Burn It Down to Feel It’s Warmth

Adam Drake, Founder of Balanced Choice, theatre kid turned youth worker, on the kids who loved him before he liked himself, the goodness detector, and why the work happens in winter, not spring.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to What Remains Wild. This is a podcast recorded on beautiful Larakia Country about transition, leadership, identity, and the parts of us that won't be tamed. This beautiful conversation with Adam Drake does touch on issues to do with mental health. And as always, there are hotlines available in the show notes should you need them. Please enjoy.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Today I'm joined by Adam Drake, who's somebody whose work I've seen around the community, who is a really beautiful soul and does really important work, particularly with young people, but a whole range of people through the community. And I will let Adam take it away by talking about what it is that you do and what it is that's really important to you.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Oh, Lauren, so good to chat with you. I remember the first time I met you in a coffee shop when you're a minister and we were talking about young people and your passion then for the round table and so many other things were so beautiful. But Adam Drake, Balanced Choice Programme founder, kind of fell across it. Didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life. I was doing theatre, I was doing a bit of fitness. I'd been down in Tennant Creek, I'd collapsed in lots of ways with alcohol and all sorts of stuff in my life. I'd studied a theatre degree at uni, so I'd kind of gone, I love theatre, I love fitness, and my uncle's a doctor of foresight. And I went, maybe those three things could work. And so I remember going and pitching to government at the time. There's this program called Balanced Choice, and I bought it on some A4 pieces of paper that were so dodgy. And I think it looked like a grade three school assignment from a kid who's not really artistic. And they said, Yeah, we'll give you three hours a week in Dundar. And they said, Well, what's it worth? And I'm like, uh, and that's always the hard question. What am I worth? And 150 bucks an hour. And they're like, Yeah, sure. And I'm like, Oh, oh wow, I like that. And then from there, it just sort of, you know, now we've uh gone national with it, and uh, I could never have dreamt what it's turned into, but that's because of the beautiful people who've come on board who just were way better in areas where I lacked, and I found really cool team members who walked alongside me and we've built something pretty cool together.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Can I ask how you got into theatre? So it's not many, there's not many people who do a degree in theatre.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yeah, I was so lost at uni. Like I finished school at a manual college on the Gold Coast. My dad was my teacher, actually, and I finished year 12. I got an OP score, which I, you know, it wasn't great. OP is your overall score, and it kind of could get me into TAFE. And I was like, and I don't think we prepare young people well enough for when school finishes because I felt so lost. I'd had this routine in my life, and then it's gone. I was like a pizza boy for a year, going, I don't know. Then I said to my dad, I think I should go back to school, I'll try it again. So I did year 12 at 19, and I was the guy with the car who was driving. I was I was semi-cool by then, like not real cool, but a little bit. And it was just this great thing if I got a better OP. So I went to uni and I remember I suffered from anxiety massive, and I remember turning up to Griffith University, and I was doing I'd got into a Bachelor of Business, and I got to the car park and it was so full I couldn't find a car park, and that was enough to make me defer the course. Just that it was full, you know, because I'd already talked myself out of it, and so all I needed was one thing to go wrong in that car park, and I taught myself out of it. Stressful, yeah, and so then when I started Bachelor of Business, hated it, didn't want to do it, then tried education, didn't want to do it, but I did one elective subject, and the elective subject was called effective performance. And so I went in with this, and he's still a great friend, Mike Foster, lecturer at Griffith University Goldcast. I walk in there and he plays games with me for like two hours and the rest of us, and we felt like kids, and we laughed, and all the nerves disappeared, and I walked out feeling well, and I went, that's actually a magic, that's magic. Whatever just happened to me there, I want to do that for my life. And so now, if people get balanced choice for team building or connection or whatever, that's what we do because there's people in the room who are really scared to be there, and even turning up's hard enough. And so when you play together, we realize we're not that scary. And then when we connect, we realize we're actually meant to do that, and then I think it just makes sense from there. So that's how theater got involved. Also, when I was in first year uni, he said, Adam, I want to take you up to a prison on the Gold Coast. There's four women who want to do a theater show about their story, and I just want to introduce it to them. So we went up the mountain to Numman Bar Correctional Center at the back of the Gold Coast, and these four women did a puppet show for us. And he then said, All right, we're gonna go into this room and we're gonna run a workshop. And they laid down on the ground and he did a visualization exercises where he got them to picture going over the fence in a hot air balloon and finding freedom. And it was just magic to see their face from someone who's imprisoned feel free, and maybe that's what I've been doing ever since is finding people who are in prison and you're just trying to help them find a bit of freedom.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

That's really beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

It is really beautiful. You talked or you touched on what theatre did for you in terms of your anxiety, and that's an experience that I'm quite familiar with. And what I have found interesting over the last sort of 12 months is this kind of rediscovery of creativity and not attaching guilt to doing things that are creative, because I think we're in a culture that's very much about hustling, being productive, and we don't necessarily see that as being those things, which I think is wrong. But what role has creativity then played in your ability to deal with anxiety and some of those challenges that you've experienced in your life?

