This episode is sponsored by 5 .11 Tactical,
a company that I've used for around 14 years
now and continue to use to this day. And they
are offering you, the audience, a 15 % discount,
not on one purchase, but continuously. And I'll
give you that code in just a moment. But I want
to do a product showcase on their new Atlas sneakers
and boots. So I'm a big believer in the fact
that footwear can either improve our health or
break down our health. And the Atlas sneaker
actually has a new foam system that disperses
the body weight, whether just the body weight,
whether it's a vest and a gun, whether it's EMS
bags being carried. And on top of that, they're
lightweight, despite having the same protection
that's required in the tactical space. So I have
a pair of Atlas sneakers myself, and I can attest
they're extremely comfortable. On top of footwear,
of course, 5 .11 offers a gamut of uniforms and
equipment, whether it's plate carriers, backpacks,
flashlights, you name it, they have it. All you
have to do is go to 5 .11tactical .com and use
the code SHIELD15. That's S -H -I -E -L -D 1
-5 at 5 .11tactical .com and you will save every
time you purchase. And to learn more about the
company, 5 .11 Tactical, You can listen to episode
338 of the Behind the Shield podcast with the
CEO Francisco Morales. Welcome to episode 417
of Behind the Shield podcast. As always my name
is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute
honor to welcome on the show Paul DeGelder. Now
Paul is a veteran of the Australian Army, the
Australian Navy as a bomb disposal diver and
it was during that time in a training incident
he was attacked by a shark ultimately losing
an arm and a leg. Being the epitome of resilience,
he overcame that injury physically and mentally
and returned to duty before transitioning out
and becoming one of the faces of Shark Week.
So this is an incredibly powerful story. There
are some real takeaways, including his near -death
experience and how he found peace after that.
Before we get to that conversation, please just
take a moment, go to whichever app you listen
to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback
and leave a rating. Every five -star rating truly
elevates this podcast, making it easier for others
to find. And this is a free library for you,
planet Earth. So all I ask in return is that
you help share these incredible men and women's
stories so I can get them to everyone else who
needs to hear them. So with that being said,
I introduce to you Paul DeGelder. Enjoy. Well,
Paul, I want to start by saying thank you so
much. I know you've had a crazy day today, so
I really appreciate you coming on the podcast
today. No dramas, mate. Thanks for inviting me.
So where on planet Earth are we finding you today?
I am at home in Marina del Rey, Los Angeles.
Beautiful. That's a beautiful part of LA at least.
Yeah, it's not too bad. My balcony doors look
over a little marina beach and it's a pretty
nice spot. There's no shops around here, so there
was no rioting. Oh, really? They weren't tearing
up the boats in the area? All right. Well, then,
obviously, from your accent, you are not a native
Californian. So let's start at the very beginning.
Tell me where you were born and then also your
family dynamic, what your parents did and how
many siblings. I was born in a place called Mornington
Peninsula. It's about an hour and a half south
of Melbourne, a little seaside town known for
horse racing and wine. I'm the oldest of four
kids. There was me, my younger brother, two younger
brothers, then my baby sister, and dad was a
cop and mum was the traditional housewife. We
stayed there until I was about 10 and then dad
got posted and we moved to a place called Frankston,
fondly referred to as Frankganistan because it
had been... Very, very seedy areas. But we were
only there for about a year. And then Dad got
another posting with the Australian Bureau of
Criminal Intelligence. And we shipped off another
10 hours north to the capital of Australia, which
is called Canberra. And so I spent most of my
formative years there until I was about 21. Brilliant.
Well, I want to get to Canberra in a second because
I was there myself 20 years ago now, I think
it was. Well, it was just an interesting moment.
But before we do, so, you know, that's a very
interesting profession that your dad did. Obviously,
the audience listening, a lot of us are first
responders and military. So, what was your dad's
experience with that profession? Did he ever
kind of sit down and talk to you about, you know,
some of the stuff that he did? Nah, look, he
comes from the old guard, mate, where you just
get... taught to bury it down and not talk about
it and not deal with it so i really didn't know
anything about what he did i actually when um
my um writer who helped me write the book No
Time for Fear back in Australia, she interviewed
my family and I actually found out more about
my dad reading my own book than he ever told
me. Like in Melbourne, he was known as the siege
man because every time there was like hostages
taken or some guy on a roof with a shotgun, he
always managed to track them down or talk the
weapon out of their hands or something like that.
So I really didn't know much about his job at
all except for it was. called the australian
bureau of criminal intelligence they were posted
in the telecom building up supposedly so that
they could have access to people's phones um
but yeah that's about it interesting well i when
i was in canberra so i did i traveled i lived
in manly you know by um sydney for a while and
then did some traveling before i ended up getting
a stunt job in japan and when i went to canberra
the only way i could describe it was that the
city was built for far more people than actually
lived there. So it probably looked a lot like
the pandemic cities that we see. So what was
your experience growing up there? Yeah, it's
not like many other places except for small country
towns. And it is fundamentally a country town.
It's just a very big one. It's really spread
out. Basically, on Sunday, everything shut back
when I was a kid. Everything. It was like a...
ghost town you didn't see cars on the road it
was very peculiar to look back on um and look
dad was a swimming instructor in his spare time
as well in the cops he held a lot of the um police
olympic records for swimming and he had his own
squad in melbourne and so a lot of the you know
years From when I moved there, 10 to about 15
was getting up early in the morning, going swimming
training in an outdoor pool, even in the middle
of winter where everything was frozen. Then training
at another all boys Catholic school in the evenings.
And, you know, that and school pretty much took
up a lot of your time. And then you hit about
15 and you start to discover girls and smoking.
and drinking. I got bullied a lot all through
my school life because I was short, I had big
ears, I had a face full of freckles, and I wasn't
that athletic anywhere outside of the swimming
pool. I wasn't good at football. My dad was the
coach sometimes as well, and I was the worst
player on the team, so it must have been pretty
embarrassing for me. I got picked on. I got bullied
a lot. didn't like school at all it was just
very stressful an all boys catholic school where
i got bullied a lot my own football teammates
would bully me um and then i um it at home it
was very stressful as well dad wasn't around
a lot and so mom was the disciplinarian and she
was very hard on us as well especially me because
i was the oldest and so it just it all got on
top of me and i was I guess I was depressed and
I started self -harming and I used to slash up
my arms with an old hobby knife used for making
model airplanes and stuff. And it wasn't like
I wanted to kill myself or anything. I was a
bit scared of God at that point. Parents made
us go to church every Sunday and I knew that
suicide was the cardinal sin and you go straight
to hell. And so I was a little bit concerned
about that. I didn't want to kill myself anyway.
I just needed to have some semblance of control
over my life. The only way I could do that was
by cutting myself open. The release and the pain
sort of let out a lot of that frustration. No
one ever knew. My family didn't know. None of
my friends knew. Fortunately, it didn't last
too long. I had a growth spurt around 16. I started
doing kickboxing with a friend of mine and that
kind of gave me a lot more confidence. And then
one of the school bullies said something very
nasty about my mum and I elbowed him in the head
and knocked him out. And no one picked on me
after that. But then, you know, in Australia,
unlike America, the drinking age is 18, which
means you start drinking at 16. And so we go
out underage drinking, stealing. goon bags of
wine, you know, the boxes of wine. I don't know
what you guys call it, but we call it a goon
bag. And we go out and get drunk and then we
get into these brawls all through the city centre.
And it was a period where that's all it was on
the weekends. It was these rolling brawls of
the Tongans fighting the Samoans, the Serbs fighting
the Croatians, the Macedonians fighting someone
else, the Aboriginals fighting everyone. And
so that kind of became my life. I flunked high
school. I wasn't home much. And then I hit 17
at the end of year 12, and dad kicked me out
of home. So lead me through that because I've
had many people on. I just had Chuck Liddell.
He was bullied, and it was martial arts that
really kind of empowered him. And you hear Georges
St -Pierre and Justin Wren. I mean, so many of
the fighters that we revere now have similar
stories. but you know there's some that when
they learn to fight they become protector and
takes them down one path and there's some that
for a while when they learn to fight they become
almost become the bully for a while so was that
where you found yourself almost overcompensating
from being the victim to to kind of being the
predator for a little bit not really i never
picked on anyone smaller or weaker than me which
is probably why i got my ass handed to me more
times than not um it was just about um using
what I'd learned in a real -time environment
and practicing my skills and things like that.
So I never turned into the bully. I was just
out with my friends drinking. We'd get drunk
and we'd have a fight. And sometimes we got beat
up and sometimes we didn't. But, yeah, I think
you're right. There's a lot of Special Forces
guys that are the same. They came from a bully
background and then they turned into wanting
to be the protector. But at that point for me,
I didn't really know much about that. I don't
think I was given a lot of guidance into what
was going to come next after I left school. You
know, I thought, oh, my dad's a cop. Maybe I
could be a cop or there's accountants or, you
know, all the main jobs. I didn't get. guidance
at school to tell me what was possible. I'm the
sort of person that I want to know why I'm doing
something. I go to class and they're teaching
chemistry. I'm like, why am I learning this?
What this doesn't pertain to me, I don't care
about it. And no one sort of sat down and said,
well, look, you could get a job doing this incredible
thing. You know, if you study science and you
enjoy biology, you could become a marine biologist
and spend your days out in the open water diving
with sharks and having adventures. Or, you know,
if you like economics, you could become an ambassador.
to Australia and you could get paid to travel
the world so there wasn't any of that and so
I really didn't focus at all on any of the school
stuff that could have catapulted me into a great
career instead I was just totally directionless
I had no idea and so um I just after I got kicked
out of home I was like sleeping on two friends
of mine couches like there was these two sisters
who their parents paid for them to live in australia
they were from indonesia and so the parents weren't
there so they let me sleep on their couch for
about a year and all i did was smoke weed and
party on the weekend with my unemployment check
and it took me quite a while to drag myself out
of that rut right well what about um the music
industry i read that you were involved with that
for a while Yeah, that came after. So I finally
started working in a kitchen and behind the bars
in Canberra. But hospitality doesn't always...
uh give you the the best crowd to surround yourself
with you know the the restaurant i worked in
after 10 o 'clock on the weekends turned into
one of the most popular nightclubs in canberra
and so with that comes the hot girls comes the
guys comes the drug dealers and so i became friends
with this group of people that were probably
definitely not that great for me and so just
before I turned 21. I was at a party for my friend
who was getting kicked out of the country because
of criminal activity. He was being deported.
And I got jumped by 20 guys and really had my
ass kicked. And I sat myself down after that
and I said, Paul, look, if something doesn't
change, you're going to be dead or in jail by
the time you're 23. And even though I didn't
know what I wanted to do, I knew that I didn't
want to do that. And so the only thing I could
think of to do was leave, just leave this environment
that I'd become a product of and start again.
And so I had this tiny little car, tiny little
Suzuki that I had no license for. And I threw
everything I owned into it, which wasn't much.
