Ep 8: Storyteller. Poet. Healing, Connection, and the Courage to Live Fully || Andrew Riis

Most people spend their whole lives running from the dark. Andrew ran toward it.

A poet, storyteller, and farm kid from Canada, Andrew has walked through grief, darkness, and seasons of life that would break most people. And instead of rushing past them, he learned to sit in them. Trust them. Let them change him.

In this episode, he shares a philosophy rooted in nature, ancestry, and a radical refusal to live with a closed heart. The kind of conversation that makes you want to slow down, breathe, and actually feel your life again.

This one's going to stay with you.

WHAT WE COVER

• The muddy river on a Canadian farm that shaped everything Andrew believes about being alive
• Why feeling empty despite having everything traces back to one thing: our relationship with death
• Why connection isn't something to create. It's something to return to
• What nature actually teaches us about rest, grief, and trusting the dark seasons of our lives
• The tidal river moment that redefined faith and resilience for Andrew
• Simple practices to come back to yourself when the darkness feels like it won't lift
• Why Andrew is finally ready to tell his own story and the one line that called him out: "Stop being willfully blind to your own truth"

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — Andrew and Mahdieh open: green energy, farm life, and who Andrew really is

01:19 — “A soul so in love with the sacred opportunity to be alive”

03:14 — Why staying soul-connected matters: ancestors, war, and peace as a birthright

06:01 — The root cause of modern disconnection: our relationship with death and control

09:23 — How consumer culture invented the self and sold us safety

10:03 — Connection is something to return to, not create (the leaf analogy)

11:32 — Why Andrew looks to nature: trees, rivers, and what’s stood the test of time

13:45 — The leaf that’s always red and orange — what nature teaches us about hope

15:08 — Rest as the missing piece of becoming: learning to honour the winter

16:26 — The tidal river: trusting that the ocean will come to you

20:21 — How a decade of telling others the world is friendly was actually Andrew convincing himself

25:03 — What to do when you want to heal but don’t know where to start

27:44 — Breathwork, nature walks, and the five-things practice

29:21 — Stop colonising your own emotions — meet your feelings with curiosity

34:00 — When you face the mirror, magic starts: synchronicities, the stranger named Peter

37:39 — Beyond overcoming: what’s possible when you stop defining yourself by your trauma

41:06 — What season Andrew is in now and why spring is finally arriving

44:19 — “Stop willfully blind to your own truth”: the moment he chose storytelling over another agency

46:28 — “I don’t want to die with my song unsung”

CONNECT WITH ANDREW RIIS

LINKEDIN — https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewpriis/ 

INSTAGRAM — https://www.instagram.com/andrew.riis/

CONNECT WITH MAHDIEH

INSTAGRAM — https://www.instagram.com/mahdieh.rassafiani/

FOLLOW YOUR NEXT STEP PODCAST

INSTAGRAM — https://www.instagram.com/yournextstep.pod/

TIKTOK — https://www.tiktok.com/@yournextstep.pod

YOUTUBE — https://www.youtube.com/@YourNextStepPodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Let's put everything, let's strip everything aside. Like who's Andrew?

SPEAKER_00 0:03

A little kid on the farm I grew up on in Canada. And I like to think of the moments when it would be this in-between time where winter was over, but spring hadn't fully sprung, and the snow and ice was starting to melt. And we would go out to these fields in the back of the farm, and there would be this river that would just slowly start to flow. But it would be all muddy. And we would jump from the top of the snowbanks and roll around in the muddy river.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Have this very unique connection with your soul. And I feel like it's very unique, and but there's something really, really calming about you.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

We attempt to live our lives like we are evergreen trees. And we have built the economy like it's evergreen. When in reality, if you look at nature, it's much more cyclical, it's much more deciduous. And if you don't have a good relationship with death and endings and the cyclical nature of reality, right? What are you gonna try to do? What you're gonna try to control how ludicrous it would be for the river to change course in such a way that it might miss meeting the ocean when all it truly had to do was wait for the tide to come in. I don't want to die with my song left unsung.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Well, thank you for being on the pod today, Andrew.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yeah, great to be back in this this space and see your your lovely uh piece of art up there again and see all the green you're wearing, including your fingernails as well. Why why that green? Because yeah, you've got it on your your feet, you've got it on the wall. It's all a very similar shade.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

