Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As
always, my name is James Geering, and this week
it is my absolute honor to welcome back onto
the show SAS veteran, registered psychologist,
and human performance consultant, Harry Moffitt.
Now, if you didn't hear my first conversation
with Harry, it was episode 465, and he discussed
a host of topics, including his first book, 11
Bats. In this second conversation, we really
take a deep dive into mental health, leadership,
stoicism, and so many other areas, including
his new book, The Fourth Pillar. Now, before
we get to this incredible conversation, as I
say every week, please just take a moment, go
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Every single five -star rating truly does elevate
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every single person on planet Earth who needs
to hear them. So with that being said... I welcome
back onto the show, Harry Moffat. Enjoy. Well,
Harry, I want to start by saying thank you so
much for taking the time on your morning, my
evening, as we return to another discussion on
the Behind the Shield podcast today. No worries.
Thanks for having us, James. Good to see you
again, mate. So very first question people can
tell from the time difference, where on planet
Earth are we finding you today? So I'm in sunny
Melbourne, which is the southern southeast, most
southern southeastern. uh major city in australia
soon to be the biggest biggest city in australia
i believe but uh springs upon us we're just about
out of the winter dross and uh so morale is high
beautiful so the last time that we spoke was
roughly may april of 2021 so i would love to
dive into some kind of takeaways from that period
you know as well but before we do talk to me
about overall you know you've transitioned out
of the special forces um profession you know
what have the last few years been like for you
yeah i left uh i left full -time service in 2019
and then uh qualified as a psychologist and bang
into into the covid period which was you know
from my perspective was fascinating um to kind
of really learn my craft the street craft of
psychology um But, yeah, the transition's been
good. There's lots to learn and new ways of thinking
and being in the world that are different from
the military career that I had, nearly 25 years
or 30 years in the Defence Force. But, yeah,
I'm really enjoying it, mate. I feel civilianised
now. four or five years since we spoke and five
or six years since I left. But I think that's
part of the thing. You know, when you leave a
Defence Force, you've got an – or if you leave
anything like the Defence Force, your old profession
too in fire and rescue and other kind of mission
-critical teams, you've got a choice about how
you approach it and you've got to – you know,
you can either choose to be – to kind of – to
have a mindset of having lost something or lost
purpose or you can go looking for a new one or
transforming. And I took on an apprentice's mindset,
if you like, and I particularly love that word,
but my attitude was more one of an apprentice
and I was starting again. re -civilianizing as
I say and as a psychologist I've had to learn
my craft and COVID that period and since has
been that's the kind of attitude I've had and
I really only feel now in 2025 this year fully
confident and confident in my competence as a
psychologist. I feel like I belong here and am
good at what I do and you know the last number
of years I've just been learning about different
types of humans, I suppose. And it's been exciting
and challenging. One of the things that I like
to do for guests that came on either prior or
very, very close to the pandemic is just revisit
that time and then look at the ripple effect
as well. And the reason being, regardless of
what people thought about the decisions at the
time, there is no question, unless it was different
in Australia, certainly here in the US, that
once it was kind of concluded, there was no evaluation
period. There was no, well, what do we do well?
What do we do poorly? You know, what are the
ripple effects? And I think that's a shame because
there's so many lessons that we could learn to
be prepared for the next whatever that thing
is. When you reflect back now, especially with
this new psychology lens that you have, you know,
what were the ripple effects that you've seen
in Australia? And, you know, what are some of
the lessons that we need to learn from that period
so that we don't repeat any mistakes if they
were made? Yeah, it's true, isn't it? We haven't
really stopped and done a full AAR or an after
action review, if you like. Although I think
a lot of institutions and businesses have learned
some pretty important lessons from that. My personal
reflection on the COVID period was I found it
fascinating. I had a license to be out on the
street. And I guess for context, for your listeners,
Melbourne was about the most locked down city
in the world. And we had some of the harshest
lockdown rules, if you like, and policies. I
think we did, you know, 200 plus days of five
kilometre lockdowns, which mean you couldn't
leave the house and you couldn't. leave a five
kilometre area. That was the rules. And people
started to get fed up with that in the end. And
I wouldn't say, you know, rebelled en masse,
but I think, you know, a lot of people left Melbourne
to other states or to the regions. So it was
a real issue here for us. But I think the lessons...
Personally, I, as I said, found it fascinating.
I was able to work with people. I watched people
in the clients and extra clients that I took
on. I was able to leave my house as a critical
service and I was able to travel to see people
and walk with people and meet with people. And
certainly mental health declined dramatically.
There's no doubt about that. And I think we all
know that. But as a society, I think the big
lesson we need to learn is how we look after
our younger. population. And those critical years
still feels like that generation of children
and adolescents in particular were really dramatically
impacted. That will take a little while for it
to play out and see just how much damage, a bit
dramatic in the language, but how much that's
impacted the... The children, the COVID children
and the COVID adolescents, the teenagers of that
time. When I think about it, if you go back to
the depression period, it might be something
that's within the scope of our understanding
that probably bred more stoic individuals, people
who were able to... make do with meagre means
and get on with life and adapt, and certainly
we did during COVID, it'll be interesting to
see what the long -term effects, you know, analogous
effects are of COVID. And I think it will be
an element of potentially... higher anxiety or
or it'll just be interesting to understand how
that uh you know at a granular level is impacted
but that's that's what i'd say businesses and
institutions i think have learned some harsh
lessons i'm in a hedge fund at the moment and
um at this end of town a lot of businesses were
exposed uh online uh through their technology
and their their uh how Well, their IP and information
was guarded online. I think that's a massive
lesson. Lots of money was skimmed off big businesses
while they all returned home and worked from
home and exposed their internal systems to the
world. But, yeah, I think there's been a huge
kind of broad appreciation of the impact of COVID.