I drove 12 hours north to Brisbane. My friend
Matt had moved up there the year before as a
DJ. He got me a job working behind the bar in
the strip club that he worked at. That was pretty
cool. Then I moved in with him and a couple of
American dudes that were involved in the hip
-hop industry. I became a bartender in a strip
club and a rapper. How did that go? Look, it
was good. It was long hours in the club, but
all my friends were hot chicks. And the hip -hop
was fun. We were running nightclubs. We were
running a community radio station. We put out
an EP. In 1998, we opened up for Snoop Dogg.
So I thought, this is it. I've made it. I'm going
to be a rapper. But there's not a lot of money
in rappers in Australia in 1998. And so the financial
stresses took over. And as bands do, the band
broke up. And I was kind of left wandering, working
behind a bar again, not knowing where to turn.
Well, I've still got this image because I heard
you talking about getting beaten up. is it sit
rep i think is that the podcast um anyway one
of one of the special forces um podcasts that
you talked on and the image of 20 guys beating
up a dude firstly just seems so unfair but secondly
you almost have this image of they had to be
very polite and like line up to kick your ass
one at a time so they could all get a chance
well one of their friends was like i guess he
was i i he was a little younger than me and i
guess he didn't have any money and he was trying
to get me to buy him a beer and i kept saying
no and so he threw a glass of a glass at me and
I jumped up and went at him and two of his friends
jumped up beside him and one of them tried to
punch me in the face. So I put my hand on his
shoulder, blocking the punch and elbowed him
in the head. It's my go -to move. And then all
of a sudden, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop,
all his friends popped up and it was, you know,
it was 80 % Asian dudes. And so I'm six foot.
So they all just came running at me and I backed
out at, we're at a bowling club, you know, a
lawn bowls club. And so I backed out onto the
veranda and they all just surrounded me. And
one dude tried to hit me with a chair and I front
kicked him in the chest and tried to hold him
off as long as I could. But eventually I ended
up in the fetal position, getting dragged out
by the guy, my friend that was getting kicked
out of the country was from Papua New Guinea.
And so some of the big uncles, the big Islander
dudes came and dragged me out. And I just fled
and went home and looked at my beat up face.
Yeah, it's not the same as the movies where they
politely wait one at a time to come out. Oh,
yeah. No, I wish I had some Jackie Chan skills.
All right. Well, then, so, you know, you'd peaked
as a hip hop performer. So, lead me through into
the military. I was working behind a bar in a
restaurant. And, you know, there's a lot of minute
stories within that as well. But I just... knew
that I had more to offer. I didn't do well in
school, but I was very well read. I was always
reading. And I was always watching documentaries,
Steve Irwin, David Attenborough, and all that
sort of stuff. So I knew that there was this
amazing world out there with so much to see and
do, but I just didn't know how to get there.
And so being a barman in a restaurant just wasn't
cutting it. And I was a bit lost. I turned to
the one person you can turn to when you're lost,
a cold mum. And she said, well, why don't you
talk to your two younger brothers? They've joined
the army. They're in artillery. And I thought,
all right, I'll give them a call. And they said,
yeah, look, it's great. You get paid to travel,
paid to blow stuff up, paid to play sport. But
they said, whatever you do, Paul, we know you.
Don't join infantry. You're not disciplined enough.
You won't make it. And so I joined infantry.
You can't have your baby brothers telling you
what to do. It's that reverse psychology. They
probably wanted you to join infantry. Yeah, maybe
so. But yeah, it was one of the probably, at
that time, the best choice I'd ever made in my
life. I'll be forever grateful to the army for
not just teaching me how to be a valuable member
of society and a real man. but allowing me to
serve my country. And that whole thing about
becoming the protector just enriched my life
and fulfilled me and gave me value and purpose.
And I joined, I put my hand up for Airborne.
And so, you know, that special maroon beret,
the signal of paratroopers all around the world,
it felt like I was really doing something special.
And I was really proud. And that my life turned
a corner as soon as I joined the army. Now, how
did your conditioning serve you as you entered
that program? You were a swimmer, then you were
a martial artist. Did you feel pretty prepared
during boot camp and beyond? Oh, hell no. I stopped
kickboxing about 18. I hadn't done swimming since
I was 15. At one point, I was a pack -a -day
smoker and I was drinking and I'd done no exercise.
But the funny thing about... getting physical
fitness into you in those early years is it doesn't
take long for it to come back and so what I was
still really skinny, but as you know, you can't
you turn up to bootcamp basic training there's
no drinking there's no smoking all you've got
is people yelling in your ear telling you to
run telling you to march and telling you to eat
time it's just absolute control and so it was
like i was back at school times 10 and i i didn't
like it whatsoever but i did have one thing in
my corner i didn't have a choice There was nowhere
left for me to turn. You know, I didn't have
a great education to fall back on. I had no other
skills. I didn't have any money. I didn't have
a home. And everything I owned was locked away
somewhere else on the base in one suitcase. And
so I had to. Instead of trying to change my situation
like I'd always been doing, I had to try a different
tact and I had to change the way that I perceived
everything. And so there were things I hated,
like marching on the parade ground and learning
to iron and scratching my face off with a razor
and cleaning toilets and all that crap. But I
did. begin to enjoy the physical fitness aspect
of it. And I did enjoy learning to throw grenades
and shoot machine guns and rocket launches. And
so I focused on the things that I did enjoy and
just managed to get through the other crap. And
very quick, by the end of basic training, I'd
been awarded the PT award. And so that's how
quickly it can come back. And that gave me even
more confidence in myself. Yeah, that's interesting.
Very interesting. Yeah, so I've had some of the
SEALs on here, the Navy SEALs. And, you know,
that was kind of their thing is if you fail out
of the, you know, BUDs or the classes after that,
then you go back to whatever the Navy tells you
you're going to do. So you could be turning wrenches
somewhere. So I think for a couple of them, that
was exactly it. It wasn't so much. they had this
strong mindset before, but the thought of being
stuck on a submarine somewhere was the driving
force for them to finish the course. Yeah, absolutely.
And that came into the next phase of my career.
Brilliant. Well, walk me through that. So was
it East Timor that you found yourself with Airborne?
Yeah. So I arrived in my battalion at the start
of 2001. And by, I think, April 2002, the uh
sorry by by 1999 australia and a multinational
force had gone into east timor and by 2002 was
my battalion's uh rotation into east timor so
we deployed for six months to east timor just
providing security services watching the border
all that sort of stuff by then all the the action
was over so it really wasn't that exciting uh
we did a Courses like signals course and pre
-selection for snipers and stuff. But at the
same time, even though there wasn't any action,
I felt like I was doing my job for real instead
of being at home in the bush. You know, at night
you can see the twinkling lights of Sydney and
you're just thinking, geez, I wish I was in my
bed and not in a muddy hole that's filling with
water that I've got to sleep in tonight. So it
was that fulfillment of actually getting deployed
and representing your country and protecting
these people that had been getting slaughtered
for the preceding decades. And so that was a
really fulfilling period, especially because
I'd never seen a third world country before.
You know, most people that live in a first world
country never will. And so it gives you an appreciation
for all of the incredible simple things that
we have, like clean running water, a toilet,
showers, food at the ready, electricity, TVs,
entertainment. You know, we have everything at
the tip of our fingers. And yet so many people
are sad and depressed. And you go out to these
third world nations and they've got nothing except
their families and they're all happy. And so
it really changed my mindset about gratitude.
Well, for people listening, I'm somewhat familiar
because obviously I grew up with the BBC, which
I would like to think was one of the best news
stations out there because they actually report
news. But we were aware of the genocide in East
Timor and then some of the terrorism as well,
aimed at Australians specifically. So can you
just kind of give a backstory of that conflict
and then some of the terrorism that your men
and women were fighting after that? Well, what
happened was Indonesia, as they do, as they're
currently doing in West Papua, had invaded West
Timor and took it over and they wanted to move
over into East Timor and take that as well. And
so they were sending night raids of these, you
know, they're all dressed in black and the locals
called them ninjas and they'd send these patrols
of soldiers in and militia and they'd just go
around rampantly killing and murdering. And there
was a bunch of Australian journalists. There's
a really good movie about it. it actually called
balabo where some aussie journalists some foreign
journalists as well i think um got slaughtered
by the indonesians and so in 1999 my brother
who was attached to my unit he was uh airborne
artillery so he that was his first trip there
and that was when australia first went in and
there was a lot of action then um but it's simmered
over the years and then the um East Timorese
militia, the Falentil, had risen up and they
were fighting back against Indonesia. Then the
Indonesian special forces, the Kapasas, would
come in and do raids. And then after my deployment,
it had pretty much simmered, but then there was
little outbreaks here and there. But it was actually
quite a huge conflict. Yeah, I remember seeing
it. Like you said, there's just a huge amount
of people died. When it comes to the actual total
population, the percentage of men and women and
children that were murdered was horrific. Yeah,
and it didn't really feel like anyone, any nation
did anything until they discovered, obviously,
as always, oil. They discovered the East Timorese
oil shelf, and then that was when the multinational
force went in. They broke deals to get access
to the oil. There you go. That's why we help
out. There's a lot of places that are, like I
mentioned earlier, West Papua, where the Indonesians
are in, and they're stealing all the resources
and killing all the locals. But no one does anything
because there's nothing there for them. And China
basically just says, hey, Australia, mind your
own business. And Australia does. So it's such,
you know, we've all seen it now, the hypocrisy
in government. This isn't a new thing. Yeah,
no, and it's so sad. I mean, even I've had discussion
before on here, even when you look at things
like slavery. People go, oh, it's racist and
it's about skin color. It's like, no, it's not.
It's a handful of assholes that bought human
beings and made them work for them for free so
they can make a shitload of money. It's about
money and power. It's nothing to do even with
race. It's just about free workforce. Absolutely.
They do it in China. They do it in Africa. Around
the time of the African slave trade was a huge
slave trade in the Irish as well. And so it's
not race specific by any means. This is happening
and has happened all over the world to many races.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, so you had that deployment
to Timor. Were you able to make it to the Middle
East? No. I came back from East Timor around
October 2002. We just went back to training and
training and training. It was just very repetitive.
My work ethic was slipping. My job satisfaction
was slipping. Then all of a sudden, I was away
on an exercise in New South Wales. My CSM, my
company sergeant major, came up to me with a
mobile phone, which is... weird you know I'm
a lowly private and my CSM comes up to me goes
hey hey Paul the boss wants to talk to you and
I'm just thinking oh no what have I done there
is no good reason for the the major to want to
talk to me and so I picked it up and I'm like
yeah boss what's going on and he said hey Dutchie
do you want to go to the sandpit And I was like,
hell yes, I do. And he's right. Pack your stuff.
You're coming back to base. You're going on pre
-deployment training. I was like, yes, this is
the best news ever. And so I went back and there
was only me and five of my mates that were going
to deploy with a lot of the Pogues. And so we
got all, you know, started learning Arabic, got
our desert cams, all that sort of stuff, got
a lot of in -country briefings. And then four
days before we left, we were in a meeting room
and they said, you infantry guys, go back to
your rooms and pack your bags. You're not going
anymore. And so it was like getting left at the
altar. Understandably, we went out to Bondi and
got hammered that night and went back to work.
