The Science of Fitness Podcast
Welcome to the Science Of Fitness podcast where we aim to inspire you to live a healthier and more fulfilling life as we share evidence and anecdotes on all things health, fitness, performance, wellness and business.
Hosted by Kieran Maguire, Co-Owner and Director of Science Of Fitness with an Undergraduate degree in Exercise Science and Masters degree in High Performance, the podcast includes guests and friends of SOF from all walks of life sharing their knowledge and stories within their field of expertise.
Join us as we provide listeners with digestible and relatable educational tools and entertaining stories to inspire a healthier and more fulfilling life.
The Science of Fitness Podcast
S2 EP 015 - Overcoming adversity and transforming mental health w/ Will Stubbs, Mental Wellbeing Entrepreneur
Ever wondered how life's unexpected twists can shape a meaningful career and personal journey? Our guest, Will Stubbs, shares his remarkable transformation from a university dropout to a pioneering mental health advocate. Discover how his upbringing with a creative mother and a tech-savvy, entrepreneurial father laid the groundwork for his future endeavors. Learn about the early personal challenges that ignited Will's passion for mental well-being, leading to the creation of a non-profit and the groundbreaking "Soften the F**k Up" campaign. This episode is filled with inspiring stories of resilience and the drive to change traditional masculinity norms.
Explore the unique dynamics of Will's upbringing and the pivotal moments that led him to address mental health issues on a broader scale. From the struggles of adolescence to the transformative power of parenthood, Will offers a candid look into how personal crises can lead to profound realizations and impactful initiatives. Hear about his journey in overcoming imposter syndrome and the significance of seeing oneself through the eyes of others, especially in high-pressure environments like the World Economic Forum in Davos. His reflections on creating a supportive community for elderly men highlight the importance of combating loneliness and social isolation.
Join us to uncover practical insights on achieving well-being and fitness through small, consistent actions. Will's anecdotes about merging fitness with new fatherhood provide a relatable and humorous perspective on life's unpredictability. We discuss the key to making technology and wellness products user-friendly and the necessity of simplifying user experiences. From fitness transformations to mental health innovations, this episode is a treasure trove of valuable lessons on personal growth, resilience, and the vital role of community in fostering well-being. Tune in to be inspired by how small, meaningful actions can lead to enduring change.
Welcome to the Science of Fitness podcast, where we aim to inspire you to live a healthier and more fulfilling life, as we share evidence and anecdotes on all things relating to health, fitness, performance, business and wellness. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Back to the Science of Fitness podcast. We have guest Will Stubbs on the episode today. Will welcome to the Pesof podcast.
Speaker 1:Hey, it's good to be here on the episode today Will welcome to the Pesof podcast. Hey, it's good to be here. You know with us and you've been sort of training with us for a little while and there's been, I think, a number of times with which we've started to have a conversation. We need a microphone, we need to record this and I'm really excited that we get to do this and thank you very much for your time.
Speaker 2:It's very weird being here not in active wear and downstairs sweating on the ranch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly yeah, um, I think, first and foremost for the listeners and you know we've done a little intro before this but, um, who is will stubs and and and how would you define him? Because there's a couple of roles you play. What are the key roles? And and how would you summarize that?
Speaker 2:what, um? What language can I use on this podcast?
Speaker 1:okay, Holy shit.
Speaker 2:That's a really deep question. Who was Will Stubbs? Okay, entrepreneur by accident, kind of just fell into it. So I went to uni for a couple of years, did psychology, got kicked out and got asked to come.
Speaker 2:I got kicked out, that's true. I was not going to class which apparently you have to do and just sort of found my way into starting stuff and finding a love for building things that help other people. The first thing that we did was we started a non-profit when I was in my early 20s that was initially focused on young men's mental health, based on experiences that I had when I was 12 and going through a crisis. And that non-profit then spawned a studio, and that studio worked with brands like World Wildlife Fund, state government Water Connect Forum to fund the work we wanted to do. And now we have a tech startup in mental wellbeing.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, accidental entrepreneur with a focus on how do you use business and how do you use creativity and design to make the world better. And, in particular, my areas of interest are why is the world so angry and why are we so lonely and why does it seem like the world is designed way worse for human health, happiness and flourishing than it ever has been? It seems to be how it feels. And alongside that new dad, I've got a six-month-old son now, which has completely changed, who Will Stubbs, is Uh and amateur athlete. I guess uh found a love for, um, for, for the sweating and and um, feeling like you want to die during a session. And um, yeah, and actually it came to self post injury and um, yeah, fell in love with your approach to the scientific view of health and fitness. So, yeah, if I were to describe myself I often say like I'm a fit guy who loves pastries is my like physique type.
Speaker 1:Nice, aren't we all All right? Really cool. Let's jump to the dad stuff. I think that's. I was going to save it to the end, but it's obviously so fresh You've got your story of what you've called your giant baby. Let's talk about that for a second. How old now? How many?
Speaker 2:weeks he's I don't know the weeks, but he's I think six and a half months now. How many weeks he's? I don't know the weeks, but he's I think six and a half months now which, yeah, I mean becoming a parent is I talk about this so much now like it's weird, how consuming it is becoming a parent and it's everything that you're told that it is and also things that you never imagined and things that you were told that it is, that you didn't believe, and then you're like, oh yeah, no shit, it is, it is that. Um, my favorite thing every day now is when I go in to get them up and he's lying in the crib and I opened the blinds and he looks up and it's just pure joy to see. Like, how many people do you know that? Like it's just pure joy to see you. So that's really special, yeah, but, like you know, in the work that I do, I spent since 2011,. So, 13 years as a mental health advocate and you know talking to people about my experiences and advocating that we should invest more time, energy and focus in our mental wellbeing and feeling better and the habits that support that and becoming a parent. It's like a whole new lens about how hard that actually is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I was that soft and I last year I committed to becoming the fittest I ever have been, which is like a ridiculous reaction to becoming a dad for some reason you realize your mortality, so like I better maximize what I've got. And, um, one of your coaches said like great, let's have a goal. There's a, there's a crossfit competition. I used to do crossfit, so we'll do this crossfit competition in february. And I said, well, the baby's due in february. And he's like, don't worry about it, we'll work around it. But he was due two weeks after the competition and he came two weeks early.
Speaker 1:Oh perfect.
