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
Sport Psychology: Mastering Change And Mindset With Tama Barry
What if the most valuable performance upgrade isn’t more effort, but more honesty with yourself? We sit down with Tama Barry — former principal dancer turned sport and exercise psychologist — to map the messy terrain between certainty and growth, and how language, values, and attention shape every outcome you care about.
Tama opens up about the intensity of professional ballet, the abrupt end through knee injury, and the long stretch of highly functional depression that followed. From there, we dig into adjustment disorder, identity beyond a job title, and the often invisible work of rebuilding a purpose-led life. Along the way we challenge sloppy mental health language, separate “conflict” from “a hard conversation,” and show how precise words can calm the nervous system and unlock better behaviour. If you lead teams, coach athletes, parent, or just want to get unstuck, you’ll find practical tools: emotion check-ins, values clarification, and the ACT framework for psychological flexibility.
We also zoom out to the system: why teams need shared language for buy-in, how coaches can cue “hold it lighter” instead of “do it perfectly,” and why friendships deserve the same repair as romantic relationships. Tama speaks candidly about dehumanisation, queer rights, and how policy shapes wellbeing, urging critical thinking as a health skill. The pattern is consistent across sport and everyday life: notice what’s real, align actions to who you want to be, and carry difficult feelings without letting them drive.
If you’re ready to move from coping to flourishing, this conversation gives you a map and the first steps. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review with one value you’ll act on this week.
Welcome to the Science of Fitness Podcast, where we aim to inspire you to live a more healthy and fulfilling life as we share evidence and anecdotes on all things relating to health, performance, business, and wellness. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the Science of Fitness Partner podcast. Today I have Tama Barry, special guest, long-term member, psychologist, clinical psychologist. Sport and exercise psychologist. Exercise psychologist. And there is a difference, which I'm very keen to discuss. And then also, you know, professional performer and professional athlete, in my opinion, as well. So there's plenty I want to unpack today, and I'm really excited for this one. But like I've just sort of started in the latest few episodes. Um before we dive into the weeds of what you do and whatnot, I want to get a little bit of an understanding about the person behind the practitioner or the professional. So, first and foremost, if you could make one change in the world, what would it be?
SPEAKER_01:I think this is where I'm already difficult, as in there isn't one change. When I think of that question, and I've thought about it a lot, I was like, but it all depends, right? So if we think about the one big change in the world, maybe more kindness, right? Kindness is great, but we need to hear each other better first because we need to know what we've got to be kind about. So maybe hearing, listening better. But then you think like, okay, listening, then communication is really important in the listening process. So maybe we need to learn to communicate better. So uh one thing I would like to change in the world would probably be, I guess that, the understanding that everything is complex, everything is a myriad of things, and it's all a beautiful myriad of things. And actually, the more we accept and acknowledge and open up to everything being a beautiful myriad of things, maybe the more kindness and hearing and communication and acceptance will come in. Yeah. So maybe that's the thing.
SPEAKER_00:It's funny, I've been sort of thinking about critical thinking a little bit more. Um, and you know, whether it's observing an individual emotion that I might feel to a certain situation and going, is it that situation or is it the lack of sleep or the I haven't had my coffee yet, or all these little minutiae that might affect at least my feeling or any feeling. But um, yeah, that sort of can I critically reason with myself? Why does this person behave this way and why do I want to or let that affect me positively or negatively? Um, so maybe it's along the same lines. But yeah, it's funny. I've just spent on my mind for the last couple of weeks, and um it's not nothing is absolute and nothing is obvious, I think is the biggest thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think I think that is, you know, we need to become great critical thinkers, but also understanding that the inevitable inevitability of the world is change. Change and growth and difference. And so and we seem to want to keep things very the same. So why do you think that is? Sense of security? Sense of security, right? Like if we think about, you know, what does the human brain do, right? Like it uh our understanding is that the human brain puts things into little boxes. We call them schemas in in psychology. And um essentially, you know, you you're a little kid and we learn about these things as we go through the world, but we start to kind of categorize things because it means that we've got shortcuts to the way we think about the world. It gives us an ability to take in all the huge amount of information that comes in through our senses and and it gives us an ability to shortcut through that. So if we think like the a really nice basic schema process is maybe when we're born, we have a cat and a dog. A cat and a dog are both furry, they both have four legs, they generally have two tails, that one tail each. Uh they have two ears, a tongue, a nose, whiskers. And then slowly we build up the nuance of what a cat looks like and the nuance of what a dog looks like. And so that schema that started off as like fluffy thing with four legs becomes more and more nuanced. And so um, I think part of that categorization process is we like to know what things are gonna be, because then that means that we can use the heuristics and the biases and and all these things that are designed to really help us navigate the world quickly and with as little energy as possible. It helps us do that. So it gives us a sense of security and a sense of knowing what's gonna come next, which obviously, if a lion's around the corner, we want to know that. And so we start finding pattern. And yeah, ultimately, I think the human brain is just a massive pattern recognition process. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:There's plenty that I want to go to with that. I'll resist the urge and we'll come back to it. Um, if you could pick the number one lesson, or one major lesson, really, um, that you've learned, be it through a positive or negative experience in the last 12 months, what what would it be?
SPEAKER_01:Number one lesson is grace. Just accepting that we're probably not going to be where we want ourselves to be at any given time. We're probably hoping we were different, hoping we were more, hoping we were whatever that thing is for you. And I think that's really normal, very usual, uh, and also very much um supported at the moment, this idea of like optimization of self and stuff. So recognizing that we're not going to be that, and that's okay, and that life is more journey than it is end. There's one end, the rest of it is just journey. So I think that's the thing I'm really trying to focus on learning and bring into my daily experience. Why?
SPEAKER_00:How did that come about in the last however many months?
SPEAKER_01:Uh, I mean, process of a lifetime, right? Like I come from very high-performing background, very um perfectionist, intense, success-oriented, outcome-based background. Um I come from the space of a queer person. So I come from a space of trying to be good enough for others. I come from a space of internalized shame for my experience growing up, uh, and trying to prove that I am valuable enough, good enough through external success, I suppose. Um I have a real lived experience of trying to get outcomes to mean something. Uh, and I suppose over the last, what would it be now, 12 years since I retired from dancing, I have slowly been chipping away at that inner critic, the need for perfection, the need to be perfect, the need to always turn up right, and slowly building on at first self-acceptance and now moving towards that idea of grace and um yeah, just kind of caring about the human inside rather than wanting things external to validate it.
SPEAKER_00:For me, I like to in myself recognize move like water. You know, you want to go somewhere and not be purposeless to a certain extent, um, but without, you know, doing it with grace. It's like just doing it with you're gonna come against roadblocks and it might bunch up a little bit and then you'll navigate your way around and so forth. Um back to that internal critic and you know, your experience professionally, as you said, that sort of need to validate so much of who you are for so long, and as you've learned and navigated that, at what point is it useful and then at what point is it detrimental? Um at least maybe in your experience. You know, I sort of think about it for myself. There's often been this narrative in my head of I'm gonna competing against particularly my older brothers, and they're more talented than me. And I've just told this story in my head, and they don't think highly of me or whatever it might be. And um I think it's been really beneficial because it's moved me forward and you know, proved a few maybe flaws that I thought I had about myself. Um, but at the same time, it also can be detrimental. Um how have you navigated that? How have you found that personally? And then obviously, as a professional, um, you're obviously working with people that are dealing with these kind of inner narratives because we all have one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. We've all got the inner critic, whatever you want to call it. Mine's Barbara. Um that's a really important part of our internal voice, right? Like that's the person, what you're talking about with your brothers there. That's the that's the part of your chatter in your brain that is problem solving all the things that you would need to do in order to succeed in the thing you want to succeed, right? So even though we think of this internal critic as being a horrible thing, it's actually just trying to help us. It's it's the same voice that says, there's a lion in the bush, right? Like it's it's there for a reason. But what you're kind of speaking to then is, but sometimes it leads me off the path, right? Like sometimes it leads me towards things that are maybe not so helpful or not so useful. And I think you bring up a really good point when you said, I like to move like water with purpose. And I think that's the real key is what is the purpose or the meaning or or the deep drivers of the life we want to have. And when I really talk about that, I'm not talking about like, oh, I want to be super fit or I want to win an Olympic gold medal. Like their goals, right? Excuse me. Um what I'm talking about is what is the deep human you want to be in the world? What is the the whatever legacy you want to lead? What what is the what is the when you're 80, what do you want people to say at your birthday about you? What's the message you want to leave in the hearts of the people you meet? Once we have an idea of that, and obviously it'll change for our lifetime, but it, you know, we have some some guidance in that, then it really is like any behavior I do, is it helpful? Does it lead me towards this, or is it unhelpful and lead me away? And when we get good at noticing that, we also get good at noticing why things lead us away. So maybe with your brothers, there's jealousy, there's competitiveness.
SPEAKER_00:I can say it's it's a I go into my shell and it's a degree of shame. There we go. So that's it was always this like critic from them and and family and whatever else, and it's and it's so it they didn't mean it. And as I said, it's been so beneficial, but there are so many moments where I just go, I avoid conflict and I kind of disappear, and and then I'm like, oh like you're doing that thing. That's not moving me to where I want to go. No.