I really get good energy from green, and I think it's the other thing that connects me back to like I like jungles, I love wood, I love like you know, being on a windy road up a mountain. Like that, that I get really good energy from it, so that's why like green has been my go-to colour all the time, and it's especially like the past two years, it's been a colour that just gives me good energy. Yeah, feels like home. Yeah, I mean you're wearing green too.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Called out, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Yeah, but yeah, that's how I that's how I feel towards green. But no, I'm so happy that you're here. I want people to know a little bit about you and like let's put everything, let's strip everything aside. Like, who's Andrew?

SPEAKER_00 2:49

I I love to think of me as a little kid on the farm I grew up on in Canada, and I like to think of the moments when it would be this in-between time where winter was over, but spring hadn't fully sprung, and the snow and ice was starting to melt, and we would go out to these fields in the back of the farm, and there would be this river that would just slowly start to flow, but it would be all muddy, and we would jump from the top of the snowbanks and roll around in the muddy river, and there have been so many moments where I've experienced that depth of presence and awe and joy and willingness to really roll around in the muddy and beautiful textures of life, uh, while having so much fun that I feel at the deepest level that that's who I am is just like a soul so in love with the sacred opportunity to be alive.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

That's so beautiful. Why are you so just to give people context? So you're one of those people that really reminds me of how being present is really, really important, and I feel like you have this very unique connection with your soul, and I feel like it's very unique. I haven't really crossed paths with people, and but there's something really, really calming about you that I really really gravitate towards, and I'm sure like people that have crossed paths with you feel the same. Why is it so important for you to be so connected with yourself and your soul?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Because I I think a lot about the state of the world, you know, and I think about not only colonization collectively, including tracing back to European and Nordic cultures where my father's ancestry is from, but I think about both world wars, and I think about John McRae's poem in Flanders Fields, where he talks about what it is to be alive one day and dead the next, and where he has this line: To you from flailing hands we throw, the torch be yours to hold it high if ye break faith with us who die. And I feel like I'm really aware of the uniqueness of what it means to be alive right now and the prices that have been paid for me to have the opportunity to live like I have. There are many of my ancestors that wouldn't have had an opportunity to use my voice in the way I have an opportunity to today. And I don't believe when people like John McCrae reflect on war, that their hope for us when they passed the torch to our generation was that we would live with closed hearts. And so since I was young, perhaps the thing that has always been most abundantly clear to me is that I can never give up believing that the world is a friendly place, and never give up believing in love and peace and miracles. Uh and that's been really difficult at times, but it's always felt like the most important thing. And then I also feel like peace is our birthright, and peace peace feels really important to me. Uh it feels like it it really is a starting point, you know, a place to to begin, a place to come from. Yeah. Plus also I have no choice because whenever I don't follow, like I get unwell or I get sick, and it's like at these deeper levels of choosing myself, it's so much of this is about realizing how much I've already chosen and simply honoring that when part of me likes to pretend I haven't, you know?

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Yeah, and you touch on like peace. People these days, I feel like they've really, really struggle to find peace and happiness in the things they have. There's a lot of people that achieve a million things, but they have this problem of connecting with themselves and they don't find fulfillment in anything. What do you think the main cause and reason to people feeling this way? Like, because nowadays we have so much um opportunities, we have so many like things that like our ancestors never had. And before, like people would go fight, get their food, but now everything's at hand, but we're the least connected with ourselves, we're the least satisfied, and we think that we constantly have to go for the next thing to feel satisfied. What do you think the main cause and root problem is?

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Well, there's there's so much in this, and I could I could, you know, write a whole book in response to that question. But if I'm being honest, I I really feel like it's our culture and our society's relationship with death, you know? And I think one of the biggest problems in the Western world is we seem to have this belief that things need to endlessly grow, and we attempt to live our lives like we are evergreen trees, and we have built the economy like it's evergreen. When in reality, if you look at nature, it's much more cyclical, it's much more deciduous. And if you don't have a good relationship with death and endings and the cyclical nature of reality, right? What are you gonna try to do? What you're gonna try to control, and so I would trace a lot of a lot of the issues back to how we relate to control.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Why do you think we need to control everything?

