WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.760 Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As 00:00:01.760 --> 00:00:03.520 always, my name is James Geering, and this week 00:00:03.520 --> 00:00:05.860 it is my absolute honor to welcome back onto 00:00:05.860 --> 00:00:09.820 the show SAS veteran, registered psychologist, 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:13.779 and human performance consultant, Harry Moffitt. 00:00:14.519 --> 00:00:16.480 Now, if you didn't hear my first conversation 00:00:16.480 --> 00:00:20.399 with Harry, it was episode 465, and he discussed 00:00:20.399 --> 00:00:23.640 a host of topics, including his first book, 11 00:00:23.640 --> 00:00:27.660 Bats. In this second conversation, we really 00:00:27.660 --> 00:00:31.079 take a deep dive into mental health, leadership, 00:00:31.600 --> 00:00:35.520 stoicism, and so many other areas, including 00:00:35.520 --> 00:00:39.060 his new book, The Fourth Pillar. Now, before 00:00:39.060 --> 00:00:41.280 we get to this incredible conversation, as I 00:00:41.280 --> 00:00:44.920 say every week, please just take a moment, go 00:00:44.920 --> 00:00:47.619 to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe 00:00:47.619 --> 00:00:51.520 to the show, leave feedback, and leave a rating. 00:00:52.479 --> 00:00:55.659 Every single five -star rating truly does elevate 00:00:55.659 --> 00:00:58.500 this podcast, therefore making it easier for 00:00:58.500 --> 00:01:02.380 others to find. And this is a free library of 00:01:02.380 --> 00:01:07.540 well over 1 ,100 episodes now. So all I ask in 00:01:07.540 --> 00:01:10.719 return is that you help share these incredible 00:01:10.719 --> 00:01:13.819 men and women's stories so I can get them to 00:01:13.819 --> 00:01:16.959 every single person on planet Earth who needs 00:01:16.959 --> 00:01:20.689 to hear them. So with that being said... I welcome 00:01:20.689 --> 00:01:44.799 back onto the show, Harry Moffat. Enjoy. Well, 00:01:44.819 --> 00:01:47.140 Harry, I want to start by saying thank you so 00:01:47.140 --> 00:01:50.319 much for taking the time on your morning, my 00:01:50.319 --> 00:01:53.780 evening, as we return to another discussion on 00:01:53.780 --> 00:01:56.780 the Behind the Shield podcast today. No worries. 00:01:56.819 --> 00:01:58.359 Thanks for having us, James. Good to see you 00:01:58.359 --> 00:02:01.239 again, mate. So very first question people can 00:02:01.239 --> 00:02:03.500 tell from the time difference, where on planet 00:02:03.500 --> 00:02:07.379 Earth are we finding you today? So I'm in sunny 00:02:07.379 --> 00:02:12.000 Melbourne, which is the southern southeast, most 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:15.319 southern southeastern. uh major city in australia 00:02:15.319 --> 00:02:17.680 soon to be the biggest biggest city in australia 00:02:17.680 --> 00:02:20.280 i believe but uh springs upon us we're just about 00:02:20.280 --> 00:02:23.659 out of the winter dross and uh so morale is high 00:02:23.659 --> 00:02:27.460 beautiful so the last time that we spoke was 00:02:27.460 --> 00:02:32.240 roughly may april of 2021 so i would love to 00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:35.000 dive into some kind of takeaways from that period 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:38.199 you know as well but before we do talk to me 00:02:38.199 --> 00:02:40.180 about overall you know you've transitioned out 00:02:40.180 --> 00:02:43.580 of the special forces um profession you know 00:02:43.580 --> 00:02:46.280 what have the last few years been like for you 00:02:46.280 --> 00:02:51.300 yeah i left uh i left full -time service in 2019 00:02:51.300 --> 00:02:56.120 and then uh qualified as a psychologist and bang 00:02:56.120 --> 00:02:59.280 into into the covid period which was you know 00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:02.360 from my perspective was fascinating um to kind 00:03:02.360 --> 00:03:05.039 of really learn my craft the street craft of 00:03:05.039 --> 00:03:09.180 psychology um But, yeah, the transition's been 00:03:09.180 --> 00:03:13.479 good. There's lots to learn and new ways of thinking 00:03:13.479 --> 00:03:16.780 and being in the world that are different from 00:03:16.780 --> 00:03:20.120 the military career that I had, nearly 25 years 00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:25.740 or 30 years in the Defence Force. But, yeah, 00:03:26.080 --> 00:03:29.300 I'm really enjoying it, mate. I feel civilianised 00:03:29.300 --> 00:03:34.509 now. four or five years since we spoke and five 00:03:34.509 --> 00:03:37.409 or six years since I left. But I think that's 00:03:37.409 --> 00:03:40.969 part of the thing. You know, when you leave a 00:03:40.969 --> 00:03:43.330 Defence Force, you've got an – or if you leave 00:03:43.330 --> 00:03:46.490 anything like the Defence Force, your old profession 00:03:46.490 --> 00:03:49.870 too in fire and rescue and other kind of mission 00:03:49.870 --> 00:03:52.370 -critical teams, you've got a choice about how 00:03:52.370 --> 00:03:54.750 you approach it and you've got to – you know, 00:03:54.750 --> 00:03:58.069 you can either choose to be – to kind of – to 00:03:58.069 --> 00:04:02.409 have a mindset of having lost something or lost 00:04:02.409 --> 00:04:06.330 purpose or you can go looking for a new one or 00:04:06.330 --> 00:04:09.469 transforming. And I took on an apprentice's mindset, 00:04:09.990 --> 00:04:12.710 if you like, and I particularly love that word, 00:04:12.750 --> 00:04:15.409 but my attitude was more one of an apprentice 00:04:15.409 --> 00:04:20.220 and I was starting again. re -civilianizing as 00:04:20.220 --> 00:04:23.660 I say and as a psychologist I've had to learn 00:04:23.660 --> 00:04:26.560 my craft and COVID that period and since has 00:04:26.560 --> 00:04:28.899 been that's the kind of attitude I've had and 00:04:28.899 --> 00:04:34.279 I really only feel now in 2025 this year fully 00:04:34.279 --> 00:04:38.959 confident and confident in my competence as a 00:04:38.959 --> 00:04:42.620 psychologist. I feel like I belong here and am 00:04:42.620 --> 00:04:45.540 good at what I do and you know the last number 00:04:45.540 --> 00:04:47.600 of years I've just been learning about different 00:04:47.600 --> 00:04:50.759 types of humans, I suppose. And it's been exciting 00:04:50.759 --> 00:04:54.379 and challenging. One of the things that I like 00:04:54.379 --> 00:04:57.199 to do for guests that came on either prior or 00:04:57.199 --> 00:05:00.220 very, very close to the pandemic is just revisit 00:05:00.220 --> 00:05:02.480 that time and then look at the ripple effect 00:05:02.480 --> 00:05:05.779 as well. And the reason being, regardless of 00:05:05.779 --> 00:05:07.980 what people thought about the decisions at the 00:05:07.980 --> 00:05:11.259 time, there is no question, unless it was different 00:05:11.259 --> 00:05:13.839 in Australia, certainly here in the US, that 00:05:13.839 --> 00:05:17.649 once it was kind of concluded, there was no evaluation 00:05:17.649 --> 00:05:20.189 period. There was no, well, what do we do well? 00:05:20.269 --> 00:05:22.449 What do we do poorly? You know, what are the 00:05:22.449 --> 00:05:26.050 ripple effects? And I think that's a shame because 00:05:26.050 --> 00:05:28.050 there's so many lessons that we could learn to 00:05:28.050 --> 00:05:30.209 be prepared for the next