SPEAKER_01:And and and if you're moving back and you're not having those difficult conversations, right, like that can be the thing that moves us away. Okay, it gets it, it alleviates that sense of shame, it alleviates that that feeling that's coming up in us in the short term, but it doesn't move us towards the life we want. And I think that's um, you know, that's when we can kind of go like, oh, okay, this is where my emotions drive me, this is where my thoughts drive me. Am I willing to sit in the shame, take the shame with me, have it as part of my journey, uh, and move towards, or am I going to move away? Unhelpful behaviors that are really designed to alleviate the shame, but aren't designed to drive me where I'm going.
SPEAKER_00:How do you help people identify that degree of conflict? Because there's often there's situations where it could be with Joey, my business partner, it could be with staff, it could be with members and friends, even where you're going, oh, there's that thing, and now we feel it. And everyone feels this, and it's just like, oh, and for me, as I said, I I will shrink away often. And you know, we've had a really challenging 18 months professionally, and a lot of my behaviors before that I now attribute to the challenge that I've had to deal with. And I'll life's gonna do that to us all, I think. Um, and I remember I recognize a lot of those behaviors that I did with with previous staff members and everything else, and it's like, okay, uh here's that conflict thing. It's just it's happened in this meeting right now, and it's sat there all week. Go at it and and really challenge that natural behavior in me. Does it sort of trigger an autonomic response in someone? Does it, as you said, you sort of it it's that inner voice and it goes into that sort of visceral state of the lion around the corner, a fear kind of state. Um, is that really what happens psychologically, neurologically almost?
SPEAKER_01:Can do, can do, depending on how um fearful you are of those situations, right? Uh it could be that. It could also just be learned behavior, right? So in your upbringing with your brothers, when you went into yourself, they probably stopped. So, in a way, that was your way of coping with the difficult situation was to remove yourself from it. That kind of, I guess if we took it into the kind of threat response, it's kind of the flea response, right? Like, and we can do that within ourselves. We just dissociate as a version of fleeing while we just leave our sack of bones standing there. But uh and and so a lot of it is learned behavior, some of it is that that kind of um psychological response to threat. But in many ways, like, how would we work on that? The first thing that's really great is that you're noticing, right? Like we can't change behavior without knowing. So we want to notice. We want to notice what our behaviors are. We want to notice whether they're helpful or unhelpful. And you'll notice I really stare away from positive negative because how a behavior in one situation might be unhelpful, really helpful in another. Um so we want to start recognizing that. We want to start recognizing do these align with the human I want to be? Um, and that's a really big process, right? Like that's not easy. Yeah, absolutely. And that's work. Like when we talk about therapy, and people say, What's the work of therapy? That's the work. The work is paying attention to your life and making choices. Um, and then it's also like, what do we consider to be conflict, right? Like we are always going to come into situations where we disagree with people or we're going to have to communicate in ways that are challenging in order to get the best result. Is that conflict? I would disagree. Like, conflict is okay, we're up for a fight. That's conflict. And there's going to be no change. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas what we're talking about is maybe a challenging conversation or a disagreement or something like that. And I think again, uh, we're doing this a lot now. And I mean, there's such great uh mental health literacy and stuff, and the stigma is really coming away from mental health, um, you know, as we kind of move forward. But alongside that is we're using mental health terminology or words and language around things that aren't that. And I think language really matters. Our brain uh really it language makes a big difference to how we think about things. Sort of relational frame theory, how we put language together, our brain remembers and holds on to it. So if we're saying, okay, I had a difficult conversation and we're saying it's conflict, well, conflict is aggression, anger, these kinds of things. Whereas a difficult conversation is we didn't necessarily agree, but we work together. That's totally different. So again, when we when we think about things like, you know, using the term anxiety, I'm I'm always anxious. It's like, well, anxiety is a is a diagnostic term. Maybe you're stressed, maybe you're nervous, maybe you are anxious. In that moment. In that moment. But but also anxiety has, you know, it's got to happen more days than not over a three-month period. Like there's a there's a whole process around what is anxiety. So when we're talking about these things and we're using them colloquially, we've just got to be a bit careful because they come loaded. And so if we use that word with that thing, then our brain goes, oh, well, that's that thing. So then if I'm going into a difficult conversation and I'm like, oh, this is going to be conflict. My brain knows what conflict means. So it starts to prepare me for conflict.
SPEAKER_00:Makes lots of sense. And yeah, I think it's as you said, the the literacy around mental health, more so psychology in general is improving. Um, and and for me, a big funny thing I said to a a client um was your movement literacy determines your movement competency. And so the better you understand your mechanics on, you know, can you squeeze your glutes when I say so? Like all these little simple things, the better she's then able to go, uh glutes at the top of a squat or when I'm holding this position, whatever it might be. And so then her competencies and more complex movement goes. Would a sort of similar rule set apply psychologically? Like if we improve our psychological literacy of just what it is and you know the terminologies, even to a degree, and understanding that they do come loaded, um, to then understand how we navigate our own psychological well-being.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. A great metaphor. Great metaphor. Uh absolutely. I think literacy in any state, the more we know about anything, right? The the more we can play around with the concepts, the more we can explore them, um, the broader the bandwidth of what we know. So if we think about like really intense anxiety at one end of the scale and really intense excitement at the other end of the scale, and we're like, okay, where am I in this? Physiologically, these things are pretty similar. Like, what's going on here? So, yeah, absolutely. I think literacy really, really helps. I think the other part that you added to that, which is really important, and I think this is where it's quite interesting when you look at like um TikTok and things like that, is there's a lot of literacy, but not a lot of understanding. So when we're using the terms, we're not understanding what they mean exactly. So you've got a lot of people talking about mental health, which is really, really great. But they have they believe they have an understanding of what's going on. That maybe they don't. They've got a term that they've attached to it, so now they have a belief system around it. But then when they come and see a psychologist as a psychologist, it's kind of like, okay, I can see where you've got to with that. But actually, there's this stuff over here that we need to think about in conjunction with that. So uh again, why this person that you're building literacy with still comes and sees you is because you have that depth of knowledge. So it's great that they can come in and start to build that depth of knowledge, but essentially the purpose of your job is to always have more knowledge so you can always coach them further, right? Yep, continue to develop, yeah. But I think with the literacy comes less stigma, comes less fear, comes more openness. Uh, so I think it's a it's a crucial part of part of it.
SPEAKER_00:How does someone develop their literacy better as opposed to kind of this 15-second take off the internet, which I think a lot of us now have access to, which is better than nothing. How do we start to you know build processes internally to do that?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, that's a really tough question. Uh and again, no simple answer here. I think I think the thing is uh I'm very science-based. Um I can come across quite wafty, but I like to think that there's science in what I'm talking about. Um and I think the psychological space is full of a lot of people who not the psychological space. Mental wellness space, let's call it, or or whatever that looks like, is full of a lot of people who are perhaps not so scientifically grounded. Maybe great intentions, but not necessarily scientifically grounded. And you tend to find that these are the people that can be like, just do these three things and you will be this. And then you'll get people that say, Yeah, I did those three things and they worked for me. And it's like this really anecdotal process, right? So how do we build that? I I think you know, finding really good sources, and by good sources I mean really critical sources that aren't uh they're not saying that they're the best. If anyone's telling you that this is the only way to do it, they're immediately wrong. If they're saying you just do these three things and you'll be fine, they're wrong. Like it is just not that simple. And I think you want people that want to go into the detail and recognizing, you know, there's a really good reason why we look at 15 seconds and we go like, that's my information. Because we only have 15 seconds. We live in a really busy world, we're overwhelmed, we're dumped with m information constantly. Um so it's really fair to want quick, easy information. Um, and I think it's a good starting point, but I think it's really about trying to find um very well find critical thinkers.
SPEAKER_00:It's back to your first point, right? Yeah, one change, and it's and then it's uh taking that moment, I think, personally to critically think yourself. Um and that's where I'm sure we'll we'll touch on them different patterns and different things and different theories, seeing a psychologist, you know, communicating with friends that don't always agree with you, journaling and observing. There's probably all these little practices that you can do, which you'll actually start to you know, hopefully develop the capacity. Um let's jump into your journey before we get too carried away. Um we've already got there, but what originally drew you, you know. In fact, let's go back to the start. You were a professional dancer for 20 plus years.
SPEAKER_01:Uh was it that long? It was it was coming up for that. Uh so I'm very happy to round me to 20 plus, yeah, no, 18 years.
SPEAKER_00:Two decades. Yeah. Um finishing, you know, sort of as the principal dancer at the Scottish Ballet. Yeah. How did you go in into that world originally? And I think ironically enough, I now live with a housemate who's dating a ballerina, and I have learned so much in the last six months just by, you know, speaking to her and seeing her train and practice. I've worked in elite sport and dabbled with elite athletes for my entire career. There is no athlete better, in my opinion, and there's no athlete that gets asked as much of them as a professional dancer, particularly professional ballerina is, in my opinion. Um talk me through that journey for you, and I guess if you can give the listeners a bit of an understanding as to what the demands are at the highest level, if you're willing to.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. Uh so I was uh, through my mum's words, a very difficult child. Uh I now recognize that as neurodivergence, but at the time it wasn't recognized as that. So they kind of put me in a lot of things because um I was uh better human outside the house than in the house, apparently. But uh, and I I grew up in Papua New Guinea and um a ballet school opened, and uh I just decided I didn't want to do soccer, and so they sent me to this ballet school. And I started off doing like tap and jazz the first year, and that was pretty good. And then the next year I started doing ballet, and for me, something just clicked, and I don't know what that was. Um, it just worked for me, and I really enjoyed it, and it didn't take long, and I was sort of there five days a week.