It's interesting you use the word stoicism because
one of the things that comes up a lot is how
the greatest generation are World War II veterans.
When they returned home from war, they just rolled
up their sleeves. And then stoicism, I think,
is wrongly applied to someone who kind of buries
it down and just gets on with it. And when you
hear, as I have on the show. hundreds and hundreds
and hundreds of stories of how grandpa, or in
some cases, dad was when they returned, there's
actually a lot of suffering. There's a lot of
people that weren't able to process it. And if
you think about as we progress through these
modern years now, if we still have World War
II veterans around, we're telling you, well,
don't say anything. You're the greatest generation.
You've already dealt with it. You just rolled
up your sleeves. And you look at, again, like
the kind of Hollywood role models that we have
when we were younger, the Schwarzeneggers and
the Stallones, it's the same thing, that kind
of faux stoicism. So what are your observations
between real stoicism and this kind of facade
of, you know, stoicism, this faux masculinity
that a lot of us were subjected to when we were
younger? Yeah, there's a real popular stoicism.
So firstly to, you know, the former generations.
When you were talking there, I was just thinking
it's funny at the moment I hear a lot about this
generation and maybe the COVID generation being
softer and needing to toughen up and I'm not
so sure that is how history will reflect on them.
They're a different generation, there's no doubt
about it. When the soldiers returned from World
War I, there was a sense that the fatherless
children were... They'd created a generation
of... So things like Outward Bound and Scouts
and returning children out into nature to toughen
them up because there was a sense that they were
a weaker generation. But they went off to World
War II and did a pretty bloody good job, the
18 -year -olds and 17 -year -olds. And we're
in danger of repeating that, I think. They are
a different generation. But, yeah, I think that's
where the Stoicism or the faux Stoicism, as you
say, the popular Stoicism can do a disservice.
If you dig deeper into the Stoics and, you know,
going right back to Zeno and Cato where the kind
of Stoic ideals come out of, it's not a simple
philosophy about just toughening up and weathering.
out the storm. That's not the point of Stoicism.
The point of Stoicism, you know, they were geologists,
they were natural philosophers, they were cosmologists,
they did mathematics, you know, a whole bunch
of things spawned at the same time. But we've
just resolved it down. And through Marcus Aurelius
and that Romantic period of Stoicism, we've really
reduced Stoicism down to this kind of one trick
pony, if you will. And that is challenging, because
if that's what people believe that they should
just... toughen up um that's not how life works
and if you really do dig into the stoics that's
not exactly what they were saying um yeah there's
some uh I think in terms of how we apply Stoicism
today, I think it's one aspect of a broad range
of philosophical thinking that we can apply to
living. And it frustrates me a little bit that
Stoicism is seen as the primary philosophy. It's
one of thousands of different philosophical positions.
And this is the point I make in my book is that,
you know, you are a philosopher, we philosophize.
It's actually an... an ability we all have to
wonder about the world, to wonder about ourselves,
to self -reflect, to be awed when you look into
the night sky. And as an ability or a capacity
that humans have, I believe that we can both
enhance that or we can let it squander and just
be a passive passenger in our own development.
I think stoicism, to summarise that, stoicism
is much, much more than just controlling what
you can control and ignoring what you can't.
And that's not what they said. You don't ignore
what you can't control. You're very interested
in that. But we've got to remember that stoicism
as it is today is just one. um type of philosophy
the existentialist uh philosophy which i love
of uh of um of um you know the the 16th and 17th
and 18th century i think gives us you gives you
a different perspective about um what it means
to be in the world the phenomena of life and
existence uh and uh in the book i go to into
a little bit of depth and offer other philosophies
what is different about a lot of these periods
where deep thoughts seem to be revered in some
cases and what is happening today where one would
argue could possibly be the worst time when it
came to promoting individual thought and forging
community. Yeah, I think it seems, it appears
to us that around 500, 600... we'll say 300 to
600 BCE, before the Common Era, it appears to
us that societies were more open to the prophets,
the philosophers, the deep thinkers, the scientists
of then that period. But it's probably not the
case. These societies, the Greek society that
we kind of anchor around were... authoritarian
rule are states at war and i think that's an
important thing to think about too they're permanently
at war nation states are in defensive postures
so it generates a different way of thinking i
think but there are schools of thought that believe
that it was around this time you know a few thousand
years ago that humans started to, there was kind
of an awakening and that the voice in our heads,
the commentary in our heads wasn't God talking
to us or the gods controlling us from above.
what if this voice in our head is actually being
generated by us? And so that fluorescence of
thinking and contest of ideas and the status
quo that we see when we look back through history,
that we imagine, that period appears to be a
period where humans, as I said, kind of awakened.