Speaker 2:So, like the number one thing I've learned about being a parent, about being a dad, is there are no plans, there's only like hopes, and then things will just happen and just roll with it, and just roll with it and just roll with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is sort of a testament to a certain extent, from a a life's coming at you type of perspective. Yeah, and, and you know, as you mentioned, you've done a lot of work in the mental health space and not necessarily in the, not just an advocacy, but, I think, stepping up trying to create solutions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, and I think that's the thing that we've always been interested in and I've been interested in is I and this extends not just to mental health but, I think to like, to physical health and wellbeing. I hate awareness campaigns. Yeah, an awareness campaign, and we often would say within the team that awareness is for those that can't get action. What is the point in me telling you that you should be aware that you should look after your heart, or aware that you should make time for your mental well-being? Or you might be aware that you should recycle, but if your recycling bin is in the basement of your apartment block and you know got to carry those milk bottles down and stuff, like you're not going to do it, and so awareness is kind of pointless in favor of action.
Speaker 2:But getting people to take action is is really hard, and so we've always been focused on how do you, how do you not just talk about something, but how do you actually create? Yeah, step up to create solutions that people actually want to use and can use. That isn't complicated, um, because people you know are busy, that they're new parents or they're running a business, or you know you've you've got um bills to pay and you've got a life to live and um life is really freaking hard most of the time yeah, yeah, exactly, and it's, and it does.
Speaker 1:It just comes at you whether you like it or not. Yeah, so a toolkit to deal with it, rather than knowing I need to deal with it and maybe I'm struggling, what do I do and there's no solution. It's probably the biggest thing. Let's take a step back, because I think a career is a big part of your life and your career beg your pardon is a big part of your life and your career.
Speaker 1:Biggie Pardon is a big part of your life, yeah, yeah, and you've obviously followed stuff that really resonates with you and that takes a degree of bravery. There's a degree of safety in maybe taking a secure job and not being entrepreneurial and everything else, and it's not to criticize it. It suits people sometimes, but you've obviously got this innate calling to it. Yeah, professionally, you know where did it start for you? You wanted to go into psychology. You got kicked out, as you said, for whatever behavior reasons, but more so you burned down one building.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it um, where did it start? You know you. You, you became an accidental entrepreneur, as you said, and you've moved and built multiple little avenues. Let's talk through as many of them as you can and sure where they came from and why. And, yeah, where little avenues?
Speaker 2:Let's talk through as many of them as you can and where they came from and why and where you are now, it's a really, really interesting question and I think, like, if there's anything of this whole conversation I'll probably take away, is that initial question about who is Will Stubbs, and I don't think that we ask that question of ourselves enough. But so my story is my mum was an an artist, um, and my dad, uh, is now a retired um coder, um, so a nerd, uh, and an entrepreneur himself. And, um, growing up, I think that taught me that, like there isn't a regular job, um, you know he was building a company and a business and coding, and she was in the studio creating art, and I think that just set the tone for us that, like, you can do whatever you want to do, um, and his advice, my dad's advice, when I wanted to start the business was it's not going to kill you. So you know what? What can really go that wrong? Give it a shot.
Speaker 2:But, um, I didn't think for most of my life that I could do it and that it's scary to start a business. As you probably would know, it's a lot harder than I think most people realize, and if it is for you, it's wonderful in many ways, but it's also horrible in many ways. It is that duality. So I went through a period when I was about 12. We moved towns um. My mom was really sick and out of hospital. My dad was really really busy with with trying to run a business.
Speaker 1:He had six kids also to provide for so you're one of six, one of six, yes, second youngest.
Speaker 2:So my little sister was the baby and she was spoiled and they get spoiled and then everything in between gets nothing.
Speaker 1:Exactly, I'm three of four, mate. Ah, so you get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've got an agenda too, and big families like that like they're great, and you know, one of the best things is you're never lonely. But if you're going through something it's really hard for that to be seen sometimes, and to me that was the case. So I went through a period of real I didn't fit in in the school that I went to. Um, mom was sick, dad was busy, all my siblings had their own stuff going on, and it got to the point where I was in real crisis and I almost lost my life and um, really fortunate that I recovered from that and I didn't generally think about or talk about it to anybody for years.
Speaker 2:And then I met a couple of guys here in Brisbane who were friends of friends and they were looking at the problem that young men in Australia, more than drugs and alcohol, heart disease, skin cancer, anything, the number one thing that kills us is ourselves, and that seemed to us to be ridiculous and that's suicide. That's suicide, yeah, it's. That just seems so wrong, you know, and surely somebody should do something and we thought that maybe should be us. And so we looked at all the materials that were out.
Speaker 2:There were like pamphlets that said depression in black and white and something like their head and their hands, and if you're depressed, you don't want to look at that.
Speaker 1:So just that there's a, it almost gives you a sense of shame.
Speaker 2:Exactly Totally. And when we started like this was 2011, right, like people didn't talk about this stuff. It was. It was really taboo. And so we created the campaign that used the language that young men use, which was soften the fuck up, yeah. Rather than being told as a young kid that, as a young boy, that you should toughen the fuck up hard enough, um, we said, hey, you can be soft as a man like you don't have to be invulnerable. You can seek help. And I became the poster boy of it. So I was on a lot of materials and I would go and speak about my experiences and it blew me away, not just the online reception. We got followers all over the place. They just loved how we were talking to them. The campaign was bright and colorful, it was in their language, it used real guys with real experiences, and when I would go and talk about it at events or or spaces, so many people would come up to me and just say, like I've been there, or I remember like parents would say I've got a kid right now who's in this space and I don't know what to do. And I think for me, that was a lightning rod of hey, you can create something that means something to somebody, that can help somebody Holy shit, that's cool. That can help somebody Holy shit, that's that's cool.
Speaker 2:Um and around about then I was at uni and, uh, mom was, was sick again and so I stopped going to class. Um, which is in many ways quite fortunate, because I was able to choose a different path. Um to you know, I had a few different odd jobs and then eventually, um, the, the nonprofit, was established. We were self-funded. We set up the, the studio, to fund that, so we do design and strategy work, and then a portion of those profits would go into the nonprofit and it. It just unlocked this excitement that I can, I can do this as a job. Mmm, like that's crazy. And why did nobody tell me that this was a job? I can do this as a job? Like that's crazy. And why did nobody tell me that this was a job that I could do? And so from there we realised there were other people that needed something like soften the fuck up.