whatever that thing 00:05:30.209 --> 00:05:33.089 is. When you reflect back now, especially with 00:05:33.089 --> 00:05:36.209 this new psychology lens that you have, you know, 00:05:36.209 --> 00:05:38.170 what were the ripple effects that you've seen 00:05:38.170 --> 00:05:41.149 in Australia? And, you know, what are some of 00:05:41.149 --> 00:05:43.750 the lessons that we need to learn from that period 00:05:43.750 --> 00:05:45.930 so that we don't repeat any mistakes if they 00:05:45.930 --> 00:05:50.319 were made? Yeah, it's true, isn't it? We haven't 00:05:50.319 --> 00:05:53.399 really stopped and done a full AAR or an after 00:05:53.399 --> 00:05:57.339 action review, if you like. Although I think 00:05:57.339 --> 00:05:59.600 a lot of institutions and businesses have learned 00:05:59.600 --> 00:06:05.420 some pretty important lessons from that. My personal 00:06:05.420 --> 00:06:08.339 reflection on the COVID period was I found it 00:06:08.339 --> 00:06:11.990 fascinating. I had a license to be out on the 00:06:11.990 --> 00:06:14.689 street. And I guess for context, for your listeners, 00:06:14.949 --> 00:06:18.069 Melbourne was about the most locked down city 00:06:18.069 --> 00:06:22.370 in the world. And we had some of the harshest 00:06:22.370 --> 00:06:28.949 lockdown rules, if you like, and policies. I 00:06:28.949 --> 00:06:31.769 think we did, you know, 200 plus days of five 00:06:31.769 --> 00:06:33.529 kilometre lockdowns, which mean you couldn't 00:06:33.529 --> 00:06:36.740 leave the house and you couldn't. leave a five 00:06:36.740 --> 00:06:39.379 kilometre area. That was the rules. And people 00:06:39.379 --> 00:06:41.360 started to get fed up with that in the end. And 00:06:41.360 --> 00:06:45.819 I wouldn't say, you know, rebelled en masse, 00:06:45.959 --> 00:06:51.360 but I think, you know, a lot of people left Melbourne 00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:57.240 to other states or to the regions. So it was 00:06:57.240 --> 00:07:03.439 a real issue here for us. But I think the lessons... 00:07:04.030 --> 00:07:07.050 Personally, I, as I said, found it fascinating. 00:07:07.329 --> 00:07:09.370 I was able to work with people. I watched people 00:07:09.370 --> 00:07:13.990 in the clients and extra clients that I took 00:07:13.990 --> 00:07:16.290 on. I was able to leave my house as a critical 00:07:16.290 --> 00:07:18.449 service and I was able to travel to see people 00:07:18.449 --> 00:07:20.490 and walk with people and meet with people. And 00:07:20.490 --> 00:07:23.069 certainly mental health declined dramatically. 00:07:23.250 --> 00:07:25.529 There's no doubt about that. And I think we all 00:07:25.529 --> 00:07:29.949 know that. But as a society, I think the big 00:07:29.949 --> 00:07:32.230 lesson we need to learn is how we look after 00:07:32.230 --> 00:07:37.220 our younger. population. And those critical years 00:07:37.220 --> 00:07:41.939 still feels like that generation of children 00:07:41.939 --> 00:07:46.199 and adolescents in particular were really dramatically 00:07:46.199 --> 00:07:49.959 impacted. That will take a little while for it 00:07:49.959 --> 00:07:53.800 to play out and see just how much damage, a bit 00:07:53.800 --> 00:07:56.060 dramatic in the language, but how much that's 00:07:56.060 --> 00:08:00.279 impacted the... The children, the COVID children 00:08:00.279 --> 00:08:03.939 and the COVID adolescents, the teenagers of that 00:08:03.939 --> 00:08:06.779 time. When I think about it, if you go back to 00:08:06.779 --> 00:08:10.500 the depression period, it might be something 00:08:10.500 --> 00:08:13.079 that's within the scope of our understanding 00:08:13.079 --> 00:08:19.399 that probably bred more stoic individuals, people 00:08:19.399 --> 00:08:23.350 who were able to... make do with meagre means 00:08:23.350 --> 00:08:26.209 and get on with life and adapt, and certainly 00:08:26.209 --> 00:08:28.149 we did during COVID, it'll be interesting to 00:08:28.149 --> 00:08:31.410 see what the long -term effects, you know, analogous 00:08:31.410 --> 00:08:34.250 effects are of COVID. And I think it will be 00:08:34.250 --> 00:08:42.139 an element of potentially... higher anxiety or 00:08:42.139 --> 00:08:45.179 or it'll just be interesting to understand how 00:08:45.179 --> 00:08:48.460 that uh you know at a granular level is impacted 00:08:48.460 --> 00:08:50.960 but that's that's what i'd say businesses and 00:08:50.960 --> 00:08:53.299 institutions i think have learned some harsh 00:08:53.299 --> 00:08:56.139 lessons i'm in a hedge fund at the moment and 00:08:56.139 --> 00:09:00.039 um at this end of town a lot of businesses were 00:09:00.039 --> 00:09:03.700 exposed uh online uh through their technology 00:09:03.700 --> 00:09:08.419 and their their uh how Well, their IP and information 00:09:08.419 --> 00:09:10.759 was guarded online. I think that's a massive 00:09:10.759 --> 00:09:14.500 lesson. Lots of money was skimmed off big businesses 00:09:14.500 --> 00:09:17.100 while they all returned home and worked from 00:09:17.100 --> 00:09:22.779 home and exposed their internal systems to the 00:09:22.779 --> 00:09:27.299 world. But, yeah, I think there's been a huge 00:09:27.299 --> 00:09:31.720 kind of broad appreciation of the impact of COVID. 00:09:33.539 --> 00:09:35.919 It's interesting you use the word stoicism because 00:09:35.919 --> 00:09:39.320 one of the things that comes up a lot is how 00:09:39.320 --> 00:09:42.080 the greatest generation are World War II veterans. 00:09:42.679 --> 00:09:45.399 When they returned home from war, they just rolled 00:09:45.399 --> 00:09:47.820 up their sleeves. And then stoicism, I think, 00:09:47.820 --> 00:09:52.220 is wrongly applied to someone who kind of buries 00:09:52.220 --> 00:09:54.960 it down and just gets on with it. And when you 00:09:54.960 --> 00:09:57.840 hear, as I have on the show. hundreds and hundreds 00:09:57.840 --> 00:10:00.440 and hundreds of stories of how grandpa, or in 00:10:00.440 --> 00:10:04.080 some cases, dad was when they returned, there's 00:10:04.080 --> 00:10:05.860 actually a lot of suffering. There's a lot of 00:10:05.860 --> 00:10:07.600 people that weren't able to process it. And if 00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:09.159 you think about as we progress through these 00:10:09.159 --> 00:10:11.659 modern years now, if we still have World War 00:10:11.659 --> 00:10:14.399 II veterans around, we're telling you, well, 00:10:14.460 --> 00:10:16.620 don't say anything. You're the greatest generation. 00:10:16.779 --> 00:10:18.080 You've already dealt with it. You just rolled 00:10:18.080 --> 00:10:21.580 up your sleeves. And you look at, again, like 00:10:21.580 --> 00:10:23.659 the kind of Hollywood role models that we have 00:10:23.659 --> 00:10:25.500 when we were younger, the Schwarzeneggers and 00:10:25.500 --> 00:10:27.879 the Stallones, it's the same thing, that kind 00:10:27.879 --> 00:10:30.860 of faux stoicism. So what are your observations 00:10:30.860 --> 00:10:35.240 between real stoicism and this kind of facade 00:10:35.240 --> 00:10:38.039 of, you know, stoicism, this faux masculinity 00:10:38.039 --> 00:10:40.120 that a lot of us were subjected to when we were 00:10:40.120 --> 00:10:44.519 younger? Yeah, there's a real popular stoicism. 00:10:44.580 --> 00:10:48.480 So firstly to, you know, the former generations. 