your achievement, nearly guaranteed that it was stressors of any Tim & Bene pressure, scrutiny from your boss that could have been fear, pain, or the risk of those two things.

00:37:48:06 - 00:38:07:05

Tim & Ben

So the short that is stress is necessary. We want to embrace the stress I mean, putting it into the gold Gold's Gym model, if you went to the gym and listen to the bench press and always push the same weight, nothing would happen you would get to that point where your body's adapted and you're just not going to get any gains.

00:38:07:24 - 00:38:33:09

Tim & Ben

But if you constantly increased the load, then you get improvement. And that is true regardless of how we apply stress in our life, regardless of whether it's a mental stress or something that we're unfamiliar with or uncomfortable with, whether it's a fear I'm talking. Any irrational fear? Yeah. How do you overcome an irrational fear when you confront it in a very measured, careful way?

00:38:33:20 - 00:38:41:04

Tim & Ben

And in doing that, you are naturally building the stock of resilience but embracing the stress in order to do it? It's like.

00:38:41:04 - 00:38:43:05

Callum

Progressively overloading the mind.

00:38:43:08 - 00:38:44:02

Emily

Literally.

00:38:44:04 - 00:39:06:13

Tim & Ben

That's absolutely, yeah. I mean, and we're going to be cautious about that. If we were to zoom out and look back to the 1980s, life was much simpler in terms of the amount of information we consume there. Yeah, and there is research at the University of California, Los Angeles, that says we now consume 34 gigabytes a day of information, the equivalent of radio.

00:39:06:13 - 00:39:37:18

Tim & Ben

Oh, that's too much. But we don't have the purge valves. Our brain is very old, it has an adapt it to be able to consume that level of consternation. And that's why we're starting to see issues with people not able to processes, but more importantly not able to flush the nonsense from their brain into meditation and mindfulness outside of sleep, which is critically important to flush the nonsense and to sort of defrag or take out the trash empty to cash.

00:39:38:02 - 00:39:49:12

Tim & Ben

Meditation and mindfulness is also something that we can embrace that enables us to defrag, take out the trash in the case to flush the crud from our brain.

00:39:50:24 - 00:40:12:22

Callum

Yeah, that's good stuff. I was just thinking then I had had to process my and so that like it's still coming and going in my head, but it made me think because that family sort of thing stumped me that I was like, why is this in here? Not growing up with a dad in my life, but having a single parent, I thought I had to like, I had to grow up really, really quick.

00:40:13:03 - 00:40:38:18

Callum

And I've just recently had a daughter and it's making me think like me. I was I thought I was resilient because I was young yeah. Yeah, that's right. Because I had to do like the dad of the house, all my family. And now thinking about my daughter, I'm like, all right. So now I'm her father and you guys having pivotal fatherly roles in SAS, fostering an environment where resilient can be taught at a young age or not even taught.

00:40:38:18 - 00:40:44:20

Callum

But like you're saying, it's like you're just in the environment, you know, what does that look like?

00:40:47:17 - 00:41:07:16

Tim & Ben

It's a really good question and it's a really important question. A lot of the research on sort of the innate aspects of resilience do look at those messy periods of what I call neuroplasticity. So when their brains are changing, it's typically as a toddler and as an adolescent with our brains on your plastic or plastic throughout our lives.

00:41:07:16 - 00:41:40:24

Tim & Ben

But those big periods of change and there's some really interesting research that we just interviewed, Dr. Justine Glick, who is the author of this research about the physical differences in people's brains who suffered what she calls its early life would stress. So if kids are exposed to measured stress, like, you know, you progressive overload example, then they develop stronger brains, they physically have different parts of their brains are better formed.

00:41:41:08 - 00:42:05:09

Tim & Ben

And these are the regions that do with things like emotional regulation and mind control and that sort of thing. So the first thing and we've joked before on podcasts, on a little bit of the helicopter parents that have done to get exposed to too much and that's not doing them any favors, we do need to let them sort of have that exposure to wrestle with stress always to deal with things, to work things out.