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Massive. Like every theatre game that I'll play with a group of people has a message in it that actually helps you in life. And so there's a game called What It's Not. And so we might grab a beanbag, right? And we've got to turn it into everything that it's not. So I might hold it in my arms like it's a child, or I might put it on my head like it's a hat. But what I'm doing is changing the meaning of it because I'm looking at it in a different way. And so when you get anxiety like the beanbag and turn it into what it's not, and start to picture it as fuel in your car getting ready to do the most amazing performance, it changed the way I looked at anxiety is because I was like, oh, it's this horrible feeling that I just hate and I don't want to feel it anymore. Oh no, it's a cool feeling, it's coming in my body, it's getting me ready to do the most amazing workshop because I care about it. Bang! And so once I was able to reframe things, that helped a lot. So being able to be creative in the way I think, the way I approach problems, I think for government over the years, it's always, you don't know what's this guy with dreadlocks and his crew doing. You know, they're going into Dondale, they're going into his uh rehabs, they're going into community, they're going into corporates. And what are they going to do? But what I see is we reach people, we connect with people, and then we see them want to be better. And that's cool. And so theater's just a beautiful way to connect quickly.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

It is cool. And that's really interesting because one of the, again, one of the things that I had realized over time was that I was kind of confused in my own body, I guess, about the difference between excitement and anxiety. So I remember being on a trip with my family, post-politics, and yeah, I I felt excitement. We were going to Blue E world. Gloriously. It was excited, loved spending time with the girls, but I had kind of such a negative reaction to what was happening in my body because I just have associated it with anxiety for so long. So that reframing when really it is the same physiological response and often triggered by things that you really deeply care about is super um important and interesting.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

So it's it's funny how we try to sometimes run from it, but it's actually what we need to step into. And um, I think that's helped me a lot, is when I start to feel it. Yeah, it's it's it's a signal. There's a quote that says, emotions are like waves, you've just got to choose which ones you're gonna surf. And I love that. It's like, yeah, anxiety is a bit like that too. You can feel it, but how long do you want to stay on it? You know, and what and and what can I do right now that's gonna help me step off it if it's if it's not right to be in it. Yeah, but maybe I need to surf it for a while and be on it for a while because it's gonna help me reach maximum performance. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Spoken just like the surfer that you are.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

I'm a terrible surfer. I've been doing it for a few years. But the thing about surfing for me is that because I'm so bad at it and it's taken me years to get even able to stand up and go sideways on a wave, I can't even get in a barrel. But what I love about surfing is I'm always like the learner. I'm teachable, I'm getting better at it. But I purposely go to the gym afterwards because I feel like such a kook when I'm surfing that when I actually go to the gym, I know I can lift heavy weights and I feel strong. So it's kind of the balance of I'm good at one thing, I'm not good at the other. And I think that's important in life because if you're constantly doing things where you're always the learner and you're always feeling not like you can achieve, that can rock your world a bit. It's like when you go to a new job. So it's important you top that up with something that you're good at, and then it makes you feel just a bit better about yourself at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Had not thought about it like that.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

It's just helped me a bit.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Yeah, it's really no, it's good. When you work with young people, just to go back to theatre and you that's something that you do with young people. You are often working with young people in Dondale, as you said, which for people who might not know is a youth detention facility here in the Northern Territory. So I imagine that you must be working with some young people who have probably a very tough exterior. You'll you'd be working with lots of young men. How do they react to theatre work, the idea? I know you do working out as well, but I mean, I might be just making wild assumptions, but I assume it's much easier for them to gravitate towards the workout style engagement that you do with them than the theatre work. But I'd just be interested in what that looks like. 100 practice.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

I you're spot on because part of the reason we do the fitness is to get to the theatre. If you just go in and we're going, we're gonna run theater workshops, straight theatre, get real, I'm not doing that, get stuffed, what's this, you know. And so once you call it theatre, you kind of set yourself into a bit of a bad spot until you make them realize, or through the activities, show them that it's not actually what they think it is. And so for me, I always say to them when we're doing push-ups, so we all sometimes do huge amounts of push-ups together, and we're all in sync with each other, and we're all going up and down at the same time, we're all breathing at the same rate, we're having side-by-side conversations. And if you were to film it, you would probably say that's physical theater.