SPEAKER_00:Um how old were you at this time?
SPEAKER_01:Uh I would have been 10 at that point. Um, no idea that you could do this professionally, like no concept, it was just fun. And then every year we would do an exam with an international examiner. And and when I was, I'm pretty sure it was when I was 11, I got examined by this teacher from Sydney, and she was like, This kid has potential, bring them to my school in Sydney, we'll make them a professional. Um, my parents were like, What do you do? Uh I come from big family. There's uh there's eight of us kids, so uh it's not like you could just up and move your family. Yeah, um, so I started doing like holiday schools backwards and forwards uh to Sydney and loved it. And then um when I turned 13, I I boarded in Sydney with a family and went to full-time ballet school and doing ballet from sort of eight in the morning till eight at night, and then doing my school work through School of the Year, which is what it was called at the time. So I did um years eight to ten. I did eight and nine in one year, and then year ten the following year. Because to get into Aussie ballet school, you had to have your year ten certificate.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And so I had to smash that out. I wouldn't say great results, but I passed. Uh well, you've used 12 hours a day up.
SPEAKER_00:So to fit anything else in is pretty impressive.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Um, I think it's one of those things, right? Like when you're just doing it, you don't realize.
SPEAKER_00:Totally.
SPEAKER_01:And it was meaningful, it was purposeful. I loved it. Um got into Odyssey Ballet School when I was 15, um, which is kind of at that point, it was the elite school of Australia. I mean, it still is probably considered the elite school of Australia. I mean, there's others, uh, but that was where I went at the time. Um, and it's a three-year full-time program. And it really at that point was at 18, you were ready to get a job. Okay. Uh at the end of third year. And it was pretty grueling. I think there was like 30, maybe 32 of us that started in the first year, and I think there were 16 of us that finished. So the attrition rate's pretty high. And just to get in, uh, they do Australia-wide auditions. And my audition was one of four in Sydney, and there were 120 people per audition.
unknown:Jeez.
SPEAKER_01:And um pretty brutal. You go in in your in your um like your lycra clothes and you stand there front on, and then you turn side on, and then you turn the back, and then you turn side on, then you just splits one way, splits the other, splits to second, and then they cut some people. And then you go to the bar. It's like pretty brutal. Um and so, yeah, got through Aussie Ballet School, and then I joined um Queensland Ballet. So the first company I I was with was here.
SPEAKER_02:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and uh when I started, it was nothing like it is now. Uh I started with them in 1999, and they just had a massive funding cut, just got a new director in. Um, I think it was something like 10 or 12 full-time dancers, and then uh part-timers would come in and supplement. And when you're talking about a company now that has like 58 or something like that, it's very, very different. And we were doing hundreds of shows a year, right? Like touring, small-scale tour, we'd go to all like the little places. We went up and down the coast, Cairns, um, Townsville, Rocky, Mackay, Maryborough, uh, Brisbane, like once or twice a year. We would do sort of two big ballets, three small seasons. You just like go the whole time. It's wild. And when I think about it now, and I was like kind of moaning about it at the time, probably. And I just think now it's like, how fun. Yeah. Like it was fun. I did think it was fun, but I was like, it's so hard. And it's like, yeah, but it you're literally just spinning around in a room pretending you're a prince. Like there, there are aspects to it that I took too seriously. There are aspects of it that required that level of attention and stress. But uh now that I look back, I'm like, well, you could have had more fun.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um do you yeah, I think you you you're probably not the first person to look back on their career at any phase, in any career, and say exactly that. Oh, Jesus, in that time of I could have just smiled and enjoyed myself a bit more.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Yeah. And so I was I was with Queen Savale for a number of years, um think eight. And um in that time I was promoted to soloist. Uh the company grew by the time I left. Uh Francois Klaus, who was the director at the time, and Judith Anderson, who was the general manager at the time, did this amazing job. And again, when you're a whenever you're in a company and you're not really aware of what they're doing and you're not aware, again, that idea of complexity and and critical thinking, I wasn't so up on it then. And uh, but they grew a company from you know 12 people up to, I think it was 28, and I think they got it up to like 35. And they kept the company in the black most of that time, which is almost like impossible for an arts company. So fantastic leadership. Um, and then I went across, yeah, uh, to Europe. I auditioned all around Europe, uh, got a job with Scottish Ballet. I went in as a soloist and then was promoted to principal two years later. Um I remember about that promotion was I was pulled in from a rehearsal and it was this contemporary piece we were doing for Edinburgh Festival. And so I was kind of in these like ratty shorts and dirty bare feet, and and the director sat me down on the couch and it's like, oh, I just wanted to let you know that we're promoting you to principal, which is like it's the big deal, it's like what you work for.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you spent, you know, from the age of 10 going, oh you know, yeah, this is it where you want to get to.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. And I was there with my dirty feet, and I that's all I remember is uh I had dirty feet.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, that's kind of funny how those things stay in our mind, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, yeah, it's it's full on. And I guess, you know, at that point from a performance perspective and and I guess the demand of it, you know, if you're a principal dancer in a program, what what are you doing? What does the work look like? Um again, are you performing as frequently a couple of hundred shows a year? Is it that sort of thing?
SPEAKER_01:Uh Scottish Ballet was very different. When I was doing principal roles with um Queensland Ballet, you never got a night off. So it didn't matter whether you were doing principal quarter ballet, everyone was on stage every night. You would just kind of rotate what you were doing. Uh Scottish Ballet was slightly different. You would get a night off every so often if you're a principal, uh, sort of a rest night. Um I didn't I didn't really love that. Uh I found that quite difficult. Um it was almost like I was fearful I'd forget what I was doing. I always had this big fear, I'd forget my steps. Um, so what I would generally like doing is you would do like a principal role and then you'd do a soloist role, and then you'd do a quarter ballet role. And and they all have different um different levels of pressure and and intensity. Um like quarter ballet work, especially with Scottish ballet, was really hard physically. Uh certainly not kind of just standing there on the side, but because you didn't think people were looking at you so closely, it felt like a night off, but you were still getting to be amongst everyone and do stuff. Uh, soloist roles were always fun because you could kind of like play around because again, it felt like less pressure, even though like audience members know who everyone is. So they would have been able to tell it was me and would have held me to a standard that fair enough. Uh, but principal roles initially I felt an enormous amount of responsibility um to the audience to give them what they deserve for the money they were paying. And it's a funny thing because it comes into my psychological practice as well. I'm really aware of what people have given to come and see me. It sits very heavily in my mind, which is a good and a bad thing. But uh, so initially that was kind of my big stress was just fulfilling their needs, and then I realized kind of halfway through that a big part of being a principal dancer is people like to see you because you do it slightly different, and so actually you have to bring yourself in a little bit more, a bit more nuance, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Interesting. Do you think that sort of I don't know, we'll talk about wrapping up your dancing career. There was that, you know, I'm adding value, and and and and as you said, you sort of crave that I'm gonna, you know, make sure that they get what they came for. And um you think that sort of shifted you towards the work you now do in therapy?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, good question.
SPEAKER_00:Um just sat there where you were just a felt like a cog and machine, yeah, um probably wouldn't have called out to you as much, I'm guessing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I I've actually never thought about it that way. Uh maybe. Maybe. Um gosh. Kind of throws me into a space where my brain's like, am I just performing as a psychologist? Is this like an additional performance career? Like, what's going on here?
SPEAKER_00:Um I I look at my job, which coincidentally it's major psychological effort, uh, um parts of it, but there is a performance and and I love drama. I love being on stage, I love sitting in front of the mic. And for me, there's there's a big element of adding value to people, even though it's not about me. You know, I I kind of make it about me personally so that we can I can help them, um, be it through a one-on-one session and I'm teaching them a whole bunch of stuff. You know, the pressure's on you to add the value. Um, and and then, you know, put me in a group class, it's even more so. Um, but there is that sense of accountability and pressure where I'm going, I'm aware there's a performative metric, and I need to touch all these things from the music and the energy and the environment and the smile. And and then also that, hey, no, don't take a shortcut, don't cheat, do it properly. There's a reason. You came here for that reason. I know you want to quit, but that's the whole point, is I'm making you not. Um, but yeah, there's there's a I'm very aware of the what am I bringing into this moment with a patient or client? I'm sure it's probably now the same for you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, I think you bring a version of self, right? Uh, there's like the psychology version of me, the psychologist version of me. Um so yes, I guess if if we took that concept to performative, yes. Um I don't know whether that's I think after I retired, uh I was a massage therapist for five years. And I really loved I'm not a mad fan of big groups. I mean, you guys know this well of me. I don't turn up to group classes, I don't really like it. Uh I don't like that's too much for me. But I loved that process of working one-on-one with people. Um I felt very privileged when they would talk about their lives with me in ways that perhaps they didn't talk about them with a lot of people. And I thought there was something about me perhaps that they felt comfortable doing that, but I felt very underskilled. Um and that then triggered this process into going into psychology. Yeah, yeah. So I started studying psychology towards the end of my ballet career just out of interest. Uh, and actually was doing I started my undergrad in Glasgow, um, and I was doing uh history of art and psychology with the idea that I would do history of art and work in a gallery. And uh and then yeah, the the path just changed a bit. But I'm really glad it did. I I love what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_00:That was one of the questions, but I think it it is is out of you as well. So um that moment where you went, this is it, like I'm I'm done now with with the with dancing. Was it clear cut, I'm not enjoying it, that's it, or was it really hard to let go?