00:42:05:09 - 00:42:23:16

Tim & Ben

Yeah. Just like you would have in your book growing up early, probably not by choice, but you know, you were in a position where you you're faced with these stressors and it sounds like you had the tools and the ability to process and get through them. I bet you have a very well-developed perinatal liability. But you know what?

00:42:23:17 - 00:42:44:01

Tim & Ben

I'm like, yeah, there's resilience skills. Well, it's we don't want to we don't want to direct kids in Cornwall too much. And so that that's a big part of it. I think the second part is modeling those behaviors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tim & Ben's kids are growing up saying he meditate twice a day. So that's just the thing you do.

00:42:44:10 - 00:43:04:17

Tim & Ben

And you know, your parents always I and say you're not going to go straight to that straightaway. But if they sing, you exercise, if they sing, you prioritize sleep. They're saying you you know, just take it easy on booze and eat semi decently. Recognize that these things are helping in that that will bring that resilience inside that white noise in the background is massive.

00:43:05:06 - 00:43:27:04

Tim & Ben

And can you camouflage some of these resilience practices for me kids absolutely indeed. For those that are planning kids you can start at pre zero. I mean just be healthy about what you do that's going to improve your chances of conception. And you know, when the child's in the womb and those the access to toxins April 3rd and so on, so forth.

00:43:27:15 - 00:43:48:06

Tim & Ben

And you know from that zero to 18 is some fascinating research about the gut microbiome which is crucially important for our mood for our heart rate and a range of other things including cutting out our immune system. It smells like dirt you know that's what we want our kids to do to be exposed to those is it really from 18.

00:43:48:06 - 00:43:57:24

Tim & Ben

It's it's about enabling them obviously I start from 18 months it's about enabling them opportunities to take control risks allow them to fall off the.

00:43:58:02 - 00:43:58:10

Speaker 3

Yes.

00:43:58:18 - 00:44:21:11

Tim & Ben

Yes that's why you're on the swings that don't don't shelter them from that. Yeah. And then as a sort of Christine to the primary years or nearly pre primary you're not going to take your child to meditate but you can certainly teach them coloring eat coloring in is a meditation activity as he's relating a story out loud as he's singing a song together.

00:44:21:18 - 00:44:50:11

Tim & Ben

Those kids aren't thinking about anything else when they're doing this you know introducing Lego same principle and in the older they get into the primary school years, the more we can incorporate breathing practices. Yeah. Understanding you can regulate your emotion. When you do feel angry, you will do irrational things. But being able to center yourself using really basic techniques will improve the way you are seen as a human being.

00:44:50:21 - 00:45:15:24

Tim & Ben

And then as we pressed into into senior years, we can start to incorporate the more human tactics and techniques that will contribute to resilience, including plank team sport, including the socially interactions, including measured amounts of social media, where the social media contributes to you is a human full disclosure. There's not much evidence, if any. I look to Ben to interrupt.

00:45:15:24 - 00:45:41:12

Tim & Ben

If I'm not like that. Social media contributes to resilience but it's certainly a fantastic on ramp to find like minded. They're able to work out well. What's the organization I'd love to volunteer with? I'll move New City with my life's minded gym mates or walking group or running group or macramé organization. So we'll split that super valuable. Yeah, you know, you can parent resilient kids.

00:45:41:12 - 00:46:06:22

Tim & Ben

Yeah. And the other day other parties that it is the genetic spin. We know that resilience is coded inside DNA so you can be predisposed to things like depression or anxiety or relates to how the parents, how they parents and how they parents Tim & Bene through life. So yeah, we can get ahead of that and certainly get ahead of, you know, our kids and their kids by incorporating those good practices in our life.

00:46:06:22 - 00:46:10:21

Tim & Ben

You know, defense point, they have great resilience role model in the house.

00:46:10:21 - 00:46:12:01

Emily

Yeah. I love them to.

00:46:12:01 - 00:46:15:18

Tim & Ben

Get out of the sporting club. But when you're coaching a team or in the gym.