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Because we don't feel safe.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

And why don't we feel safe? Sorry, I'm going a bit deeper on this. Why do you think people these days have so much fear more than ever in everything they want to do, and it's hard to stay true to what they feel is true to them?

SPEAKER_00 9:46

I think we constantly have these forces fighting for us trying to get our attention, and it's difficult because at the same time as, for example, the internet helped me heal my asthma when Western approaches didn't work. The internet also has men who haven't dealt with their own relationship with ego and power who talk about the importance of harvesting eyeballs. I think the parallel thread around all of this is the thread that emerged in the 1900s post-war when the propaganda industry birthed PR and what we now know as modern-day marketing, where there was collectively by corporations the invention of the idea of the self. Uh and I think the the way to heal is in community, but we we've been sold a lie that who we are is really so much more about who we are as consumers, and because of that, I know for me personally, a lot of the ways that I was trying to achieve a sense of safety within myself was spending time getting the latest tech gadget or feeling like if I could use AI or some programming to optimize every area of my life, then things would work out when really what it was was like the absence of fear of human connection and community for me. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

I really want to hear your perspective around like human connection these days. But what do you think like people are missing because they're not having that human interaction and connecting with one another?

SPEAKER_00 11:44

I I feel like I feel like connection is is everything. Uh and as humans it's very innate. I used to think of connection as something to create in the world, but now I think of connection more as something to return to. And I think about, I don't know, like if you take one of the leaves on your plant, imagine snipping that leaf and disconnecting it from the rest of the plant. You lose the source of like fuel and life and nutrients and and joy. And so connection to me is just like a natural symbiotic um process that I think is actually very dangerous to try to to try to mess with. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

I really like your analogy of the leaf. Yeah. I know that we've had conversations around how you know there was one season of your life that you were really into trees and then it started on the ocean and now it's rivers. Why do you look at all these different elements? What meaning does it give to you?

SPEAKER_00 13:07

You know, because because they've lasted, like they've been around for a bit. They've nature has stood the test of time. And I think that one of the easiest traps to fall into is the concept that because our civilization has been around for a couple hundred years, maybe even a couple thousand, depending on how you want to look at it, we assume that we must be doing things right and it must be going to last forever. And that if we look at the brightest scientific and cultural minds of our time, that they probably must have all the answers. But I think that's a very dangerous assumption. You look back at how um Einstein challenged things, you look back at how Galileo challenged things. Some of the people that held the perspectives that ended up being the most true were the ones that challenged the prevailing ideas of the time. And I feel much more comfortable hanging out with a species of tree that has existed for an objectively inordinate amount of time than listening to a podcast by some young dude that didn't have the best childhood and rushed to make a hundred million dollars. And I say that from the context of being someone that previously wanted to be that dude and you know used to be addicted to ice baths, think I was one ice bath away from success and hang in those circles. It's so humbling to hang around a tree, you know, and like I recently uh performed a piece on rest, and one of the beautiful things I learned during my studies and kind of anthropological journey to arrive at that piece of art was the concept that although a leaf on a deciduous tree might always look green, it actually does ongoingly have those red and orange pigments you'll see in fall and autumn. They're just not visible at that point in time because of the strength of the green pigment. And in fact, the birth of the new bud, the new leaf, has already begun before the old dying leaf has left the tree and hit the ground. And so it makes the concept of hope and faith feel pretty ludicrous because nature has already set in motion the next cycle before the the last one has ended. It's kind of like how if you look at certain eastern breath work practices, they will talk about how before the end of your in-breath, your outbreath has begun. Uh Lao Tzu says, you know, hope, hope is as hollow as fear. And so learning to trust the cycles of my life, in particular when I've been in extended periods of darkness, what does it mean to really allow myself to grieve and to allow myself to be in the winter seasons of my life because I was so focused on growth that I think I missed the fact that rest was actually the missing piece of my own becoming, and the only reason something became wrong with the darker seasons of my life was because something I thought something was wrong with them, and so I would be sad, um, and I'll try to stop the sadness, and I would just I'll just have these phases, but I'd be really sad, you know. And um and my mom would tell me I I I wasn't myself and um and that I I I I just needed to just go be busy or get a job or something like that. But uh but I I slowly and it took me 10 years to realize this, realize that like the the winter and the darker times aren't something to be rushed, and my grief isn't something to be optimized. In many ways, the sadness in me and those those depths of mourning and suffering for different things I've lost at different periods of my life hold some of the most powerful parts of my wisdom, and some of the time part of me has tried to to rush past that, you know. I was lying in a a river, um probably it was the week we first met up in a national park, and it was a tidal river, which means the body of water doesn't always meet the ocean, it only does when the tide comes in. And I was lying in the river as the tide came in, slowly feeling the water crash upon my face, and I was reflecting on how ludicrous it would be for the river to change course in such a way that it might miss meeting the ocean when all it truly had to do was wait for the tide to come in. And so, in many cycles and seasons of of darkness I've faced, which I think is objectively true, that I've faced a lot of difficult things in my life that um that a lot of people don't manage to to um to stay alive from, you know. I think that being willing to actually sit in that darkness and pain and not rush to change course, but trust that the tide will come in and that the river will meet me has been probably one of the most profound choices of faith and resilience I've ever made. And that's what I mean when I talk about our relationship with death, darkness, and control in society. Because I've I've had to kind of go through it myself.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