SPEAKER_01:Um, so it's kind of a two-part answer to that. Uh, I didn't retire by choice, so I retired through injury. Um it was uh I had a I'd had a knee surgery earlier in my career um to remove uh meniscus tear. And they said, Oh, we've done some other stuff in there, which is like not cool, but yeah, sure. Uh and then uh probably 2011, I think it was, I just started getting some pain in my knee and it just wouldn't go away. It didn't matter how much I warmed up, it didn't matter what I did, massage anything, it just wouldn't go away. And it was every time I landed, it was just like a knife through my femur. Um and we were on tour doing Alice in Wonderland at the time, and I just I remember thinking like crap, this isn't good. Got back to Glasgow and I went and got scans done, and um there was cartilage missing on my femur, and so it was essentially uh open to the bone. Um so I went in for a knee surgery and got microfracture surgery done where they kind of drill into the femur and release um uh the word I'm looking for. Um the really cool stuff in your yeah, but it's like the in any way, uh it'll come to me in a little while. I'm not always good with words. Uh and essentially what happens is it comes out and it grows new cartilage. Uh, but the cartilage in your knee is highland cartilage, it's really smooth and really, really um uh strong. It doesn't grow that, it grows fibrous cartilage, which is less smooth and less strong. Um and I had like a 40-60% chance of success. So you're always like, yeah, well, it's gonna work. Uh it didn't. But I did get back to dancing and I did um I had streetcar made design streetcar named desire made on me, which was such a privilege, uh, anyway, and turned into like a really big ballet that's been performed all around the world. Uh, so I had that made on me. I had another piece made on me for the London Olympics. Um, so I came back and I did some really cool stuff. And then during performing at the London Olympics, my knee blew up again and it just never got better. Uh and so yeah, I just couldn't couldn't get back to with the support I had at that time and the support that was available in ballet companies at the time, I couldn't get back to full performing. So my contract wasn't renewed, and that was basically the end of my career. So I'd kind of gone through this really intense phase of desperately trying to get back, super anxious. Like when I look back on it now, like I was messed up. Uh, really anxious living in a country um away from my family. Uh I had my husband, but felt a little bit like disjointed. Um the UK was a pretty tough place to live in. They'd been in austerity measures for a number of years. Getting jobs was difficult. I had no skills. I literally hadn't even worked in a coffee shop. Like the only thing I'd done with my life was be a dancer. And yeah, I had a meeting with the director one day, and they were like, Well, we don't want you anymore. And so, really harsh finish. Um, what I recognize now is that I went into a really like a process of very um functional depression for about six, seven years. Um, when I talk about like the end of my career, there's kind of the end of my performing career at that point where it ended. But it's kind of like when I accepted the end of my performing career, when I made peace with what happened when I started to celebrate the career I had had because I found it really hard to talk about. I minimized it. Um, I remember having a conversation with my husband where I was like, um, stop telling people I used to be a principal dancer. I'm not that. I was nothing else, but I knew I wasn't that. And every time people would say that, I felt like I had to turn up as that person and I wasn't that person, and I was actually really broken. Uh and so um, yeah, I started getting some support. I actually started going into the process of training to be a psychologist more, which was actually really helpful because you do start thinking differently and you start looking at what's been going on in your life, and and that led me to getting more support. Um, so it was probably around about eight years post-retirement that I was like, actually, it was a good life. And this next life is going to be good too.
SPEAKER_00:It's funny, working with athletes, you know, and sort of being in that world on a very small scale. Um a lot of the guys that finish up that I now know, probably without even knowing it, are going through and go through that same process. Finish up their career, they might even step into media or you know, go into something in and around that sport again and and try and you know re-identify themselves, but not actually celebrate and let something go and be like, that's it, it's done. Um, and it was wonderful. Now, that probably brings us back to that um almost schema, as you said, of this is the world I know. And on the other side of that is this, you know, blissful unknown, the expectation and everything you've worked towards and all your success is um is is now a part of you, and then that's gone and you have to go and be bad at something again, or whatever that might be. Um it's a it's a pretty interesting process to watch people go through. Do people outside of elite sport and those worlds go through that in their career, say if they go through a redundancy or if they move into state or they start a new job? Do you see that as I guess to an extent clinically or sorry, in in in with patients outside of the sport realm?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it it's you know, it's a diagnosed disorder, transition disorder.
SPEAKER_00:Transitioning disorder.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like transition disorder or adjustment disorder. Okay. And it's basically, you know, one big thing in your life ends and leading into the other, and it can be really tumultuous and for lots of reasons. But lots of reasons you say, like when we think about, you know, athletes or dancers or whatever, the thing they've learned and the thing they've mastered, they did that while they were a child. So, or certainly a teen, and generally speaking, and so they didn't actually go through a process necessarily of conscious mastery. It was really fun. We were good at it. We built skills. The skills happened in alignment with a whole pile of normal life processes. And so when you leave that and go into, you know, the next life, whatever that may be, as you said, you have to be bad at something. And you've got to be bad at something at a time of your life when everyone else is coming into mastery. And that's really hard because all of a sudden you were great at something, everyone thought that was awesome. And now you're rubbish and everyone else is great. So there's all this comparison stuff. It's a it's a really wild time. But it it absolutely is the same. You know, you think about retirement, just retirement in general, you know, around 60, 65, 67, 89, whatever it will be when we do it. Um that's a really hard transition for people. They've had purpose, they've had a reason to get up in the morning, they've had, you know, their their job has filled time and it's meant that they've connected and they've done all these things. And then it's like, okay, I don't do that anymore. And we're all like, oh, it's gonna be so great. We can do whatever we want. And it's kind of like whatever we want actually might have been kind of what we were doing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. How often do you think people look at that blissful, oh, when this ends? It's a big, oh, I don't want to say problem I have, but I'm very conscious of it in like the doing and my job and my role. Like I want to be here. I don't want to, I want to set goals and be ambitious and everything else. And you know, there's things I I feel I'm called to, and I'm gonna push myself to try and get to, but yeah, ultimately we end up retiring. Did it all mean anything? We can go through this existential crisis, which I'm sure it's probably part of the process in trying in that sort of transition period. Um often do you find you have to bring people back to the now because this might be the I'm spinning around pretending to be a prince moment that you're gonna look back and at in the future and wish you know celebrated it more.
SPEAKER_01:I mean it's twofold, right? Like that's gonna that's an interesting thing. If we're in our world right now and we're dreaming about something else because we think that's gonna be better, we need to come back. But it's not necessarily to notice and celebrate where we are. It might be to notice and recognize that this isn't valued-led, purposeful life. It could be that actually what I'm doing right now isn't nourishing me. So if we think about like a purpose-led life, it doesn't mean that it's gonna just be rainbows and lollipops. It's still gonna be hard. But through the hardships, I feel that it's valuable and worthwhile. If I'm not leading a purpose-led life, and by purpose, I mean your definition of purpose, not some external definition of purpose. If we're not leading that life, then the hardships are harder and they don't feel valuable because then exactly, exactly. And so that can be a key to something totally different. It's like, all right, yeah, we need to come back, but have you thought about how you got here? Have you thought whether or not you're happy you got here? Have you thought, what was the pathway to get here? Did I, did I choose this path? Did I, was it because I was good at something and so I just kept getting higher and higher? And then now I'm somewhere where I'm like, uh, I didn't want this. How do I adjust the world I'm living in to make it purposeful? And that doesn't necessarily mean flipping the table and starting again, right? Like it could just be an adjustment of how I engage. Um but I think if we're spending a lot of time thinking about our retirement, it tells us, yes, we need to come back, but it tells us we really need to think about like how do we engage better here. So I guess it does come to the celebration of where we are right now, but it's a spot for real reflection.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. And it may not be a celebration. It may be this is hard. But that's okay. It's not to say, yeah, good, heart's good. You know, I think it's sort of it's a big, there's there's one end of the spectrum on the whole internet, you know, go and do hard things and just do hard things and then celebrate hard things, and and that's it. It's like, no, it's hard and it's meant to be hard because uh it's part of the process of moving forward, but you need to keep moving, um, not doing hard for the sake of hard, um, which is you know, there's plenty to unpack in that sense. Um so, so you know, it's sort of thinking about psychology as a practice a little bit more, and you know, I think we sort of spoke about it before we we hit live um on the episode. What do you sort of if um I won't I won't subject you to a number, but what do you wish patients maybe understood a little bit more that maybe we haven't touched on yet before they step into the room with a psychologist or with yourself?