And it was, you know, that just made my job satisfaction
slip even more. And I didn't want to, I didn't
know what else to do because, you know, I thought
I'd found my place and all of a sudden I'm not
happy here. And I didn't want to become one of
these crusty old sergeants that just seems to
hate life. And it's just his only enjoyment is
being at work, yelling at everyone. And so I
thought, you know what? It's a big military.
Surely there's something else that I can just
sort of sidestep into that's going to be better
than being filthy and dirty and smelly all the
time. And we went on a course called Hewitt.
which is helicopter underwater escape training,
where you learn to escape from a helicopter if
it gets dropped into the ocean. And there was
these two guys there on scuba gear acting as
safety divers. And I'm like, how do you get that
job? Like, what do these guys do? And so I went
over and I talked to them and they're like, oh
yeah, we're clearance divers. I'm like, oh yeah,
what's that? I kind of heard about it. I didn't
really know much about them. I knew they were
special. No one looked directly at them. Just
sort of went, oh shit. There's those guys. And
I thought to myself, what's stopping me from
being one of those guys? What's stopping me from
being someone that people within my industry
looks up to? And I feel like a lot of the times
we ask ourselves these really hard internal questions
and we don't give ourselves an answer. You know,
we just kind of treat it as hypothetical. You
know, what's stopping me? And you don't give
yourself an answer. But those big, scary questions
and decisions, they're the ones that we owe ourselves
the most to answer. And so I asked myself again,
I said, you know, what is stopping me? And I
thought, nothing. Really, there's nothing except
for fear. And I'd already overcome so much of
that fear. I thought, you know what, I'm just
going to give it a go. And it took about 12 months
for my paperwork to go through to get accepted
onto the first phase, which is called Ships Divers.
It's where you learn to scuba dive and search
for bombs, both of which I'd never done in my
life. So it was a pretty steep learning curve.
And then learning all the Navy jargon as well.
And I passed that course by the skin of my teeth.
By doing that, that gave me the opportunity to
try out, to go to the selection course, SEEDAT,
the Clearance Diver Acceptance Testing. And so
my dog is the loudest drinker in the world. I
don't know if you can hear that. That's okay.
I've got a German shepherd that drinks like that
too. There it is. Shut up. And so I went back
to my battalion for a little while. and went
went into training because i knew what was to
come i'd heard about this selection process and
i wasn't disappointed by any means this was 10
days of pure mental physical and emotional anguish
um you know swimming in the middle of the night
from 11 p .m till five o 'clock in the morning
across sydney harbour pitch black waters like
And then you get a couple hours sleep and then
you've got to run half a marathon and then pack
marches and stretcher carries and first aid stands
and mind games and breath hold and on and on
for 10 days. And I went into it like we were
talking about earlier. There is no way I am going
to go back to my army battalion as a failure
because I don't want to be there. This is my
shot, my one and only shot to drag my ass. out
of this place and achieve something that I never
thought I could have done in my life. And so
I went into it with a mindset where they're either
going to kill me or I'm going to pass. And fortunately,
I passed. And what was the attrition rate for
that? How many did you start with? How many did
you finish with? It's about, we started with
about 36 and we finished with 10. Wow. Yeah,
that's pretty significant. So it's anywhere from,
say, 40 % to 70 % failure rate. Right. And then
just as a side note, because I had Dan Pronk
on, I believe. Do you guys know each other? We
don't know each other personally, but we've talked
on and off throughout the years. Okay, beautiful.
Well, he's obviously Australian SAS. So what
made you choose the diving route versus that
special operations route? I just didn't want
to be a soldier anymore. I wanted to do something
different. I just had a gut full of being in
the bush. i'd had enough um i'm not the sort
of i've never done one thing for longer than
than that in my life and so As much as that would
have been another world, another avenue of growth,
I really just wanted to do something totally
different. Going from the air and the land to
under the ocean felt like a natural progression
for me, especially being such a good swimmer.
With those divers, how are they used in warfare?
multi -faceted job because Australia doesn't
have the population of say America where everyone
sort of specializes we we have four main elements
I believe they've changed over the years now
but that the fundamentals are we do maritime
tactical operations so o2 swimming you know reconnaissance
brief reconnaissance diving attack diving And
then we have mine countermeasures where you're
looking for unexploded sea mines and bombs and
getting rid of those. And then we have underwater
battle damage repair, which is hard hat diving
using drills, chainsaws, explosive weapons. And
then we have EOD as well. So land -based EOD,
explosive ordnance disposal. So we do it underwater
and we do it on land as well. And you have to
be proficient in all of those. Once you pass,
it's a 49 -week course to learn everything. And
then you'll go to the – there's only two teams.
There's Team 1 in Sydney, Team 4 in Western Australia.
They always say Team 1 for fun, Team 4 for war.
So I got sent to Team 1. And then you get put
into your element and you focus on that. But
you can be called out to go and switch elements
on any given day. So you have to be an expert
in everything. Well, that's how the fire service
is. In America, we do the EMS and the fireside.
So we really are jack of all trades, master of
none. And obviously, there are some men and women
that specialize and are stronger in one particular
area. But that, to me, is the allure of the job
and my journey. I wasn't supposed to be a fireman
in England for whatever reason, according to
the universe. So when I got here, I got to be,
you know, fire and a paramedic as well. But that
is the draw for the fire service is when the
tones go off, you literally don't know what you're
going to be doing. And it's very exciting. So
was that kind of the draw to you? Like you said,
you were sick of soldiering specifically, and
now you have this giant Swiss army knife to work
from? Well, honestly, I went in a little bit
blind. I didn't know all about that. I just knew
that they went diving and they looked cool. I'm
in. What's that old saying? If you don't know
what you're doing, at least look cool doing it.
There we go. So, yeah, I discovered a lot of
it while I was going through it. But, yeah, that's
the reason that I loved it so much. You never
knew what you were going to be doing on any given
day. One day you might be out in a helicopter
doing an aerial mine disposal. The next day you're
searching the bottom of the Russian ambassador's
ship for bombs. Or, you know, at one point I
had to go out. I was the first person to dive
on a lost Japanese midget submarine that had
been located off the coast of North Sydney. And
so to dive down, you know, 57 metres, hard hat
and film all that sort of stuff and collect sand
for the descendants of those. submarine pilots
that were still in the submarine, you know, you
never knew what you were going to do. And that
really was what kept me interested in it. Beautiful.
Well, again, so you have the skill set now. Were
you able to apply it during your time there?
No, that's the thing. I left the army to go to
a deployable unit. And then I never deployed
anywhere except on exercises. And all my army
mates went to Iraq and Afghanistan like three
or four times. but i had the better job so why
yeah exactly because you were doing all the fun
stuff so team one um so lead me into february
2009 and kind of you know fill in the gap and
then then let's talk about that day um so i'd
been with the dive teams for about three and
a half years and we got a job to pretend to be
attack swimmers and divers for the r d department
of the military who were testing out new equipment
this unmanned video and sonar the goal was to
be able to put this equipment anywhere around
the world on a ship on a wharf turn it on and
you can walk away and the the video would detect
automatically detect attack swimmers coming to
put bombs in our ships and the sonar would detect
attack divers under the surface of the water
and so we were in sydney harbor uh right along
the big navy base there and we were pretending
to be the attack swimmers and so it was like
six in the morning i had my new guy just swimming
basically from point a to point b this is this
was a really boring day it was a basically counter
-terrorism uh exercise but It wasn't as cool
as that. We were just swimming in the water.
After about 30 minutes, I pulled my new guy out
and offered to take over. And I jumped in, rolled
out the back of the Zodiac. And I had a pair
of black fins on and a black wetsuit. And I was
just swimming, what we call finning. I'm on the
surface, on my back, just kicking my legs. And
I was only in the water for about four or five
minutes. And then I looked over my left shoulder
to make sure that I was going in the right direction
still. And as I turned around, I got a really
big whack in my leg. And at first I didn't panic
because it didn't hurt. I thought maybe the guys
in the boat got a little bit too close, but I
knew they were actually quite far away. So I
didn't know what it was. I turn around and all
of a sudden there's this massive shark's head
attached to me. And I had no idea what to do.
I'd never even seen a large, dangerous shark.
Next to public speaking, sharks were my worst
nightmare. And so it took a second for me to
process what was going on. And then I realized,
you know, I've seen Discovery Channel. I've seen
The Crocodile Hunter. I'll jab it in the eyeball.
But when I tried, I couldn't move my arm. And
I looked down and I could see the teeth embedded
in my wrist. And every time I went to pull my
arm, I could see the skin tearing. And so I reached
over with my left hand to go for the eyeball,
but I couldn't reach. So I grabbed it by the
nose and I tried to lever it off me. But all
that did was push the teeth of the lower jaw
deeper into my leg. And that's when I got the
first inclination of pain. But, you know, the
teeth on these animals are so sharp. It just
went in like razor blades. And I cocked back,
you know, last -ditch effort. The last thing
I knew to do was punch it in the nose. So I cocked
back to do that. But it must have decided that
I was food. And it started to shake its head.
And that's when all the fight went out of me.
The pain was just so horrific. There was nothing
I could do. It took me underwater and was just
shaking me like a rag doll. And so I'm in panic.
I can't do anything. My lungs are filling with
water. And you can watch the footage of it. It's
actually on YouTube. It lasted about eight seconds.
But when I go back and think about it, I break
it down into minute detail. And I can remember
everything that happened. I can remember everything
that I was thinking. And I remember thinking
at one point. I'm not going home today. I'm going
to die right now. And our brains and our bodies
are such incredible machines that they can process
things in these instances like lightning. And
I thought to myself, am I ready to die? And I
looked back on who I was. in the early days of
my life to who I had become and all of the things
that I'd overcome. And I thought to myself, I've
lived 10 lives in these 31 years. I have no regrets.
If I'm going to die, then I'm good to go. And
I kind of just let go and was waiting to die.
And then the shark's teeth had met all the way
in the middle of my thigh. and ripped out my
hamstring and ripped off my right hand at the
same time and because it wasn't attached to me
anymore my wetsuit made me buoyant and I popped
to the surface and I thought shit I'm not dead
I better get out of here before it comes back
and so I start to swim and I take my arm out
of the water but my hand's missing and my arm
ends at the end of my wetsuit And so my medical
training kicked in and I thought, I've got to
keep that wound above my heart to stem the bleeding,
not knowing what had happened to my leg. All
I knew was I couldn't feel it. And so I was swimming
back to the boat with one hand and one leg, just
thinking this shark or another shark that smelt
the blood is going to come in and attack me.