SPEAKER_03 11:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

And then you watch a kid do a dip or a chin up, or you do some animal crawls, which you know, there used to be a workout called Zoo years ago, and I used to do these crawls with the kids all the time. And you watch it, it's theater, and then I'd throw in one game, and this is the game that if you ever want to engage a group of young people, it is the number one game, and it's a simple game called Start, Stop, Jump, Clap. And so all you do is go start, stop, jump, clap, clap, jump. And so the whole group's in unison and they're listening. But then you go, okay, you're so good at this, we're gonna make it opposite. So start means stop, stop means start, jump means clap, and clap means jump. And then you watch them doing this deep thinking. But as soon as you've played that game with a group of young people, they will listen to you so deeply. Sure, yeah, because the brains had to go and do some really deep work, but they love that game, and so as soon as I tell them that's theatre, no, that's not theater, that's a fun game. I don't know. And then you're basically slowly revealing theatre as the superpower that I believe it to be in reaching people, and that could have that could have a bit to do with you know how balanced choices continue to get work in Dondale for the last 12 years and continue in there and see many people come and go. But I think we're always trying to learn new activities to just engage the young people. And we've built programs around theatre. The anchor's a program we've just written recently, it's around values. But how do you put those values into the body through theatre? So that's that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Ah, just chipping away, still trying to work it out.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

It is, it is, it's amazing. And I was thinking before this conversation, you'd have to really work at creating a really safe space for those young people to, because it's all expression and and it's quite a vulnerable thing to do, whether it's the physical theatre or the theatre theater, uh, it's quite a vulnerable thing for young people to do. And a lot of the young people that you have worked with, I imagine, uh, haven't had that many safe spaces to be able to express themselves in. So how often do you reflect on the fact that you might be one of the few people, certainly one of the own the few adults in their life that might have provided that sense of safety enough to be able to express themselves?

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Yeah, and that's the bit I think that I still almost tear up when you talk about it because it's I've had that many young people reach out to me after they've got out of detention and tell me that I've been like a dad to them, or I've just been like a big brother or an uncle, or you know. I remember one young girl I was working with, and there was a day, and she's looking at me while I'm about to do some theater games with her, and she was like, Adam, do you know you look like a rat? I said, What? She goes, You look like a rat, like your face. And I was like, I just laughed. And this is what I call the acid test, because all she's trying to do is see me react and become the bad adult that she expects me to be. So let's get it over and done with quickly. The next day I go in to see that kid and I start working out with her, and she looks at me and she goes, Adam. I said, What? I was waiting for the rat again. She goes, I just want to know, can I call you dad? I said, What? Wow, she goes, Well, I lost my dad a while ago and I want to call you dad. And I said, Well, I'd love to be able to call your daughter. And they're the moments that change you. And the thing I didn't realise about the work was I was going to be changed by those kids. And everyone expects you going to work with these bad kids who have done all these bad things. Those kids loved me before I even liked me. And so they taught me and pointed me towards my goodness, and then they showed me I deserved love. And then I actually started looking in the mirror and believing them. And that's how my whole life changed. Now I just want to be a good adult. So it has been just a discovery. And then we got to do it at Malacquery Engagement Centre, and the kids who'd come out of detention were there, and they just needed the love too. And the love is just going in, being able to tell them that I've been an alcoholic my whole life and I've struggled with it. And now I've been six years sober because I fell over for five days six years ago. And that was when I was running balanced choice. But for six years before that, I was sober. And so they just continued to believe in me more than I believed in myself. So I've got them all to thank for that. And then yeah, you just want to be a better adult when you're around kids who need it.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

Yeah. But you also understand the the journey, then, you know, I think when we talk about young people and we talk about kids that are bad kids or whatever, you know, there isn't much nuance in it anymore. It we're very quick to define particularly young people in our community, but that's you know, but it is life and it's part of a lot of people's journey, that journeys that if you have those sorts of challenges, that's alcohol or you know, whether it's something like sometimes relapsing is part of it it is part of the journey. And you know, if the for a young person, maybe the progress is that they're not offending every day. Yes. Like they were before. Exactly. And they might slip up and do something, and we just still say they're the bad kid, even though they might have really completely changed their lives around, they've just slipped up. Yes. How do you see, and I think you've you've touched on it with the your story with that girl that you had engaged with? How do you see young people internalizing some of those narratives that exist about them? So there's obviously this well, if I'm not going to get positive attention, yeah, I'm gonna just provoke then the negative attention. How do you see it really sh showing up in these young people that you work with?