SPEAKER_01:I think there's a few things that I think most people have an awareness of, but perhaps and I'm gonna speak specifically to my practice as a psychologist because I think uh, you know, psychology is scientifically based, but a lot of psychologists practice in slightly different ways. And so what a client brings to the room with me uh will work differently than if they brought the same thing with a different psychologist. We all come with our own uh our own stuff. Um I think the main thing is that we are in a very medical-minded system where it's like I go to my GP, my GP gives me pills, I take the pills, I get better. When you go to a psychologist, you don't get pills, you get a whole pile of things to think about, and you get exercises to do, and you get nudges to help you guide some reflection, or you get uh little activities to do throughout the day, and they're all designed to get you doing the work. The purpose of psychology is not that the psychologist works really hard and you get better. The purpose of psychology is that you're going to work and collaborate with someone who has skills in noticing and formulating what's going on for you in your life, aligning that to the goals that you bring to the practice, and then helping you guide yourself to the answer. I'm not there to give answers. I'm not there to tell you what to do. I'm there to help you process it for you.
SPEAKER_00:Providing frameworks, understandings, and literacy and developing skills. It I mean thinking out loud, it's it's very similar to our job, both in a performance sense and I think it's very similar to physiotherapy as a practice, and even, you know, dietitians and dietetics, which then makes me go is this the preventative health, you know, sort of scheme where we don't prescribe a pill, I prescribe a program and say, here's the limitations you have. I've written this within a scope of those limitations. Off you go. And it's like you're selling a product that's actually really hard. Because it's really hard for a patient to go through those processes. I'm sure when they start psychologically like, what? It's on me. Like, you know, learning all this stuff, there's going to be difficulty, but that's sort of part of the process of getting better. Um how would you say that the the split between people looking at psychology and I I thought about this analogy while I was writing notes, and going mental health, and I only go see the psychologist when I'm injured mentally, as opposed to I've got nothing wrong with me, but I want to go to another level performance-wise. I'm going to go and see a psychologist to try and get my performance, no matter what that might be. Professionally, as an athlete, as a parent, as a a friend, a sibling, whatever. Um what do you think the generalized split is of people going, I'm only gonna go if it's bad, or I don't need to go because I feel fine? And do you wish that there was a change in that sense?
SPEAKER_01:So many things. Uh what's the split?
SPEAKER_00:I won't make it give me an absolute percentage.
SPEAKER_01:But like most people are coming because there's a concern, right? Like most people and and I'm sure it's similar to you. Most people turn up initially because there is some impact on functioning in their life and they want to function in a way that better suits their life. And so they come to a psychologist, and whatever that is, they go to their GP, they get their mental health care plan, or they you know, they use however they come in referred, and they come with this problem or this concern, and then we work on that. The way I work is I don't work on a specific problem. I want to give people a massive toolbox, a way to think in the world, a way to behave in the world that aligns with what they want. So they don't have to come back. I want them to go and have this huge amount of stuff so they can go into the world and be like, okay, I can problem solve this. Maybe they'll come back every so often for a checkup, or they'll just want to talk through something. Great. But ultimately, I want to give people the skills so that they can navigate the world and adjust their functioning to what they want to do. I think that's crucial to what we what we do as psychologists. And I think that's that point, right? Like whether you come in because you've got a mental injury or whether you come in because you're trying to level up in whatever way, basically you're coming in because there's a a gap in functioning that you want to change. So in many ways, it's the same thing. Ultimately. It's just whether we're talking about am I taking someone from uh struggling to coping, or am I taking someone from coping to flourishing? And ultimately, I try and take people to flourishing. Like I think we should all flourish. And I I think that, you know, when you talk about that idea of like how do we do health in a positive way so that we don't have low health, we just have flourishing, and really we're just bouncing in that green zone. Uh and I really think there's so many things we could do, you know, like why are we not providing anyway? That's a big tangent. Uh you wanted to go.
SPEAKER_00:And uh, but you know what? I think the more people you speak to that are genuinely interested in health across the spectrum. Um, I've referred to my brother a lot. We have a lot of you know medical professional doctors, surgeons in here who are acutely aware and and they're going, yeah, mate, we are last stitch struggling. We'll just do what we've got to do to try and keep this person alive for a little bit longer or whatever it might be. Yet now we have this whole other end of the spectrum. And as we go along, that spectrum is sort of slowly connecting. Um, and and and it's it's really exciting. You know, I think a lot of people can be doom and gloom about the future of the world because we don't know it, and it's part of our schema, maybe. Here I am learning my new lessons really quickly. Um, but you know, I I think it's for me at least, I find it really exciting. And then um the biggest challenge is finding practitioners that have the passion, young ones particularly. Um, but don't leave from the preventative end, flourishing end of the spectrum. I'm gonna use that word rather than preventative. It's much more enticing. Um, and leave to the you know, desperate struggling end. Um, which, you know, I think then comes down to the way the whole system we were to go on a rant is structured. And it's not an ill intention from any individual. There's no evil, in my opinion, people standing at the top going, oh, we're going to make sure the sick stay sick. And any of those narratives, it's like, yeah, cool. You know, that there's someone probably selling you something behind that. Um I think it's a series of unintended circumstances through the world with which we've lived in. We've had to be reactive health-wise for a long time and disease happened, and then we cured it with a pill. Wonderful. That's such a wonderful thing. And we are now in this luxurious position where we can go, hey, let's prioritize moving from you know, that comfortable, stable to flourishing. And in turn, you're going to decrease the pressure on that struggling end of the spectrum health-wise. So um within that, I think it makes it really exciting for you. You do performance psychology, sports psychology. You've been in that elite world, you've seen how you can go from flourishing as an athlete to very quickly into that very dangerous zone of, as you said, in your case, functional depression. I'm sure a lot of athletes go through it, a lot of professionals, people transitioning in general. Um when people are working in that sort of, I want to flourish, I want to get better, um, what are the key?
SPEAKER_01:Psychological sort of factors you you're assessing first functioning like that's ultimately what I'm looking for. They're like, I want to get better. I want to know what that means. I like better is a big word. Get really precise with the thing you're trying to achieve. And I'll guide that. I don't just go come back when you've got the answer. We'll guide that exploration. Because sometimes people think they want one thing when they're really talking about another thing. Um big in sport is like professional behaviors. You hear the we need professional behaviors, and you're like, what are those? Like what when you say professional behaviors, what do you mean? But more to the point, what do you want to change? What is the behaviors that you want to change? Because clearly there's something you don't like or you is you think isn't functioning. Let's explore that. So again, I go into that. But really, we're talking about like how do we move the athlete from a space where they feel they aren't functionally functioning to the level they want and move them to what they're they're looking for. And and that's really complex how we do that. I mean, the really easy answer to that is we want cognitive flexibility, we want really good uh motion regulation, those two can't work without the other. Um and we want them to be able to focus on the things that are important when it's important.
SPEAKER_00:How much work have you done, particularly in the last couple of years, as you've worked in elite sport programs with not necessarily the athlete but the support team and their language for the athlete? I think it's something in my experience that I'm like, ugh, I probably overanalyze it and I hypersensitize my use of language or my interaction with an athlete. And then I'm also acutely aware of my influence on saying, You're looking good. Um, you know, coaches, strength and conditioning coaches, physiotherapists, dietitians, the whole sort of teams that are then responsible for an athlete to help build them. How important is that understanding psychologically and then therefore a an aligned communication sort of method? I remember speaking to you about language being such an important thing a couple of years ago. Um, and you know, here we are discussing it finally. Um, you know, how much of that do you think or have you experienced and seen and what are the strategies in place to work as that cohesive team?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I think first and foremost, it's such a privilege working in those teams. Uh, so obviously I can put input as a psychologist, but you gain so much in your own professional profession from engaging with all the other people in the team. So um there's sort of no one person that makes the massive change. I think I think where psychologists really come in is like you said, adjusting language because going back to that idea of professional behaviors, right? Often they want something to happen, and they're saying to the athlete that they want this thing to happen, but the athlete's not understanding. So this kind of goes right back to communication and hearing. And so then it's really like, okay, let's talk about that differently. What is the thing you want? Um so we had having a conversation with one of the coaches about an athlete that they wanted to do something different, but they just couldn't get them to move. And we talked about just ask them to let go a little bit. Like it we don't need them to give it up completely, just relax on it, just give it space. And so the coach started using that language, and all of a sudden, all these athletes were less tense because they're like, oh, okay, I can still do this, but I can try that. It just gave them space. So just simply by changing the language to hold it lighter or relax on that, uh, is really powerful. Um, and and again, when we're talking about, you know, athletes through different generations. If you're talking to someone from Gen Z, talking to someone millennial, Gen X, um, the Boomer generation, like whatever. These people have processes of language that are really normalized to them. Uh, and so we want to, we want to adapt to that. So most of the time, it's really like from the psychologist's perspective in those rooms, it's noticing how the team, what the team's trying to achieve, because they're always trying to achieve in the best interest of the athlete, but then working out how to adapt that to make it functional and to help them adapt maybe the way they're doing it to make it functional. Most athletes, dancers, myself, you know, it takes a takes a different kind of human to want to go to that level. And so sometimes we just need a different kind of communication.