And I was just waiting for that bite, those teeth
to wrap around my leg and drag me under and kill
me. But I just kept swimming. And eventually
the guys in the boat got near me and they said
they saw I was swimming through a massive pool
of my own blood. And they said it was so thick
they could actually taste it in the air. And
fortunately, they got to me first, pulled me
out of the boat and instantly commenced first
aid to keep me alive until the paramedics could
get there. That's amazing. Well, there's such
a powerful moment in that where you went from.
being at peace with your death, which must have
been incredibly powerful. And I'm sure it's something
that you carry to this day. But then when there's
that absolute minute glimmer of hope that you're
going to live, as you said, the brain completely
switched gears and you went from, you know, submitting
to fighting again. Yeah. Yeah, that was it. What
coming that close to death did for me was it
taught me that death really isn't that scary.
I faced it in the most violent of horrific ways.
But right there at the end, I wasn't afraid because
I had no regrets. And so it freed me from clinging
to this mortal coil and being afraid of things
and realizing that the only thing that I really
had to fear was not making the most of my life
and going to my deathbed next time with regrets.
And so now... I get to live this life where I'm
free from the fears and all I get to do is focus
on how I'm going to enrich my life, enrich the
lives of the people around me and make sure that
I go to my deathbed next time feeling exactly
the same way I did that first time. Yeah. Well,
that's so powerful. I had a palliative care hospice
physician on. And a couple of times. And he's
actually a triple amputee himself. Very long
story short, he touched the electrical wire on
a cable car in Princeton and it arched through
his wristwatch and he lost both legs and one
arm. And, you know, so his kind of doctor focus
went to palliative care because he was a palliative
care patient, obviously a very long term one.
But in the discussions about all the people he'd
seen pass, it was the same observation. If people
felt that they had fulfilled and had achieved
what they wanted to in their lives, their deaths
were actually very peaceful. And he said the
ones that struggled the most were the ones that
hadn't had the courage to chase their goals.
And it was the regret itself that was actually
haunting them. Yeah. Or even not chasing your
goals, but smaller things like unresolved issues
with your family and friends. where, you know,
you'd wished for years that you'd made up with
a family member you'd been fighting with, but
you just never went ahead and did it. And you
go to your deathbed with that one regret. I wish
I'd reconnected with my dad, my daughter or something
like that. And so my advice would be to never,
ever let those things just stagnate because you
never know what's going to happen. It could be
tomorrow. It could be next year. It could be
10 years from now. But that's... The thing about
life, you'll never know when it's going to come
for you. So make sure that you do the right thing
to fulfill your soul. And sometimes that's just
by doing the hardest thing, which is asking for
forgiveness or saying you're sorry. But it makes
the world of difference to your soul. Yeah, beautiful.
Well, thank you for that insight. Just from an
emergency medicine point of view, were there
any... Any things that happened from when you
were pulled up onto the boat onwards that you
credit with saving your life? Any kind of takeaways
for the medics and Corman and everyone else that's
listening from a medical perspective? Yes, so
much. We had an oxy -viva in the boat. We had
a minimal med kit. We didn't have a tourniquet.
And so the guys took their t -shirts off of their
back. And so my whole hamstring was almost surgically
removed. And so while I, because I was headed
towards the bow of the Zodiac and there's not
a lot of room in that. And so I'm tourniqueting
the end of my arm with my left hand as tight
as I can. The guys in the boat had taken off
their t -shirts, jammed that into the wound.
and then strapped it down with straps from a
life jacket. But by the time we got to the big
wharf at the Navy base, which wasn't far away,
it was 100 metres away, but it was towering 10
feet over the water. And so they had to build
this whole ramp out of wood with these builders
at an emergency rate to get me up there. The
boat was an inch deep in my blood. My chief who
was on the wharf with the scientists already
thought I was dead. It wasn't until he saw me
like move that he knew I was alive, but he could
see that I was still leaking blood out of my
leg and he took the strap off and there was an
artery squirting. And so he had to grab the new
guy and get him to stick his hand inside my leg
and pinch close that artery with his fingers
and hold it for 10 minutes until the paramedics
arrived. And by the time the paramedics got there,
I was in total agony. And so they drug me up
with morphine. But because I'd lost so much blood,
they couldn't give me enough to get rid of most
of the pain. And so I'm in the ambulance on the
way to the hospital begging for more morphine,
but they couldn't give it to me. And then all
of a sudden, the morphine hit, the pain went
away, but I didn't have. enough energy to make
my chest go up and down. And I couldn't talk
louder than a whisper. So I had to try and communicate
with the paramedic that I couldn't breathe. And
so he coached me through it, basically said,
Paul, save your energy, take small... Small,
short breaths. Take as many as you can. And then
when you've got enough energy, take one big breath
and fill your lungs with air. And so it kind
of became a bit of a Lamaze class. Put your friend's
finger up your junk. Yeah. And that really got
me through because I actually felt like I was
going to die because I couldn't breathe. But
that really helped. By the time we got to the
hospital, which is about 15 minutes away, I was
fairly stabilized. I was stabilized enough to,
the doctor was running alongside my trolley and
I was trying to bribe him with a case of beer
to save my leg, as military people do. But after
that, I blanked out. I was in an induced coma
for the next two days. I think they put 300 donations
of blood into me. So 150 liters, just as soon
as I put it in, it would just squirt back out.
And so they're just, you know, you could have
the best doctors in the world, but if you don't
have that donated blood by those amazing people,
then you're not going to live. And so. Thank
you to everyone that donates blood, donates plasma.
You are legitimately saving lives. It's taken
me quite some time to repay those 300 donations,
but I'm chipping away at it. You know what's
really sad is being English, I can't donate blood.
And I've got quite vascular arms, too. So you
can tell that the blood bank people get a little
tingle in their pants when they see me. But I
got the mad cow. Exactly. Exactly. You know,
it was I mean, it was a thing, definitely. But
it was a very long time ago. And I guess they've
just never put enough energy in the research
to to, you know, to take my blood and make sure
it's OK. But, yeah, I physically have never be
able to give a drop. And it's sad. You know,
I would love to. I do it whenever I go home and
I give plasma. Beautiful. Yeah, I guess I could
do it if they ever let me to go home again when
the borders open up. All right. So I live in
Florida. I'm in Ocala, which is right in the
heart of the state. Gotcha. So, yeah, I moved
over here about just almost 20 years ago. Great
shocks over in Florida. Yeah, we've got some
super ones over here. we'll have to talk about
that in a minute actually one of my guests was
bethany hamilton too so yeah she's the second
hamilton well oh you do yeah she's amazing amazing
i mean as are you and this is a beautiful thing
with both of you that i'm sure we'll get to that
in a bit but you know the fact that you went
back in the water and and you know all the people
that haven't been bitten think they never would
and the two that actually were both ended up
you know being advocates for sharks yeah i think
that's a fairly common theme as well because
the people that do get attacked by sharks are
more often than not ocean people. And we go into
the ocean knowing the risks and accepting them.
And so you can't really get upset when something
goes wrong. You know, every time you go into
the ocean, it's a wild place. Anything could
go wrong. And so you're signing this waiver really
to say, okay, I accept this, whatever happens.
And so you don't blame the shark for being sharks.
They're just sharks doing sharky shit. So, yeah,
I think that's a pretty common theme amongst
shark attack survivors. Yeah, I always find it
weird, you know, when you did have an attack
and then, you know, the fishermen would find
a shark, they'd say it was the shark, and they'd
catch it and kill it. And they'd be like, all
right, problem solved. And I'm like, what, is
it really? I mean, from what I understand, the
ocean is quite a big place. And I'm pretty sure
that shark had mates and family. And I don't
think you saw that you just made yourself feel
better. Yeah, it's really a ridiculous mindset.
It's all about, you know, the government does
it a lot in Australia. They cull sharks. They
don't call it a cull, but they put all these
nets out all over the beaches and the nets don't
go to the ocean floor. They only go a couple
of hundred meters wide. They don't stop the sharks
from getting into the beach. It's just to make
it look like they're doing something. Yeah. Well,
with your journey, so you were obviously, you
know. an uber athlete in the military sense prior
to this event tell me about your your journey
physically but also your journey mentally because
of you know your your identity had been forced
to be changed yeah um look very early on i decided
that if i was going to be able to mentally overcome
this I needed to still have some semblance of
value and purpose and the best way that I could
achieve that would be by getting back to work
and I was fortunate that because it was such
a huge media event you know no clearance diver
had ever been attacked by a shark no one had
been attacked in Sydney Harbour in 60 years so
this was worldwide news and even bigger in Australia
and so The chief of Navy, I don't know, I guess
to save face, to make it look like they were
doing something, he said as long as I wanted
a job in the Navy, I would have one. I don't
think he realized I wanted my old job back, but
that was the case. And so I went into my recovery
determined to go back to the Navy clearance divers.
And much of the time, I didn't believe that was
possible. And a lot of people told me it was
not impossible. But not all of your goals and
dreams have to be possible in that moment. You
just have to work towards them. You have to create
small goals and challenges to get you on the
road to that dream. And so it was really rough.
I had so much drugs pumping into me. I had a
bulb of ketamine. um continuously draining into
my bloodstream i had morphine on tap and so a
lot of the time i was tripping out i was delirious
um but day by day um you know and i was so lucky
to have such an incredible group of friends and
family that came to my bed they kept me company
they kept my spirits up my buddy would sneak
in a bottle of beer and i'd have a morphine shot
And day by day, I started, you know, I could
get up out of bed. And so I would hop around
the nurse's station. I'd go out into the hallway
and I would see how fast I could hop around the
Navy ward. And I freaked out a lot of the nurses.
But my mates brought in protein. They brought
in weights for me. I sweet -talked the nurses
into giving me double rations because I'd lost.
10 kilos in 10 minutes. This is not a weight
loss regime I would recommend, but I needed to
bulk up and get strong. I needed to keep my mind
active. So I read a lot and I needed to know
that there were tools out there that could help
me achieve my goal. And so I spent a lot of time
on this incredible thing called the internet.
There's no reason for you not to know anything
anymore. We live in such an incredible age where
we have the wealth of the world's knowledge within
a few keystrokes. And so I utilized that and
I looked at videos of Paralympic athletes doing
incredible things in sport. I watched videos
of these dudes with no legs climbing mountains
on their hands. And so the more research I did,
the more it dispelled the fear that I wouldn't
be able to live the way I wanted to. And so that
really buoyed me, just knowing that if these
people can do it, there's no reason that I can't
do it as well. And so after nine weeks. I went
home. They wanted me to stay a little bit longer,
but I convinced them that I would recover better
at home under my own steam in my own bed. I had
a very good friend of mine, Brock, who moved
in with me and acted as my carer. It didn't hurt
that he was a chef as well. So he cooked and
he drove me off to the army gym every day so
I could learn to use my body again. And I had
to, as the army taught me, I had to improvise,
adapt and overcome. Because having one hand and
doing bench press and push -ups can really mess
with what you're trying to achieve. And so I
had to work out new ways to do things. And so
I got on the internet once again. found this
lifting hook that people use for deadlifts. And
I could slip that over my forearm and I could
put a dumbbell in it and I could do curls like
that. Or I could put the hook into the cables
and I could do flies and triceps. And so just
by spending more and more time in the gym and
just experimenting, I learned better and better
ways to use this new body that I had to rebuild
it, make it stronger. And then as time went on,
I also was given prosthetics, which helped. insurmountably
because hopping sucks. My balance is good. My
left leg strength is amazing, but hopping still
sucks. It's much better to walk. Well, it's fascinating.