00:10:50.159 --> 00:10:52.100 When you were talking there, I was just thinking 00:10:52.100 --> 00:10:54.659 it's funny at the moment I hear a lot about this 00:10:54.659 --> 00:10:57.919 generation and maybe the COVID generation being 00:10:57.919 --> 00:11:02.539 softer and needing to toughen up and I'm not 00:11:02.539 --> 00:11:05.899 so sure that is how history will reflect on them. 00:11:05.960 --> 00:11:08.080 They're a different generation, there's no doubt 00:11:08.080 --> 00:11:10.919 about it. When the soldiers returned from World 00:11:10.919 --> 00:11:14.440 War I, there was a sense that the fatherless 00:11:14.440 --> 00:11:17.659 children were... They'd created a generation 00:11:17.659 --> 00:11:22.679 of... So things like Outward Bound and Scouts 00:11:22.679 --> 00:11:26.500 and returning children out into nature to toughen 00:11:26.500 --> 00:11:28.720 them up because there was a sense that they were 00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:32.000 a weaker generation. But they went off to World 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:33.980 War II and did a pretty bloody good job, the 00:11:33.980 --> 00:11:37.480 18 -year -olds and 17 -year -olds. And we're 00:11:37.480 --> 00:11:39.600 in danger of repeating that, I think. They are 00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:43.509 a different generation. But, yeah, I think that's 00:11:43.509 --> 00:11:45.889 where the Stoicism or the faux Stoicism, as you 00:11:45.889 --> 00:11:49.149 say, the popular Stoicism can do a disservice. 00:11:49.649 --> 00:11:56.769 If you dig deeper into the Stoics and, you know, 00:11:56.789 --> 00:12:01.149 going right back to Zeno and Cato where the kind 00:12:01.149 --> 00:12:05.269 of Stoic ideals come out of, it's not a simple 00:12:05.269 --> 00:12:09.929 philosophy about just toughening up and weathering. 00:12:10.440 --> 00:12:13.179 out the storm. That's not the point of Stoicism. 00:12:13.519 --> 00:12:16.600 The point of Stoicism, you know, they were geologists, 00:12:16.700 --> 00:12:19.179 they were natural philosophers, they were cosmologists, 00:12:19.480 --> 00:12:21.899 they did mathematics, you know, a whole bunch 00:12:21.899 --> 00:12:25.399 of things spawned at the same time. But we've 00:12:25.399 --> 00:12:27.840 just resolved it down. And through Marcus Aurelius 00:12:27.840 --> 00:12:30.679 and that Romantic period of Stoicism, we've really 00:12:30.679 --> 00:12:33.679 reduced Stoicism down to this kind of one trick 00:12:33.679 --> 00:12:37.679 pony, if you will. And that is challenging, because 00:12:37.679 --> 00:12:39.480 if that's what people believe that they should 00:12:39.480 --> 00:12:42.580 just... toughen up um that's not how life works 00:12:42.580 --> 00:12:44.860 and if you really do dig into the stoics that's 00:12:44.860 --> 00:12:47.919 not exactly what they were saying um yeah there's 00:12:47.919 --> 00:12:54.549 some uh I think in terms of how we apply Stoicism 00:12:54.549 --> 00:12:58.529 today, I think it's one aspect of a broad range 00:12:58.529 --> 00:13:01.190 of philosophical thinking that we can apply to 00:13:01.190 --> 00:13:04.850 living. And it frustrates me a little bit that 00:13:04.850 --> 00:13:07.970 Stoicism is seen as the primary philosophy. It's 00:13:07.970 --> 00:13:10.370 one of thousands of different philosophical positions. 00:13:10.610 --> 00:13:13.049 And this is the point I make in my book is that, 00:13:13.070 --> 00:13:16.409 you know, you are a philosopher, we philosophize. 00:13:16.429 --> 00:13:20.289 It's actually an... an ability we all have to 00:13:20.289 --> 00:13:22.570 wonder about the world, to wonder about ourselves, 00:13:22.830 --> 00:13:27.429 to self -reflect, to be awed when you look into 00:13:27.429 --> 00:13:32.649 the night sky. And as an ability or a capacity 00:13:32.649 --> 00:13:36.129 that humans have, I believe that we can both 00:13:36.129 --> 00:13:41.909 enhance that or we can let it squander and just 00:13:41.909 --> 00:13:44.049 be a passive passenger in our own development. 00:13:45.240 --> 00:13:48.320 I think stoicism, to summarise that, stoicism 00:13:48.320 --> 00:13:51.940 is much, much more than just controlling what 00:13:51.940 --> 00:13:54.440 you can control and ignoring what you can't. 00:13:54.440 --> 00:13:56.120 And that's not what they said. You don't ignore 00:13:56.120 --> 00:13:58.159 what you can't control. You're very interested 00:13:58.159 --> 00:14:01.200 in that. But we've got to remember that stoicism 00:14:01.200 --> 00:14:05.500 as it is today is just one. um type of philosophy 00:14:05.500 --> 00:14:08.320 the existentialist uh philosophy which i love 00:14:08.320 --> 00:14:13.399 of uh of um of um you know the the 16th and 17th 00:14:13.399 --> 00:14:16.519 and 18th century i think gives us you gives you 00:14:16.519 --> 00:14:20.419 a different perspective about um what it means 00:14:20.419 --> 00:14:22.460 to be in the world the phenomena of life and 00:14:22.460 --> 00:14:26.100 existence uh and uh in the book i go to into 00:14:26.100 --> 00:14:28.299 a little bit of depth and offer other philosophies 00:14:28.299 --> 00:14:33.559 what is different about a lot of these periods 00:14:33.559 --> 00:14:38.019 where deep thoughts seem to be revered in some 00:14:38.019 --> 00:14:41.580 cases and what is happening today where one would 00:14:41.580 --> 00:14:46.779 argue could possibly be the worst time when it 00:14:46.779 --> 00:14:49.960 came to promoting individual thought and forging 00:14:49.960 --> 00:14:55.860 community. Yeah, I think it seems, it appears 00:14:55.860 --> 00:15:00.970 to us that around 500, 600... we'll say 300 to 00:15:00.970 --> 00:15:05.789 600 BCE, before the Common Era, it appears to 00:15:05.789 --> 00:15:11.350 us that societies were more open to the prophets, 00:15:11.690 --> 00:15:15.269 the philosophers, the deep thinkers, the scientists 00:15:15.269 --> 00:15:18.769 of then that period. But it's probably not the 00:15:18.769 --> 00:15:23.450 case. These societies, the Greek society that 00:15:23.450 --> 00:15:28.559 we kind of anchor around were... authoritarian 00:15:28.559 --> 00:15:31.200 rule are states at war and i think that's an 00:15:31.200 --> 00:15:33.980 important thing to think about too they're permanently 00:15:33.980 --> 00:15:39.080 at war nation states are in defensive postures 00:15:39.080 --> 00:15:41.879 so it generates a different way of thinking i 00:15:41.879 --> 00:15:44.899 think but there are schools of thought that believe 00:15:44.899 --> 00:15:50.250 that it was around this time you know a few thousand 00:15:50.250 --> 00:15:53.409 years ago that humans started to, there was kind 00:15:53.409 --> 00:15:57.169 of an awakening and that the voice in our heads, 00:15:57.350 --> 00:16:00.370 the commentary in our heads wasn't God talking 00:16:00.370 --> 00:16:05.649 to us or the gods controlling us from above. 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:10.100 what if this voice in our head is actually being 00:16:10.100 --> 00:16:14.299 generated by us? And so that fluorescence of 00:16:14.299 --> 00:16:18.360 thinking and contest of ideas and the status 00:16:18.360 --> 00:16:21.659 quo that we see when we look back through history, 00:16:21.840 --> 00:16:26.419 that we imagine, that period appears to be a 00:16:26.419 --> 00:16:28.860 period where humans, as I said, kind of awakened. 