SPEAKER_00 17:56

There's a quote that makes this all make sense to me. And when I read it, I went, there it is. And it is the child that doesn't feel the warmth of the community will burn the community down to feel its warmth. And it just hit it. I'm like, that's exactly it. If you haven't had warmth, if you haven't had love, if you haven't had connection, if you haven't had positive regard, if you haven't had cuddles, if you haven't had safety, of course you're gonna blow the place up. Of course you're gonna burn it down. Just because if you're only gonna get reaction that way, it's better than no way at all. And so for me, I think once we start to actually appreciate the best of our young people, instead of wait for them to actually act out because we haven't given them what they've needed, we need to give them better adults. I always say if adults behave like adults, it allows kids to be kids. The problems when adults start behaving like kids, because the kids think they've got to become the adult. And that's the power shift that just throws the whole thing out because there is no safety in that. And I remember, you know, in Malacquer Engagement Center, we had this gym, and there'd be kids who would want to bench press a heavy weight. They're like, I want to push heavy at them. It's not about heavy, but if you want to put a few extra weights on, I'll keep you safe. And I'll never forget it to this day. There was this kid and he looked up at me when he's lifting this weight, and he just goes, Adam, keep me safe. And I went, That's it. Isn't just isn't that it? Like, you just want to know, I've got you. And you know, if you jump on some people say to me, Oh, Adam, you're always putting up photos of you know kids standing on your shoulders. And I go, Yeah, it's got nothing to do with me being able to lift a kid. What that balance, it's called the too high, it's a physical theater move, and we do it in almost every workshop we ever run, is what it represents is I'm gonna be the best adult I can be. I'm gonna be balanced, I'm gonna communicate with you, I'm gonna be prepared to get on my knees so you can stand on my back so that I can take you higher than I've ever been before, and I'll keep you safe. And whenever I do that with a young person, and we put people around to keep it safe, and what always happens when the kid gets to the top is ultimate joy. And it's like isn't that what they want? You know, when you're on your dad's shoulders, or we you're picking someone up, geez, we just need to pick our kids up more. And I don't mean physically, I mean spiritually, emotionally, mentally, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

You know, I agree with you.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Yeah, totally. I agree with you. This concept that it takes a village has kind of disappeared a bit. You know, there's lots of families that are doing it on their own, lots of kids that are doing life on virtually on their own, you know, and then a community that points to them as a problem.

SPEAKER_03 20:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

And yeah, there's there isn't that much nuance in it. But you're quite right. I mean, I I personally think, and I know you do too, it's it's a responsibility of all of us to be creating a community that feels safe and welcoming for young people. We can't expect young people to be an active, upstanding part of our community if we are constantly treating them like they're not, and if they don't feel safe. I think a lot of children, young people don't feel safe, and that's a really scary thing for us to think about as a community, or it should be.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Totally. I one thing I really loved, you know, especially when you're in your your your role before this one, is just the way you loved young people, and you gave so many of them so many wonderful opportunities through the round table, yes, but it wasn't just the Northern Territory Youth Round Table where you did it. I saw you notice a young person in a workshop, notice somebody at a seminar, notice them, and then next thing you know, you're taking them to a school and you're dealing with the you know the principal and that kid's up talking to the kids, and you're using them as a brilliant ambassador, I suppose. I was for education, but it was more than that. You really care. And that's it. And I thought that was so beautiful. And I even hear it now when we talk, is I know you care so much about the kids. And I don't see that very often. And I've been around it now in the territory for probably 20 years. They're pretty close. And it's beautiful when the people at the top who can create the change are wanting to do that. But the problem is when we go backwards. And I just hope we're not going backwards.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

But you keep doing the work, keep showing up, keep doing the work.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

That's funny. I was only looking the other day. We've outlived most of the departments, people that have been in departments now. We've outlived a lot of the ministers that were in those roles, heads of department. And I go, but you can when you are that external provider, as long as you have integrity and you stick close to your values and you're consistent. And I think after a while, it's very easy to see the new kid on the block. And I remember when Balance of Choice first started, ABC did a really cool story about us. And then I've watched other people come and do programs and they same, they get this moment, but the moment's not what it's about. It's actually what happens after the moment. Yeah. It's actually in the seasons that feel like winter rather than the ones that feel like spring that you actually need to do the work the most. And then I always say turn up to the centers in public holidays, turn up to the centres on Christmas, turn up to the centers on Easter. Like that's caring, you know, and that's the difference.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Yeah, absolutely. So what keeps you sort of strong and anchored through challenging personal times, but also really working with young people and members of the community that I imagine sometimes you must take some of that on. You know, some of the you would be hearing challenging stories. You know that people are struggling. How do you keep yourself strong enough to keep doing the work that you've been doing for so long?