I've had so many incredible men and women that
are amputees. Some are military that were wounded.
Some were congenital amputees. And seeing the...
the journey of the adaptive athletes, especially
over the last five years, you know, with, you
know, with the movements really becoming popular,
with their having, you know, competitions for
adaptive outside of, you know, the Paralympics
that we had before that. What have you witnessed
over the evolution of prostheses and just the
adaptive community in general? Well, fortunately,
I came into it in an era, sadly, where we're
in the middle of a war. But because of that,
there were so many American soldiers coming home
missing limbs that the American government had
thrown billions of dollars into helping these
prosthetic companies make better devices. And
so I came into it with, you know, there's never
been a better leg or hand prosthetic in the world,
and I get the best. And so very fortunate in
that realm. But it's funny now that there's no,
you know, no. surface war that people are talking
about a lot of that funding has dried up and
so has the the advances in those prosthetics
they're very they're like apple iphones now whereas
it's like it's a tiny upgrade on the next limb
whereas before it was these huge upgrades like
now now your prosthetic is waterproof now your
prosthetic has a running mode now it's kind of
stale But thank God for smart people being able
to make these things because if it was up to
me, I'd make a great pirate at Halloween, but
that's about it. So with all the things that
you had to relearn, was there any that kind of
spring to mind that were the most challenging,
the biggest achievement when you finally got
it? Yeah, the dumb things that you don't think
of because I was right -handed. So now I had
to learn how to do not everything just left -handed.
but only left -handed and weird things like brushing
your teeth. Like I didn't have that fine motor
movement and I kept jabbing myself in the gum,
learning to drive and control the pedal with
my left foot. You know, I was bunny hopping down
the street for the first week because your left
foot doesn't have that sensitivity. It's either
on the clutch or it's just slowly coming off.
But yeah, it's just little things like that.
You know, having one hand. using a dustpan and
broom still has it over me. That's always a pain
in the ass anyway, no matter who you are. Yeah,
I just break out the vacuum cleaner. All right.
Well, then you were hell -bent on, you know,
obviously getting your old job back. So kind
of walk me through that journey into the training
side and then carry on to your decision to transition
out. So after six months, six months after the
attack, I felt like I was ready. I had my prosthetic
leg. I had my prosthetic hand. I trained myself
into a pretty ridiculous level of fitness. And
all I wanted to do was go back to work. Six months
of not doing anything except just working out
and being left with your own thoughts. And it
can get really exhausting. And trying to overcome
a lot of the self -confidence issues as well,
like every time I left the house. everyone was
staring at me and so whether they knew I was
or not it didn't matter because there's this
there's this guy with one leg and a robot leg
and a robot hand walking down the street and
so everyone stares at you and so overcoming that
was very hard that was the first step and I realized
look I can't control whether they're going to
look at me or not but what I can control to some
degree is how they perceive me Now, I can walk
around feeling the pain and I can be worried
about what they're thinking and my head would
be down and my shoulders would slump and they'll
look at me and say, oh, that poor guy. Or I could
do the hard thing. I could walk and practice
my walking to a degree where I look like I'm
walking almost normal. I can pin my shoulders
back. I can hold my head high. And if they look
at me, I can just smile at them. and you'd be
amazed how quickly that smile gets reflected
back. Or if I'm not feeling like smiling at anyone
because I'm in a shit mood, I just won't look
at anyone. And that way I learned to enjoy all
the things around me. I was living at Bondi,
so I'd look at the water, I'd look at the trees,
I'd look at the dogs playing. And so that got
me through the confidence issues to the point
where I'm like, okay, I want to go back to work.
And I went to the dive school. Sorry, I went
to my team boss, and I said, hey, boss. can I
come back to work? And he said, no. He said,
to go to the dive teams, you have to be deployable
for war. And I said, look, I understand that.
I'm not as fleet on my feet as I once was, and
my trigger finger doesn't even work. So I get
that. But there was one thing I learned from
watching an old Navy diver staple of a movie,
which is Men of Honor. Maybe I could go and teach.
And I said, why don't you let me pass on this
knowledge to the next generation of divers and
repay all of this information that you've given
to me and maybe even inspire some of them as
well. And so they thought about it for a while.
And then they gave me this series of hoops I
had to jump through. And I passed them all. I
passed my physical fitness. I passed my medical.
I passed getting on to the moving dive boats
and things like that. And they couldn't say no.
They said, all right, Paul, you can work three
half days a week. And so I just turned up five
full days a week and just didn't go home until
I had to. And, you know, I had something to prove
to them, but I also had something to prove to
myself that I could still mix it up with my buddies
and do the job that I'm hired to do. And so I
put my heart and my soul into achieving that.
Beautiful. Now with Bethany, obviously she. She
went back in, I think it was her parents filmed
the first time that she went back in the ocean.
And again, with her mindset, she was offered
the adaptive divisions and she was like, no,
I'm a surfer. I'm going to surf in the regular
divisions. Did you have a moment like that when
you first entered the ocean specifically? Was
there any hesitation or had you already that
kind of making peace with death, taking that
trepidation out of it? Yeah, that was more the
case. It was actually three months to the day
after the shark attack. It only took me that
long because I still had the stitches and staples
in my leg and I couldn't go into the water with
them. As soon as they were out, I grabbed my
two buddies. We went down to Bondi with the surfboards
and I hopped down through the soft sand and got
to the water and everyone was staring at me and
the paparazzi were taking photos. It's difficult
enough to hop through soft sand with an eight
-foot surfboard, but then trying to hop down
through the water as well was even harder. But
I pulled it off without falling over and embarrassing
myself. And I put my board down into the water
and I whispered to myself, please don't let me
paddle around in a circle. And I didn't. I got
smashed by every wave for about 45 minutes. But
eventually I got out the back. And I was in the
sun with my mates in the ocean. And I was living.
And it felt so fucking good just to be out there.
And it didn't matter if I got smashed. It didn't
matter if I couldn't stand up. I just laid on
my stomach and enjoyed the water and the sun.
Beautiful. I mean, that's incredible. Because
I mean, even myself, I love the ocean. It's definitely
one of my happy places. And it's interesting.
If you're distracted, if I'm playing with my
son, if I'm, you know. Body surfing even, I'm
not thinking about it. But when you're out there
and you're swimming around, you let your little
mind start going, you know, there's that fear.
But just like you said, it's completely out of
your control. You're in their playground. You
know, if it happens, it happens. But you can't
let that fear dictate all the incredible swims
that you could have on the what if scenario.
Yeah, it's such a rare occurrence. You know,
it's really, really, you got more chance of winning
the lottery, really. absolutely all right well
then so you you know you achieved your goal of
returning you ended up training you know the
the people at the dive school so what at what
point did you say all right it's time to it's
time to move on and do something else um it was
three years in so i was doing it for three years
and i just you know the first year and a half
was good But the second year and a half, it just
started to kill me, really, because I was working
myself so hard trying to keep up with everyone.
And when you're teaching these courses, you're
at work sometimes at 5 a .m. and you don't leave
until 2 a .m. And then you've got to be back
again the next day. And so it was hard enough
for me to get sleep. And I was trying to get
myself off the drugs very early on. And so I
wasn't taking anything. Because I didn't want
to get drug tested and have opiates in my system
and things like that. So I had to totally stay
off them and just deal with the pain mentally.
But it was breaking me down piece by piece. And
I was just tired and I was getting cranky and
I wasn't being the instructor I wanted to be.
I was being the instructor that I hated on course.
And that wasn't fulfilling me. And, you know,
the reason I did this was for fulfillment, for
value and purpose. And I just lost that shine.
All I wanted to do was go back to the teams.
And so I went to the dive school boss and I asked
him what the chances of that were. And he gave
it to me straight. He said, under this current
administration, zero. And so I'd been doing a
little bit of public speaking, but I'd already
started to get paid basically my two weeks Navy
wage in one hour of speaking. And so I thought,
okay, what do I do here? Keep putting up with
this. There's no more Paul being able to go sideways
into a new role. No one's going to take me. I'm
only here at the dive school through the grace
of the Navy. And so do I continue down this path
and try to learn to love it and maintain my security
blanket of a paycheck every two weeks? Or do
I do something crazy? Do I do something really
risky and really scary and go out and try and
make a career out of this public speaking? And
that was terrifying because. How I didn't know
how long I would be able to do that for. How
long are people going to want to hear about my
stupid little story? What if I'm not good at
it? And all those things, doubts crept in. But
I realized every single time I'd embraced one
of those really big, scary decisions like leaving
home, like joining the army, like changing to
the Navy. It always worked out because I threw
my heart and my soul into it. And they were the
best decisions that I'd ever made. And so I decided
to stick with the routine and believe that I'd
set a precedence. And if I'm going to do this,
I'm going to go in wholeheartedly and I'm just
going to make it work. And so I decided to leave
the Navy and strike out with speaking. I got
a book deal. then as well which helped advertise
me for speaking and the speaking work picked
up and I started making more and more money and
getting more and more work to the point where
I was making my month's navy wage times three
and so I was on cloud nine I'm working hardly
you know a tenth of the time I'm making twice
as much money And I get to spend all of my spare
time doing whatever the hell I want. And I was
like, this is amazing. This is the way to live.
And all it did was cost me an arm and a leg.
Well, there's a lot of people that have been
on here that struggle when they transition out,
whether it's out of the military, fire, police,
because the men and women that they serve with
were their tribe. And also they identified as
a police officer, a soldier. But the missing
element, I think, with a lot of them is there
wasn't something to immediately transition into.
So did you struggle at all with losing that group
or was that speaking engagement powerful enough
that you made the transition easily? No, what
the speaking engagements did, and I don't suffer
from PTSD as far as I know. I don't have depression
and I don't have nightmares. I don't have flashbacks,
nothing like that. And I think that is mostly
due to the case of the public speaking because
I didn't have any therapy. I didn't have any
counseling. But getting on stage and being able
to offload all of those emotions to a crowd of
people that I didn't know, I feel like that's
what helped me get it all out and overcome. what
could have been many more dark days um but leaving
yeah leaving the military was surprising it was
like having the umbilical cut one day you're
there and the next you're just not and they've
just moved on without you and you have no connection
to them um and i stayed in as part of the reserve
diving team but they only had a job every couple
of months sometimes and so i still didn't have
my tribe around me. I didn't have my mates. And
so when I could, I would go to the Navy base
in the mornings and I'd go into the gym when
I knew some of them would be working out. So
I maintained a minimal connection there, but
yeah, it was like one second, I had this awesome
crew of mates and we worked hard together and
all, and then you don't, and you have to get,
you really, really have to get comfortable in
your own company. Which was easier for me because
I've never actually minded my own company. I'm
not an overtly social person unless I've had
a couple of beers under my belt and then I'm
like super social. But I don't mind the quiet.