00:16:29.559 --> 00:16:34.000 As things evolved in the book, I made the not 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:40.379 unique or radical claim that As humans evolved 00:16:40.379 --> 00:16:47.000 through the Romantic period, the Abrahamic religion 00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:50.399 started to take control. And the last thing you 00:16:50.399 --> 00:16:53.960 want as a religious body for people to do is 00:16:53.960 --> 00:16:55.779 to think for themselves. You know, there's a 00:16:55.779 --> 00:16:58.919 book here now that we do the thinking. Here's 00:16:58.919 --> 00:17:01.580 the rules. You obey the thinking. And so for 00:17:01.580 --> 00:17:03.480 the last couple of thousand years, it's arguable 00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:09.480 that we've been in an obedience kind of – mindset, 00:17:09.599 --> 00:17:15.079 if you like, as societies. And that has had some 00:17:15.079 --> 00:17:19.000 really dramatic ramifications for people who 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:22.019 think for themselves, you know, Copernicus, Galileo, 00:17:22.019 --> 00:17:26.079 I mean, Socrates going right back. We're all 00:17:26.079 --> 00:17:30.200 burned at the stake or killed for their, executed 00:17:30.200 --> 00:17:36.269 for their, or... you know, marginalised for the 00:17:36.269 --> 00:17:40.670 heretical act of thinking for themselves. And 00:17:40.670 --> 00:17:44.289 I think to some degree that remains today. It's 00:17:44.289 --> 00:17:47.410 still one of the most courageous and radical 00:17:47.410 --> 00:17:53.470 acts that you can show is to think for yourself 00:17:53.470 --> 00:17:55.730 and have a different idea and push back against 00:17:55.730 --> 00:17:58.410 the status quo. And we're seeing that play out 00:17:58.410 --> 00:18:01.450 in real time. So I guess to answer the question, 00:18:01.589 --> 00:18:03.759 you know, there's a historical... antecedent 00:18:03.759 --> 00:18:07.339 for this and precedent um that it is difficult 00:18:07.339 --> 00:18:10.400 difficult for individuals to to think for themselves 00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:14.759 and um it's only small yeah if i think of people 00:18:14.759 --> 00:18:17.319 radicals that do have thought for themselves 00:18:17.319 --> 00:18:20.579 one of your countrymen if you like christopher 00:18:20.579 --> 00:18:25.119 hitchens who was very courageous so he was a 00:18:25.119 --> 00:18:28.599 bit of a showman and um did it for for uh for 00:18:28.599 --> 00:18:32.940 uh you know good purposes, but also because he 00:18:32.940 --> 00:18:35.420 enjoyed being that showman. But I think he's 00:18:35.420 --> 00:18:37.420 one of the modern minds that I really appreciate 00:18:37.420 --> 00:18:39.779 as someone who really thought for themselves, 00:18:39.880 --> 00:18:43.940 was widely read, understood a lot about a whole 00:18:43.940 --> 00:18:51.339 range of intellectual histories and intellectuals. 00:18:51.359 --> 00:18:53.559 And I think he was someone who thought for himself. 00:18:53.759 --> 00:18:56.900 And I've referred to him a couple of times in 00:18:56.900 --> 00:19:01.140 the book. I have said this many, many times. 00:19:01.200 --> 00:19:05.640 It seems like the lessons from a lot of the ancient 00:19:05.640 --> 00:19:08.079 wisdom, whether it's obviously Greek and Roman 00:19:08.079 --> 00:19:10.099 and some of these other ones, whether it's the 00:19:10.099 --> 00:19:12.359 holy books of all these different religions, 00:19:12.519 --> 00:19:15.480 the common denominator really seems to be don't 00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:18.519 be a dick if you're really boiling it down. It's 00:19:18.519 --> 00:19:20.660 the kindness, compassion, empathy, community, 00:19:20.680 --> 00:19:23.460 and every single text can be taken the wrong 00:19:23.460 --> 00:19:25.119 way. I mean, we're seeing at the moment in the 00:19:25.119 --> 00:19:28.430 Middle East, for example. Um, but at the core, 00:19:28.470 --> 00:19:30.529 if you look at the masses, you know, these are, 00:19:30.529 --> 00:19:32.970 these are lessons learned. And I think that a 00:19:32.970 --> 00:19:35.569 lot of humanity was trying to tell us, Hey, we 00:19:35.569 --> 00:19:39.329 tried war and torture and it doesn't work. It's 00:19:39.329 --> 00:19:41.529 not, no one's happy. You know, there's a few 00:19:41.529 --> 00:19:42.750 people that are making a lot of money and are 00:19:42.750 --> 00:19:44.470 very powerful, but the rest of us are suffering. 00:19:45.289 --> 00:19:49.630 Why do you think now after millennia that we're 00:19:49.630 --> 00:19:52.950 still seeing humans able to distort what I would 00:19:52.950 --> 00:19:57.710 argue was very kind and compassionate text? Yeah, 00:19:57.730 --> 00:20:01.309 I just don't think we learn our lessons, James. 00:20:01.430 --> 00:20:05.210 It's a pretty simplistic thing to think about. 00:20:05.450 --> 00:20:08.069 There's a condition, there's a human condition 00:20:08.069 --> 00:20:14.549 that at the centre of it is fear. And maybe it's 00:20:14.549 --> 00:20:18.099 a result that we're... We are scared little creatures 00:20:18.099 --> 00:20:20.460 in the corner of a universe, scared of the dark 00:20:20.460 --> 00:20:24.420 still and scared of people that we don't know. 00:20:24.640 --> 00:20:27.019 So there's something in our condition as humans, 00:20:27.059 --> 00:20:29.500 in the human condition and human nature that 00:20:29.500 --> 00:20:34.339 lends itself to that. I mean, if you take on 00:20:34.339 --> 00:20:39.359 Emile Durkheim's position that we are... trapped 00:20:39.359 --> 00:20:43.259 in this enemy, this kind of almost a self -suicide 00:20:43.259 --> 00:20:47.779 kind of dystopian view of the world. There's 00:20:47.779 --> 00:20:51.200 elements of truth to that, I think. And that's 00:20:51.200 --> 00:20:55.279 why we need kind of to self -soothe on self -help 00:20:55.279 --> 00:21:00.279 and other things. It seems more problematic at 00:21:00.279 --> 00:21:03.180 the moment because we seem to be atomizing or 00:21:03.180 --> 00:21:07.170 to, you know, withdrawing from... collective 00:21:07.170 --> 00:21:11.609 and community, which gives us great, which builds 00:21:11.609 --> 00:21:14.150 resilience in not only us as individuals, but 00:21:14.150 --> 00:21:16.849 as communities. You touched on it there. I think 00:21:16.849 --> 00:21:24.430 that we have lost our focus, I suppose, on the 00:21:24.430 --> 00:21:27.089 most important thing, I think, for all of us, 00:21:27.130 --> 00:21:29.819 and that is to be a great citizen. foremost. 00:21:30.900 --> 00:21:35.920 I'd almost put it before parenting, before doing 00:21:35.920 --> 00:21:38.799 good in the world is to be a good community member 00:21:38.799 --> 00:21:40.940 and a good citizen. And that's how we've been 00:21:40.940 --> 00:21:44.119 as social animals for a long, long time. And 00:21:44.119 --> 00:21:47.299 we just haven't reached this level of sophistication. 