00:46:16:00 - 00:46:22:00

Emily

I love that so much. If you guys could tell the world one thing, what would it be?

00:46:24:20 - 00:46:52:18

Tim & Ben

I think the eight good thing is, is a big one. You know, get over yourself a little bit. And I'm speaking a lot from my own personal experience. It's funny how much I guess, poison we bring into our own lives by getting hung up on ourselves. And I think this is a game where things like mindfulness practices can can help come in if you're able to get that perspective and, and, and just calm yourself a bit through those sort of things.

00:46:52:18 - 00:47:14:02

Tim & Ben

I reckon that would go a long way to tormenting a lot of the angst. I say on a day to day basis scream and we embrace a poem by James Ellroy Slack called The Golden Ride. To Samarkand. And in that poem, a pilgrim talks about going always a little further. That's a great mantra for life. It doesn't matter whether it's in your social life, your professional lives.

00:47:14:03 - 00:47:34:21

Tim & Ben

You know what you do physically on a day to day basis, but just go always a little further. It's a bit a bit like embracing that stress you have options. I confront you multiple Tim & Benes every day. You got the escalator or the stairs. Yes. You've got the Diana got the apple going always the little further is just changing those little things.

00:47:34:21 - 00:47:36:23

Tim & Ben

It ulTim & Benately will improve you as a human.

00:47:37:23 - 00:47:41:00

Emily

You have them. I like that. The talking.

00:47:41:00 - 00:47:53:01

Callum

About. I like that so with the Resilience Shield and your book as well, where the projection of that, what do you want it to see to happen?

00:47:55:13 - 00:48:33:09

Tim & Ben

We I mean, at the micro level, we've been just blown away by the sort of feedback we've gotten and the reactions that this has led to. I mean, we were what is it now? Six weeks ago we were in the UK presenting to a large corporate on Canary Wharf and then the sort of next day or two days later up in a sort of county area of just out of Dublin in Ireland, presenting to a group, a fitness space group, and that for us has just been amazing that the sort of this little sort of concept that we came up with could have extended to the point where with these people I thought it's over to

00:48:33:09 - 00:48:55:15

Tim & Ben

to present so those connections, I think what we're hoping to continue to progress. We love the idea that there is so much discussion on resilience and we love the idea that this is good stuff out there. I mean, you look at the work that Kondo is doing in the Resilience Project, talking about these wonderful concepts of gratitude, empathy and mindfulness.

00:48:56:22 - 00:49:24:15

Tim & Ben

We are very much looking at this, you know, clearly as a business and clearly we're sort of doing stuff behind it from a commercial sense. But it is awesome that there's some awareness getting around and the people are starting to embrace some of these concepts. And for us, whichever vicTim & Ben makes more sense, if it's going to get someone thinking about meditation or gratitude or eating a bit better or exercising or whatever it is, then we're all for it.

00:49:24:15 - 00:49:35:02

Tim & Ben

So we are delighted that it has started to resonate, that we're getting some really good feedback in a direction and that we're starting to help people and we want to continue progress.

00:49:36:20 - 00:49:41:23

Callum

I love that. And especially like we have spoken to someone who's you spoke at one of.

00:49:42:13 - 00:49:43:06

Emily

The conference.

00:49:43:06 - 00:50:05:14

Callum

At a conference and like she was like she was like, she was like what they unlocked for me was, was like almost unbelievable and a light touch and she's like, we'll have to sit down for so because and as well like I think in a workplace like we both work for ourselves, but in a workplace like having, you know, it's not just like just do your job, go home.

00:50:05:21 - 00:50:23:20

Callum

Your if your company's investing in you and understanding that each individual person, like you said, has these little vectors that they sit alone and they can it can connect with. And it's like then that person strong. It just keeps going. So the fact that and like you said, like if you can build resilience in children, those children are going to grow up to be an adult.

00:50:23:20 - 00:50:25:11

Callum

And if that was lost to that.

00:50:25:23 - 00:50:27:06

Emily

Then teach their kids and that.