But it does reach a crescendo where you get lonely.
And even more so when you're traveling and speaking.
It's flights by yourself. It's hotel rooms by
yourself. You might get an hour on stage and
then maybe an hour after talking to people, but
then it's back to your hotel by yourself, back
on the plane, back home to yourself. And so you
really do have to get comfortable with your own
skin and your own thoughts. And I think that's
really key to overcoming some of that stuff is.
utilizing that voice in your head that we all
have and ensuring that that voice is telling
you positive thoughts and you're practicing putting
that positivity and the positive thoughts on
a cycle in your head instead of feeding yourself
the negativity you know that old story about
you know the two two wolves that live inside
you and the one that lives is the one that you
feed and so you have to feed those positive emotions
and those positive thoughts and i think a lot
of that comes by setting goals and challenges
and then chasing after them so you have to you
have to keep yourself busy beautiful yeah and
with the speaking i can relate completely because
i i haven't had anything you know as Not that
it's a scale. I know that people talk about it
all the time. You can't compare traumas. But,
you know, I had stuff happen when I was young.
I had stuff happen in my career. Nothing, you
know, immense, but definitely things that, you
know, had a weight to them. But I've always dealt
very well, especially recently. And it's the
same thing. Like, here we are now. I get to have
an incredible conversation with you. I ended
up writing a book as well. So the power of conversation,
the power of storytelling, I think, is such an
undervalued tool. Yeah. The thing I like about
what I do on stage is it doesn't matter if you're
not in the military. It doesn't matter if you
haven't been through a horrific experience like
me. The way that I've learned to tell it with
the peaks and the troughs and the humor, especially
the dark humor, there's parts of the story that
will associate with other people in any part
of their life, whether I'm talking about the
things I went through as a kid. And showing parents
that might be having that same drama with their
kids that there is a light at the end of the
tunnel if they just shower their kids with love
and let them know that they're there and they'll
always be there. You can't always control what
they're going to do or what they're going to
go through, but you can control the love that
you give them. Simple things like that. being
able to make those big scary decisions to change
the scenario of your life when you're not happy.
There's no reason to be stuck in a life or a
job or a relationship that isn't fulfilling you.
Sometimes you have to make that big scary decision
to step outside that situation to fulfill your
own happiness and fulfill your own dreams. And
so I've had a lot of people come up to me over
the years after my speaking job and people that
have broken down in my arms because they've lost
kids or because they've been through something
insane as well, like cancer or losing loved ones
or losing limbs or anything like that. So it
is an absolute, absolutely fulfilling journey
for me to get on stage and share these stories
with people. Well, I think it's incredible. So
with that journey, how did you find yourself
in television? Well, Like I said, the attack
was such big news that a lot of Australian TV
shows wanted to talk to me about it. So 60 Minutes
were first. They were filming me from the time
that I was leaving hospital to going into my
home and overcoming stuff and then going to work.
And then they did another episode two years later
and they wanted me to introduce me to the shark
that nearly killed me, the bull shark. And so
we went to Fiji and I learned to dive with bull
sharks. And that was the first time that I actually
hand fed one as well. And so over the years,
I just got comfortable in front of the camera.
And I think that showed, um, whenever there was
a shark interaction in Australia, the media would
come to me and ask me for some advice. And so
out of the desire to not look like a dumb ass
on television, I had to learn about sharks. And
I found that the more research I did into these
animals, the more I realized how little we had
to fear of them and how much they have to fear
from us. And so one year Discovery Channel came
to me for just simply an interview. They were
doing a bunch of stories about people that had
survived shark attacks. And I guess they liked
the way I was on camera and they flew me out
to LA to be on the live talk show at the end
of each night, Shark After Dark. And they liked
that so much. The next year, they offered me
a co -hosting job with a guy called Andy Casagrande,
who's one of the world's best shark divers and
cinematographers. And he taught me so much. And
I had a really great showrunner called Matt Tomacheski.
And they were just so incredible to work with.
And I saw my first great white and I did my first
cage dive with great whites. And I guess that
Discovery Channel just liked what I did. And
they gave me another show the next year and then
another show the next year. And then Nat Geo
came to me and offered me my own TV show. And
my managers went to Discovery Channel just to
let them know because they gave me my start.
And the boss of Discovery Channel at the time
said, if Paul works at Nat Geo, he'll never work
on Discovery Channel again. So I got stuck in
this horrible tug of war where I knew I had to
make a decision and I was going to really piss
off one group of very powerful TV people. But
everyone I spoke to said stay with Discovery
Channel. I stayed with Discovery Channel. My
managers sweetened the deal. They got me a two
-year contract, a two -year visa to live in America
because that's something, you know, in Australia
and probably the UK as well, we grew up on American
television. We grew up on American movies. And
so it was back to that kid before I joined the
military. There's this huge, big world out there.
how do I be a part of it? And all of a sudden
I was getting the offer to be a part of this
bigger world like America with more opportunities
and more avenue for growth. And so I moved out
to America and I had a bunch of speaking jobs
in Australia as well over the next 18 months.
And so for 18 months, I lived in Airbnbs. And
this was, once again, really, really lonely time
because I didn't really know anyone in America.
All my friends in Australia were working. So
I had a car in Australia, a car in LA, and my
whole life was shoved into those cars. And I
was just bouncing back and forth every few weeks.
After, say, 18 months, I just I couldn't do it
anymore. So I stopped taking any more Australian
speaking jobs. I got an apartment in L .A. and
it was almost ceremonial taking my clothes out
of my suitcase and hanging them in a real closet.
And I started to put down roots. I flew my dog
out from Australia that my mom had been looking
after. And I really designated my mindset into
making this a new home. And I'm on my third.
Just starting my third two -year contract with
Discovery Channel, I get to host three new Shark
Week shows a year. And then I get to speak out
here and I get to do other cool things like little
random things pop up. And I did an acting role
in Australia for a miniseries. So I love it.
It's like being a clearance diver again. I never
know what's going to happen day to day. It's
scary because... You don't know if you're going
to have a job in time, but it's also really exciting.
And I kind of thrive on that uncertainty. Well,
did you have that moment? Or let me ask you,
when was that moment? Because I'm sure you did.
When you realized that you were living the life
that as a young boy watching David Attenborough,
you dreamed of doing one day. Or no, probably
didn't even dream of doing. You admired him doing,
and now you're doing that very role yourself.
I got an inkling of it when I was working on
the first Shark Week documentary, Great White
Matrix. But then when I moved out to the US and
aside from speaking, that was my main job, getting
paid to fly around the world and go diving with
sharks and sharing these amazing animals with
the world and doing things. that I would literally
pay to do and as would most people. Yeah, the
first year of living out here on my contract
really was like that. I do all the cool LA things,
go up to Runyon Canyon and a whitewater rafted
down the American River and go hiking through
Yosemite National Park, which I actually thought
was Yosemite because it's spelled the same as
Vegemite. And Marmite. Everyone was laughing
at me. And I train, I get to train at Gold's
at Venice beach. And, you know, I go, you know,
the gym's been closed down for, for 10 months,
but I turn up to the gym every morning and Arnold
Schwarzenegger says hello to me. And I have,
I met Van Damme and I have that gym has turned
into my little family out here. And it's, it's
really quite a great place to be and work. And
looking back at Australia, it's, it's home and
I love it. And I miss the beaches so much, but.
It feels so small now. Here, the opportunity
is endless. Yeah. With David Ambrough, my sister
actually has edited for BBC and those kind of
wildlife shows for years now. And he just did
that documentary about his experience through
his life, starting off as a naturist in the 50s
and what he's seen with his own eyes. So with
your experience, especially in the oceans, what
are some of the things that we need to be cognizant
and wary of as far as the environment in the
oceans? Well, I always think people should think
globally, act locally, as the saying goes. So
think about your own little pocket. Think about
the trash. that is in your area or on the beaches
or that are people throwing on the ground. I
have some good friends that started a group called
Recycle for Veterans and they get veterans together
every week or every second weekend and they go
out and they clean a beach around California.
And so little things like that, the detrimental
things we're doing to our planet and our ocean
can simply be... fixed by humans not being such
assholes and throwing our trash around and polluting
the waterways. It's really not that hard. There's
so many groups out there that are working to
improve our environment that they're looking
for people to help them. And it can be anything
from, you know, in Australia we had the big shark
culls and we went out, hundreds of people, and
we did a big protest on the beach to try and
stop the shark culls. And the government came
and they started to implement small changes instead
of... catching sharks on a drum line and killing
them they started catching them on smart drum
lines which would uh signal to the the workers
they'd go out in the boat they'd take the shark
off the hook they'd transport it out to sea and
then they'll let it go instead so things like
that like there are so many little things that
we can do um you know small things consistently
are what are going to make the difference What
about your observation of the last year? Because
one of the most beautiful things that came out
of 2020 was those first few weeks where everyone
had just stopped. All the vehicles stopped pretty
much and everyone was in their homes. And we
saw the skyline in LA. I lived in Burbank for
a few years, so I know how freaking awfully smoggy
that place is normally. And the air was clearing
up. The Venice canals were clearing up. And it
seemed like Mother Nature gave us this... massive
like you know billboard like hey you know if
you keep doing this i can fix myself and then
through my eyes we the pendulum swung all the
way the other way we all got back in our cars
but now we wear gloves and masks and those are
thrown everywhere every every piece of food is
wrapped in plastic or stuck in a plastic bag
and i feel like that message was completely disregarded
so through through your eyes you know what what
messages do you think we saw and you know how
do we actually persuade people to actually learn
from some of those incredible moments that we
saw early 2020 yeah we did see some amazing stuff
you know china saw the sky for the first time
in three decades but at the same time we destroyed
countries we destroyed economies People lost
their businesses, lost their homes. Suicide went
up in Australia, I think, 200%. And so somehow
if we could find a middle ground there, that
would be perfect. But people have to make a living.
means we have to drive cars and go to work and
there has to be industry and so I don't think
it's I wish it was as simple as us just going
back to the early COVID days but also they were
horrible days for a lot of people and so if we
could find a middle ground if we can just find
a way to do it better I totally stay out of politics
out here in America because people are extremely
passionate And I'm going to use that term as
a very nice way to say it about politics out
here. And, you know, Trump was not good for the
environment. And hopefully this next group, Biden
and whatever, you know, it sounds like they've
already implemented some great changes environmentally.
And hopefully that will continue because as.
Much as we can do the little things, it really
is up to our elected officials to implement the
legislation and the laws to save this planet
that we are constantly destroying. And it wasn't
all roses either. In the middle of COVID. There
was a Japanese fishing fleet, over 300 boats,
some of these boats as big as football fields,
and they can stay out in the ocean for years.