00:21:47.400 --> 00:21:53.619 The answer is probably not a single point, but 00:21:53.619 --> 00:21:57.319 I think the answer to why we still grapple with 00:21:57.319 --> 00:22:01.779 war and fear and anger as human beings at the 00:22:01.779 --> 00:22:05.119 center or the core of being a human being is 00:22:05.119 --> 00:22:09.599 not because we have evolved to this. It's because 00:22:09.599 --> 00:22:13.759 we're still evolving. We just haven't reached 00:22:13.759 --> 00:22:15.680 that level of sophistication yet, and that's 00:22:15.680 --> 00:22:20.359 okay. This isn't the end of humanity. built all 00:22:20.359 --> 00:22:22.380 these wonderful things around us, which I would 00:22:22.380 --> 00:22:24.900 argue are now bloody killing us as well. But 00:22:24.900 --> 00:22:31.119 we are evolving. And there's no end state here. 00:22:31.180 --> 00:22:34.500 There's no outcome. We seem focused on wanting 00:22:34.500 --> 00:22:37.500 outcomes and answers and solutions. And the reality 00:22:37.500 --> 00:22:39.980 from my perspective is they just don't exist. 00:22:40.339 --> 00:22:42.460 We're kind of wandering through the world. There's 00:22:42.460 --> 00:22:46.480 a spontaneous order that's limited and constrained 00:22:46.480 --> 00:22:49.779 by its past, by the history, by its history. 00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.440 And there is no future end state. We're just 00:22:54.440 --> 00:22:58.319 adapting as things go. go and accidentally to 00:22:58.319 --> 00:23:01.400 a large extent. In fact, I would argue accidentally 00:23:01.400 --> 00:23:07.079 completely. If you look at the eye, for example, 00:23:07.160 --> 00:23:10.859 it's evolved over a period without going into 00:23:10.859 --> 00:23:14.500 it too deeply. The human eye has the fovea in 00:23:14.500 --> 00:23:17.079 the back of it, which is the blind spot in every 00:23:17.079 --> 00:23:23.539 eye where the nerves and cell leads. come in 00:23:23.539 --> 00:23:27.200 through the back of the eye and and populate 00:23:27.200 --> 00:23:31.250 the the the rear surface of the eye now If there 00:23:31.250 --> 00:23:33.569 was someone controlling the design of the eye 00:23:33.569 --> 00:23:37.410 or if there was some higher order controlling 00:23:37.410 --> 00:23:41.250 the design of the eye, if an engineer was designing 00:23:41.250 --> 00:23:43.430 an eye, they would not put a blind spot or a 00:23:43.430 --> 00:23:45.009 favour in the back of the eye. They would have 00:23:45.009 --> 00:23:50.250 complete 360 degree vision. And so it just makes 00:23:50.250 --> 00:23:53.369 my point that over evolution, it just does the 00:23:53.369 --> 00:23:55.890 best with what it has in front of it now. And 00:23:55.890 --> 00:24:00.400 we have imperfections. built into us that remain 00:24:00.400 --> 00:24:03.440 that we probably won't be able to evolve out 00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:07.900 for a very long time. So I think just understanding 00:24:07.900 --> 00:24:09.539 that, and this is kind of one of the aspects 00:24:09.539 --> 00:24:12.180 of stoicism and other philosophies, is that it's 00:24:12.180 --> 00:24:14.420 all kind of accidental. We're just bumping around 00:24:14.420 --> 00:24:18.259 in the dark, making this up on the run, and that's 00:24:18.259 --> 00:24:21.539 what's baked into the system. So we're always 00:24:21.539 --> 00:24:24.440 going to be not only as individuals a work in 00:24:24.440 --> 00:24:26.680 progress and accidentally bumping along through 00:24:26.680 --> 00:24:29.460 life, as a species we're the same. I just hope 00:24:29.460 --> 00:24:33.420 that we can realise the woes of our ways quick 00:24:33.420 --> 00:24:37.680 enough. There are future generations to populate 00:24:37.680 --> 00:24:40.660 the earth. It's funny, first you talk about the 00:24:40.660 --> 00:24:42.759 eye. My wife just came out of optometry school, 00:24:42.900 --> 00:24:46.519 doctoral optometry. So I've been acutely aware 00:24:46.519 --> 00:24:48.420 of the eye for five years because she keeps showing 00:24:48.420 --> 00:24:50.960 me all the study materials and everything. Yeah, 00:24:51.099 --> 00:24:55.140 it's the go -to example of evolution. It's a 00:24:55.140 --> 00:24:58.799 great example. Absolutely. Speaking of evolution, 00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:02.259 it's a good segue. Excuse me. I just watched 00:25:02.259 --> 00:25:06.779 a show called Any Last Words. And it is a film 00:25:06.779 --> 00:25:09.599 writer, actually a script writer, who interviews 00:25:09.599 --> 00:25:12.680 people at the end of their life cycle, whether 00:25:12.680 --> 00:25:14.440 they're, I don't know if he's only the terminally 00:25:14.440 --> 00:25:17.039 ill, but this one was Jane Goodall. And so they 00:25:17.039 --> 00:25:19.400 did the recording, just the two of them in the 00:25:19.400 --> 00:25:22.500 studio, did not release it until she passed away. 00:25:22.599 --> 00:25:26.779 And then they just released it on Netflix. She 00:25:26.779 --> 00:25:30.000 was talking about chimpanzees having this innate 00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:32.980 aggression when it came to other chimps. Again, 00:25:33.220 --> 00:25:35.559 they didn't recognize them. And this kind of 00:25:35.559 --> 00:25:37.039 ties in with what you're saying and something 00:25:37.039 --> 00:25:41.039 I believe in. I think the evolution of man is 00:25:41.039 --> 00:25:44.299 kindness, compassion, community. The community 00:25:44.299 --> 00:25:47.019 has been there tribally, but if you look at how 00:25:47.019 --> 00:25:51.039 horrendous some of the chapters were millennia 00:25:51.039 --> 00:25:54.789 ago. Humans could be incredibly cruel, incredibly 00:25:54.789 --> 00:25:56.950 brutal. And even though that's still happening 00:25:56.950 --> 00:25:59.490 in some pockets of the world, I would argue that 00:25:59.490 --> 00:26:03.009 a lot of us are evolving. So to me, if we want 00:26:03.009 --> 00:26:07.769 to continue evolving as a species, then the wars 00:26:07.769 --> 00:26:12.089 and the nastiness and the division is regressing 00:26:12.089 --> 00:26:14.789 as a human species. And it's actually kindness, 00:26:14.849 --> 00:26:17.750 compassion, empathy, in my opinion, that is the 00:26:17.750 --> 00:26:22.859 evolution of man. Yeah, Steven Pinker would probably 00:26:22.859 --> 00:26:25.140 argue that we're getting better, that we are 00:26:25.140 --> 00:26:30.140 evolving in the right direction and that there's 00:26:30.140 --> 00:26:35.960 less poverty and less depravity and more freedom 00:26:35.960 --> 00:26:40.039 and more recreational time. And I kind of agree 00:26:40.039 --> 00:26:42.460 with that to a point, but I don't think it's 00:26:42.460 --> 00:26:46.319 that way for everyone. Without getting kind of 00:26:46.319 --> 00:26:48.910 too deep into it, we're probably... that were 00:26:48.910 --> 00:26:51.750 probably too many of us for a start and on the 00:26:51.750 --> 00:26:56.130 planet and also driven by um uh you know driven 00:26:56.130 --> 00:27:00.329 by deeper urges that now manifest in in money 00:27:00.329 --> 00:27:02.589 and power and those types of things that they're 00:27:02.589 --> 00:27:05.549 not going away but it is hard and i guess in 00:27:05.549 --> 00:27:07.109 the book this is what i'm asking everyone to 00:27:07.109 --> 00:27:09.769 do it seems to me humans are kind of speeding 00:27:09.769 --> 00:27:11.930 up i'm not sure it's the world's getting more 00:27:11.930 --> 00:27:15.089 complex it's arguable i'm still kind of the jury's 00:27:15.089 --> 00:27:17.269 out for me on that but what i think we're doing 00:27:17.269 --> 00:27:22.059 is just living life faster. And the analogy I 00:27:22.059 --> 00:27:24.299 use, you'll do this, James, you read books at 00:27:24.299 --> 00:27:26.799 1 .5 now, you know, you don't read them and thumb 00:27:26.799 --> 00:27:29.660 through them as much as you should. It's remiss. 