00:50:27:06 - 00:50:35:15

Callum

This big cycle and it's so cool that it's becoming like like it is more research. And I didn't even know there was so much behind it.

00:50:39:11 - 00:51:00:05

Tim & Ben

The shield is the iconography. And you've got this beautiful line about the issue of being for the common good of all. You know, it's not just about protecting yourself individually. And and we think that metaphor carries into developing resilience. You know, if you are more resilient as an individual, you are going to be a better colleague as your friends, you know, parent, child, whatever it is.

00:51:00:05 - 00:51:05:21

Tim & Ben

And so there's that almost a virtuous circle that can spread around. We've also had some great fun I mean.

00:51:06:24 - 00:51:11:11

Callum

I can only imagine you guys and I want to hang out. I want to have a beer with these guys.

00:51:11:11 - 00:51:36:07

Tim & Ben

Yeah. We were about to run a retreat on Fitzroy Island. In late October. As I've said to the boys, there can be no one on that retreat that's having more fun than us. So that's it. We have to have the most amount of fun from anyone in having fun, in being a bit playful. Yeah, to your point on the banjo in the office and beyond, it is it is inspiring us.

00:51:36:24 - 00:51:57:22

Tim & Ben

And I guess the other thing is the author's journey. You like you. Yeah, yeah. Ben talked about it. You got you stop there. Definitely. You want to have your name on the front cover of the book and you want it to be a bestseller. But the deeper we go into this journey, the more we realize that that story that you've told about someone who's like Whoa, now I know where to start.

00:51:58:02 - 00:52:19:11

Tim & Ben

Now I know you have assessed my resilience and what I can do about it. Yeah. I mean, I do genuinely tell people that if only one person ever bought this book, but that person raced up to us in the straight and said, this has changed my life or This saved my life. That's the reason why the book's being written.

00:52:19:13 - 00:52:42:24

Tim & Ben

Yeah. And, you know, we've had we've had thousands and thousands of interactions like that. Yeah. This book is changed my life. This book has saved my life, which is tragic in itself. But on such, such heartwarming stuff, I mean, some of our really fun moments were are going into a book club, book clubs, read the book. Hey, would you come in at the glass shop?

00:52:42:24 - 00:52:43:15

Tim & Ben

And I told.

00:52:43:15 - 00:52:44:03

Speaker 3

That book.

00:52:44:17 - 00:52:50:19

Tim & Ben

We turned out that's an all women book club night. And I kind of love the book.

00:52:51:07 - 00:52:52:15

Speaker 3

Yeah. Yeah, because it's true.

00:52:52:19 - 00:53:17:08

Tim & Ben

In many ways. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It just proves in many ways. And it's just a book, the box. And in fact, you know, little, little vignettes about, you know, a lady talking about reading the book. She'd actually bought the book for a husband who was having his own struggle, got back home and opened it, read the first few pages and then you how he did it, why I'm reading the book.

00:53:17:23 - 00:53:43:00

Tim & Ben

You got captivated in some of the stories. And importantly also that they're not just our stories. We tell the stories of people from all walks of life, you know, from Harry Harris, the cave diver, rescuing the tiger. Yeah, so that's true. Yeah, that's true. Too many others who made their way through mental health illness, Emily Skye, who take a look at.

00:53:43:05 - 00:54:06:21

Tim & Ben

She's a fitness influencer. She's famous for being famous. But you don't see the back story of the struggle. Yeah, all of these all of these things just create this these rich narratives. And nearly anyone that interacts with the survey or interacts with the book can really identify with the people. The people in the book. But if you hold the survey at arm's length, you can identify that.

00:54:06:21 - 00:54:08:06

Tim & Ben

Yeah, that's pretty much making.

00:54:09:13 - 00:54:30:01

Emily

You guys are honestly incredible and doing such incredible work, and we can't wait to even see some fun on the on the retreat you are doing. But before we do go, we normally just play a little game. It's a little fast. Five questions. Basically, we're just going to roll them off and you guys just have to have to answer them as quickly as you can.