They're called super trawlers, and they just
fill their boats full of fish and sharks and
whales and rays, and then other boats will come
out, collect all of that, change out the crew,
refuel, and then go back to China, and now that
boat's got a whole new crew and an empty hull
to fill again. This massive 300 fleet of fishing
trawlers were just outside the exclusion zone
of the Galapagos Islands, you know, a beautiful
untouched area full of life. And they sat in
this border between the international waters
of, I think it was Ecuador and the Galapagos,
and they just raped. everything that went through
there and destroyed that whole area and i have
a buddy that went out there to film some stuff
and he said it was just ridiculous he said he
went diving and there was barely anything there
and everything was acting skittish and scared
um and so there is a lot that needs to change
if we're going to save this planet we're living
on Yeah, no, and that's the thing. I agree that
in the middle ground, exactly where we should
be. And I want to get just very quickly to your,
you know, your plant based diet before we transition
to some closing questions. But that's, you know,
that's a takeaway for me. It's not about no one
drives cars, but maybe we think about more pedestrianized
areas and, you know, rail systems and buses and
things that reduce, you know, the carbon footprint.
And we look at the way we farm. You know, the
reason COVID was so bad is because we've got
so many sick people in this country that they
were dying from a virus they should have been.
you know, mildly affected by. So the way we spray
our food. Look at what they're putting into their
face instead of on their face. Yeah, well, exactly.
I mean, and that's it. So the middle ground is
the conversation of both. You know, I get the
isolation. I really do. But that conversation
about health and food and agriculture and air
pollution has to be there side by side with masks,
hand sanitizers and stay, you know, six foot.
So in America, you know, it's like it's. You
go, you drive past In -N -Out Burger and there's
a line of cars around the block and there's these
morbidly obese people shoving burgers in their
face while wearing a mask under their chin. You're
not stopping anything. People need to start really
taking stock of their own actions and their own
health and their own well -being instead of relying
on the government to come out with a vaccine.
And I'm not saying, you know, I'm not. taking
away anything from the horrific death toll that
COVID has implemented around the world and in
America. But at the moment, I think we're at
410 ,000 deaths from COVID, which is horrendous.
But annually, there's 655 ,000 deaths from coronary
heart disease. So why are the tobacco shops open?
Why are they essential businesses throughout
all of COVID? How are these massive companies
putting all this horrible artificial sweetener
into kids cereal to start the diabetes and start
the coronary heart disease process when they're
toddlers you know there needs to be better laws
against these companies putting shit into our
foods to help everyone understand that your health
is your wealth absolutely i couldn't agree more
well just very quickly then so your plant -based
diet i actually switched to a plant -based diet
it was a few years ago now and Yeah, I was amazed.
I had a dwindling of... um energy and strength
towards the end but that could have just been
you know obviously my my physiology the fact
i was a full -time firefighter better getting
any sleep um and it but i have to attain that
i had blood work done my blood work was good
as ever been i felt great my poo looked awesome
i saved a lot of money on toilet paper so when
did you you know decide to make that change and
i want to say thanks to james wilkes by the way
speaking of which the the mma fighter that made
the game change because he was the one that connected
us in the first place. So how did you come across
that way of eating? And then what was your personal
experience? It all started when I went to Africa,
actually. Xbox had given me money to create a
pilot for a series that we'd come up with called
Fearless, where I was going to embed with all
of these incredible groups of humans around the
world that are risking their lives to make the
world a better place. So we shot the pilot in
Africa with Damien Mander, who was on the Game
Changers. And he was actually an Australian clearance
diver as well, so we knew each other. And I got
to go out and spend a couple of weeks in Zimbabwe
embedded with his anti -poaching unit to learn
how they do it and just really spend some in
-depth time with these rangers that risk their
lives to save what they call their family. And
one night... In the beginning, the cook was making
food for everyone. And I saw Damien was eating
from a separate pot. And I was like, ah, this
guy is saving the good meat for himself. And
I went over there all cocky going, hey, what's
up with that pot, bro? And he goes, oh, well,
I don't eat meat. The rangers eat meat. And I'm
like, what? Damien's like six foot three or four,
built like a brick shithouse. I'm like, what
do you mean you don't eat meat? And he said,
well, I'm vegan. And I said, what's that? And
he's like, well, I don't consume any animal products.
I was like, why? And he said, well, I was going
out into the wilderness to save these animals
and then I was coming home and I was eating the
animals and I felt like a hypocrite. And that
struck a chord with me. because I dislike hypocrites
immensely. The worst leaders that I've ever had
have always been massive hypocrites, always do
as I say, not as I do. And I always strive to
be the do as I do sort of person. And I was talking
about saving the oceans and saving the sharks,
but I was eating the animals that are a detriment
to our environment at the same time. And so It
struck a chord with me and I went home and I
thought, you know what, I'm going to go vegan.
And I lasted two days. I didn't know what to
eat. And so I gave it away. But it just kept
popping up in my world through people like John
Joseph, through a very good friend of mine, Ian
Norrington. A lot of other people that I respected
had come out as plant -based. I'm like, all right,
I'm a firm believer that when the universe is
talking to you, you need to listen because there's
a very good reason for it. And so I listened
and I did it incrementally this time around.
I cut out, you know, I stopped eating kangaroo.
Then I stopped eating beef. Then I stopped eating,
you know, I didn't eat dairy anyway because I'm
lactose intolerant. So that was easy. But over
a series of months, I cut everything out. And
when I would remove one thing, I'd add more in
because mostly I ate a lot of kangaroo, a lot
of chicken breasts, some broccoli and sweet potatoes.
And that was about it. And so. Every time I cut
something out, I'd find a whole bunch of other
foods and I'd add them in. And so I actually
became a better cook. I became healthier because
I was getting way more macro and micronutrients.
I was enjoying my food more. And since that day,
I haven't had a serious injury. Now, I didn't
have the better sleep or the better energy I've
maintained fairly well. But I haven't had. serious
injury since that day. And I used to get a lot
from all the days in the army and the Navy. I
had horrible tendonitis in my elbows. My shoulder
always blew out. My lower back was always blowing
out. And even if I do get something, it seems
to heal up very quickly. And I guess that's down
to the fact that I'm not eating these inflammatory
foods. Yeah. Well, I think that was the thing
I talked with James about. I don't know if you
heard, he had some conversations with Joe Rogan.
I think it was Chris Kresser. And they basically
tore his film apart. I think Joe Rogan's amazing.
But this particular guest, this conversation,
there wasn't any positive to it. It was like,
this is why this is shit. And so when we talked,
I'm like, well, here's my thing. I'm sold on
plant -based. I kind of view my diet at the moment
as... Plant -based with a sprinkling of meat.
So sometimes I eat meat, but there's definitely
a lot of plant -based. I don't eat dairy. Again,
it upset my stomach for years and years. And
almost overnight when I removed dairy, I felt
better after, you know, 40 years. But, you know,
as you mentioned, I think the big thing that
people miss is when you focus on plant -based,
and it can be some of the other diet philosophies
too, what you end up doing is removing the shit,
all the processed foods. and adding in a more
diverse spectrum of plants. So even if there
is some clean meat with it, you've still leveled
up multiple times on what you were eating before.
So to me, if you do no meat at all, no dairy,
beautiful. If that doesn't quite work for you
and you put a little bit of meat in, also beautiful.
So the all or nothing arguments. I think, turn
people off. Whereas if you meet in the middle,
like you said, you start chipping away, you might
end up with 10 % meat, but you're still 90 %
better than where you were before. And you're
creating an amazing impact in the environment
as well. I just find, like you said, if something
is not necessary, but it's creating harm, then
why... partake in it why sponsor the suffering
of these animals around the world that are living
in factory farms they're being given hormones
they're being given antibiotics to the point
where now we have super bugs that these antibiotics
can't stop and we're we're one super bug away
from getting wiped out because none of our antibiotics
are going to work anymore um you know and and
then the suffering these animals growing up in
pens being tortured, their babies ripped away
from them, female cows being raped with fists
in their arses and then being inseminated at
the same time. That's bestiality. If you walk
down the street and some guy had his fist up
a cow's ass, you'd call the police. But when
you do it in the dairy industry, it's protected
and you can't even speak out against it because
of animal agriculture laws. Oprah got smashed.
All she said on her show was that she's going
to cut down her meat intake. And the animal agriculture
industry went after her with million dollar lawsuits
and tried to destroy her. And that's the power
of these industries that are trying to protect
their billion dollar industry. And it's all through
suffering and torture of these just innocent
beings, really. So if you don't need to sponsor
that, then why would you? Yeah. When it goes
back to the slavery thing we talked about earlier,
you know, a handful of assholes, again, want
to control all the food, all the farms, all the
seeds, all the, you know, whatever it is. So
even if, again, let's say you want a little meat.
Well, if you're supporting local holistically
run farms. where the animals are out doing their
thing and you know that particular farm um you
know is one that process animals but it's all
done in a humane way that's still so much better
than these factory farms or these men and women
wearing level two or level b hazmat suits spraying
the food that your kids are going to eat in about
two months time yeah well i don't i don't abide
to the fact that there's any uh humane way to
kill something that doesn't want to be killed
so the the humane thing is is off the table that
doesn't even exist um you know if if i shot you
in the head with a bolt gun would you say that's
humane i wouldn't have a chance i'd be dead because
you don't want to die these animals don't want
to die either but they don't get given a choice
and look i'm i'm all for um Less is better than
nothing. So if you feel the need that you've
got to do that, then by all means, do it incrementally
like I did or whatever you need to make yourself
feel like you're healthy and strong and all that
sort of stuff. But myself and so many of my friends
have proven that it's not necessary. jacked bodybuilder
friends. I've got elite athletes that do Ironman,
just incredible people. Morgan Mitchell, the
Australian Olympic runner. It's been proven that
you can do it. There's so many resources on the
internet for you to get the information from
in regards to getting all of your nutrients.
People always seem to fall back on this. Oh,
yeah, but you've got a supplement B12. Well,
all of the... the meat that you're eating is
actually supplemented with B12 because the animals
aren't getting it. So they have to be fed the
B12. So you're getting it secondhand from an
animal anyway. So that's not a great argument
there. And if you're eating a good variety of
foods, you're going to get all of the nutrients
that you need anyway. And obviously not everyone's
the same. Some people have had a horrific. experiences
on the plant -based diet. Whether that's because
of their genetic makeup or whatever, I don't
know. I'm no food scientist. All I can say is
it works for me. It makes me feel good in my
soul that nothing is directly dying for me to
survive. If I can do it, then I'm just going
to continue that way. Yeah, well, I think and
that's exactly it. So, you know, I think definitely
not allowing the propaganda to push you away
from that philosophy. And then, you know, try
it. And like I said, I can attest, just try it
for two weeks and see how your guts feel, see
how your guts act. I think that's huge. If you,
you know, are starting to find some detriment,
then again, as you said, make sure your nutrient
profile is where it needs to be. But I think
that nutrition is a very strange thing because
ultimately it's down to the person. It's like
religion. It doesn't affect anyone else as long
as you're not being an asshole with it. So, you
know, it doesn't matter what anyone else does.