00:27:29.700 --> 00:27:32.740 I think it's actually now a radical elite practice 00:27:32.740 --> 00:27:37.119 reading a book from cover to cover. But, you 00:27:37.119 --> 00:27:39.359 know, if you think about, you listen to books 00:27:39.359 --> 00:27:42.960 on 1 .5 and that seems to me the perfect metaphor 00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:45.839 for how the next generation is coming through. 00:27:45.920 --> 00:27:48.460 The young men and women that I work with daily 00:27:48.460 --> 00:27:52.960 in sports, Mr. Critical Teams and business, they're 00:27:52.960 --> 00:27:55.359 just in so much of a hurry. They want everything 00:27:55.359 --> 00:27:59.599 yesterday and meetings, you know, they want to 00:27:59.599 --> 00:28:02.160 find more productivity in their meetings and 00:28:02.160 --> 00:28:06.920 shorter times to do this. productivity gains 00:28:06.920 --> 00:28:11.680 forever. It seems remiss. Where I see it play 00:28:11.680 --> 00:28:16.599 out the most is in parenting. If I have a chat 00:28:16.599 --> 00:28:20.460 with a 30, 35 -year -old man, for example, a 00:28:20.460 --> 00:28:24.500 young man up and coming in the world, and he's 00:28:24.500 --> 00:28:26.539 got a couple of kids, it's not long before the 00:28:26.539 --> 00:28:30.480 conversation bypasses prioritization and work 00:28:30.480 --> 00:28:33.140 and meetings and performance and all the rest 00:28:33.140 --> 00:28:37.660 of it back to family. And they seem intent on 00:28:37.660 --> 00:28:40.599 having a holiday Olympics every weekend, you 00:28:40.599 --> 00:28:43.079 know, jamming everything in. And I said, what's 00:28:43.079 --> 00:28:46.619 wrong with just going home and switch your phone 00:28:46.619 --> 00:28:48.740 off and just go and hanging out down the oval, 00:28:48.819 --> 00:28:51.259 you know, or down the park or something and just 00:28:51.259 --> 00:28:54.440 bloody slow down. And I think that's part of 00:28:54.440 --> 00:28:58.599 the issue here is that we're all on this 1 .5x 00:28:58.599 --> 00:29:03.200 listening. to books and living our lives. And 00:29:03.200 --> 00:29:06.420 the ultimate message in The Fourth Pillar is 00:29:06.420 --> 00:29:13.799 to slow down and take note. Jane Goodall was 00:29:13.799 --> 00:29:17.200 probably a great exponent of that. She actually 00:29:17.200 --> 00:29:20.319 stepped out of society, went and lived with the 00:29:20.319 --> 00:29:23.019 apes. A bit strange. I'm not sure that I'd be 00:29:23.019 --> 00:29:26.619 up for it. I like my Guinness way too much. But 00:29:26.619 --> 00:29:28.900 I've got so much respect for her. And I think 00:29:28.900 --> 00:29:33.009 it would be negligent of anyone to not listen 00:29:33.009 --> 00:29:36.309 to such a beautiful thinker beautiful mind you 00:29:36.309 --> 00:29:39.950 know and she was the the the best a great example 00:29:39.950 --> 00:29:43.250 of the best a human can be i think people like 00:29:43.250 --> 00:29:47.289 jane goodall have always respected um you know 00:29:47.289 --> 00:29:50.950 the elders it really it really behoves us all 00:29:50.950 --> 00:29:54.750 to to listen to those people and and and uh and 00:29:54.750 --> 00:29:58.160 i think the message would be if i haven't seen 00:29:58.160 --> 00:30:02.599 that interview would be you know enjoy this great 00:30:02.599 --> 00:30:05.700 gift that we have it's funny because she literally 00:30:05.700 --> 00:30:08.640 talks about being in an airport and watching 00:30:08.640 --> 00:30:11.440 two birds like basically flirting with each other 00:30:11.440 --> 00:30:13.460 doing kind of a mating routine and people are 00:30:13.460 --> 00:30:15.259 walking by on their phones and they're missing 00:30:15.259 --> 00:30:18.549 this kind of you know nature um moment as it 00:30:18.549 --> 00:30:21.670 were and and she at the same time you know travels 00:30:21.670 --> 00:30:24.109 the world because she's such a passionate conservationist 00:30:24.109 --> 00:30:27.089 that she's also subject to this busyness as well 00:30:27.089 --> 00:30:29.009 so i'm sure she probably fought to find balance 00:30:32.210 --> 00:30:36.549 commodity uh by stealth and um and i think that's 00:30:36.549 --> 00:30:40.089 a great point you are missing the rest of life 00:30:40.089 --> 00:30:42.750 and what humans are supposed to but so raise 00:30:42.750 --> 00:30:45.430 your eyes get off your phone and and notice these 00:30:45.430 --> 00:30:47.650 types of things because i think your ability 00:30:47.650 --> 00:30:49.670 to wonder and be in the world and experience 00:30:49.670 --> 00:30:53.289 the world is is impoverished if you don't tend 00:30:53.289 --> 00:30:58.170 to it all the time yeah 100 and i i have that 00:30:58.170 --> 00:31:00.839 battle myself and Sadly, it's because social 00:31:00.839 --> 00:31:03.140 media is what I use to disseminate the podcast 00:31:03.140 --> 00:31:06.420 and some of the ideas, but it is at 51 years 00:31:06.420 --> 00:31:09.079 old. We've had a childhood with zero phones. 00:31:09.420 --> 00:31:14.740 It's still so, so pervasive. And if you allow 00:31:14.740 --> 00:31:17.740 yourself to go down that line, that monkey mind 00:31:17.740 --> 00:31:20.500 just starts amplifying. So I can't imagine being 00:31:20.500 --> 00:31:24.000 a child that was raised on that. It kills me. 00:31:24.019 --> 00:31:25.799 But you see these kids, you know, the strollers 00:31:25.799 --> 00:31:28.259 have devices strapped to them and these children 00:31:28.259 --> 00:31:31.400 are barely a year old. And that's been your norm 00:31:31.400 --> 00:31:33.359 the whole time. And as you said, now you've got 00:31:33.359 --> 00:31:36.940 that 1 .5 mentality. You know, what is the ability 00:31:36.940 --> 00:31:39.960 to just sit quietly under a tree now? So it's 00:31:39.960 --> 00:31:41.759 hard enough for our generation that have been 00:31:41.759 --> 00:31:44.059 exposed to technology. But a kid that's only 00:31:44.059 --> 00:31:47.519 ever known screens, how hard is it to get them 00:31:47.519 --> 00:31:51.610 to simply sit and watch two birds playing? Yeah, 00:31:51.610 --> 00:31:55.650 impossible. And I fear the ramifications down 00:31:55.650 --> 00:32:00.069 the track. Well, one more kind of lateral question 00:32:00.069 --> 00:32:01.910 before we dive into the book a little deeper. 