Speaker 2:So if you look at the suicide rate in Australia, the age group that actually has the worst rates are men over 80, for a number of reasons, but it's often clouded because natural causes of death come up and so it doesn't look like it's the biggest problem. But if you remove those, then yeah, it is suicide. And so we looked at what are the reasons for that. There's financial insecurity, and they've been. Their status has been reduced in society. You kind of shove them in a closet somewhere and see you once a year. Um, they don't have friends and family much anymore. They're often widowed, um, and they just feel really alone. And we realized the one thing that we could do to impact that was to create new friendships. And then we also know that one in three australians feel regularly chronically lonely.
Speaker 2:And so we created a platform called old mate, and it was to use like colloquial language, old mate, and say you, as a young australian, find an old mate and pledge one hour a month for 12 months and just hang out with them and be their mate. And we gave you, I think, like 80-something different activities to do something with them. So we had, like old mate movie date, old mate cooking class, because a lot of these old guys, like they didn't cook you know their wives cooked because of that generational expectation. And so we had like here's a recipe for spag bol. Yeah, and you could do that together.
Speaker 2:But my favourite was old mate discography, where we had like a playlist of uh, frank sinatra and then nikki minaj, like see how music had changed. Um, and it was, it was. It was really wonderful, um, and so we, we just kept looking at different problems in society that were based upon people and how we interact, how we behave and how can you create something that just reaches you in a way that nobody else has and nudges you in a direction, and my lesson from doing that is that most people want something better and they want to feel better. They want to do something for somebody else. If you just show them how or give them that first step, they'll go the rest of the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, very interesting. Okay. So at some point, how have you dealt with? I guess you know you sat in psychology class and then stopped sitting in psychology class. Yet you've gone into the psych space head first, built businesses, taken on these problems. Has there ever been a point where you've gone oh shit, do I have the qualifications?
Speaker 2:or anything else. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And get that sort of imposter syndrome.
Speaker 2:Oh, totally.
Speaker 1:And then, how have you solved that both? Personally and professionally, Because some people would turn around and go who are you and what's your life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny. So we started the nonprofit 2011. Our focus now is less mental health. Specifically, in the last couple of years, we've shifted into focusing on social cohesion. So, loneliness, polarization, common ground, empathy how do we rekindle that camaraderie that society used to have and said now we kind of feel like we hate everybody.
Speaker 2:And we've been recognised by both sides of government, which is a really rare feat. We've been put forward for a UNESCO Peace Prize, just actually this past week. We've won good design awards. We've got thousands of followers online. We've had events that have sold out at the powerhouse here in Brisbane and, like we've done so much, I feel like an imposter constantly. Yeah, and part of that is, yeah, like you know who the hell am I to do these things? And I think it's a feeling that you can have in all aspects of life, like being a dad yeah, what the hell. Like you get pregnant and then you wait nine months and then, bang, something happens. You end up at the hospital, the baby comes out and then they look after you for a couple of days and they literally just say, all right, well, off you go and you're like, well, wait a minute, like I'm still a kid.
Speaker 1:I don't know how to do this.
Speaker 2:So that imposter syndrome is pretty chronic and there was one particular event that was really crystal. It was crystal clear for me about feeling like an imposter, but it also taught me a lot about what that, how to look at that which was um in in 20 2018. Uh, I was invited to the world economic forum annual meeting in davos, um, so it's a swiss e-town, one of the most exclusive events in the world. It's hosted by the World Economic Forum. You know, bill Gates goes, the presidents go, a bunch of billionaires, non-profit legends, activists Like it's for Microsoft to rent a space in the street it's a million dollars a day. Jesus and I was invited to go speak because of the work in the non-profit and I don't wear suits, but of the work in the non-profit and I don't wear suits, but I bought a suit, yeah, nice, and like every day I was wearing a suit and I was looking around and you know, there's like Saudi billionaires going up to the bar next to me and stuff. I'm like why the fuck am I here?
Speaker 2:And there was a panel that I was going to speak on and it was an open panel so the local international school could come and watch. It was a panel about the global crisis of mental health and youth. And it was me, the head of McKinsey, I think, an Olympic medalist, a researcher in neuroscience, I think from Harvard, these incredible people, and I'm there in like a pair of rm williams, with a hole in it and like wearing a t-shirt now because I got sick of the suit, and I remember thinking like I shouldn't, I shouldn't be here, um, but I told my story and at the end of it we finished and, uh, this group of people came up to us to ask questions and after everybody had left, there was this one guy at the back and he was this scrawny young kid in a hoodie and he came up and he said it's so great to meet you. My name is Isaac, I'm from the UK, I'm studying here in Switzerland. I've been following your work since off on the fuck up. And we have a forum every year in Switzerland. Would you come speak at it, please? Yeah, up. And we have a forum every year in Switzerland. Would you come speak at it, please? Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that feeling of being an imposter immediately flipped. Yeah to. I may be an imposter internally, but I've, I've meant something to this kid and I've inspired him, and so my, of course, my response was like, whatever you want me to do, like sign me up. So I went and spoke at the forum for the next three years, yeah, took my girlfriend at the time to the last one proposed to her on the lake by the school and it it taught me that you might feel like an imposter, but other people you're definitely not, and that's really what matters. You might go through entire career, you know you might be training clients and internally going like maybe I don't know everything, but I guarantee you that they don't care. Yeah, they want to believe in you and they, they, they do. And so if that's what they get out of it that they have somebody who is just guiding them you can feel however you want to feel. It doesn't?
Speaker 1:it doesn't really matter, yeah, doesn't have. And then there's a certain extent, at least from a business perspective. If you don't feel like an imposter, you're probably not going hard enough yeah, you're really not asking enough of yourself.
Speaker 2:Yes, an extent so there's that quote from um I think it's in Ted Lasso, yeah, my favorite show and he says like if you think doing something brave I think the power of a to do something brave like riding a horse if it's not a bit uncomfortable, you're not doing it right.
Speaker 1:And it's totally true, yeah, if you're not a bit scared then, you're probably not going far enough absolutely, yeah, okay, that, really that's very interesting. And shifting from there you've now gone into, you know, you, you've built multiple businesses and taking on a lot of challenges and um, within that, something I was thinking about, um, with regard, you know, dala, which I want to get into, raising equity, yeah, from an imposter syndrome perspective.
Speaker 2:I think of it myself.
Speaker 1:You know one. What was your first experience with that and how have your skills developed in it? How have you addressed it personally in terms of again, I'm asking for this because I want to build this and I need to build this. Need these investors to trust me and then going from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's something I struggle with. First and foremost, I don't like investors and I think that is that's probably something I should examine there about why that is Like. Is it because I don't want to give up control? Um is it.