As things evolved in the book, I made the not
unique or radical claim that As humans evolved
through the Romantic period, the Abrahamic religion
started to take control. And the last thing you
want as a religious body for people to do is
to think for themselves. You know, there's a
book here now that we do the thinking. Here's
the rules. You obey the thinking. And so for
the last couple of thousand years, it's arguable
that we've been in an obedience kind of – mindset,
if you like, as societies. And that has had some
really dramatic ramifications for people who
think for themselves, you know, Copernicus, Galileo,
I mean, Socrates going right back. We're all
burned at the stake or killed for their, executed
for their, or... you know, marginalised for the
heretical act of thinking for themselves. And
I think to some degree that remains today. It's
still one of the most courageous and radical
acts that you can show is to think for yourself
and have a different idea and push back against
the status quo. And we're seeing that play out
in real time. So I guess to answer the question,
you know, there's a historical... antecedent
for this and precedent um that it is difficult
difficult for individuals to to think for themselves
and um it's only small yeah if i think of people
radicals that do have thought for themselves
one of your countrymen if you like christopher
hitchens who was very courageous so he was a
bit of a showman and um did it for for uh for
uh you know good purposes, but also because he
enjoyed being that showman. But I think he's
one of the modern minds that I really appreciate
as someone who really thought for themselves,
was widely read, understood a lot about a whole
range of intellectual histories and intellectuals.
And I think he was someone who thought for himself.
And I've referred to him a couple of times in
the book. I have said this many, many times.
It seems like the lessons from a lot of the ancient
wisdom, whether it's obviously Greek and Roman
and some of these other ones, whether it's the
holy books of all these different religions,
the common denominator really seems to be don't
be a dick if you're really boiling it down. It's
the kindness, compassion, empathy, community,
and every single text can be taken the wrong
way. I mean, we're seeing at the moment in the
Middle East, for example. Um, but at the core,
if you look at the masses, you know, these are,
these are lessons learned. And I think that a
lot of humanity was trying to tell us, Hey, we
tried war and torture and it doesn't work. It's
not, no one's happy. You know, there's a few
people that are making a lot of money and are
very powerful, but the rest of us are suffering.
Why do you think now after millennia that we're
still seeing humans able to distort what I would
argue was very kind and compassionate text? Yeah,
I just don't think we learn our lessons, James.
It's a pretty simplistic thing to think about.
There's a condition, there's a human condition
that at the centre of it is fear. And maybe it's
a result that we're... We are scared little creatures
in the corner of a universe, scared of the dark
still and scared of people that we don't know.
So there's something in our condition as humans,
in the human condition and human nature that
lends itself to that. I mean, if you take on
Emile Durkheim's position that we are... trapped
in this enemy, this kind of almost a self -suicide
kind of dystopian view of the world. There's
elements of truth to that, I think. And that's
why we need kind of to self -soothe on self -help
and other things. It seems more problematic at
the moment because we seem to be atomizing or
to, you know, withdrawing from... collective
and community, which gives us great, which builds
resilience in not only us as individuals, but
as communities. You touched on it there. I think
that we have lost our focus, I suppose, on the
most important thing, I think, for all of us,
and that is to be a great citizen. foremost.
I'd almost put it before parenting, before doing
good in the world is to be a good community member
and a good citizen. And that's how we've been
as social animals for a long, long time. And
we just haven't reached this level of sophistication.
The answer is probably not a single point, but
I think the answer to why we still grapple with
war and fear and anger as human beings at the
center or the core of being a human being is
not because we have evolved to this. It's because
we're still evolving. We just haven't reached
that level of sophistication yet, and that's
okay. This isn't the end of humanity. built all
these wonderful things around us, which I would
argue are now bloody killing us as well. But
we are evolving. And there's no end state here.
There's no outcome. We seem focused on wanting
outcomes and answers and solutions. And the reality
from my perspective is they just don't exist.
We're kind of wandering through the world. There's
a spontaneous order that's limited and constrained
by its past, by the history, by its history.
And there is no future end state. We're just
adapting as things go. go and accidentally to
a large extent. In fact, I would argue accidentally
completely. If you look at the eye, for example,
it's evolved over a period without going into
it too deeply. The human eye has the fovea in
the back of it, which is the blind spot in every
eye where the nerves and cell leads. come in
through the back of the eye and and populate
the the the rear surface of the eye now If there
was someone controlling the design of the eye
or if there was some higher order controlling
the design of the eye, if an engineer was designing
an eye, they would not put a blind spot or a
favour in the back of the eye. They would have
complete 360 degree vision. And so it just makes
my point that over evolution, it just does the
best with what it has in front of it now. And
we have imperfections. built into us that remain
that we probably won't be able to evolve out
for a very long time. So I think just understanding
that, and this is kind of one of the aspects
of stoicism and other philosophies, is that it's
all kind of accidental. We're just bumping around
in the dark, making this up on the run, and that's
what's baked into the system. So we're always
going to be not only as individuals a work in
progress and accidentally bumping along through
life, as a species we're the same. I just hope
that we can realise the woes of our ways quick
enough. There are future generations to populate
the earth. It's funny, first you talk about the
eye. My wife just came out of optometry school,
doctoral optometry. So I've been acutely aware
of the eye for five years because she keeps showing
me all the study materials and everything. Yeah,
it's the go -to example of evolution. It's a
great example. Absolutely. Speaking of evolution,
it's a good segue. Excuse me. I just watched
a show called Any Last Words. And it is a film
writer, actually a script writer, who interviews
people at the end of their life cycle, whether
they're, I don't know if he's only the terminally
ill, but this one was Jane Goodall. And so they
did the recording, just the two of them in the
studio, did not release it until she passed away.