I want to give you a hug. I'm sorry, like that's so beautiful, like honestly, um like I feel it. I genuinely, genuinely feel it, and I and I resonate with the different aspects of it because like being like going through different challenges in life and you know the hardships of things that come up in those moments. It's like for example, for me, like some experiences I've gone through, like when I look back at it now, I feel that uh, you know, like how was this person, like how was I so resilient to it that in that moment I was just wanting to do everything I can to keep in control of like making sure everyone around me is fine and or like you know not showing my emotions, but now like there are moments when I look back at certain experiences, the the issues that came across in my life, and then I'm like, how the hell did I go through it? You know, and why has it not broken me yet? Because like sometimes all these experiences that we go through, I don't know, in that moment there's this weird hope that comes up from those dark moments that you hold on to so like so much, and then when you look back at it, you're like, wow, that really should have like broken me. But it's I'm so resilient, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Uh and so one of the things I've been reflecting on lately is how I feel like a lot of the messages that we're often trying to spread to other people are really things we need to hear ourselves, you know, and believe ourselves. Um it's like coming out of high school, I was originally pretty shy and afraid of people, and this day where I went out and said hi to every single Person on the street. I just say good morning, walk down the street. And I spent like a decade talking to people about how the world is a friendly place, which I believe, by the way, is a objectively important thing. Like I Einstein said, the most important decision we can make is whether the world's a friendly or hostile environment, because that will determine whether we use our technology to build our walls up or take them down. And I think now we are at a precipice, an inflection point in society where we are really choosing how do we want to use our technology. But equally, I realized that at the bottom of that journey was actually just me trying to convince myself that the world was a friendly place. Because I'd had some experiences which showed me as a kid that it wasn't as safe as it was actually meant to be. And um, and I really wanted to find that safety again so I could truly be myself and let other people into my world, you know, which I feel like I've now like there's always deeper levels, but it feels like I'm now really starting to embody that. So I I get really fascinated when we use words such as grind, which feels so abrupt, or impact, which again feels like a car accident. It's like, what does it mean some more just like plant a seed or be rooted, or you know, when um when you have those dandelion flowers and you like blow into them and make a wish? I I like to think a lot more about that kind of stuff, but yeah, I think this is why systems in the world can be really dangerous because when you have someone that ends up gaining a whole bunch of power and hasn't dealt with their own relationship with power and is still maybe trying to find some safety that they felt they never had or dealt with like because again, there is objectively so much intergenerational trauma, even outside of the colonial perspective, just because of the wars, and and so I think people that don't deal with their relationship with that stuff end up perpetuating it, and like I've been around billionaires that think they're building freedom, but I just think they don't realize they're blind to the fact that they're in a cage themselves, and when you're in your cage yourself, the most like painful thing to do is admit that you're in a cage, which is something I had to go through. And if you haven't admitted you're in a cage, you'll probably drag other people into your cage while denying their own sovereignty and freedom. And I think I think that's really dangerous, and I think that's why people love to shit on indigenous cultures so much, because the way they have an ecological relationship with nature would actually make us face the shit that we have spent our whole lives running away from. Um, but then also there is like there are less elders because of how much the system has systemically tried to destroy them by men, largely men who haven't had the courage to feel the feelings and instead have the blind audacity to think that certain branches on a tree should get chopped down when perhaps some of those branches are actually the most important ones because they hold everything else up. And if we have any hope of lasting as a civilization, we probably need to listen to voices that have had a long-standing relationship with land, especially when they tell us not to build a taller building in a certain place, you know.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Yeah, yeah. I really like that reflection of like when you see certain people and you know they've the way that they lead, the way that they, you know, interact with people, the way that they rule, or whatever it is, they have all these issues that they haven't faced. You can tell. If someone is wanting to get in tune with themselves and heal and feel those emotions, whether men, women, who whoever it is, what would you tell them?