00:32:02.269 --> 00:32:06.170 Something that's really kind of made me go, question 00:32:06.170 --> 00:32:09.269 things a little bit recently, is trying to get 00:32:09.269 --> 00:32:14.019 your head around some of the... the most toxic, 00:32:14.099 --> 00:32:16.700 divisive people that we see presented in front 00:32:16.700 --> 00:32:19.200 of us. So for example, in America, I make this 00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:21.579 comment many, many times, there's 340 million 00:32:21.579 --> 00:32:24.880 of us, and yet you hear the lesser of two evils 00:32:24.880 --> 00:32:27.400 every time we're down to the last two. You look 00:32:27.400 --> 00:32:29.980 at the CEOs of cigarette companies and fast food 00:32:29.980 --> 00:32:32.440 companies and drug companies and weapons manufacturers 00:32:32.440 --> 00:32:36.000 who sleep soundly in their beds, knowing that 00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:38.059 their products are killing hundreds of thousands, 00:32:38.079 --> 00:32:40.839 if not millions of people around the globe. And 00:32:40.839 --> 00:32:43.289 it made me realize that I'm sure the last time 00:32:43.289 --> 00:32:45.130 you and I spoke when we were talking about mental 00:32:45.130 --> 00:32:48.009 health, we were looking at the soldier, the firefighter, 00:32:48.009 --> 00:32:52.289 but we never talk about the CEO, the presidential 00:32:52.289 --> 00:32:55.730 candidate. In this interesting kind of journey 00:32:55.730 --> 00:32:58.789 that you've been in, you know, through the military 00:32:58.789 --> 00:33:01.529 and then obviously beyond now to this corporate 00:33:01.529 --> 00:33:04.789 space and the sporting space, what are your observations 00:33:04.789 --> 00:33:09.369 on the element of sociopathy in some of these 00:33:09.369 --> 00:33:13.009 key roles? Does that need to be a conversation 00:33:13.009 --> 00:33:16.869 about the ability to actually do your job if 00:33:16.869 --> 00:33:21.930 you have lost your ethical spectrum as a president, 00:33:22.029 --> 00:33:24.349 as a CEO of a company that's producing something 00:33:24.349 --> 00:33:29.450 that's actually detrimental to the nation? Yeah, 00:33:29.509 --> 00:33:34.710 I'd love to see ethics and aesthetics. They go 00:33:34.710 --> 00:33:38.880 hand in hand under kind of an axiological. way 00:33:38.880 --> 00:33:43.759 of thinking or philosophical kind of school or 00:33:43.759 --> 00:33:47.839 branch. I don't think it's really taught in management 00:33:47.839 --> 00:33:51.660 schools. I think management schools are about 00:33:51.660 --> 00:33:56.619 productivity, profit outcomes, control, predictability, 00:33:56.839 --> 00:34:00.380 those types of things. And that's okay to an 00:34:00.380 --> 00:34:03.299 extent, but to be able to see the broader picture. 00:34:03.380 --> 00:34:07.460 I don't think that our CEOs and commanders and 00:34:07.460 --> 00:34:09.579 other people are being well -serviced. We've 00:34:09.579 --> 00:34:14.099 got this managerialistic view on the world. It's 00:34:14.099 --> 00:34:17.800 highly competitive -ized, if there's such a word. 00:34:17.900 --> 00:34:20.820 We make it about competition. We don't make it 00:34:20.820 --> 00:34:23.500 about getting along with the next people. You're 00:34:23.500 --> 00:34:25.719 not going to turn that ship around anytime soon. 00:34:27.150 --> 00:34:30.610 the detrimental side of, you know, the military 00:34:30.610 --> 00:34:34.690 industrial complex, the pharmacological industrial 00:34:34.690 --> 00:34:40.050 complex, all of these different, that are driven 00:34:40.050 --> 00:34:42.570 by profit and productivity and competitiveness. 00:34:42.829 --> 00:34:45.429 I don't think that's going anywhere soon. But 00:34:45.429 --> 00:34:49.829 I do see and have seen the real fallout for CEOs. 00:34:51.090 --> 00:34:54.329 You know, I spend more time than you probably 00:34:54.329 --> 00:35:01.820 think with 65 -year -old men in particular who 00:35:01.820 --> 00:35:06.179 are struggling with what's it been for, a real 00:35:06.179 --> 00:35:10.219 question. And because it takes an enormous feat 00:35:10.219 --> 00:35:13.360 of an enormous amount of energy and emotional 00:35:13.360 --> 00:35:17.280 energy, and I would put a kind of spiritual kind 00:35:17.280 --> 00:35:22.239 of energy, spirit, to maintain the delusion that 00:35:22.239 --> 00:35:24.699 what you're doing is meaningful to the world 00:35:24.699 --> 00:35:31.869 and productive. productive in a collaboratively 00:35:31.869 --> 00:35:34.750 community sense, it takes an enormous amount 00:35:34.750 --> 00:35:38.469 of effort to maintain that delusion and also 00:35:38.469 --> 00:35:41.650 to surround yourself with people that can help 00:35:41.650 --> 00:35:45.670 you do that. And this is real. People will roll 00:35:45.670 --> 00:35:49.769 their eyes and say, oh, he's gone lefto pinko 00:35:49.769 --> 00:35:53.110 or whatever. That's just not the case at all. 00:35:53.940 --> 00:35:57.599 But there's a reality to this. And those men 00:35:57.599 --> 00:36:00.019 who you sit with, they're unsure. You can see 00:36:00.019 --> 00:36:02.960 the facade that they've put up. I spoke about 00:36:02.960 --> 00:36:05.179 this recently. There's kind of a facade. This 00:36:05.179 --> 00:36:06.880 is the way I think of it, a facade that we all 00:36:06.880 --> 00:36:09.179 have. We have a persona out in front, whether 00:36:09.179 --> 00:36:12.519 that's Harry Moffat, the author or the psychologist 00:36:12.519 --> 00:36:15.139 or the human performance or whatever facade that 00:36:15.139 --> 00:36:18.679 I build to project into the world for whatever 00:36:18.679 --> 00:36:22.940 means I need that to be for. self -promotion 00:36:22.940 --> 00:36:26.440 for the book or reputation to get more work in 00:36:26.440 --> 00:36:29.320 a business sense. But for some of these men that 00:36:29.320 --> 00:36:31.519 I sit with, and again, I use men deliberately, 00:36:31.659 --> 00:36:34.460 the rest of their life behind that facade is 00:36:34.460 --> 00:36:38.380 atrophied. The relationships they had with their 00:36:38.380 --> 00:36:44.059 high school or university friends, they're real. 00:36:44.159 --> 00:36:47.420 Those relationships are really, for all of us, 00:36:47.420 --> 00:36:51.639 are very strong and we should foster those. As 00:36:51.639 --> 00:36:54.420 we grow, their connection to their family and 00:36:54.420 --> 00:36:59.840 their kids is not as, you know, it's not flourishing 00:36:59.840 --> 00:37:02.400 as much as it could or it should. Connection 00:37:02.400 --> 00:37:06.639 to grandchildren, you know, surrounded by great 00:37:06.639 --> 00:37:10.099 wealth, but not necessarily surrounded by those 00:37:10.099 --> 00:37:14.150 meaningful. uh community connections and in a 00:37:14.150 --> 00:37:16.510 lot of cases family connections as well and i 00:37:16.510 --> 00:37:19.070 really feel for them you know it's easy to go 00:37:19.070 --> 00:37:21.130 dismiss them and say well you know they're fat 00:37:21.130 --> 00:37:23.110 rich and greedy and they should bugger off and 00:37:23.110 --> 00:37:25.130 they've had their show but i kind of feel for 00:37:25.130 --> 00:37:29.570 them and it's i i i think that's it has potential 00:37:29.570 --> 00:37:35.010 to be getting worse not not better um so you 00:37:35.010 --> 00:37:40.420 know i i think there's a real case for uh And 00:37:40.420 --> 00:37:43.079 I think I feel like I provide that a lot in my 00:37:43.079 --> 00:37:46.880 role now. It's kind of a guidance to say, hey, 00:37:47.019 --> 00:37:50.199 sure, be healthy, be fit to sustain yourself, 00:37:50.340 --> 00:37:52.480 to enjoy life and have a great, but what about 00:37:52.480 --> 00:37:55.340 your view of the world and your connection to 00:37:55.340 --> 00:37:57.880 your community and how are we doing, how are 00:37:57.880 --> 00:38:00.880 we going to keep that alive while you're progressing 00:38:00.880 --> 00:38:04.059 through business, et cetera? The other kind of, 00:38:04.059 --> 00:38:06.679 just quickly zooming out from that, the macro, 00:38:06.880 --> 00:38:10.469 you know, businesses too this is where corporates 00:38:10.469 --> 00:38:13.250 i don't think can have an ideal culture in fact 00:38:13.250 --> 00:38:16.969 what is culture i'm not even sure still what 00:38:16.969 --> 00:38:20.809 that is but there's a contest you know for for 00:38:20.809 --> 00:38:22.889 people to be at their best for businesses to 00:38:22.889 --> 00:38:25.889 be at their best for a business to have a central 00:38:25.889 --> 00:38:29.650 feel good vibe about it which all bosses and 00:38:29.650 --> 00:38:34.380 leaders want We need transparency and truth and 00:38:34.380 --> 00:38:39.599 a relationship built on honesty. But in the business 00:38:39.599 --> 00:38:45.579 world, profit and progress and competition necessarily 00:38:45.579 --> 00:38:51.019 by its business model is not true, truthful, 00:38:51.260 --> 00:38:56.519 honest. It's deceptive, obscures facts and has 00:38:56.519 --> 00:38:59.159 to play the pee and thimble trick on the side 00:38:59.159 --> 00:39:03.750 of the alley. to maintain a competitive advantage. 