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Yeah, I'm a big one for quotes. I always have been, and I know some people find them corny, but there was one that I read that said, you can't save anyone, you can only love them. And that really just gave me the ability to detach because detachment's so crucial when you do this work. Because when, like today, I'm with you, I will give you everything while I'm with you. But after this, I can't think about this for the rest of today and tomorrow or whatever. I engage with a kid, I give that kid everything. But I was only counting the other day, I've lost 12 or 14 young people I've worked with in the last 12 years. Car accident, suicide, you name it. And if I didn't have the ability to realize that why I was with that kid, I love that kid like that on my own. But as soon as that kid is out of my sight, I cannot take that home. I cannot. Because who do I think that I'm the person that's going to change them? Like that's an ego. But while I'm with them, I will love them with everything I've got. And so that just helped me to survive and know that when I've lost kids. I remember being really sad after one kid who passed away recently. Really sad. You know, I was a kid I was working with down in Tasmania, and one of the other kids sent me a message saying he'd passed. And I just closed my eyes and I tried to picture it, and I pictured this garden. And I'm like, why am I picturing your garden right now? But I do have dreadlocks, so I'm a bit of a hippie. And I'm seeing like this old tree in the garden, but then I'm seeing these little beautiful flowers. And the flowers have the most colour, but they disappear the sooner, the quickest. And then I went, maybe that's it. Maybe we're all just in a garden, and some of us are old trees that are going to be here for a while. And some are just gonna, some little flowers are gonna come and give the most colour for a season, but then they're not here anymore. But who am I to work out who should stay the longest? I'm just gonna enjoy the garden while I'm in it. That's kind of helped a bit.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

And that keeps you anchored. And then So being being present, really, with whatever you're whatever you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Stay right in the moment with the person, but don't take it with you. You can be affected by it, moved by it to take it away as stimulus to work through maybe something that was in it, but don't hold on to it. You can't. And then the other thing is if you actually look at the evolution of balanced choice, I hate to say it because it's so corny, but it's true. It's almost been my own journey of wellness. Is the first bit was fitness. Then some theatre. The fitness helped my body get stronger. I look at photos when I started Balanced Choice, I had a big, beer gut, I was really unhealthy. And people going, who's this guy? Like, what's he doing teaching fitness? Then I went from fitness to theatre, where I find theatre can get rid of the anxiety or at least help you manage it. It can help you with breath work, it can help you with your being present in your body, it can help you with visualization, and it can help you appear confident when you're not till you start to buy into it and believe it. So that was that bit. And then the hope theory stuff that my uncle taught me was brilliant part of uh Schneider's uh Charles Schneider, but it was uh Martin Seligman's work of positive psychology in the 90s, all of that, and my uncle gives me all those books. Read this, this will help when you're talking to government. And then we built the rigor. Yeah, so he's amazing because he's gone hope theory, and then I remember correction said, Oh, that's that's flawed. And so I went, okay, what's the next bit? Uh read my uncle, what's the next bit? Learned optimism. Look at learned optimism, look at perma. Okay, so I look at those, and then we use that now as a measurement tool, which is how to be with people, and so he's been brilliant in building the back end, but uh, I've gone a little bit off track. So that bit got me well. Then I went to the anchor because I saw that the work we were doing with kids was making connection and getting them fit, but I was still seeing a lot of the same behaviors, and then I went, how do people change? And then I go, I think they change if they get back to their values. Well, do we really know what our values are? So when we run the anchor, we do a different value every session. So we might do kindness, we might do forgiveness, we might do love, we might do integrity. And so we say, What does the word mean? And we define it. Then here's five quotes about it. Which one do you like best? Let's stick that one on the wall. Now let's talk about that past, present, future, and that's all it is, but it's anchoring to your value. And then once the kids do that, I see they want to be more like that. But then I went, yeah, that's good. They're getting the awareness of it. But what's the next bit? And so the next bit's the tattoo I got the other day, which is called the ropes of discipline. And so I wrote five ropes in your life because an anchor thrown in the water without rope is just going to go to the bottom. So the ropes of discipline are physical discipline, emotional discipline, mental discipline, spiritual discipline, and social discipline. And so I try to do one of those every day, lift some heavy weights, surf the waves of emotions and choose the ones I want to be on. The compass for my mental discipline, I want to be going north most of the time, not south. Spiritual is a funny one because we're all scared of it, but I actually think every religion's brilliant. And well, most of the ones I've read about. And social is we've got to connect with each other. So that's that one. So that's what's that's how we've evolved, and who knows what's next, you know.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Who knows? Who knows? You're trying to do yourself out of a job. So can you tell us a little bit about that and why that's so important to you and how how you're doing that and what change you see in the people you then elevate into those roles?