SPEAKER_00 26:32

I would I would first tell them that there is a light on the other side, and that just because you try once and you don't get there doesn't mean it's not gonna come back around. I think that's one of the most important things. People will try a meditation or a breath work or chat to a friend and open up, and then they still feel the fear circle back or the anxiety circle back a day or two later, a week or two later, a month, month or two later, and so they think that that means there's something wrong with them or wrong with the process. And I I do believe there is there is a way out, and and to know that the most important thing, no matter what pit you find yourself in, you know, it's like um Nelson Mandela has that that poem he loves the Invictus poem, it's like out of the night that covers me, black is the I'm paraphrasing it, but pit from pole to pole. I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul. I think it all starts with knowing that even in the depths of the darkness, there is still a part of you that believes. And sometimes listening to that part is feels like the most irrational thing to do. I remember being in the pit of dealing with the grief of my dad's diagnosis, and part of me was just so so sad that my world was caving in, you know. And um in that moment, it felt like the night was gonna last forever, that the sun would rise, never rise the next morning, metaphorically speaking, right? But I think sometimes the most important thing to do is to do what would be irrational in a forever night, to still not just like fight and freak out and get worried about whether or not the sun will come up, but let yourself go to bed, let yourself rest, you know, prep your clothes for the morning, um, to act from an embodied state of of hope and faith and and trust, and to give yourself permission to bash around around the walls a little bit. I I've definitely bashed around the walls a bit, and I didn't realize where part of me was trying to get to, but a deeper part of me always knew, and the more I've trusted what seems to be trying to come through me without needing to understand what the final picture needs to look like, the more I feel like um things have panned out. I can also be tactical, I think. And one of the things for me, especially as someone who used to be uh really bad asthmatic, is our relationship with our breath and trying to find little moments in the day where I can take the time to breathe is super important. One of the other practices that has really served me has been going out to nature, even if it's just a walk in my park, and I will sit or stand somewhere and decide I'm not gonna move until I notice five things, five little things about what's going on. And so I'll chill, and at first it'll seem like nothing's going on, and then I'll notice an ant calling on a log, and then I'll hear a certain bird song, and slowly going um going just into a more peaceful place, eventually the things start to show up, and I sort of restore my connection with my senses, and I feel the ground on my feet, and I'm like, oh yes, look at this little look at this little caterpillar, look at this. I love butterflies lately. Look at this, there's a black butterfly, look at this white butterfly just flowing around. Um Attunement, right? I think that's what this is all about because at the end of the day, especially if it does come down to processing the deeper stuff in our body, which some of it is not even ours. Again, it's this intergenerational stuff or cultural stuff. Take the micropractices for attunement lead to lead to bigger things, and so just as we wouldn't be like, oh no, I've noticed a caterpillar on a tree, I should try to kill the caterpillar, don't then notice a little hint of sadness and try to conquer and destroy it. Um I think I think we're often trying to colonize ourselves and our own emotions because that's the state of the world we live in. And so I think if we could look at ourselves and our tears and see a river, or if we could look at the bit of anger we see within us and see a tree sprouting and come from that same place of non-judgmental curiosity, I feel like that's probably what's allowed me to finally arrive in a deeper sense of home within my body to this to the kind of place where I feel safe enough to experience life to the degree that I do.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Yeah, that's really powerful. I think when people are the healed versions of themselves, and the reason why I say healed is because they've faced the things that once they never saw the light through the end of the tunnel. It's cliche as I say this, but the world becomes a better place. People are just more kinder, people are more um respective of each other, people can be honest, people can, you know, they don't have to hide behind all these facades, like their walls don't grow. Like, just imagine if everyone was just, you know, allowed to be themselves and vulnerable, and you know, there was no walls. Yeah. Like, what is this person's intention? Like, you know, and I feel like we just like nowadays, the fact that we don't have connection or as social as I am, I need to click myself out of complimenting even someone because I'm like, oh, if I compliment someone, like, will they think I'm a weirdo or will they think I'm a creep or just something nice, even to someone. It's just we've just built all these walls and it's scary.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