SPEAKER_00:It's funny that generational difference. I mean, I've worked a lot with rugby teams and seen multiple coaches. And I think the the the most enjoyable part for me now in hindsight, and you know, I've spent my 20s doing this, so I was very lucky because I've just been honing these skills for 10 to 12 years and learning and learning and learning and seeing what works really well with this one individual, but then the flaws with that, and then this other individual, and then the flaws with that. Um, and for me now it's a really important thing for that I'm trying to bring in is from a management perspective, because I don't see much difference in the way a coach manages a team or an athlete. Um, the same way a manager has to manage their team, staff, whatever organization it might be. Um, and it's sort of paying that respect. And ultimately, I think everybody goes into a role, no matter what it is, with this intention of really doing well and being successful in whatever way they define it. Um, and then coincidentally, ships in the night go 10 degrees apart and then they keep traveling and then there's major blow-up, major conflict professionally, be it sport or be it, you know, at work, um, which then has you know repercussions. But um yeah, quite often just this just just observing that, and then you know, as it comes back to me, my personal thing of okay, I need to make sure I have the conversation that you know is gonna help move the needle in the right way, but also listening to the individual. Um what sort of themes would you say most uh obviously overlap um in performance psychology and uh you know your general work as a psychologist with the people that don't regard themselves as high performers? And then conversely, what are the major differences? So you can pick which one you want to start. The overlapping and then the differences.
SPEAKER_01:I guess for me, there's a noun. There's no differences.
SPEAKER_00:That's interesting.
SPEAKER_01:It's a human. It's a human trying to do something. That's all I look at is this person wants to move from here to here. How do I help them do that? Um I don't use specifically sports psych tools in sport psychology. No, sometimes we do goal setting, sometimes we'll do visualization, those kinds of things. They've got a place. Um, but I generally use I mainly use acceptance and commitment therapy as my main sort of therapeutic base. And the purpose of that is to create psychological flexibility, allowing you to align yourself with purposeful goals, direct your attention, direct your focus, create uh committed action towards that process, to do it mindfully, to stay in the moment, to accept the feelings that are coming up for you. That's everything we want a good athlete to do, right? Like we want them to function really beautifully as a human, because if they're functioning beautifully as a human, they already know how to be a great athlete. It's just how do we get the mess and the the stuff in their head and put it in the right places and and help them align that? And generally speaking, it's the same with the with anyone that comes and sees me. It's just like, okay, how do we help this person realign the things that that are kind of getting in the way or or um behaviors that are unhelpful or or anything like that? It's it's really you look at the functioning of that human, you their goal and go like, okay, well, these are the things that we need to do to get you there.
SPEAKER_00:It's funny. I mean, I even say the same thing in the gym. Our fit over fifties class does box step ups and squats and planks and rows, and the elite guys do the exact same exercises. Um, we had um Dr. Professor now, Jonathan Weekly, and he's a high performance researcher and strength and conditioning and all these amazing things. And he said the exact he said the all blacks, the best sporting team, you know, ever, do lunges and they do these basic exercises that he has a youth athlete doing. And you know, psychologically, it's to the the lunge psychologically, you know, it's probably the same thing. Um so we've talked about the identification of kind of where you're at first and foremost for individuals. Um, what are some things that from a like an actual pragmatic practice that they can do to start to identify at least the narrative that might be going on? Start that sort of um that that consciousness, that conscious bias that they might be able to identify within themselves. How and what do you encourage people to attempt to do to start that process individually?
SPEAKER_01:Generally speaking, and very generally speaking, uh the first thing we work on is noticing. Just get into your world and notice. Because we don't we don't know uh most of us maybe know six emotions. There are so many emotional words and they all mean really nuanced things. Um there's a really good app, it's a free app. I don't know whether I've got it on this phone. Um I can send you the link to it. And it's all it does is asks you, how are you feeling? Actually, I think that's what it's called, how how you feel, anyway. Uh and you can set it so that it notifies you three times a day or whatever, and it'll pop up and it says how are you feeling, and it gives you uh a list of four things like high good energy, low good energy, high bad energy, low bad energy. You go in there, and then it's got all these emotion, and they've got little um blurbs on what that emotion means. And so you can go in and you can you can select up to two emotions, you can write down, you know, what was going on, you can were you outside, inside at work, blah, blah, blah. And so you can start noticing, like, oh, when I'm in this situation, I often feel good. Cool. Let's do that a lot more. Uh, when I'm like this, I often feel bad. Okay, let's like really explore that. Is that just because you don't like it or is there more to it? So I think the first thing we want to do is just notice. Really notice and really get present in our world, you know. That's crucial because if we don't know what's going on inside, emotions are designed simply to push behavior, right? So that's interesting. If we don't know what our emotions are and we don't know what behaviors they're pushing, then our little chimpanzee at the back of our brain is like directing traffic that we may not want to go on. So, in a way, by noticing, by by getting good at knowing where our emotions are, what behaviors they drive, we can start to adjust those behaviors. We can teach our brain what we'd prefer do over time. We can lay down new processes, we can we can make that change. So I think first and foremost, um the kind of two things I look at firstly is just getting to know you and then getting to know what is your purpose. If we have those two things, then we really have like a lot of information to start working with.
SPEAKER_00:How has your purpose and that identification of it evolved? Because I think it does for most people, you know. You might sit, I remember being 20 and said, I want this. And I actually sat and drew out a gym, and it looked very similar to what we're sitting in today. And now I'm sitting here dealing with it, going, holy shit, if I'd known what was to go with it, wow. Um but again, back to the greater purpose for me. I'm like, okay, that then steers the ship a little bit more accurately. How's it evolved for you?
SPEAKER_01:I think hugely. I think, you know, obviously as a dancer, athlete, any of it's very selfish. Like it it just about you. It is you get up in the morning as a dancer. You get up in the morning, I go to work, I'm there an hour beforehand because I want to stretch, do exercises to start getting my body ready for the morning. I don't talk to other people. I'm just fixated on myself. I then do ballet class where I work on improving my technique and improving my skills. I then do a rehearsal where I work on maybe with other people, but we work on things that we're enjoying doing and we're preparing it. And at that point, I guess it becomes about an audience. But ultimately, the audience is there to watch you do what you want to do. So it's kind of like it is about them to a degree, but it's really about you. Um, and we we attach other things, and and this is my experience. So loads of other people will, you know, they're probably far more altruistic in that space. But when I look back on it, it was really just a time that I spent a lot of time just focusing on myself, which was lovely. Um and really the I don't think I necessarily had a very defined purpose. That's interesting. At that point, I it I didn't have you know the brain I have now. If I could chuck this brain back into like 18-year-old me, we would have had a very different story.
SPEAKER_00:Do you think you would have been as successful as you were? More.
SPEAKER_01:Interesting. Why? Because my fear of others got in the way of me pushing myself as far as I could have gone.
SPEAKER_00:And when you say pushing yourself, is that doing more work? It's not a resistance of push, right?
SPEAKER_01:It's no, not more work, more risks. Okay. More risks, pushing concepts further, pushing ideas further. Uh, I don't think I could have pushed my body much further.
SPEAKER_00:It sounds like you've taken it there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Uh maybe in some cases, I probably could have uh honed it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, which is almost like you know, it's it's and I say this often to people is is the hard work is not another training session. The hard work is lying down in breathing class, observing the tone in your muscles and trying to dim the lights. Yeah, that's hard. Yeah, you can do 10 more reps. I know you're capable, you're an athlete. It's actually about doing less. That's the hard work. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:So I think about it, yeah. If I had the knowledge I had now, I think I would have been better. Uh, I also think I would have been nicer. To other dancers? To everyone. I was very driven, and I believed that that was okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's often a narrative that's still pushed out is Michael Jordan said, get the fk out of my way. And then he was Michael Jordan. There's a cultural difference, I think, which is maybe plays into it. America is that culture generally. Um Australia is very different. I'm sure the UK, Europe, other multiple countries. And I'm lucky, I've lived in multiple countries. So I have seen huge cultural differences in individual and and and and their influences and shaping individual narratives as a result. Um so, you know, in your sense, it was a get out of my way. You're gonna hold me back if you're not as good or better, and now you would probably approach it differently.
SPEAKER_01:I don't I don't think I was necessarily like that. Not Michael Jordan of Ballet, not Michael Jordan of Ballet, it wasn't get out of my way, but I had massively high expectations of myself. And so anyone I worked with, I had the same expectations, and I still have them, but I am much better at recognizing that they are mine and mine alone. And just because I choose to be like that doesn't mean the people around me have to, and it's okay for them to turn up in whatever way they want to, and it's my ch choice to turn up how I want to, and that's all okay. Whereas back then I just didn't have that skill, and um, it wasn't until I was doing some research for my masters, and I spoke to someone I worked with, and they told me how scary I was, and I was like horrified. Like I didn't realize at the time I was scary, but I was horrified that that's who I had been. Um, but again, you grow your journey, right? Like I'm not the person I was. I've done and I wasn't horrible the whole time, and I certainly, you know, I wasn't abusive or anything like that, but I think I just I was going through my own crap. And uh unfortunately, I didn't look after my own crap. I let other people have to deal with it as well. So um, which is very different to now. I'm so off topic.