00:54:30:01 - 00:54:30:09

Emily

Okay.

00:54:31:18 - 00:54:32:03

Tim & Ben

Good stuff.

00:54:32:14 - 00:54:35:07

Emily

Okay. First is introvert or extrovert.

00:54:36:24 - 00:54:54:14

Tim & Ben

Absolute borderline since the gusting introvert. As I get older, I stay. Yes, he's more down the introverted style. And I know that because we both had psychological tests done of us and I'm completely in the middle. 50 50. I love my solitude, but I also love company. Yeah.

00:54:54:16 - 00:54:56:10

Callum

Like guilty pleasure.

00:55:00:20 - 00:55:06:20

Tim & Ben

It would be probably nineties pop and particularly boy bands and Sydney that.

00:55:07:08 - 00:55:08:16

Emily

My man.

00:55:11:24 - 00:55:12:02

Speaker 3

And.

00:55:12:16 - 00:55:45:23

Tim & Ben

I once in fact there's a funny story I, I was once in a gym, a deployed gym so it's a real imagine a rough stick you know tough guy sort of a special forces game in the middle of the jungle and so people shirts off the ding and a big dudes with tats this sort of saying there's not music and I plug my output in and put my playlist on the getting that guilty pleasure know I just mentioned that the first tunes like you know Bulls on parade Rides or whatever, it's a scene appropriate and then on comes Baby one more Tim & Bene.

00:55:45:23 - 00:56:13:22

Tim & Ben

Yes. And of course everyone that same we plug the thing and I've got nowhere to go. It wasn't me. I just had to own it. And yeah, no, no, I am I got some very interesting books of my guilty pleasure and we don't advocate this in the resilient shield, but we have an office in our bar and I love having a drink with our crew, you know, cracking a cracking a beer and yeah, at the end of the day, just having a chat, it's probably one of my guilty pleasure.

00:56:14:04 - 00:56:19:13

Emily

I love that. I love that. What's one thing to instantly make your day better?

00:56:22:13 - 00:57:00:04

Tim & Ben

I do think meditation. I know I'm banging that drum, but yeah, I my daily sort of meditation practice when it's like daily, if I can get it in every couple of days, that's about average. But I love them operating. I think there's something about manipulating your breath that can really do good things. And then just a period of sort of mindfulness or even transcendental meditation, which are contributors through by team, but that it's, it's still a paradox to me because there are days where I know I need it, but I can't seem to find the Tim & Bene, even though it would make more Tim & Bene, you know, it's a stupid thing, but we don't do it into the

00:57:00:04 - 00:57:17:17

Tim & Ben

week. Makes my day there. Yeah, I'm going to parrot that. It's I practice Vedic meditation. I went and did the course because I didn't believe in it. Very skeptical. And then I asked myself the question, well, what are you frightened? Go, go and be involved in it. But that absolutely makes every day better for me. It makes my life better.

00:57:18:03 - 00:57:43:07

Tim & Ben

I've got more focus, more clarity, I can pay attention or remember things. Yeah, yeah. My working memory is far improved. Been out that and you know, I think my own interactions with those people that I care for and loves are much richer. So yeah, without question, it's it's meditation. And I'd try and practice it every day. I meditate most days but don't always get it right.

00:57:43:15 - 00:58:03:24

Tim & Ben

And that's kind of okay. And your point, Emily, about meditation being is I'm seeing you close your eyes. You have these rising thoughts. That's also okay. A meditation teacher of mine who's done some work with us, Erin, says just kind of sniff the thoughts and ask yourself the question, why am I thinking that is a rational logic?

00:58:03:24 - 00:58:04:04

Speaker 3

Yeah.

00:58:04:21 - 00:58:14:16

Tim & Ben

It's that's kind of okay. It's, it's the point of examining or being curious about who you are and what's making you take. Yeah. So meditation.