So, so scary. I and there's so many times when I've been so afraid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But sometimes those things are the things that have the most value because a friend of mine likes to say that those are the areas of the map that we've uh explored the least, the ones that scare us the most. So there can be the most like it's like seeing a certain type of I don't know, it's like being out surfing, and you're like suddenly there's like a dolphin there, you know. Whereas if you're always just surfing on the beach you've always been to, where the dolphins don't go to, you might not see them. So you you gotta go to the new places. A question that's always really powerful for me is how can I choose a novel timeline in this moment? And sometimes the novel timeline might be going to that party, but also sometimes the novel timeline might be it's like that that resilience bit of writing of mine you were saying you loved. That came because I chose to turn down an invitation to go into this like really sick boat party. My friend was TJing that because my body was like, I wanted rest, and instead I consumed some of uh Trent Dalton's work, Boy Swallows Universe, beautiful TV show. I really resonate so deeply to um his life and his journey with typewriters because I fucking love typewriters as well. I saw that on your story the other day, and I was like, ooh, yeah, and um, but it was actually that's choosing the novel timeline actually meant not showing up in a way I normally would. And by saying no to opportunities, that's actually what said yes to something else that was trying to emerge, which was this piece of writing. Uh so yeah, novelty is really interesting because sometimes it means doing less, which I think is it's like, yeah, if you've someone that's always working really, really hard, it's like, what if that isn't the missing piece? But it's like, what if rest is the missing ingredient and you're unbecoming yeah, but that can be really scary.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Yeah, staying still for a long time, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