Speaker 1:Is it a fear of getting held accountable?
Speaker 2:I was thinking about it myself. I have to like then show up and I have to succeed. Yeah, um, and we have. We have a couple of angel investors in in our dollar product at the moment who are wonderful and and they came on because of what they saw in us at the at time there really wasn't much of the product to show, but they got the idea and they got that we had the skills that could do something cool. And those are the investors that I like. I think, but similarly so, I was in a program last year, the Global Good Fund Fellowship.
Speaker 2:So it's a fellowship set up in the US, out of Washington, that basically, a young lady working for the super rich dude noticed in the company that was so many talented young people that didn't have mentorship and she said, like waste opportunity for the company. So she said to him you should fix this. And he said, well, you fix it, and if you fix it well enough, I'll give you some money to run it. And so she did. Her name's Carrie Rich and she found a bunch of people to provide mentors with and match young people with older experts in their field, and now the Global Good Fund does that, so they recruit entrepreneurs from around the world, many incredible people from everywhere.
Speaker 2:There's a um who was in my fellowship last year who invented a, an ultrasound device that ran off, a smartphone in a solar cell, um, and so in the villages in africa she worked in there were, there were babies that could be saved because of this invention, except, um, her government didn't have to export it to the us, had to be registered with their medical goods authority, which they didn't have. So she then went to the US, had to be registered with their medical goods authority, which they didn't have. So she then went to the Capitol and, like you have to create this for me. And they did, which is like badass, but anyway.
Speaker 2:So once he was programmed and one of the things they do for you is they give you an executive coach and have this guy, greg. He was like the most apple pie American dude I've ever met and he was so lovely and I was explaining to him what my visions were, for what I wanted to do with my career right now, which is, in the simplest terms, build the world's most personalized mental wellbeing product, which is Dala, and build a museum against hate for humanity, um, which we're doing at the moment. And I said greg, I think these, these are huge things to do. At the same time, I think I can do it. And he said well, yeah, I think you can, but you got to get really fucking good at asking for help. And I that that was.
Speaker 2:You know, when you hear something piece of advice that is so blisteringly accurate that you shiver a bit and you kind of retreat from it. And I thought about it and I was like he's, he's right. And so I made a commitment from then that I would just ask for what I wanted. And every meeting we went into, you know, I would just say, if it's an investor for the, for the tech product, I would say, like, is this something you would invest in, and if not, why? Because it may not be the right thing, but I at least want to know why that is, so I can learn and convince even myself. I suppose that it is it and I are worthy of that and I think I can't say too much about it. But we have a site that we are negotiating to get access to, to turn into this museum, and to do this I would have to raise a butt-clenching amount of money, a butt-clenching amount of money. And I went into this meeting with a government elected official and they're a fan of our work, and at the end of it they said what can I do for you? And I looked out the window and I pointed at this building that's been there since a long time and I said I want that building, can I have it? And like, what a ridiculous thing to say to somebody. And they said, okay, yep, well, let's have a chat and see how that would work. And I don't know who would get to where we are now which is really exciting if I hadn't just been that forthright.
Speaker 2:But to do that, I think it connects to the imposter thing you just have to not even you know that fake it till you make it. I don't, I don't like that sentiment, but I think it's more like reframe it. That it's not about you, it's about the thing you're trying to create. You know, in your case you're creating signs of fitness Like how many lives? Yes, it's a business, but how many lives will it change by operating? And certainly I'm the fittest I've ever been, and when I came into signs of fitness I was rehabbing from a nerve injury. I'm in a completely different state to where I was, and so you know, when you're looking at asking for somebody to invest, is it about you? It's not about you, it's about the thing you're trying to create.
Speaker 1:That will then impact something else. Yeah, okay, it's a nice way to conceptualize it because you know, I was personally sitting there thinking how would I go in one of those meetings? And I am not good. I mean, I'm not much of an asker for help? Yeah, at all you know, and maybe again, it's the third child well, everybody, I'm gonna, I'm gonna look at it myself.
Speaker 1:Totally yeah, I don't know don't need to really do a psychoanalysis on myself but I'll make a time, oh geez man not enough um, but it's, it's understanding that you know, and I think for a lot of people out there, they're probably sitting on their hands for something that they wish they should be or could be or want to be doing.
Speaker 1:And it does take a degree of bravery to say again, it's not about me and I think there's a big Australian cultural thing here, totally, whereas, like, if I'm building soft, yeah, my face is on it, but this business isn't about me. It it's not about Joe, my business partner, at all. Mmm, this is about you and every other person you train next to everyone that's come in the past, everyone that's gone in the future and and and all the inter and everything in between. It's every little interaction and moment and that's what. That's what this is about. It's, yeah, there's this, there's people that have been involved in it always, and you know I might leave, but might leave, but I don't want this to stop. If I die, it will keep going with what it is. So, yeah, it's a nice way to consider it, because then, okay, what's the problem we're solving? What's the reason we're doing this? For? It's much bigger than that.
Speaker 2:I have this friend who I met when I was at that event in 2018. And he's one of the most inspiring guys I've ever met. His name is Jaideep Bansal and he's based in India and he used to work for a huge multinational corporation and he quit it to go start an enterprise and it's wild when you think about it. His company Global Himalayan Expedition it is what it says on the tin. They run tour groups where you go into the himalayas on an expedition and part of it is that you have to carry solar equipment, and so you hike through the himalayas carrying this really heavy pack. It's amazing scenery. You get to a village and you help set up the solar equipment. So a village that has been there for centuries for the first time ever has electricity, and what that means to that village is that for the first time, at night they don't have to use kerosene lamps, so the air quality is already increased. They can't be assaulted or robbed by local ne'er-do-wells as easily. Or school kids can access the internet for the very first time, and the education opportunities that provides them is incredible.
Speaker 2:And he's gone through the himalayas connecting village by village by village, and then he said like how do I make this sustainable, um, because tour groups can can provide some funding. But how do you make it really sustainable? You create holiday destinations in those villages, so it's like airbnb you can go and stay at himalayan expedition places. And I think his way of looking at it and he said he said once um, if you want to create something really and I'm paraphrasing him again but if you want to create something really important, don't try and create something really big. You just create a small ripple and that will ripple out and create more change. And I think it's. It's easy running a business and employing people and having clients and customers to think, to kind of panic about the big stuff, but often it's just coming in and doing like what are the key things today that you have to do? Set up solar equipment and then they're going to have a completely changed future. We'll not worry about that. Just set the equipment. That's all you got to do, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And it's quite interesting because it's the same approach for someone that wants to get fitter, yeah, someone that wants to improve their relationships, someone that maybe is struggling with mental health. It's the same approach. You can point at Everest your entire life. Someone that maybe is struggling with mental health, it's the same approach. You, you're not, you can. You can point at everest your entire life, but if you don't start taking one step, at a time. You're never gonna. You're never gonna reach the summit. And it's funny how, again, you know it's. It's not.