00:58:14:19 - 00:58:36:00

Emily

I think as well. Sorry. Just quickly on that meditation we end up like I remember before I started meditating thinking that I couldn't do it and be I was meant to be completely still. Like I wasn't allowed to even have thoughts. And if I had thoughts coming in my head when I'm meditating, it's wrong or I didn't do it right.

00:58:38:06 - 00:59:02:16

Tim & Ben

So yes, that's sort of self compassion. And so forgiveness is a wonderful thing. I think you get permitted. It's a shame you stop beating yourself up about that. And and again, linked to that idea about, you know, letting go, this idea of being perfect or thinking, trying to be seen to be perfect, they're all intertwined practices if if you're in my head this morning, Emily, you would just see just the most irrationally illogical.

00:59:03:09 - 00:59:20:01

Tim & Ben

And I'm not an experienced meditator. I still have to work through yeah. You know, I'm trying to I'm trying to focus on, you know, transcending to think about nothing and an impulse that don't forget a mask because you can have to catch public transport to see a client today. You've got to have a mask back. Okay. Acknowledge the thought.

00:59:20:04 - 00:59:21:14

Tim & Ben

Yes. Or also.

00:59:22:15 - 00:59:22:19

Speaker 3

Look.

00:59:23:09 - 00:59:45:01

Tim & Ben

Across to the accountant before. Okay. Right. Acknowledge the thought. There's just this constant struggle that in many ways, now that I say it out loud, it's logical. The brain's trying to keep us safe. Exactly. So therefore, in many ways, it's very different, all those thoughts. But there are many that aren't, you know? So, yeah, it's good fun just surfing anecdotes.

00:59:45:13 - 00:59:56:00

Callum

I like that. Surfing the floats. Well, we've had the absolute pleasure of chatting to you. Where can people find your book? Get onto the Resilience Shield, follow you, listen to you, plug yourself away.

00:59:57:12 - 01:00:23:09

Tim & Ben

Yeah, the resilient shield is available in all good bookshops and probably some of the great ones, too. You can find out more about asset resilient shield dot com in that same location. You can also take a resilience survey. As I mentioned, it's free, it's private, it's confidential, and it's administered in conjunction with the University of Western Australia. We've got a shop at the website you can buy authors sign copies of the book.

01:00:23:09 - 01:00:55:17

Tim & Ben

They will inscribed then if you wanted to give them as gifts. We've got our own resilience journal, which is all about encoding good habits and a variety of other things, including information on our resilience retreat on Fitzroy Island. 27 of 30 October, where we were trying to make people the best versions of them that we possibly can, but also ensuring the transferability of a lot of the techniques into what they do as a parent, as a friend, as it were, a colleague and socials.

01:00:55:24 - 01:01:10:03

Tim & Ben

We actually had a social media presence, for instance. Yeah. So that resilience yields pretty much on all of the socials. Exactly the same resilience shield on Instagram, on Facebook, I look at Ben, he'll cringe also on TikTok.

01:01:10:03 - 01:01:10:18

Callum

Yes.

01:01:10:18 - 01:01:12:24

Emily

Beautiful. That's what you need to be doing.

01:01:13:21 - 01:01:34:14

Tim & Ben

Yeah, it is on and on and on LinkedIn so we we push some reasonable content and some tactics and techniques on those platforms, trying to keep them in really simplified form. But if you if you're viewing those things, you can absolutely know that it's gravity and research. So would you do the tactic if not need to know the back the back story?

01:01:34:14 - 01:01:39:03

Tim & Ben

We've done all the heavy lifting on reading literature to just employ these little things in your life.

01:01:39:13 - 01:01:48:13

Emily

Tim & Ben and Ben, we have had the absolute pleasure of having you on this episode today. Thank you so much. And have a great day.

01:01:48:14 - 01:01:50:11

Callum

I have the best day. Appreciate you both.

01:01:50:24 - 01:01:53:16

Tim & Ben

Thanks. I love it. Thanks, guys. Really appreciate.

01:01:53:22 - 01:01:56:19

Emily

Bye, boys. Thank you.

01:01:56:19 - 01:01:58:20

Callum

Thanks so much. That was so good to.