And then they just released it on Netflix. She
was talking about chimpanzees having this innate
aggression when it came to other chimps. Again,
they didn't recognize them. And this kind of
ties in with what you're saying and something
I believe in. I think the evolution of man is
kindness, compassion, community. The community
has been there tribally, but if you look at how
horrendous some of the chapters were millennia
ago. Humans could be incredibly cruel, incredibly
brutal. And even though that's still happening
in some pockets of the world, I would argue that
a lot of us are evolving. So to me, if we want
to continue evolving as a species, then the wars
and the nastiness and the division is regressing
as a human species. And it's actually kindness,
compassion, empathy, in my opinion, that is the
evolution of man. Yeah, Steven Pinker would probably
argue that we're getting better, that we are
evolving in the right direction and that there's
less poverty and less depravity and more freedom
and more recreational time. And I kind of agree
with that to a point, but I don't think it's
that way for everyone. Without getting kind of
too deep into it, we're probably... that were
probably too many of us for a start and on the
planet and also driven by um uh you know driven
by deeper urges that now manifest in in money
and power and those types of things that they're
not going away but it is hard and i guess in
the book this is what i'm asking everyone to
do it seems to me humans are kind of speeding
up i'm not sure it's the world's getting more
complex it's arguable i'm still kind of the jury's
out for me on that but what i think we're doing
is just living life faster. And the analogy I
use, you'll do this, James, you read books at
1 .5 now, you know, you don't read them and thumb
through them as much as you should. It's remiss.
I think it's actually now a radical elite practice
reading a book from cover to cover. But, you
know, if you think about, you listen to books
on 1 .5 and that seems to me the perfect metaphor
for how the next generation is coming through.
The young men and women that I work with daily
in sports, Mr. Critical Teams and business, they're
just in so much of a hurry. They want everything
yesterday and meetings, you know, they want to
find more productivity in their meetings and
shorter times to do this. productivity gains
forever. It seems remiss. Where I see it play
out the most is in parenting. If I have a chat
with a 30, 35 -year -old man, for example, a
young man up and coming in the world, and he's
got a couple of kids, it's not long before the
conversation bypasses prioritization and work
and meetings and performance and all the rest
of it back to family. And they seem intent on
having a holiday Olympics every weekend, you
know, jamming everything in. And I said, what's
wrong with just going home and switch your phone
off and just go and hanging out down the oval,
you know, or down the park or something and just
bloody slow down. And I think that's part of
the issue here is that we're all on this 1 .5x
listening. to books and living our lives. And
the ultimate message in The Fourth Pillar is
to slow down and take note. Jane Goodall was
probably a great exponent of that. She actually
stepped out of society, went and lived with the
apes. A bit strange. I'm not sure that I'd be
up for it. I like my Guinness way too much. But
I've got so much respect for her. And I think
it would be negligent of anyone to not listen
to such a beautiful thinker beautiful mind you
know and she was the the the best a great example
of the best a human can be i think people like
jane goodall have always respected um you know
the elders it really it really behoves us all
to to listen to those people and and and uh and
i think the message would be if i haven't seen
that interview would be you know enjoy this great
gift that we have it's funny because she literally
talks about being in an airport and watching
two birds like basically flirting with each other
doing kind of a mating routine and people are
walking by on their phones and they're missing
this kind of you know nature um moment as it
were and and she at the same time you know travels
the world because she's such a passionate conservationist
that she's also subject to this busyness as well
so i'm sure she probably fought to find balance
commodity uh by stealth and um and i think that's
a great point you are missing the rest of life
and what humans are supposed to but so raise
your eyes get off your phone and and notice these
types of things because i think your ability
to wonder and be in the world and experience
the world is is impoverished if you don't tend
to it all the time yeah 100 and i i have that
battle myself and Sadly, it's because social
media is what I use to disseminate the podcast
and some of the ideas, but it is at 51 years
old. We've had a childhood with zero phones.
It's still so, so pervasive. And if you allow
yourself to go down that line, that monkey mind
just starts amplifying. So I can't imagine being
a child that was raised on that. It kills me.
But you see these kids, you know, the strollers
have devices strapped to them and these children
are barely a year old. And that's been your norm
the whole time. And as you said, now you've got
that 1 .5 mentality. You know, what is the ability
to just sit quietly under a tree now? So it's
hard enough for our generation that have been
exposed to technology. But a kid that's only
ever known screens, how hard is it to get them
to simply sit and watch two birds playing? Yeah,
impossible. And I fear the ramifications down
the track. Well, one more kind of lateral question
before we dive into the book a little deeper.