Speaker 2:It's not even about the end result, like it's the process yeah, totally, and I think even then the kind of people that I think that come to SOF and listen to your podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm making a huge generalisation, but I think they probably relate maybe, I hope to how I feel, which is I often feel like what I'm doing is not good enough and like the program you've got me at the moment is kicking my butt and I won't be able to train today because I had a crazy day. I've got to step on tonight, have stuff on last night and my brain immediately goes to the threat of my progress. Is I missed a day today? Oh, my God, holy shit, everything's wasted the whole week I've trained wasted. That's bullshit, yeah, um, but we're so readily willing to look at the one thing that's gone wrong rather than consistently. Have I trained well over the past few months, and does one day actually matter? Probably not. But the kind of personality where you do want to do your best. I think that the downside to that is you grill yourself and you guilt yourself too much when you think you're not doing your best, when actually you're probably doing really bloody great.
Speaker 1:I mean you managed to make time to get up and go for a run in the foggy, cold Brisbane morning yesterday, on the same day of your beta launch of your app and I was shocked, and my wife was shocked, my dog was shocked, your dog's like no man.
Speaker 2:leave me alone I want to stay in bed.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about Darla. So what is it? What's it for?
Speaker 2:Who's it for?
Speaker 2:Who's it for, yeah, and what do you hope to achieve with it? Uh, all good questions. So, um, I think that we have a few huge crises to deal with, as as a right, as a species, as a world. Um, you know, climate change is a huge one, um, and the rub for me is that climate change is a significant problem. Um, it's an existential problem, but, like we know what technology and solutions we need to do so, like that's achievable, um, the other two major crises that I see is that society is is tearing itself apart, like we can't agree on anything anymore. Um, you know, politics has become, uh, more of a sport or a tribalism than it is just a bunch of ideas, um, and that itself, I think, is is probably the most worrisome thing for me, because we just don't know how the hell you solve that. And the third crisis is that we are pouring so much money every year into the mental health and well-being of the population, and it's getting worse. We have hundreds of of million dollars from the government going into it. Um, we have things like lifeline that's routinely understaffed and under-resourced and do the best that they can do. You have great resources like headspace, the, the centers here, um, beyond blue, all these things, and yet nothing seems to be working. It's getting worse and yet nothing seems to be working.
Speaker 2:It's getting worse and I think, up until now, that there's a turning point where there's a few things. One of the reasons that's happening is lack of community, and I think spaces like SOF are a great bastion of that. You can come in, you can sweat together and you can build a sense of connection. But in many other places in society we've lost that place where you can connect and that's a significant erosion. And, I think, income inequality, the way cities and towns are built, most people, even in this neighbourhood, will live in apartments and I guarantee you, 95% of you do not know your neighbors and that's not how human beings are supposed to live.
Speaker 2:Um, this is going on a tangent. So really bad, and I will get. I will get to it. But, um, the, the groups in the world with the best quality of sleep are groups like the amish, where they know their neighbors, they their community. They know so well each other that you go to sleep so well, because if something goes wrong, you trust to be woken up, and it's no wonder that the sleep quality in the modern Western world is so terrible because we are isolated, we don't know everybody around us, and so if the fire alarm goes off but I don't hear it, when my neighbours come and get me, I don't know. And so if the fire alarm goes off but I don't hear it, will my neighbours come and get me? I don't know. And so I think that trust in each other is usually linked to it, and I think as well.
Speaker 2:We have a world that has just gone through a major crisis of an epidemic, so everybody's experienced existential dread. Did I go to the fish and chippery that was exposed? How long was I there? And it feels like a distant memory, but I think it was a really real example of mortality and how scary the world is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then you go to work and you're under the pump and you don't have time to eat well, and so you'll you go to work and you're you're under the pump and you don't have time to eat well, and so you'll eat some crappy food and you'll go home.
Speaker 2:I don't have time to go to the gym, so I'll just watch the bachelor, and then I'll go back to the job I don't like and then come home, not talk to anybody, and it goes on and on, and so, um, that's what I think is going on, and I think that there are some, some tools that are great if you're in crisis, like I have been, um, when I was a kid, and, and it helped me, and now you can access some that are great.
Speaker 2:But I think what we've, what we've missed out on, is how do you equip people with the knowledge and skills they need to build resilience so that, rather than getting to a point where you are in crisis, you start to go on a sliding slope of problems where maybe you're stressed more than you are calm, maybe you're feeling anxious more and more, you're not sleeping well, you're feeling out of place and out of your depth. Before it becomes a real problem, you know what you can do to feel better, and so for me, that's become walking the dog by the river. Greg, my executive coach, said to me he wanted me to gratitude journal every night, and I said that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Like what? I don't have time for that. It's just a complete lie. I'm watching the Bachelor.
Speaker 2:You're watching the Bachelor Right exactly, and eventually somebody bought me a pen and I made time to do it and my fitness tracker showed me every time I gratitude journaled before bed. Just three things I was grateful for one thing I was proud of, which is the hardest thing to write yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:My recovery was boosted by like 7% or 10%, and so that was enough to know that five minutes is worthwhile. Um, it's only now that technology is able to crunch the data, figure out. What are the things that you're doing that work for, kieran? What are the things that I'm doing that work for will, or maybe we have enough overlap that there are things you're doing that I could take inspiration from. It'd be recommended to me to give it a go, much like greg the coach, yeah, and then provide you a tailored schedule just for you about.
Speaker 2:Hey, here's kieran, here are the things you can do to feel the best version of you that you could be, and so that's dala. Create a mental well-being app and a mental emotional strength coach in your pocket that, as you use it, it understands what makes you tick, what are the things that are having the biggest impact on you? Or maybe you're becoming a new dad, like myself. You can join a group of new dads going through that and learn that, yes, sleep is going to go out the window, and so, if you know you're not going to get a good amount of sleep, how can you, as part of this group, practice good sleep hygiene and maximize what you do get and up until now, like that has just been okay, you go figure it out if you have the time, and so we created something that is designed to make it as simple as possible, as personalized as possible and as calm as possible, to know how do you start and how do you keep doing it.