Just try it yourself. But I do hate that negative
propaganda that's around plant -based because…
Like I said, I think it was one of the healthiest
few months of my life and it's something that
I'm kind of pushing myself back towards. Yeah,
I've got a lot of friends that won't even refer
to themselves as vegans because they're sick
of these militant vegans forcing it down people's
throats. My friend Simon Hill actually who runs
a podcast called Plant Proof and he's on Instagram
as well. He's a really intelligent guy, has a
lot of… very intellectual plant -based people
on his podcast and always has a lot of science
to back what he states and a lot of great articles
on his Instagram. So if anyone's looking into
it and worried about nutrient profiles, I would
definitely jump on to Simon's Plant Proof Podcast
and jump on his Instagram. You'll learn a lot
there. There's also, what's it called? Nutritionfacts
.com. There's a podcast. There's a website. It
talks about the dirty dozen, the fruits and vegetables
that have the most pesticides on them, which
ones you should get organic for. There is just
a wealth of knowledge on the internet for anyone
that's curious about it, that wants to give it
a go. If you're curious about it, just do it
for a month. Just try it out. See how you go.
Make sure you do it right or do it like I did
and do it incrementally so that you're not...
all or nothing and it freaks you out and your
body feels shit because you know you've been
piling all of this garbage into your system for
so many years sometimes it's going to take a
little while for your body to uh process all
of the goodness you're going to get from the
fruit and veggies and grains and nuts absolutely
i had dr gregor on the show actually that that
does the nutrition .org and then um uh rip esselstein
who's a firefighter and son of uh you know famous
uh plant based scientists and you know i think
another area that people don't realize in my
opinion is the healing power the disease reversal
power of a plant -based diet as well yeah absolutely
yeah um yeah rips rips a great sort of resource
of information as well i've spoken at his events
and um forks over knives a really great resource
as well. There's just, there's so many now. And
there's, you know, you talked about, you know,
you're getting all these processed foods out
of your system, but obviously there's plenty
of processed plant -based foods as well. So it's
not like you're going to go without. I love the
Beyond Meat burgers. I don't have them all the
time, but they are pretty dang tasty. They are.
We use them all the time. It has vegan ice cream
and you really don't have to go without. But
if you can make sure you're eating predominantly
plant -based, then I really do think people will
notice a positive difference in their health
and well -being. Absolutely. Well, Paul, I want
to transition to some closing questions so I
can let you go because I know we've gone over
time. The first one I love to ask is there –
actually, I'm sorry. Before I ask you this question,
so let's talk about your books. I was going to
ask you about another book. So you have No Time
for Fear. And then last year you released Tough
AF. I'm assuming that's as fuck. So you're about
to release another one. So tell me about that
and then when it's coming out. Yeah, so the No
Time for Fear was released in Australia under
Penguin. But that came out in 2012. So obviously
I have these eight years of... having worked
with Discovery Channel all the years after leaving
the military that wasn't updated and Penguin
didn't want to do a follow -up. And so in America,
where I live now, and a lot of my followers are
from, they couldn't get the book out here. And
so I thought, well, I'll just redo it. I rewrote
it with a very good friend of mine, Geraint Jones,
who runs the Veteran State of Mind podcast. He's
got a bunch of his own books. If you love historical
fiction like the Romans fighting the Gauls, he's
got three, nearly four books on that, really
good reads. So he helped me rewrite the whole
story and then add all of the exciting stuff
from Shark Week because 90 % of the stuff that
happens on these shoots. don't even make it into
the show. There's so much behind the scenes stuff
that we're doing, catching crocodiles, people
nearly dying, what it was really like to parachute
into the ocean for 44 hours with no food or water
surrounded by sharks. The first time I dove with
four great white sharks at 110 feet with no cage,
like all of these cool stories. So I just felt
that. it would be best to rewrite it and re -release
it so we've done that it's going through final
editing now and it should be out around my birthday
at the end of march beautiful is it the same
title no time for fear no this one's going to
be called uncaged uncaged beautiful all right
the tough af book was just was um an ebook i
released last year and that was to give people
an idea of what it's like to go through physical
training, getting into the army during the army,
getting into the clearance divers through the
selection process, what PT we did to keep ourselves
fit. So it's a really good resource for anyone
that's thinking of joining the military or maybe
is already in the military and wants to up their
game or for anyone that just wants to give it
a go. And I started it out. So it's very simple.
It's easy for anyone at any fitness level to
do and then ramped it right up to clearance diver
training. beautiful well thank you so the first
question i have for you is there a book someone
else has written that you love to recommend it
can be related to what we've discussed or something
completely different um yeah there's oh man there's
so many um my my good friend john joseph uh lead
singer of the punk rock band the crow mags he's
50 55 i think still doing iron man's fully plant
-based he's got a series of books um the first
one's called uh definition of a crow mag his
second one is meat is for pussies um the third
one is the pma effect the positive mental attitude
and he's got another one coming out soon but
i don't know the title but the best thing i love
about reading john's book is he's a loud unapologetic
gruff speaking new yorkan and so if you can jump
on his instagram and see his videos and listen
to his voice then you can read the books in his
voice and it just makes it way more entertaining.
And they're just like, the gloves are off in
everything that he writes. So I love his brutal
honesty in those. But like I said, Geraint Jones,
his historical fiction books about the Roman
Empire, fighting the Gauls, really, really interesting,
totally brutal. He also has his own book about,
because he's a veteran, a UK veteran from Wales.
He served in Iraq. He served in Afghanistan.
He's got a book called, I think it's Brothers
in Arms, but it's the most honest book I've ever
read about being a soldier. From what you do
when it's boring, which soldiers will know what
I'm talking about, on deployment, to losing mates,
to being in gun battles, to the hypocrisy of
the military, and then what comes after when
you get separated with the depression, with the
drugs, with the credit card debt, all that sort
of stuff. It's a really all -in -one packaged
book. Beautiful. Sounds amazing. I'll have to
get a copy of that myself. All right. Well, then
same question, but a movie and or documentary.
Oh, well, man, my favorite movie of all time
is True Romance, which is one, I think, Quentin
Tarantino's first movie. Love that movie. It's
so good. It's got so many superstars in it before
they were superstars. from Brad Pitt to Christopher
Walken to Michael Rappaport, Christian Slater,
Patricia Arquette, amazing movie. And what was
the other one? Documentary. Documentary, that
David Attenborough one. I think it's A Life on
Planet Earth. I think so, yeah. Yeah, that was
an amazing documentary. The footage of him as
a young man being a naturalist and everything
he saw from when he was young to what it is now
and the detriment we've had on the planet and
how we really need to band together to take it
back and regrow this beautiful planet, you know,
our home. We've only got one, so why destroy
it? Absolutely. Well, he's someone I'd love to
get as a guest one day. Obviously, he's a pretty
tough person to get on. But my question is, is
there anyone you'd recommend to come on this
podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders,
military and associated professions of the world?
Wow. I got so many mates that are really interesting,
but Geraint, definitely one of them. He's like
John. He's unapologetically honest. I've been
on his podcast a couple of times. We have a really
good time. Oh, man. I did one very recently with,
oh, I can't remember her name, but the podcast
was called Brass and Unity. And it was a U .S.
She's Canadian, but she served. I think in Iraq
or Afghanistan and a lot of stuff happened to
her. She got PTSD. It was a lot of breakdowns,
but she's just a very good conversationalist
and interviewer. And I had a really good time
and she brought a lot of stuff out of me that
I hadn't really spoken about in a long time.
And so, yeah, check out the Brass and Unity podcast.
I can't remember for the life of me her name,
but she's a really lovely person and has been
through a lot. Beautiful. Thank you. All right.
Well, then the last question before we make sure
everyone knows how to find you online, what do
you do to decompress these days? I go to the
gym. Gym? Yeah, I go to the gym. I hang out with
my dog. There's nothing like the love for my
dog. It's unconditional. So yeah, going to the
gym is my therapy. I get a lot of people that
say, hey, I'm coming to LA. Let's work out sometime.
And I'm like, nope. Sorry, that's poll time.
That's my therapy where I get angry and I get
worked up. And it's just very simple. I get in
my head, I listen to my music and that's poll
time. So yeah, no one get upset if I say, no,
I'm not going to work out with you. That's because
it's therapy for me. Well, you mentioned before
we started recording that you bought a lot of
stuff for your apartment so you could work out
even if Gold's Gym is shut down. What's your
favorite piece of home gym equipment? Well, I've
got... A rower, I've got a treadmill, I've got
adjustable dumbbells, I've got weighted vests,
but my favorite one that I just got is the upright
rower. They call it a ski erg. I love it because
it's simple. I live in a pretty small apartment,
so I've got to fold down the treadmill, I've
got to put on my running blade, or I've got to
fold out the rower. But with the ski erg, all
I do is put on one of my weightlifting arms with
a special attachment, and I just... pull the
crap out of that thing and it works my abs it
works my lats it works my triceps it works my
shoulders and you know within two miles i feel
all pumped up and jacked and alive so i really
like that beautiful all right well then if people
want to find your books if they want to find
out more about you online reach out to you on
social media where are the best places um amazon's
got the tough as fuck ebook um The new one, Uncaged,
will be on Amazon, but it won't be out until
the end of March. Anywhere on social media, whatever
you like, is just my name, Paul DeGelder. I'm
mostly on Instagram because I feel like Facebook
is people basically always airing their dirty
laundry. Instagram, if you accept it for what
it is, is extremely motivating. People get wrapped
up in the thing that it's, oh, it's just people
posing and showing their best photos of their
life. And there's nothing wrong with that. That
can be inspiring for you. I get a lot of my new
workouts from there. I get inspired by fit people
that might have some really good biceps that
I want to get. I'm like, okay, I'm going to do
their workout. And you can change it. It's always
interesting. It's always evolving into something
else. So, yeah, social media doesn't have to
be a bad thing as much as people hate on it.
yeah no i agree and i have mine you know i think
of mine as a community you know people call to
call it followers or whatever but i think that's
bullshit it's a community of people so if you
groom it that way and you get rid of the turds
you end up with this very positive group of men
and women and you share positive posts and they
see them interacting and yeah i don't see what
people talk about so you're in control of your
audience Absolutely. And people, especially over
the last year, everyone's going through some
pretty tough times and everyone goes through
shit. So I find it rewarding just to put out
some positive messages. I stay away from politics
and religion and I try to make my platform just
like it's fun. It's funny. It's motivational.
It's exciting. I put on some of the Shark Week
crazy shit that I do. And it's just fun for me.
I don't really get too wrapped up around the
axles about it. Absolutely. Well, Paul, I just
want to say thank you so much again. I know it's
evening time and you've had a busy day, so I
truly do appreciate you being so generous with
your time and lending your story to us today.
My pleasure, James.