Something that's really kind of made me go, question
things a little bit recently, is trying to get
your head around some of the... the most toxic,
divisive people that we see presented in front
of us. So for example, in America, I make this
comment many, many times, there's 340 million
of us, and yet you hear the lesser of two evils
every time we're down to the last two. You look
at the CEOs of cigarette companies and fast food
companies and drug companies and weapons manufacturers
who sleep soundly in their beds, knowing that
their products are killing hundreds of thousands,
if not millions of people around the globe. And
it made me realize that I'm sure the last time
you and I spoke when we were talking about mental
health, we were looking at the soldier, the firefighter,
but we never talk about the CEO, the presidential
candidate. In this interesting kind of journey
that you've been in, you know, through the military
and then obviously beyond now to this corporate
space and the sporting space, what are your observations
on the element of sociopathy in some of these
key roles? Does that need to be a conversation
about the ability to actually do your job if
you have lost your ethical spectrum as a president,
as a CEO of a company that's producing something
that's actually detrimental to the nation? Yeah,
I'd love to see ethics and aesthetics. They go
hand in hand under kind of an axiological. way
of thinking or philosophical kind of school or
branch. I don't think it's really taught in management
schools. I think management schools are about
productivity, profit outcomes, control, predictability,
those types of things. And that's okay to an
extent, but to be able to see the broader picture.
I don't think that our CEOs and commanders and
other people are being well -serviced. We've
got this managerialistic view on the world. It's
highly competitive -ized, if there's such a word.
We make it about competition. We don't make it
about getting along with the next people. You're
not going to turn that ship around anytime soon.
the detrimental side of, you know, the military
industrial complex, the pharmacological industrial
complex, all of these different, that are driven
by profit and productivity and competitiveness.
I don't think that's going anywhere soon. But
I do see and have seen the real fallout for CEOs.
You know, I spend more time than you probably
think with 65 -year -old men in particular who
are struggling with what's it been for, a real
question. And because it takes an enormous feat
of an enormous amount of energy and emotional
energy, and I would put a kind of spiritual kind
of energy, spirit, to maintain the delusion that
what you're doing is meaningful to the world
and productive. productive in a collaboratively
community sense, it takes an enormous amount
of effort to maintain that delusion and also
to surround yourself with people that can help
you do that. And this is real. People will roll
their eyes and say, oh, he's gone lefto pinko
or whatever. That's just not the case at all.
But there's a reality to this. And those men
who you sit with, they're unsure. You can see
the facade that they've put up. I spoke about
this recently. There's kind of a facade. This
is the way I think of it, a facade that we all
have. We have a persona out in front, whether
that's Harry Moffat, the author or the psychologist
or the human performance or whatever facade that
I build to project into the world for whatever
means I need that to be for. self -promotion
for the book or reputation to get more work in
a business sense. But for some of these men that
I sit with, and again, I use men deliberately,
the rest of their life behind that facade is
atrophied. The relationships they had with their
high school or university friends, they're real.
Those relationships are really, for all of us,
are very strong and we should foster those. As
we grow, their connection to their family and
their kids is not as, you know, it's not flourishing
as much as it could or it should. Connection
to grandchildren, you know, surrounded by great
wealth, but not necessarily surrounded by those
meaningful. uh community connections and in a
lot of cases family connections as well and i
really feel for them you know it's easy to go
dismiss them and say well you know they're fat
rich and greedy and they should bugger off and
they've had their show but i kind of feel for
them and it's i i i think that's it has potential
to be getting worse not not better um so you
know i i think there's a real case for uh And
I think I feel like I provide that a lot in my
role now. It's kind of a guidance to say, hey,
sure, be healthy, be fit to sustain yourself,
to enjoy life and have a great, but what about
your view of the world and your connection to
your community and how are we doing, how are
we going to keep that alive while you're progressing
through business, et cetera? The other kind of,
just quickly zooming out from that, the macro,
you know, businesses too this is where corporates
i don't think can have an ideal culture in fact
what is culture i'm not even sure still what
that is but there's a contest you know for for
people to be at their best for businesses to
be at their best for a business to have a central
feel good vibe about it which all bosses and
leaders want We need transparency and truth and
a relationship built on honesty. But in the business
world, profit and progress and competition necessarily
by its business model is not true, truthful,
honest. It's deceptive, obscures facts and has
to play the pee and thimble trick on the side
of the alley. to maintain a competitive advantage.
So, you know, they're in contest and we don't
talk about those things and what the impacts
are and I think we should be, especially with
our generations coming through. Absolutely. I
think one of the things that's parallel, whether
you're, you know, you have things that happen
when you were younger and it's created some sort
of... void in your soul. And so you feel driven
to put a uniform on, which is an honorable thing.
And hopefully along the way, you start to see
these struggles and you deal with them. Then
that becomes a strength and you're a better soldier
or a better firefighter. And I think it's the
same with business. There's a lot of people,
their void is power and money. And it really
does. show so brightly in some of the the biggest
figures that we see you know like here at the
moment the the commander -in -chief i mean it's
clearly there's some unaddressed childhood trauma
going on there and it's a shame because you could
take that broken child it could be an incredibly
warm caring human being that maybe was also a
good leader but i can see how some of these people
now that you interact with the same as the soldier
that's transitioned out and hasn't addressed
the the thing beneath the thing as they say that
no matter how much money, no matter how much
power, no matter how many franchises, I guarantee,
I'm making an assumption now, that there's an
essence of it was never enough to fill that void.