SPEAKER_00:It's fine. It's at the end of the day, I think it's um it's something that I've, you know, again, I'm lucky I get to work with people every single day and a verse, like a large range of sort of versatile range of people from an over 50s class where the oldest person's in their 80s. And uh and then yeah, the athletes and then you know, everyone and everything in between. And and you do you start to sort of just apply that filtration of I'm bringing my own stuff to this, whether I like it or not, but can I manage it? And then more so for me, it's the expectations, which I think um I've had to learn to navigate a lot more, is the expectation demand on myself I put so highly. And if I don't meet it, I then go into my shell and I'm aware of all those things. But it's the expectations on others, and just I'm I feel I don't know when there wasn't a distinct moment, but I I I don't have low expectations, I just don't really have any, and it's just they are who they are, and it's wonderful because it's I see their strengths and it's like, well, let's just enjoy those for what they are, and I can forgive them for all their other crap because it's got nothing to do with who I am or me. Um and I think a lot of people miss that opportunity. Um but at the same time, you know, there is a the most valuable times in my career, as you've just said for yours, is when someone gives you that feedback that really just stabs you in the heart and you go, Oh, and I think it only hurts because it's true.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:How would you suggest someone seeks that feedback without being, you know, nihilistic and just suffering and just going, tell me all the bad about me and I'll try and be perfect because we never will be, there's always going to be something.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, that's the thing, right? Like, if that's your purpose, is just I um just tell me everything I do wrong, what's the point? Like you're not filtering that. That's not a reflective process. That's exactly as you're sort of saying, it's this like um self-flagellation of negative comments. It's completely it doesn't offer anything, it's unhelpful. I think you know receiving feedback and receiving feedback openly is is really, really important. Um but we want to know what it's aligned to and we want to have purpose for it, and we also want to filter it because recognizing that no one's a hundred percent right and they only have their perspective. So if someone gives you feedback and they're like, This is who you are, it's like A, no one can tell you who you are, but B, that's their experience of you in the world. And you know, that experience of mine, it's like I'm really sorry that that was the experience that person had of me in the world. How could I have done that differently? Is what is useful there. It's like I need information if I want to change my behavior. If I'm not planning on changing my behavior or I'm asking for it so that I can tell someone they're wrong, this is just pointless. It's only useful information if it's a to do something with.
SPEAKER_00:How would you suggest people as a friend, as a professional that might be providing a service, be it massage or training or psychology? Um I guess people trained in psychology are actually trained in it, so they're gonna be assumingly pretty good at this. Um have more conversations that align in that sense. Be willing to provide feedback, but also, you know, help someone understand like whatever they're going through, be it positive or negative, and just, you know, um be be willing to, you know, I think I think that's the role of a friendship, a valuable friendship to a certain extent. And it doesn't have to be a psycholog psychological appointment, but it's just sort of prompting those things. Are there certain questions or things? It's not even to provide a basis of theory, but it's obviously listening, and therefore then they're communicating, as you said at the start. Is there sort of a place someone can go or start?
SPEAKER_01:I think I think the first thing is asking permission. So even in sessions, you know, the clients come there to talk to me about things, but I will still say, would it be okay if I speak to you about this? And if they don't want it and they say no, then respecting that boundary, right? But it could be something that they're maybe not willing to talk about right then. And you could say, and they go, Oh no, I don't want to talk about that. And you can say, Well, I'm open to speak to you about it if you ever want to. So they know the bridge is still there. And I think this is where, you know, when we're talking about like communicating and hearing rather than just listening, it's like that person is saying a whole pile of things by saying no. They're not just saying no, they're saying a whole pile of things. And if you're uh if you've recognized something's going on in their life and you've said, Oh, can I talk to you about it? I'm worried about this, or I've noticed this is going on for you. Do you want to have a chat? And they say no. And then you're like, no, no, no, I think we should really talk about it. It's like, well, you've noticed enough that something's going on in their life, but you haven't respected them enough to allow them to have the boundaries that they need right then. So I think it's really, you know, we want to hear, we want to hear everything that our friends are telling us and be willing to deal with our own crap, right? Like part of that is I'm worried about my friend. So I have worry directing my behavior. And so that is going to push my behavior. And that chimpanzee is like on the accelerator trying to make me fix it. But if that person is not ready for fixing, I have to deal with my worry. It's not their job to deal with my worry by letting me fix them. My worry is my responsibility. Yeah. Great if they're open to it and then I can help them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But if they're not, then my emotions, my drivers are my responsibility. And again, it's not to say, like, oh, okay, well, I just say it once and then I leave them and never go back to them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's like, okay, well, clearly I'm worried about something. Maybe I'll find a different time or a different way. Or um, but I think really getting like, you know, consent's a beautiful thing. It's like that can happen all the time.
SPEAKER_00:Um and it it does, it sets that sort of soft openness of willingness to listen.
SPEAKER_01:I I do think though, one thing around friendships that I think is so important is that we undervalue our friendships and overvalue our romantic partners. And I think we have this idea, this disnification of romantic partners, where it says me and this one person against the world, and that's all we need. And if we look at like the evolution of humankind, that's not the reality. We lived in villages, we had people. Um, and I think a lot of people don't repair the ruptures in their friendships the same way they attempt to do in their relationships. And their friendships are just as important and remain just as important. Um, you know, we should all be lucky enough to have four or five people in our world, probably including our romantic partner, who we can go to and be entirely ourselves, vulnerable, open, go to people for those conversations that you're talking about. We need those. That's really important. And what I tend to find across the gamut of um my work is that people are really isolated to their romantic relationship. And then when that breaks down, they like invest in their friendships, and then as soon as they get a romantic partner, it's like they come out of their friendships. And it's like, yeah, but they all matter. Yeah. And that's really important as well when we think about like our romantic partners, they don't need to remove us from our friendships because they're they're an important relationship, but so are these other ones.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. How do people as a friend and or romantic partner avoid the tendency to lay an expectation on a behavior or provide the advice or you know, when people are trying to have these conversations with them, particularly? Yeah. How do they listen better? You've said ask permission. Um, because you know, younger sister, I just want to fix it. I just want to help her train like this, do this, just do what I say. It's like that doesn't actually it's not what she's coming to me for. It's probably more to listen and just again help steer that for her.
SPEAKER_01:I guess that's when you become the therapist, right? So you spoke earlier about like um meeting them where they are. This idea of um this is the human that's ne in front of me. This is where they're at in their world. And so just meet them where they are, notice them for who they are. Most of us can fix our own shit. Like most of us have got it. We just need someone to listen. Or, you know, when people come and see me, I I'm not here to give them advice on how to live their life, I'm here to offer them ways to think, ways to look at their life differently, and then they decide what they want to do with it. I think we have, you know, our society again, we go back to the 15-minute TikTok. Here's three things you can do to fix your life. It's like, who's fixing what? Like just chill, let these people talk, let them go through their thing. Don't necessarily bring your things into it. Like, I would do it like this. Who cares? Great, go out, do it like that. Yeah, this person is different. Ask them, oh, that's really interesting. How would you do that differently if you could? If you didn't have the barriers you have, what would look different? Like have good, open-ended probing questions that get them to do the thinking for them.
SPEAKER_00:You do a lot of per uh work with the people in the queer community, you're part of it yourself. How you know, as a as a society, because it's uh it's such a funny thing, and I I hate saying, is it? Getting worse and more polarizing as a you know as a world, and I it just depends on what you look at, in my opinion. Depends on where your eyes and head is at. How do we how do people and this is both sides of the spectrum communicate better? And I guess as it it's probably similar in this sense, um how do we ask better questions and that sort of thing? And I guess provide a space that's safe as a family member, as a friend, um, for people that are struggling with one identifying it for themselves and then two communicating it.
SPEAKER_01:Massive question. I think the first thing we've got to look at is why am I dehumanizing other humans? Because that's essentially what we're doing. So what is it in my learnings? Because we're not like that. You you go to kids, like little kids, they're not dehumanizing each other. So these are learned behaviors over time, right? Like, why do I feel like I need to dehumanize a group of people in order for what? It doesn't change my world. I get to go on and live however I am, but I feel like I need to dehumanize them. We do this with the queer community, we do it with uh people from other nations, we do it with other religions, disability, all of these faces. We really dehumanize them. And I think it's really important that we think about what are the cultural and social norms that drive us to that kind of behavior in the first place. Um they're really important. I think the next step is who does it support when we're fractured as a community? Because we don't need to be fractured as a community. We can all care for each other and and and be different. That is a possibility, right? We don't have to see the differences as bad. We may have an instinct to do that as a human animal, but we also have conscious thought. So we can see superior species, right?
SPEAKER_00:If we were all just the animals, we would probably still be them. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:So um, you know, when we're talking about those things, it's like really think about where your base beliefs are coming from. Because those are the things that are driving your emotions, that are driving your behaviors. And then you've got a better way of speaking straight away because you're recognizing your bias, you're recognizing the unhelpful processes that are occurring inside you that are driving you to do something that maybe you don't want to do, right? Or maybe there's no point in doing it. Um so I think that's really important. I th I think that you know the question, is it getting worse? Fundamentally, yes. Right? So uh Queensland uh government has stripped uh rights of trans teenagers access to medical support in transitioning, which has been around for ages. Uh, they've done that without a review. And when it uh a parent took it to the Supreme Court, Queensland government lost. The next day, the Queensland government uses special powers to reinstate the ban. So there is no medical support for what they're doing, it's not legally supported, and that's typical of kind of what's going on. It's just occurred in uh New Zealand. There's the CAS review uh that's occurring in the UK, which has been shown not to have fully explored all research or all um communities. Uh an Australian paper has shown that it's not uh a good review. Um so there is an active uh removal of support for people within our government. Uh if we look into sport, uh we now have women in order to compete. So you get a choice, but in order to compete in particular sports, you have to provide a blood sample where they check testosterone levels. Women over a certain testosterone level unallowed to compete. Uh essentially the the basis of this is to remove trans people from from sport. But what it's ended up doing is policing women's bodies too. We don't have a test in male sport where, oh, okay, this is the average amount of male testosterone. You're above that, sorry, you can't compete.