Speaker 2:Okay, and who is it for? At the moment, we're looking at people who are probably already curious about these things. It's lots of people that you know like who will journal or make a cheer smoothie and, because they know it's good for them, they'll come to a running club or breathing class but wouldn't really consider it mental health and wellbeing, which is fine, you know. We want it to be for people who are wanting to feel like their best version of themselves and want it to be easy. But don't aren't, you know, going to go in and do a full mental health. You know, toolbox course.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, just too busy, or whatever Exactly.
Speaker 2:You know you're an amateur athlete and you're a dad sort of vibe. Go to time, want to feel better.
Speaker 1:In terms of the thought on the UX and the design, because I've looked at it and interacted with it and it's nothing like I've touched before, particularly in this space, yeah, yeah um, I'm a big whoop guy. Yeah, we use team builder, I've got you know, 40 odd weeks, uh, 40 odd six week programs on excel like I've used some clunky stuff, yeah, um, and none of it's very sexy.
Speaker 1:I mean whoops, probably as good as it sort of gets in terms of that space, but it still feels sporty and athletic and I've used a lot of that software and yeah in a sense, you know you guys have designed something that doesn't feel like that at all. It is calming, almost to use. I'm glad. Yeah, and how did that sort of come to fruition? How was that discussed and developed as a product?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it took a while, and so this actually began life as a research project where, when we were creating our own projects for mental health and wellbeing, we didn't have the data, and so we started looking at can you get people to sign up to an app and register how they were feeling in real time?
Speaker 2:And we cross-referenced that with age, ethnicity, location, their profession, how old their kids are, how many kids they have everything you'd want to know and we scrubbed their name and aggregated the data and we could find things, trends, trends, you know, things like, um, the most anxious group in australia at that time were men in the mid-30s who worked in law. Those that had the most sense of anxiousness were the ones that on the onboarding, so they never felt anxious, which is very interesting, yeah, um, or if you are a woman with kids, if you went running in the morning, you were far less stressed that you ran in the evening. Okay, so that was the progenitor to know that, like you could use, um, uh, what's called digital phenotyping. So basically, what you're doing in an app or a program digitally can tell us something about your behavioral styles yeah and then we can match that to recommendations that we know would benefit you specifically.
Speaker 2:But it took years for that to become viable and and the technology regenerative ai, for instance, to to work um, and in that time we we tested it with with groups and clunky ai uh ui was was a problem and a lot of feedback we got was fairly strong on it, but it was also looking at and I'm a big fan of it myself. You know I religiously look at it first thing every morning it's like, did I get green today?
Speaker 2:But it is overwhelming in all the buttons and stuff you can look at. Yeah, that's going on, and you know, apps like Calm have been there for me when you know, during covid, when I was overwhelmed, but it's. It's sort of. I think the approach that ux has taken in a lot of these products is more is more, yeah, whereas I think the way that it's going now is, uh, people don't have time for more is more, and so the approach we took is strip it back, make it easy. We don't want you in the app constantly, we want you to get in, get out, make it calm, make it so intuitive that you don't have to even think about what to do next, and I'm really glad, um, that you said it feels calm, the, the look of it I've likened to a lava lamp and that sort of almost a little bit hypnotic. Yeah, and that's the. The approach is that trying to find a sense of calm shouldn't be enraging, and I think I think we've nailed it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can say that with confidence. That's, that's really cool, it's something you know when people come in here. Your situation hey, I want to be the fittest I can be. Got this pain thing, which I do not want to stir up because that blocks everything and ruins everything, not just professionally, but also, you know, I could give you 50 ways to skin the cat, to be the fittest version of yourself.
Speaker 2:Like actual skin the cats.
Speaker 1:Well, there you go, that's one example right, but if I just go.
Speaker 1:We'll turn up, do this and take the thinking out of it and just do the training, simplify it as you're saying. It goes a long way. Because I find, as I use a product of any kind, do I use all the features in Facebook, in Instagram? No, I'm like, maybe I just don't use it. I'll look, look, look and then get off. And it's the same thing on a health app, same as Whoop. I don't use all the features because of the time I've got to actually fathom all of them first before I can actually use them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and here's the other thing. What I've learned about people in and what I would say like I do ultimately is behavioral design, like, how do you design something to get the right behavioral result? And the biggest lesson that I've learned is without judgment, people are lazy and we have to be Like evolutionarily. It doesn't make sense for us to be wired to take the hardest route to do something. It makes sense for us to take the easiest lowest calorie required route to do something. It makes sense for us to take the easiest lowest calorie required route to do something. Um and so if you are lying on the couch and the remote's over there, are you going to get up perfectly, walk over perfectly, pick it up and sit back down? No, you're going to reach over and try and grab without getting up. And similarly, if you open an app and it's overwhelming to the point you don't know what to do, you you're just going to close it.
Speaker 2:If you come into the gym and I have to think about what set I'm doing, I have to think about what program should I do today, and even the approach with Platinum, where I'm a new dad, I don't have the time to chat very much, or what's it like to mess around and to have staff here come in.
Speaker 2:Okay, you're doing this, they know what I'm doing before I even know what I'm doing. They check that I'm doing it and they're going to set stuff up for you. It removes that friction, that possibility that I'm going to give up, and I think that, whether it is a gym, you know, retail business, a wellbeing app, removing, we have a mantra that came from my former business partner's mum, which is that what's easy to do is easier not to do. So you might design something that's as simple as possible to come in and get a blood test, like you, just walk in, we have your details, we'll just take it straight away, you can walk out, yeah, but I still have to go there, you know. So, no matter how easy something is, it's still easier not to bother. And so how do you design your business, your product, whatever it is that not doing it is actually harder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:And then sometimes, like I think, that does feel impossible, but there are ways to do it and if you can, it's gold and I think it's a big part of and I can sort of reflect on that from what we've built in terms of what we're trying to provide for people.
Speaker 1:How is it it's easier not to come to the gym actually it's not and pain as a mechanism is a really useful thing for us, and you've experienced back pain. If you have back pain, you're gonna. It's harder to have a bad episode of back pain than it is to totally three times a week and train, yeah, even if that means you're up at five and you gotta yeah, you gotta compromise your five and you've got to compromise your sleep and you've got to squeeze that in because you know, a week, two weeks, three weeks in bed with back pain and sciatic pain, that's the worst kind of hard that you don't want to deal with. It is easier to come and train and then it rolls on. It's all the things of. I want to be really productive. It's easier to train and be productive than it is to be a sloth and try and turn around at work and be productive and all those sorts of things.