Yeah, and it goes back to what we were talking
about earlier, this being scared little creatures
in the corner of the universe, afraid of the
dark, afraid of each other, and I think that
stands. That's where humans are in our evolution,
and you're not fixing that anytime soon. That
goes for all of us. It doesn't matter whether
you're Commander -in -Chief or meager little
Harry Moffat in Melbourne. So going to the book,
the last time you spoke, you wrote an incredible
book about war and cricket. So what made you
dive into the world of stoicism and then talk
to me about the four pillars? Yeah, I've always
been interested. I was fortunate enough in my
life. I was surrounded by books, my father. was
a I would say you know an intellect he was a
sailor in the navy but he was a deep thinker
read a lot you know I had some beautiful books
around me too you know I think when you're a
kid and you've got nice beautiful books like
an old Shakespearean I remember I never read
this book but I used to flick through it and
just fumble it and it was beautiful the old Encyclopedia
Britannica with their gold edges and the leather
kind of, yeah, it was always a secondhand set
or borrowed from a car sale or bought from a
car sale, boot sale. But I was very fortunate.
So I'd thumb through those books. I love books.
And I think books have lost their way. I talk
at nauseam about them in the book. So I was very
fortunate. And I remember seeing early images
of, you know, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle and
these things capturing my mind, old men with
beards, bald old men with beards. And some of
the ideas as I came through my teenage years.
And as I said, I've never read complete William
Shakespeare, but I've got lots of books who people
who pick through The Tempest and Macbeth and
all those types of things. So I had a fascination.
with that level, I suppose, of thinking. But
it wasn't until, I guess, until I got through
my teenage years and joined the military that
I reinvigorated my love of philosophy and psychology,
which is the... the grandchild almost of philosophy
comes in partnership with that. And when I started
studying, I wanted to do philosophy. I did some
minors in philosophy, but you were never going
to make much money out of being a philosopher,
particularly out in the business world, which
is where I had an eye to practice, and that was
pretty early. So psychology was it, and it's
a great way to marry. philosophy. As I said,
up until a couple of hundred years ago, there
was no such thing as psychology. There was no
such thing as science. It was all called natural
philosophy. And the great philosophers up until
a couple of few hundred years ago dipped their
toe in everything from history to philosophy,
to medicine, to cosmology, the whole nine yards.
It wasn't until then that we had sciences breaking
up in two. Or these different areas breaking
up into sciences. So, you know, that was it for
me. And I guess this book's been kind of burning
away inside me. In fact, the real book's still
burning away, like we all have one burning away.
And you know that better than most, James. This
is kind of my first third of steps into... an
area that I'm passionate about, which is kind
of human performance, whatever that is, that's
still emerging. It's in its absolute infancy
at the moment. And I think that... There's a
part that's always been missing for me in high
performance and human performance since I set
up a program for our special forces here in Australia.
Most high performance or human performance programs
are based around the three pillars, which is
the physical, psychological and social pillars.
And any performance program or management. kind
of framework will borrow and lean heavily into
those three aspects and it's it's really out
of the biopsychosocial model of disease but that
has evolved over time and And so for me, when
I was looking into the world back in, you know,
midway through my service with the regiment,
when I was looking to the world and interested
in how we prepare and maintain our operators,
I saw these models, but I always had a sense
there was something missing. Because when you
think about it, all human performance and high
performance programming, which is where... human
tech interfaces that is most interesting, as
far as I'm concerned. If you think about Formula
One racing, the human tech interface, or you
think about soccer or football, you know, football,
there is no tech out in the field, really. It's
kind of monitoring from afar, but the human still
dominates the tech there. And these are why I'm
fascinated by these domains. But it's all about
outcomes. It's all about performance. It's all
about the part of the human. not the whole human.
And so NFL is one of the great examples. They
treat their operators like a bunch of racehorses
and they train them to with an nth of their life
around one thing. If you're a forward in NFL
or defensive, what are the front rowers called
in NFL? The lineman, your job is simply be fast
over five meters and push a guy around, you know,
but we tend not to look at any other part than
that. And what I'm most calling for with the
fourth pillar, which is the philosophical pillar,
is for us to zoom out and appreciate the whole
of the human and not just the part that we're
interested in for profit. or winning, as is the
case in athletics. And a guy by the name of Percy
Serity, I could talk all day about him, but I'll
keep it very brief, who is well -known in the
US in a kind of sub -cultural kind of way. He's
the greatest coach of all time. There I said
it. He raised a stable of amazing athletes, world
champions, Olympic champions, all from a tin
shack on the southern beaches of Victoria here
in Australia by himself, without high -performance
programs, without big gyms, without mental skills
training and all the rest of it. He just had
a philosophy that encompassed all of this. And
his position, to summarise it, was that... Yes,
he can create good physical, mental and social
creatures for performance and win gold medals,
which he did dozens of times. But he wanted to
create the whole human. And at the core of his
performance program, if you will, framework,
was a philosophical grounding. And one of the
greatest runners of all time, Herb Elliott, said
you didn't go to Percy to be trained to become...
someone who can run laps really fast you went
there for a life's education and uh and that's
that's what i would like to see our i think it's
an obligation for our high performance and human
performance systems to to do that so if you could
kind of sum it up as far as the principles and
philosophies for that in for example the fire
service what is missing and what will be brought
into that conversation Well, there's a lot missing.