SPEAKER_00:It's highly likely most exceptional athletes will be right at the top end. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:So then why are we doing that to women, let alone trans people? But this is where we kind of see, you know, the erosion of rights happening, target one group of people, and they start to erode the rights of a whole whole pile of people. And and I think you know, that's where again, when we think about like what's the point of us fighting someone's ideology is at play here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, totally. And it comes back to that assessment and critical thinking of it, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And and I mean, I guess it comes down to your concepts of how the world works, but certainly in my mind, if you come and see me as a psychologist, I believe every human being is deserving of a fantastic life in the way they want to lead it, as long as it doesn't cause harm to others.
SPEAKER_00:And I don't think in there innately any individual rolling around this earth wants to deliberately call cause harms to others. Generally not. They coincidentally might end up exhibiting behaviors that are polar opposite to that far more frequently, but not through an ill intent and the sort of first um, you know, when they enter the world. No, as you said, no young children really wants to cause harm. They attempt something and it's like that that's horrible. I don't want to be that. And um and they learn quickly. But yeah, as you said, you know, there's layers of it ideologically, and uh, and that's when that complexity sort of comes in. Um yeah, it's it's it's such an interesting space. And you know, I've I've worked in I've went to an all-boys Catholic school and I um I've worked in rugby and I've worked in these very masculine environments. But um, you know, and I think there's there's often people behaviorally that you can see are struggling in those moments, um, particularly as a as a male and seeing other men struggling in those moments. And it's sort of how do we have that conversation? How do we sort of have the bravery to at least provide that individual a safe space? But I I think you've outlined a really nice um I guess way of approaching it in the sense of going, you know, one, there's no judgment here. Um, but you know, how often do people I'm just thinking about it, avoid asking that question or having the courage to at least just say to someone, hey, I noticed you're not comfortable in this, or maybe there is something going on in here to listen when and if you want to talk to them. And then inversely, when someone approaches you in that sense, and you might feel the retraction and that same visceral behavior that is, oh no, judgment. And maybe they're giving you that opportunity and you're gonna miss it. Very hard to identify because it's super emotional.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um but yeah, I guess how does someone on the receiving end of that um navigate it? Um and then and then, yeah, you know, sort of have that courage to go, actually, I will talk to you.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's uh I think uh it's interesting. Um I think you know, you spoke to masculinity, right? I don't believe masculinity is the problem. Uh I think there are again, uh I actually wrote a blog post from November on this, but who is benefiting from these versions of masculinity that require you to pay or require you to isolate or require you to always be stoic and never reach out. There's not many stoic monkeys, right? Like we are, and it doesn't mean you can't be a protector, it doesn't mean you can't be those things. The masculinity of the 1920s is it's nine, you know, it's 2025. There is change there. And and I think a big part of what you're talking about there when we talk about like how can you be open to having that conversation when someone brings it up with you? How can you be vulnerable in that space and be like, okay, yeah, I'm really hurting, or this is tough for me, or a big part of that for men in particular, but you know, masculinity isn't equated with genitals. There's loads of women who are also quite masculine in in their concepts. Uh if we go by that really commodified version of masculinity, then you can't. You can't take that out, you can't have that conversation, you can't engage with that person. You've got to be stoic and deal with your own stuff. And you've noticed on here, I'm like, we got to deal with our own things. Like we do have to deal with our own things. But we are also a social animal, yeah. Right? Like just fundamentally we are social. And so recognizing that that doesn't have to be a version of masculinity. There's some amazing uh books that speak to and papers that speak to masculinity with um indigenous within indigenous cultures. And it's a really like, it's still the protector, it's still these things, but it's it's a far broader conceptualization. They're the storytellers, they're the dancers, they're the, you know, the all of these other aspects. And I think, you know, again to that commodified version, it's this very paper-thin concept of what it is to be a man. And I think that gets in the way of men supporting men, men having deep conversations, men having actual deep loving relationships with each other, which is really important, right? And there's critical. Uh we need that as humans.
SPEAKER_00:It's probably part of the demise of the modern male to a certain extent, is it is block, block, block, block, block. You know, there's just nothing. Um, I like the the desnification of a partner and the commodification of masculinity, and probably to an extent femininity in in its own right. Yeah. Um, you know, yeah, they did it to women first. Yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, it's it's it's funny because you it's abundant, it's around us, and it's just um it's taking that little bit of time, identifying your belief or pattern or whatever, behavior, emotion. Um, and then as you said, you know, being able to just listen to here, provide a safe space, it's so important. Um, and I think from a performance perspective, and we go back to that spectrum that we spoke about in terms of struggling to used a better word than normal, stable, capable, capacity, capable, and then from capable to flourishing, a lot of people in this space around these conversations are in that slipping from capable to struggling, all ends of the spectrum. Men not willing to accept other people in their life that might be challenging a belief. Um and then likewise others individually struggling. Was there key conversations in your life and and and through your journey that stand out where that gave you a lot of faith and hope and um I guess confidence to you know be who you are personally?
SPEAKER_01:Not not really, but all of them. Like uh it was interesting. I I did a thing recently with one of the sports I worked with where we had to, you know, do the hero hardship and um I can never remember the third age, but anyway. And uh I spent two weeks trying to work out who the hell my hero was. I don't have one. There is no hero in my life. Uh one of the other coaches actually spoke about it really beautifully, and they were like, I'm my hero.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I got through these things, I did this, I did that. And I think that like that really resonated with me because a lot of this stuff I've navigated myself. Um not to say that it wasn't because of loads of conversations and and people's ideas and like constant conversations. I have more uncomfortable conversations in a week than I would like. In fact, my blissful retirement idea is sometimes like, could I go back to a time when I hadn't opened this box of like all these things that are difficult to think about? And so it's it for me, it's really that. Like, I I I love exploring those spaces. I I really am very reflective. I look back on my life a lot and I'm like, okay, that was me then. Like, where have I grown to? Am I happy with this? Is this helpful to me as a human? Am I leading with purpose? Am I leading with joy? Um, is this the person I want to be? And there's loads of times when you know you don't live up to who you want to be, um, which again is just a great opportunity to recognize who you do want to be and to make change and that kind of thing. So I don't think that there's a there's a person. There's been multiple very influential people in my world. But there's not been a singular person.
SPEAKER_00:Um and I think to an extent it's probably a healthy way of thinking about it. Because if there was, there'd be an attachment, and and then that person leaves your life for whatever reason. Um you slip back, life gets very hard again. Potentially. Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. Well, I think that's enough for today. You're gonna have to change that coffee to a full caffeine coffee again. Time of very special. Um, I'm really glad we did this. It's it's been on you know on my list for a long time and um you reached out to me, so I appreciate that. Um, I've no doubt the work you're doing in the performance space is really effective and special. Um, and I've already, you know, you get through the grapevine of the networks. Um, but more importantly, and and I I guess there's this sort of wonderful way, and this conversation reflects that that you're bringing in the psychological, scientific element, that sort of brain of yours that wants the science and wants the evidence, but also having that nurturing caring space. So um I appreciate greatly your time today um and your openness and um and yeah, mate, really looking forward to the next couple of years. And um, I think more importantly for the listeners, you've stepping out on your own private practice and and and that. So um, should someone want to get in touch with you, um, what's the best way to do that?
SPEAKER_01:Uh, best way is probably my website is uh tamabari.com. Cool.
SPEAKER_00:We can link that in the notes below.
SPEAKER_01:Um and yeah, I've just opened uh actually open on Monday. So yes, very exciting. Uh in Newfarm. So that's been really cool. Um but yeah, website will have all the information. I'm not massively onto socials, I'm trying to do Instagram, but um I'm not on them myself, really. Uh and I'm envious that you're not, is but at the same time, they can be brilliant. They can be brilliant, right? And and they're a great way of getting a message out there. So I'm trying to work out how to get the message out without getting the messages in that I don't want.
SPEAKER_00:And it is a slippery slope.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. So, yes, Tamber Barry Psychology on Instagram. Um, but other than that, they're my own two places.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, beautiful. Cool. Well, thanks very much again for your time today, mate. Thank you. Brilliant. Thanks for tuning in to the Science of Fitness podcast. Be sure to check us out across all forms of social media and subscribe to this channel if you want to stay up to date to the latest episodes and any other anecdotes with which we might share across these video platforms. If you ever find yourself locally in Brisbane, be sure to drop into one of our facilities or down on the Gold Coast in Burley. You can also check us out at scienceoffitness.com.au and see all things relating to what we offer in programming and performance, whether it's online or in person.