SPEAKER_00 29:45

Yeah. I yeah, I I found a lot of them in the route at the youth round table, which is really interesting. That's a place, you know, obviously you are on, and so many other brilliant leaders have gone through that. But if you're doing yourself out of a job all the time and you're bringing people into those roles, then it allows you space. And that space then allows you to go to the next bit and do the next bit of work. And so, again, my uncle, he sort of guides me a lot, and he actually said to me about a year ago, Adam, I think you need to blow balanced choice up. I was like, What do you mean, blow it up? I said, It's just forming, it's just what he goes, No, what happens if you give it away? And I went, What do you mean, give it away? And he said, No, just maybe some of the people who have been there for a while might want their bit of balanced choice. Let's see what happens when you do that. And so Jason McDonald, who was on the youth round table, says, I want to manage and own Victoria and South Australia. And so he has.

SPEAKER_03 30:42

Great.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

And he took it off my hands. He's now got eight staff, and he employed me to go down and run a workshop for him and his staff at his retreat that he put on.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

How good is that?

SPEAKER_00 30:52

And that's it. Like, as soon as I did myself out of it, then all of a sudden I see how amazing they are. Sometimes as leaders, we stand in the way of our people and we never let them grow properly because we're too busy holding on to our post.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

Yeah, which must be, I mean, maybe it's not challenging for you, but it would be very challenging for lots of people who, you know, balanced choices in many ways is kind of your life's work. If that's certainly the last 12 years, 12 years. So a lot of people can get very attached to that and think, well, balanced choice is me. And you obviously are not uh doing that. Balanced choice is not you. It's yeah, it's all of them, it's all of the people that you've and it that's a really great measure, isn't it? Like you've developed a young leader enough, a young person enough to then take that on and be part of that journey with their peers. That's a measure of success.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Yes. So I I remember years ago, the children's commissioner, S Sally Seavers at the time, and she said to me, Yeah, she took me for a coffee, and she goes, We watch your people. I said, What do you mean to watch more people or your cameras on them all? And she goes, No, that's where we see what you're doing in your people. And I went, Oh, wow, okay. And you know, when I look at Jason, who's been with me now almost eight, nine years, and Ollie, who's been with me six or seven years, and Yvonne, who's been with me six or seven years, and people who are just I say, you know, you can have it, go take it, turn it into what you need to. It's just a bus. You go drive it now, take it where you need to for you. And they go, no, no, I want to be here. I want to just keep doing this bit. And so um, yeah, it's it's been wonderful for me to be able to have it as a vehicle, but if it fell over tomorrow, I'm still gonna be okay because I'm not balanced choice. People might say Adam's the balanced choice guy. I don't know. No, I'm not. I could quite easily go off and do something totally different to this. But this year we're trying conferences. I never thought we'd be trying conferences.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

Yeah, so tell us a little bit about that conference because you know, like there are some conferences that are really boring and sound really boring, and yours does not. It's it's also got an uh on-flow benefit to an organization that you clearly care a lot about that is separate to balance choice and not run by you. Do you want to talk a little bit about why you are now entering the world of conferences?

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Yeah, I just thought world of conference gives you greater reach to a wider audience. And so I felt like if we were able to reach a lot of people who want to work with young people, I thought that was a cool place to step off. And, you know, we'll sometimes get the department down in Victoria. We get it a lot. They want us to run professional development with their staff. And I have had it up here in the Northern Territory a bit recently, and it's that thing of going, well, let's provide the space where you can come for a day and have the balanced choice experience. We're not assuming that everything in that conference is going to be right for you, but you might grab two bits of gold at that conference that actually changes your practice. And all I'm trying to do by setting that conference up is offer to everybody who's doing this type of work a chance to meet all the people that shaped us. And so that's what the conference actually is. Is we've got homeboy industries coming from America, Father Greg Boyle. But I always say, you know, everyone goes, Father Greg, oh no, it's a religious conference. No, the guy's as Hindu as he is, Buddhist as he is, you know, Christian. Like he's just all encompassing and just love. And if you read any of his books, there's a book called Tattoos on the Heart, which is just phenomenal about the way the young people changed him when he started working in LA with an old church where basically the nuns decided to move out of the church and they turned it into the place for a homeless. It's now the biggest gang uh reintervention program in the world.

SPEAKER_03 34:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

And it's the place where most people, when they get out of prison, go because they know it's a place of belonging. And for 18 months, they get paid to be well before they give them a job. And I go, oh, that's phenomenal. And when you hear this guy speak, like just woof. And then I've got the five people who are really big in shaping me as a person, and they're all in different fields. So you've got someone in health, Gus Rudolph, who's part of a pharmaceutical company called Norgene, but was a Bristol Myron Squib before that. But he invited me into conferences where I never thought I'd be invited to speak and believed in the work. And so, what I'm interested for people who are in health to hear is sometimes what happens when you bring creativity to health.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

Absolutely, absolutely. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

And then Leanne Little, who, you know, so well known for the work she's doing in policing at this point in time, and she's just been such a wonderful advocate for what we do, she's kicked me into line. No, didn't kick me, but moved me into line many times and said, Adam, maybe this direction is right for you. And she's been incredible. The work we do in Aboriginal communities is a lot to do with Leanne and the influence she's had on my life. Bob Shearing, who's the coolest old guy that I know. Sorry, Bob, to call you old. But he, if I if I'm anything like that guy when I'm his age, with wanting to be alive and still shape the decisions that get made, then that's cool.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

He definitely does, yeah. Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

You know well, eh?