I think it depends on the first part is what
is the framework now? Most human performance
frameworks in the mission critical team area
are inadequate, not because anyone's not good
at organizing. It's just that we haven't kind
of evolved that far to resource. how we treat
humans and grow humans enough yet or giving it
enough priority. You know, the fire service is
in the business of creating... firefighting human
platforms. That's kind of it. And it's the same
in the military. We need military warfighting
platforms. And that's kind of where we're at
at the moment. And I guess, so what's missing
and what do we add in? That's the case. That's
the discussion I want to start. I've attempted
to start in the book because there's no great
solutions out there. And there's certainly not
a sympathetic ear, particularly in the money
managing department. the bean counters to put
more money into your local, James, your local
fire brigade or fire stations, how we manage
humans in that sense. And that's why I've deliberately
picked the high performance. areas of of life
and in in in the mission critical team world
it's probably the special operations world where
they put a lot of money and effort into training
maintaining and sustaining their operators they've
got the time the wherewithal and the resources
to do that because the nature of war fighting
is you go away to fight wars and then you come
home and recover and you've got lots of time
around the gym and athletic environments where
they have all the time in the world to spend
crafting humans. So the book really is, hey,
this is where we're at, this three -pillar focus,
biopsychosocial kind of focus. It's overly and
in an unbalanced way focused on outcomes, progress,
profit, winning. and that's cool i'm not saying
we shouldn't want to win because i love my sports
as well but and certainly in war we want to that's
we want to win but have have we gone too far
and what's how do we rebalance this so that humans
during their careers from the start of their
careers are well connected to the world well
connected to their communities outside of what
they do for a living and so that that part of
their life doesn't atrophy at the cost of win
at all costs if you like um i i sit with athletes
and it doesn't take long before the discussion
comes to i'm i'm just a cog in this machine that's
a that's i find That's really quite sad, you
know, that if we have them thinking about themselves
in that way, it's very mechanistic. And I think
there's just a deeper level to untap here and
goes to transitioning at the end of life and
goes to the way you think of yourself and how
you view the world. It's interesting because
I've had that same conversation with a lot of
athletes and coaches here in the States. And
I don't know if it's the same in Australia, but
I know certainly when I was growing up in the
UK, unless you were that kind of golden child
football player that was being groomed in these
youth leagues and going to end up in Liverpool
or Manchester United, the rest of us would just
play in sports. But if you look at youth sports
here in America, They are squeezing such a high
level of performance out of high school and college
kids. And then they break. And then you have
this complete, you know, like nosedive where
now our 30 year olds have got all these stories
about how they were this high school athlete.
If it wasn't for the ACL, MCL, you know, whatever.
And now they're deconditioned and now they're
obese and now they're struggling with their identity.
And it is a huge disservice to the well, you
know, the well -being and the longevity of these
young athletes. And if you look at the fire service,
and I'm including Australia because I've seen
a lot of my friends post from Australia as far
as the struggles they've had, it's that same
misprioritization where, again, like you said,
disposable heroes. Well, there's someone in a
seat, so we're good, rather than how do we forge
longevity and performance in these people that
we asked to show up on our very, very worst day.
But what we have is, you know, if you see strength
and conditioning and nutritionists come to our
professions, it's a try not to die less conversation,
not a tier one watching performance conversation.
So just as a closing thing, because I know we're
going to be mindful of your time. How do we get,
let's just focus again on the fire service, police,
EMS. How do we get society to look at the way?
you know, the value of these professions and
invest in these people so they can perform at
the highest level, but also have a long and fruitful
career and then retirement? Yeah, well, I think
we're getting to that. So if I was to answer
the perf, the golden answer is that resourcing,
making time, prioritizing humans over hardware.
It seems when we want to buy a new kit and new,
let's look at, information management systems
that seem to change every three years and cost
a billion dollars to transfer and upgrade, et
cetera. prioritize that less and increased prioritization
on the human factor, we might have a few more
people through the door, be able to sustain them
and maintain them for longer and take the hurt
off the people who are doing all the work with
less resources, less time and less people for
a start. But that's not going to happen anytime
soon. You know, I think acting at a local level
is really important. You made a really good point
about athletes, and they're a good example, and
I think they are a good exemplar for the mission
-critical teams like the Fire and Rescue. They
go into a system at 14. These days it's even
younger, 12, and they're in that system for 10,
15 years, some of them, and they're chasing the
dream. They're moving around inside the system
at lower levels of performance. competition and
in the nfl like you know college football i'd
stay there or go and compete elsewhere but there
they keep the dream alive until i don't know
you know 25 30 years old or they have a career
-ending injury and percy serity would would fume
at that because his his philosophy was that we
spend so much time investing in that that athlete
That they, and not only, you know, not only these
days in their physical and mental capacities,
but their social capacity in the book. I make
the point that the social element or pillar has
been the fastest evolving recently. It was, you
know, 15 years ago, no one would have said, I
love you or care for you or spoke about mental
health in men's context anyway. But he would
say that we build up this embodied wisdom. in
a young athlete. We spend all these resources
that we pump into and we make this great human
being that has a great understanding of themselves
physically, mentally, et cetera, and then we
squander it. Then we just kind of ship it off.