Speaker 2:And the connection.
Speaker 1:I like that way of thinking. Oh, then there's the social side, and then there's yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, I think it's a really interesting way to look at it of avoiding, the easier path is to not bother. How do you make it enticing enough that I don't want to feel the guilt of not showing up for my mates yeah, at the primal class, which sucks us um. Or, you know, I don't want to let down. I don't know, the coach spent this time programming it. I don't want to let them down. Or yeah, I want to avoid that pain. It's a great way of looking at it, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, staying on that from a training perspective for yourself, to sort of bring this home um, where did it start?
Speaker 2:exercise particularly yeah, well, that's, that's interesting. Um, when I was a kid so dad was a programmer, like a coder, mom was an artist yeah, does not beget a sporty family. Um, I remember all the kids at school play cricket and I was. I was like 10 or 11 or something and I asked my dad to teach me how to play cricket. He had to go look it up and he got a cricket bat and he came out and we played it for like 20 minutes and we were like, no, this is not for us. And yeah, we just, we just weren't.
Speaker 2:I remember like I did, um, uh, I had this, I had this crossfit coach, um, and she, she asked me once um what sports I did as a kid and I said to her, uh, my parents put, put me in chess, fencing and archery and she said, well, that's the whitest thing I've ever heard in my life and it wasn't something that I had a passion for at all. But what the instinct? And it actually completely like to your point about why. Essentially like, why did it start? Why did it start? But also like, why has it start? Why did it start? But also like, why has it become a central part of my life and why do I keep turning up? Um.
Speaker 2:So my mom, who was sick when I was a kid, she got sick again um early 20s when I was at uni and um, mysterious illness um, still not entirely confirmed what it was, but her quality of life just just went through the the floor and I I started working part-time, um at a large hardware chain. Um and uh, part-time, was her carer and I could see what it's like for somebody who, when your body fails, you and you're on oxygen and uh, all day and you know things like um, because she couldn't move, uh and her nutrition was was pretty bad and she got pretty big. And it was one morning, it was like three in the morning and the ambulance turned up because she was crashing and we there was a flight of stairs in her her house. Uh, that was quite steep and the ambulance was the bottom of the stairs and the paramedic said we don't feel confident to get her down the stairs and the only thing I could do, as her son, was stand on the stairs and lean her against me and go down one step at a time. That's pretty real and I think I took from seeing my mom like that, as you only have one body.
Speaker 2:Um, at the time I was about 100 kilos, no muscle. That was 100 kilos of unfitness, and I remember I decided to stop drinking soft drinks. I then started trying to eat more vegetables. You know the whole thing. Then I realized that juices were not very good for you. That was a sobering realization and I just I dropped a bunch of weight.
Speaker 2:I found a PT, this huge bodybuilder guy called Andreas, who convinced me to go backyard boxing with him once. And, yeah, no, I was. I was pretty dumb, but he told me about powerlifting and and there was just something in me that unlocked that this thing I ignored for so long. I've always been like a very cerebral person. My whole family is very much like. We're up in the brain, we're not in the present, in the body, and I think there was something about that initial taste of training where, oh, like there's a whole other part of me that I've I've ignored. Yeah, and you start to realize it feels good and I feel better and you know everything is just coming alive and and kind of, you know, connecting and um, I suspect that a large part of my motivation for training, and you can ask my wife, she'll tell you like, I'm a little bit obsessive about it.
Speaker 2:I think it is both the joy of it and the love of that feeling of the first time I got muscle-ups on the rings or hitting a PR in the back squat. I love that feeling. I think it's also fear of I've seen what it can, what it can go wrong and what that looks like, and I never want to get to the point where, um, you lose that, lose that health. Yeah, and I think my, my mission now is to um. Yeah, and I think my my mission now is to um. No matter how big my already gigantic baby gets because he is huge I want to always be able to pick him up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so even if I'm 80, so I need to stay that strong, yeah, um I love that yeah yeah, it's sort of I found it late.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the love of of fitness, but it changed my life totally.
Speaker 1:And it's so funny because you walk in there and you're like, oh, this guy's well-trained and it's fine compared to someone, did you? No, seriously, honestly, what's your background? Powerlifting CrossFit? How many years did you do that for?
Speaker 2:I did CrossFit like more than 10 years there you go.
Speaker 1:So I think for anyone, anyone listening to this, no matter where you are, and you say it's like science fitness, gets this assumption that it's athletes and it's this person yeah, yeah so many people out there that are in a situation like you now, or maybe you when you started, and it is just simply starting and yeah, you got to go find the crazy bodybuilder that's going to just say just do something and let's go. Yeah, and again there's that himalayas mountain or cheese. Do I try and climb the top? No, mate, just take a step, don't worry about the top and just get going, because all of a sudden you know 10, 15 years of training under your belt. I'm looking at stuff. I'm writing your program going. Okay, we can tidy up some technical things that are like one, two percent nuances on a hip rotational thing, versus I might have someone starting just like okay, you, just okay, you just got to squat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I mean like I find that super interesting and and not just in a physical training, but even like mental wellbeing of you can look at somebody else, like somebody can look at you and go, holy shit, kieran's got it all together. He's so fit, like he's, he's got this business, he's got all these things going on. It's got all these things going on. Um, he's got good hair and you know, like I can never be like that and and I suspect that you're a bit like me we're like you know how the sausage is made. So you're kind of like we're not that like you know, like you know all this shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm having a side of business and the first time you know you did a primer class. Yeah, um, it can be easy to have like preemptive imposter syndrome to say I could never do that, whereas nobody is an overnight success. It's, it's, it's so many nights. Yeah, um, and it it is just starting, and that that very first time, the very first time you walk into a gym or the very first time that you try meditation, um, you just build upon it and build upon it and the consistency is what's important and if you can find the love in it, then it becomes really easy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you create you almost foster the love.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's funny because my mum's pretty meticulous in her health to a certain extent wanted to get on top of this meditation thing and I just can't do it. I just can't do it. I just can't do it. I just can't do it. I just can't do it and try it. I've tried and that's it. No, I'm not doing it. And you know I was like mom, like you're not gonna be good at it yeah, the first time you do it.