Yeah, because then stuff comes up, right? And often I feel like I had built a really busy life to avoid avoid that shit. You got no choice, you got no choice, yeah. Yeah, no, 100%. I think we've built a society to avoid looking in the mirror and and facing facing not only the past but truth and ourselves and and our ecological, cyclical nature as human beings, uh and our intertwined nature, and um especially given the way the world's been built, it's it's really painful to to uh to to reckon with that. But then you do, right? And then trippy stuff happens, like you start you like feeling like you want to listen to a certain song, and then you walk into a coffee shop and they're playing that song, or you walk down the street and you bump into an old friend that you've been hoping to meet, and then you kind of start to realize that there's this like whole world of of magic, which is only possible from connection. And if you can just shift a little bit, like just shift one degree into being one percent more open and friendly, everything changes in the world. Because if you think about a set of parallel lines, right, there's no actual point of intersection, point of convergence between them. But what I realized is if I could just shift myself a little bit, eventually everything would connect. Because if one line shifts by one degree, then eventually every single line is connected over it into an infinite continuum. Yeah, that's that's very the points of intersection are really really cool for me. Um yeah, I love it because stuff can it's like it's what's like what happens when we collide, you know, it's like what happens when uh it's like adding food coloring into water, and there's some sort of reaction. Um everything in some way is a combination of of meeting points, it's it's um the light and the dark, the day and the night, the sperm and the egg, um, growth, decay. It's all things exist in parallel with each other. Endings wouldn't exist without beginnings, life wouldn't exist without death, hope wouldn't exist without fear. And so this meeting point I find really exciting, uh because I believe that on the other side of Hello anything is possible. And sometimes I've said hi to people and ended up in India doing comedy for a Nobel Peace Prize murder. Other times I've uh you know been I remember last year I got a big paycheck for some client work, and then I walked home and I failed to walk a different way home. And I was like, why am I feeling to walk a different way home? And I saw this homeless guy and start chatting to him, and um he's a story really similar to my dad's story, and it really helped me understand and have empathy for my dad's struggles in a way I'd I'd previously never been able to. I kind of met in my life for a while when I was younger, and um, and I was like so happy to use some of my first paycheck to like put this guy up in accommodation for a couple nights, yeah. And then we chatted and we had this this hug, and he said something my dad has been saying to me lately, which is like, look after yourself, Andrew, look after yourself, and um, and I said, Oh, thanks, man. Um, what's your name, by the way? He said, My name's Mom's Peter, nice to meet you, and um, my dad's name's Peter, you know, and um I literally have goose once. But this is like this stuff is is slowly what isn't that in my life is slowly fading out, and almost every single thing now is is stuff like this, and I think that's what gives me the courage to keep believing because I know that life is magical because I've experienced it, and like I was telling you, Einstein has this line either nothing is magic or everything is magic, and I think we talk about resilience and people end up in this world of like fighting and overcoming and this David Goggins type energy, but I'm always very curious lately what's possible in this world beyond overcoming, because if you're always so focused on fighting and doing more and being more in response who you were never to who you were never able to be, I don't know if you ever get to be who you were never able to be. I don't like to talk about myself as hey, I'm Andrew, and I've been through this trauma because that actually robs me of who I was never able to be in the first place. And so there's this whole world of joy and wonder and childlike purity and possibility and truth that exists. If we could just stop taking the time to work out how to like optimize human interaction and actually walk around for a day and compliment 10 people and they'll smile, you know. It's like I reckon that'll probably have a higher ROI than just like downloading another fucking app. And I love doing that. This is my favorite compliment to give people. Yeah, it's like if you wanna if you want to mood boost, like just walk around the city and just literally tell people where you see a little bit of happiness in their eyes, where they're holding on to that light and that joy. I'm just like, hey man, or hey, excuse me. I just want to say I think you have a really beautiful smile. It is my favorite compliment to give. Um, and uh we never know how much, again, it's a connection, it's an inflection point. Sometimes people have said words to me where those words have stood with me for years, and so we never fully know just how much of an impact we can have.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

Yeah, yeah, it's very, very true. Like, and the impact you make to people, right? Sometimes I struggle being very open about like experiences I've gone through. There's all these factors, you know, it's like, you know, one, I'm very f new to this space and I'm posting these things online, but my intentions are pure. I know my intentions are pure, but like how will other people take it? But then she was like, no, share your story because there's someone out there that needs to hear it and also share the moments of the good things that you've gone through, those challenges and spread that hope and positivity because you don't know who's on the other side that really, really needs to hear it. And a lot of the times I feel like you know, when we see something on social media or hear someone's story from another person sits with us and they may never know that this has resonated with us the way it has. So, you know, just as you said, like, you know, giving someone a compliment or you know, spreading that kindness, that like, you know, being a good person, like being you.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

I think something really important in this space um uh is to trust that there are people around you that can hold the weight of your truth.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Like we're starting to feel like you know, the layers of the onion, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:17

Yeah, yeah, I know. But I like want to ask you what season of life are you in now? And where do you see your next step?