SPEAKER_02 36:22

I do, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

Yeah, and then and then the others are uh there's a principal in uh Queensland, Nambo, who gave us a chance to set balance choice up in his school, and he's just been phenomenal for us along the journey. And uh he's shaped me a lot too. So yeah, that's kind of the crew, and then obviously my uncle, who is a futurist, and when you hear him talk about stoicism and you hear him talk about future triangles, your practice will get shifted. So that's kind of what we're gonna do. And whether people want it or not, for me, it's also a way I can get my staff doing a pretty cool PD.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. No, I think it's awesome, and we have to start making those connections better. Art is so incredibly important to well-being, development, and that's a conversation I have often with people, which is it's almost like we get to a point in life where many of us switch that off.

SPEAKER_03 37:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

Kids are creative. Yeah, I've got two small kids myself, and you're reminded about how important that creativity is, that exploration is to development of kids. And then at some point it's like you just unless you're gonna make a career out of your art, it's you switch it off and you go into some stuffy something you forget how to do it.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

What I love, Belbert, your journey is like to be sitting here today in a creative space and working creatively. How does it feel to bring it back?

SPEAKER_02 37:53

It's been life-changing to bring it back. Yeah. And for me, knitting has been I'm really bad at knitting, but I actually, there's a woman that we both know, Bronwyn, she runs her own podcast, which I will also link for people who might want to listen to that. But we had we did some work together and she asked me what I was doing that was creative because it obviously it activates different parts of your brain and it just allows some of that emotion to come out in a different way. And I took knitting back on because I also couldn't check my phone because you've got to use both your hands. So you know, because you do, you get very much like your attention gets split between lots of different things. So if you want to just enjoy a movie or something, knitting because you're not on you can't be on two screens.

SPEAKER_03 38:46

So good.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

So yeah, knitting that was really good. But I found for a long time that I still attached a lot of guilt to doing those things because it feels indulgent. You know, like it feels like you should be doing something that's an hour or half an hour that you should be working or you should be you know, giving to your family or whatever. It's I don't know, it's a it's a cultural thing, I think.

SPEAKER_03 39:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:13

It kind of people feel almost guilty for doing something that actually is so sustaining for you for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 39:22

It's weird we got there.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

It is weird that we got there, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Because you know, you know when you're doing the knitting, surfing in my case, or paddle boarding or whatever, it's actually what helps you stay well.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

Absolutely, but it helps you stay more productive, actually. Like I'm also a very bad runner. So my running's your surfing, they but I enjoy doing it because they get out of my head. But also when you finish doing that, it's it yeah, you've you're kind of in a much clearer space to be able to think about other things differently. I don't know, it was really helpful for processing.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

Yeah, I like that. I because I I also think, you know, when you yeah, especially in in your role before in government, the sort the things you would have seen about people in that and how you process people after experiencing the cutthroat nature of politics. Because I could only imagine, you know, that we would you yeah, you would have nice moments with your colleagues, but you would also have cutthroat moments with colleagues and each other and the opposition. What does that do to a person and their thoughts about people after an experience like that? Like I I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 40:38

We have to interview you one day, that might be coming on a another episode. But um, yeah, I think your work and when you do work like that, when you do work like you do, it is more than a job.

SPEAKER_03 40:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:56

And when something is more than a job, you do have to, yeah, you have to have strategies to compartmentalize things. Yeah. And it it takes skin off you or it and sometimes it builds you up, and yeah, but it's it's as you say, you turn up and you give your whole self to something, and some days are really, really tough.

SPEAKER_00 41:20

Yeah, I bet I I couldn't do I couldn't do it. The thing that's helped me, you know, because going into prisons, people always say, What are you doing going into prisons? Why are you helping them? And I go, I kind of go in with a goodness detector, you know, and I like that. You want to go, because whatever your detector's looking for, I'll guarantee you'll find it. Yeah. And so how you're walking through the world and what are you actually looking for? And if I look for good in every person that I'm gonna see in a prison, in a corporate setting, in politics, in whatever, I'll find it. Yeah. And it's such a it's such a relief to have that detector on than something different.