And the greatest responsibility as a society
is to help these individuals who are exceptional.
There's no way of putting it. There's no gold
stars for anyone in my camp, mate. So there's
the... The individuals that have all this fortune,
we need them to go on to become great citizens
and to go on to the world and run the world for
us. In embodied wisdom is common sense, and that's
kind of lacking. You talked about who's running
the planet at the moment. I think Elon Musk should
pick up. pick them all up, all these nutbags,
jump on a ship and go and test out his trip to
Mars with those if they're the biggest brains
on the planet. Jane Goodall literally said the
exact thing that you said, one of her parting
words to this planet before she died is exactly
what she said. He could get on a spaceship with
Trump and Putin and some other people and go
explore Mars. Yeah, well, that's great. That's
a great endorsement because I talk about it in
the book. If you want to do something, if you're
an explorer, go and explore, mate, and take all
your buddy. Anyway, so this embodied wisdom that's
collected, we need to do something with it. It's
just stupidity to let them wander off into the
world and go and live on a Mediterranean yacht
somewhere. And they want to. It's evident. all
of these athletes who reach the top level, what
do they do? They almost to a person come back
and give back. That's what they're overarching.
You speak to anyone that they had this overwhelming
desire to want to give back. So there's a human
innate quality that we all have to want to give
back. And I can tell you now I'm nearly 60 years
old. That has overtaken my drive for business,
for money, for accolade, for reputation. This
book's not Harry reaching out to the world wanting
to one -up. everybody else or anything. This
book is speaking not to you, James, I'm sorry
to say, but it's speaking to the operator, to
the 22 -year -old man and woman. And I'm so rapt.
The book's been really well received. Football
clubs have picked it up and the young athletes
are saying this really hit a note with me and
how I look at myself and what I do for myself.
The last thing I'd say to that end is that it's
the same with our mission -critical team operators
and it's more important. The world is not getting
easier to police or to rescue or to put out or
to fix up once they're bent and broken and you're
dead right, mate, we turn up on the worst day.
A person's worst day is our every day. You think
of an athlete embodying that wisdom, then I think
it's two, three, four X that a mission critical
team operator learns about the world, not only
about... themselves and how to compete in a sporting
context but also in a mission critical team operator
they learn about the world the worst of humanity
what it means to be compassionate what it what
it means not sorry what it means not to be compassionate
what it means not to be empathic and what it
means not to be a good community member and these
are these are lessons that humanity cannot afford
to squander and here we are it's what we do relentlessly
almost When I go back and speak with special
operators now, in a mentoring and an elders kind
of role, if you will, I embrace that role. The
first conversation I had to them is what's your
plan B and plan C? That's the very first, and
it kind of takes them aside because all they
think is I'll see themselves as this, you know,
war platforms, human fighting platform, whatever
is pumped into them because it could all be over
tomorrow. And this is only a part of who you'll
be. So you need to be someone else at the same
time. And as hard as that is, or as hard as that
sounds now, it'll make perfect sense later. But
trust me, you need to be a whole lot more and
treat all parts of who you are. And I think that's
our greatest responsibility. And I really hope
this book kicks off at least a discussion. This
book is, I'm not a philosopher, so it's not about...
philosophy in that sense. It's about my own philosophy.
I don't own the corner store on human performance
programs. I know nothing. All I know is that
I've learned from a lot of better thinkers than
me. But I agree with Percy Serity that it's a
philosophical, whatever that is for you, a philosophical
capacity within us that has deteriorated and
is in danger of being impoverished in our...
outcomes -focused world. And in this book, clumsily
maybe, and definitely at times, I try to outline
what is why we need philosophy back in our life
and how we can implement the praxis of philosophy
in and around not only life, but those high -performance
programs where I think they have the greatest
opportunity to show us and how we can do better
for all of us in the world. Absolutely. It's
such a refreshing concept, too. I mean, the kind
of fusion between the kind of career that you
had for a long time and now this philosophical
element that was part of your early life, too.
So, I mean, it really is. It's nice to hear something
other than the kind of same old leadership stuff
that we get told over and over and over again.
Being mindful of your time, people listening,
where can they find the book? Where can they
learn more about you online? I'm on LinkedIn.
And the book's available. Just Google The Fourth
Pillar on Modern Stoicism and the Philosophy
of High Performance. A bit of a mouthful name,
but just Google The Fourth Pillar, Harry Moffat,
and there's available on all Audible platforms.
And we're trying to break into the US. That'll
take a little while, but having some success.
I'd love to have it distributed and published
in the US or the UK, but it's... always hard
from Australia. But you can, it is available
through Amazon. So I've been actually quite pleasantly
surprised at how many people are picking up from
the US, both Audible and the hard copy. Brilliant.
Well, I want to thank you so much for yet another
incredible conversation. It really has been amazing.
So I want to be mindful of your time though.
So thank you so much for being so generous with
your time and coming on the Behind the Shield
podcast. Thanks, James. And congratulations to
you, mate. I'm excited about, probably can't
say too much about what's coming up for you,
mate. And I can't wait to see, read and hear
more about it.