Speaker 1:You know you pick up a guitar for the first time. You're not good at it and we think of an instrument and certain things as a skill. But then mental health and meditation is like no, it's not for me, or it is for me, it's like you're gonna stare it in the face and you gotta go.
Speaker 1:I'm okay that I suck at it yeah, and let's start and I think that's the other thing you know, in the slowing down side of things neurologically, don't try and max out your 100 meter sprint. If you haven't done any running training, just do a couple of lower intensity intervals of three or five reps. That's something that you guys have built into Dala as well, isn't it? Just smaller little periods.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, and I think it always was this way. Maybe I look at the past with rosy tinted glasses, but I believe that a lot of our modern conveniences and stuff has made us really expectant for everything to happen now.
Speaker 1:And even on ourselves.
Speaker 2:Totally. I need to be great at meditation right away. Even that sentence in itself is ridiculous. It's completely against the whole thesis of meditation. But I want to walk in. How come I'm not as strong as that guy?
Speaker 2:Um, and with dala like, it's the same approach of like we're not. We and even we were really um went to great pains with the language and the tone of it and the design of it to not be judgmental. So we looked at, for instance, do we? There's some great tricks in in ux where you can get like streaks. You know, did you, um, did you use it every day? You don't use it once.
Speaker 2:Uh, we're gonna guilt you. You know you should have been in here like. Apple watches are really good at that. You know it's time to get up here. You haven't stood up enough today.
Speaker 2:You weren't moving very good yesterday and we decided not to do that because, okay, I think the philosophy that we have is this is hard enough to to look after yourself in a world that that has so many demands of you. We don't want to be demanding, we want to be so accepting and so welcoming that if you have the time for this, we'll make it as easy as possible, but if you don't, that's okay, like we're not going to guilt you, we're not going to make you feel like you're a failure. There's plenty of other things that can do that. And I think I think on the flip side, there's also this um. It's funny that you say, uh, you know, I walked in, you said like he's had good training.
Speaker 2:Um, I think we also forget to take stock of where we're at. And I don't know if it's you know, if you have this feeling, um, running soft, of like I was here for um the party you had to celebrate platinum and there were so many people here that were, you know, huge supporters and wanted to be here for you. And like, how often on a bad day do you stop and remember that and go no, we're doing, we're doing all right. And similarly, like you know, do I stop and think about I've missed training today, but I'm still doing pretty well, I'm still pretty strong, and that's okay. You know, it's so easy to look at what's next and am I where I want to be, versus holy shit, I've done so much already.
Speaker 2:I should be grateful for where I am now.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It's a pretty strong note to sort of finish on, isn't it I?
Speaker 2:like it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I don't think it stands to testament to a lot of people. I mean, I try and catch myself because I don't. I'm looking forward, I'm criticizing my training, my adherence, my business, my lifestyle. How can I be better? How can I be better All the time versus taking stock? And we had our women's health workshop a couple of months ago now and I remember sitting in the space and running it and there were 60 women there and probably eight dudes and I was like that's huge. And all I felt was, oh, I wish I had this and I wish like that's huge, yeah. And all I felt was, oh, I wish I had this and I wish it was a bit sexier and a little bit more nurturing, because this is such a nurturing environment that we've created. And then I stopped and I went. Five years ago I would have dreamt that I could host something in a facility like this. Right, yeah, and right now I'm in that dream. I'm literally living that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, maybe that dream I'm literally living that, yeah, okay maybe just chill out a little bit and go. Yeah, I'll take it. It's not to say rest, and you know I'm not going to stop and be like that's it I'm. You know, yeah, and you, you're probably the same, you've never made it, but hey, it's okay, you're doing okay and keep going, and one step at a time yeah, and you know, I um to, I guess, summarize my my thoughts on it two things.
Speaker 2:And the thing he asked me about was being a dad, and that experience that is something that I'm trying to really imbibe into my parenting is that. You know, he I realized, like yesterday he was sitting on the bed and my wife and I were like cuddling him and playing with him and I was gnawing on his like huge chubby cheeks and he's giggling and he's carrying on and it hit me, there will be a time when I do that for the last time and I felt this preemptive sadness and then I thought about it and I was like, yeah, but right now I get to do it. And so as he grows up and as things change and he does annoying things where he's made a mess everywhere, or whatever, just try and enjoy what it is and don't bring a judgment into oh, I'm going to lose this, or it's not as many people as I would like, or I wish that he could just eat a story without spreading it all over the world. It just is what it is and enjoy what you have, because there are so many people that would wish they could have that.
Speaker 2:Um, the other thing is that there's a a great um story that I always think about and I think I think it relates like a lot of what we talked about which is there was this expedition uh, the first like race to the South pole, and there were there were two teams. I forget the year it was, but there were two teams the American team, the Norwegian team and the American team. Strategy was it was a big to do like back of there and it was like the thing that wasn't like the voice on TV.
Speaker 1:So that's what you would read.
Speaker 2:You'd be like the thing there wasn't like the voice on tv, so that's what you would read the newspapers. It's prestigious. The american strategy was we're going to go as hard and fast every single day as we can, as far as we can, across the antarctic just like, just wreck ourselves. We'll beat the norwegians and be great. And the norwegian strategy was uh, we're going to go x number of kilometers every day, the same amount, no matter what, no matter, no matter if it's snowing or clear skies, or it's great you could do the same number of kilometers and then stop rest camp next day.
Speaker 2:same thing, consistent. And what happened was not only did the Norwegians beat the Americans by, I think three days on the way home, all the Americans died and the Norwegians went to Tassie. I had a big party, as still statues of them in Hobart, and it became heroes. Yeah, and I think the lesson from that is that it's really easy, it's really compelling and it seems almost cool to flog yourself constantly and to feel like you're not doing enough. Yeah, but actually the wiser thing, the smarter thing, the more sustainable thing is to trust yourself that what you're doing is the right thing and it's enough. Yeah, and you'll get there.
Speaker 1:Love it. Well, it's been a pleasure, mate.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much for your time.
Speaker 1:Stole this instead of you having your training session.
Speaker 2:So I appreciate that. Yeah, it's a little bit less painful. Yeah, good, yeah, you won't complain about me tomorrow, hopefully awesome, mate.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much, cheers. Thanks for listening to today's episode. For more regular insights into soft, be sure to check us out on instagram or facebook, or visit our website at scienceoffitnesscomau. Once again, we thank you for tuning in to the Science of Fitness podcast.