SPEAKER_02 41:56

I think that's so important. Yeah, where you're putting your energy and the shape of your thoughts is does it feels like coincidence or fate or whatever. It actually is, you know, it's kind of your energy being reflected back to you sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

Yeah. Greg, who, you know, is coming to do that conference, he always says you want to you want to hold the mirror of up to people and show point them to their goodness. And I go, Oh, that's cool. And the other thing that this has been unbelievable when I heard him talk like this, he said, working with the kids you work with, Adam and others, it's like going into a room where the kid's in the dark. But your job's to go in there with a torch and point the torch towards the lights, which don't turn the light on. Wait for them to turn the light on. And I go, Oh, that's it. Like we're so busy to do everything for everybody. I'll turn the light on for you, I'll bring you to light. No, no, no, no. I'm just gonna show you where it is when you're ready. That's where it is. I love that. Yeah, I think that's the work.

SPEAKER_02 42:59

That's it. How beautiful. What a beautiful way to put it.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Yeah, help me just stop rushing towards trying to take people to where I think they should go.

SPEAKER_02 43:09

Yeah, and doing things for people.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

That's the other quote.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

It's uh or two people.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

Well, yeah, if you spend your whole life holding someone up, they'll forget how to stand up. And how often we just hold people up because we don't want them to fall when I'm sorry, but maybe they need to for a little bit and they need to work out how to stand back up. But it doesn't mean I'm not gonna love you through it and I'll be here, but I'm not gonna spend my life holding you up because it'll mean I can't also hold up and help other people, you know. Otherwise you're burned out.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

Yeah, absolutely. And what would you say to people who, you know, there's a lot going on in our community, but also just across the world, which is like it's just a lot. And I think it can be very easy to drown in all of that noise. That you're consuming. How do you just get back to being in the moment? And how do we create a community that is more focused on what compassion can I show in my corner of the world?

SPEAKER_00 44:14

Yeah, that's it, isn't it? I think you just answered it. It's exactly that. It's starting the corner of the world that you have some influence in or some connection in. And so try to make that world different to the one you're seeing out there. And that's all you can do. And then that has ripple effects to the families that you're working with and so on. And I think all we can do is start in our own backyard and hope that those ripples go far and wide one day. That's what I believe. And I know every storm runs out of rain. And I've watched far too like I turned 50 yesterday. And it's this thing of going in 50 years, I've seen this world hype up so many situations that I was so scared as a kid that the missile was coming from USSR at the time. And I used to look in the sky because I'd be so scared because kids believe everything.

SPEAKER_04 45:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

And that's how impressionable we were back then. And we've got to remember how scary that was and stop hyping up this world about how bad it is and start going around with your goodness detector.

SPEAKER_02 45:19

I love that. Okay. So that's the message to everyone. We're going to turn on the goodness detector. We're going to put our good energy out there and we're going to look for the good in others.

SPEAKER_03 45:28

That's it.

SPEAKER_02 45:29

If people want to learn more about your work, where should they go? How can they do that?

SPEAKER_00 45:35

Yeah, look, we do all the socials. So I suppose uh LinkedIn, you'll find us. I've really LinkedIn provided 80% of the work in the very early days. So it was really good for balanced choice. Yeah, I always say to people, if you want to get into business, LinkedIn is a cool platform. It helped a lot. Facebook and Instagram, you know, it's where the kids connect. Not so much Facebook these days, it's more Instagram. But they'll write messages to me regularly Facebook's for all people.

SPEAKER_02 46:00

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

I'm probably way out of the loop in some regards, and that's fine. Like, you know, my staff would know way better than I would. Yeah. But I had this gorgeous moment today. There's a kid down at a school in Bribey Island. So Bribey and Nambo have got Balanced Choice as part of their like Flexi program. And so they do the anchor. And uh a kid sent me an Instagram story where he wrote about balanced choice and he wrote about the impact that it had on his life. And I just got that before I walked upstairs today. And it's those moments where I just go, that's the little ripple, that's the goodness detector. Not that we get fed by that stuff, but it certainly does in some way just pick your spirit up a bit.

SPEAKER_02 46:40

Well, happy birthday.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 46:43

And thank you for answering my messages on your birthday and then coming for a chat. I really appreciate it. And I really appreciate the work that you do. And I think if more people came from the perspective that you do, we would function a lot better as a community as a whole. So thank you for continuing to inject your compassion and goodness into the world.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

Thank you. And thanks for opening the space by also sharing your stuff because that then allows me to do it. And I think when we stop pretending that we're all well when we're all struggling, that's life. We have seasons where we're okay, but I love that this platform that you've got now becomes a place where it's okay to be not okay together because that's when we actually know how to ask for help and I'm still not good at it. And uh you've got a beautiful heart, and I love your work, and thank you.

SPEAKER_03 47:36

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 47:36

No worries.