SPEAKER_00 42:26

Yeah. Yeah, it it feels like it's time to start telling my story, and whether that is things like this or poetry or or music, which has been such a fun journey to go on this year, like singing my song around the campfire was perhaps the thing that brought everything back for me, which is so cool to say. Feels like Yeah, it feels like I've been in an extended winter in many ways, despite bits of summer. It feels like spring is is really starting to arrive, and it's like really time to build something, and I'm really excited for what it means to start um start sharing myself with the world, not from a place of trying to get validation or trying to get people to listen to me because I didn't feel okay deep inside and I wanted someone to believe me, but but because I've walked through the the fire and because I have truth to share, and and it feels like the only way to honor uh the path of my ancestors, the only way to honor my dad's dad, who stood in concentration camps and held the hands of men as they were dying of sickness. The only way to honor indigenous elders up in Cape. York and around who have stood with me and passed on stories of connection to land and how the government needs to listen only to be evacuated by a helicopter and see them on national news months later when their wisdom hasn't been followed. The only way to honor the little boy who loved playing in the snow and the mud and who went through horrific situations but still chose to keep believing in hope and in life and that at the end of the day there can be a better tomorrow is to start start really honoring my story and start sharing my art um with the world because all I've ever wanted is the chance to do my thing.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

And honestly, Andrew, just knowing you for a very short amount of time, you've had that impact on me. And I can't wait to for you to share like your story to the whole entire world. Like because honestly, it's gonna touch so many hearts. You're just so genuine. You come from like a place where it's really hard to find these days of like people just being very raw in themselves, but it's so powerful and like there needs to be more like you, but so uniquely you, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

It's exciting and it's unknown, you know, it's like there's all these different threads emerging, and I'm very curious how being a storyteller looks for me. Um, but I think the most important thing is like I had this pivotal moment a few months ago where part of me was gonna maybe do something else and just start another fucking marketing agency or something like that. And I was chilling in my room and I just words came to me, and it's like you call people willfully blind when they cut down old trees, like uh like all the native forest logging that is unprofitable, costs taxpayer money, and is destroying really sacred natural environments important to the global ecosystem, especially in Tasmania, where I hope to go in the early months of next year. Um, but the tell I call was like you call people willfully blind when they cut down old trees. Stop being willfully blind to your own truth. Yeah, you know, like uh stop pulling the wool over your eyes and and pretending you can't see. Like it's it's it's time uh it's time for your yeah, it's time for your voice to become your path and your path to become your voice and like stop stressing over whether you become a musician or a poet or like just just just just like it really it really is time. Um and uh I'm very inspired by Trent Dalton, having just just finished that that series, uh, and how he had this wild life uh in the 80s with with crime and different dynamics in Brisbane, and how he decided he wanted to become a journalist, so then he became a journalist, and then at the end of that all he chose to tell his own story, and um uh what I realized is like man, I could just die, like you know, it could just be the end of my life, and I've been through all this stuff, and it doesn't become anything, and I think it doesn't need to, but equally I don't want to die with my song left unsung, and I actually feel it's the only way to respect whether you want to call it like the light or God or divinity flowing through me, or the elders that have passed on wisdom, or the ancestors, um, is to reclaim my relationship with my voice and my truth from a place of holding sovereignty while opening my heart and uh yeah, I wish I wish everyone the the courage to do the same because I spent a few years having a podcast where I focused on talking to people that I only got people on that believed I didn't have a story, and I got really good at getting their story out while not looking in the mirror and realizing that perhaps it was time to finally tell my own. So yeah, it's gonna be cool to listen back to this. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

Oh, thank you so much for being here today. Like, thank you for sharing your magic, and I'm so so so grateful for you just being here and sharing it. And I feel very honored that like you're here and sharing this story. So thank you, thank you so much. And yeah, like I can't wait to like you know have another episode thing and like to see like what's been happening and like where the journey's to take in you, and you're making impact already, but like I know there's so much more impact that's waiting out there for you to be made and sharing your magic with the world. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

No, thank thank you for having me. And yeah, I think like it's just so beautiful to be in a celebration of what what it means to even exist. And moments like this are always really sacred for me to sit down in time and capture what that has meant.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Yeah, cool. Thank you for listening. We'll leave Andrew's details in the show notes and yeah, till the next episode. Till then. Till the next episode. Oh, that was so beautiful.