00:39:04.090 --> 00:39:08.909 So, you know, they're in contest and we don't 00:39:08.909 --> 00:39:10.789 talk about those things and what the impacts 00:39:10.789 --> 00:39:13.789 are and I think we should be, especially with 00:39:13.789 --> 00:39:17.710 our generations coming through. Absolutely. I 00:39:17.710 --> 00:39:20.170 think one of the things that's parallel, whether 00:39:20.170 --> 00:39:23.130 you're, you know, you have things that happen 00:39:23.130 --> 00:39:25.469 when you were younger and it's created some sort 00:39:25.469 --> 00:39:28.909 of... void in your soul. And so you feel driven 00:39:28.909 --> 00:39:31.250 to put a uniform on, which is an honorable thing. 00:39:31.329 --> 00:39:33.809 And hopefully along the way, you start to see 00:39:33.809 --> 00:39:35.809 these struggles and you deal with them. Then 00:39:35.809 --> 00:39:37.590 that becomes a strength and you're a better soldier 00:39:37.590 --> 00:39:39.690 or a better firefighter. And I think it's the 00:39:39.690 --> 00:39:41.769 same with business. There's a lot of people, 00:39:41.789 --> 00:39:46.230 their void is power and money. And it really 00:39:46.230 --> 00:39:49.909 does. show so brightly in some of the the biggest 00:39:49.909 --> 00:39:51.909 figures that we see you know like here at the 00:39:51.909 --> 00:39:54.110 moment the the commander -in -chief i mean it's 00:39:54.110 --> 00:39:57.090 clearly there's some unaddressed childhood trauma 00:39:57.090 --> 00:39:59.469 going on there and it's a shame because you could 00:39:59.469 --> 00:40:01.449 take that broken child it could be an incredibly 00:40:01.449 --> 00:40:04.530 warm caring human being that maybe was also a 00:40:04.530 --> 00:40:07.570 good leader but i can see how some of these people 00:40:07.570 --> 00:40:10.150 now that you interact with the same as the soldier 00:40:10.150 --> 00:40:12.150 that's transitioned out and hasn't addressed 00:40:12.150 --> 00:40:15.759 the the thing beneath the thing as they say that 00:40:15.759 --> 00:40:18.099 no matter how much money, no matter how much 00:40:18.099 --> 00:40:21.360 power, no matter how many franchises, I guarantee, 00:40:21.579 --> 00:40:24.579 I'm making an assumption now, that there's an 00:40:24.579 --> 00:40:27.260 essence of it was never enough to fill that void. 00:40:29.039 --> 00:40:31.780 Yeah, and it goes back to what we were talking 00:40:31.780 --> 00:40:34.840 about earlier, this being scared little creatures 00:40:34.840 --> 00:40:37.119 in the corner of the universe, afraid of the 00:40:37.119 --> 00:40:39.460 dark, afraid of each other, and I think that 00:40:39.460 --> 00:40:42.579 stands. That's where humans are in our evolution, 00:40:42.760 --> 00:40:45.579 and you're not fixing that anytime soon. That 00:40:45.579 --> 00:40:47.039 goes for all of us. It doesn't matter whether 00:40:47.039 --> 00:40:50.599 you're Commander -in -Chief or meager little 00:40:50.599 --> 00:40:55.989 Harry Moffat in Melbourne. So going to the book, 00:40:56.010 --> 00:40:58.630 the last time you spoke, you wrote an incredible 00:40:58.630 --> 00:41:03.309 book about war and cricket. So what made you 00:41:03.309 --> 00:41:05.909 dive into the world of stoicism and then talk 00:41:05.909 --> 00:41:10.010 to me about the four pillars? Yeah, I've always 00:41:10.010 --> 00:41:12.570 been interested. I was fortunate enough in my 00:41:12.570 --> 00:41:16.030 life. I was surrounded by books, my father. was 00:41:16.030 --> 00:41:19.289 a I would say you know an intellect he was a 00:41:19.289 --> 00:41:22.030 sailor in the navy but he was a deep thinker 00:41:22.030 --> 00:41:23.949 read a lot you know I had some beautiful books 00:41:23.949 --> 00:41:25.550 around me too you know I think when you're a 00:41:25.550 --> 00:41:28.250 kid and you've got nice beautiful books like 00:41:28.250 --> 00:41:30.989 an old Shakespearean I remember I never read 00:41:30.989 --> 00:41:32.670 this book but I used to flick through it and 00:41:32.670 --> 00:41:37.539 just fumble it and it was beautiful the old Encyclopedia 00:41:37.539 --> 00:41:40.280 Britannica with their gold edges and the leather 00:41:40.280 --> 00:41:42.800 kind of, yeah, it was always a secondhand set 00:41:42.800 --> 00:41:45.300 or borrowed from a car sale or bought from a 00:41:45.300 --> 00:41:50.219 car sale, boot sale. But I was very fortunate. 00:41:50.260 --> 00:41:53.300 So I'd thumb through those books. I love books. 00:41:53.320 --> 00:41:57.099 And I think books have lost their way. I talk 00:41:57.099 --> 00:42:01.190 at nauseam about them in the book. So I was very 00:42:01.190 --> 00:42:04.269 fortunate. And I remember seeing early images 00:42:04.269 --> 00:42:07.289 of, you know, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle and 00:42:07.289 --> 00:42:10.349 these things capturing my mind, old men with 00:42:10.349 --> 00:42:14.829 beards, bald old men with beards. And some of 00:42:14.829 --> 00:42:17.949 the ideas as I came through my teenage years. 00:42:18.150 --> 00:42:21.329 And as I said, I've never read complete William 00:42:21.329 --> 00:42:24.130 Shakespeare, but I've got lots of books who people 00:42:24.130 --> 00:42:27.929 who pick through The Tempest and Macbeth and 00:42:27.929 --> 00:42:29.989 all those types of things. So I had a fascination. 00:42:30.119 --> 00:42:34.059 with that level, I suppose, of thinking. But 00:42:34.059 --> 00:42:38.440 it wasn't until, I guess, until I got through 00:42:38.440 --> 00:42:42.000 my teenage years and joined the military that 00:42:42.000 --> 00:42:47.460 I reinvigorated my love of philosophy and psychology, 00:42:47.820 --> 00:42:51.340 which is the... the grandchild almost of philosophy 00:42:51.340 --> 00:42:57.059 comes in partnership with that. And when I started 00:42:57.059 --> 00:42:59.739 studying, I wanted to do philosophy. I did some 00:42:59.739 --> 00:43:02.659 minors in philosophy, but you were never going 00:43:02.659 --> 00:43:04.619 to make much money out of being a philosopher, 00:43:04.760 --> 00:43:07.780 particularly out in the business world, which 00:43:07.780 --> 00:43:11.000 is where I had an eye to practice, and that was 00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:15.699 pretty early. So psychology was it, and it's 00:43:15.699 --> 00:43:19.280 a great way to marry. philosophy. As I said, 00:43:19.280 --> 00:43:21.440 up until a couple of hundred years ago, there 00:43:21.440 --> 00:43:23.619 was no such thing as psychology. There was no 00:43:23.619 --> 00:43:25.440 such thing as science. It was all called natural 00:43:25.440 --> 00:43:28.579 philosophy. And the great philosophers up until 00:43:28.579 --> 00:43:35.440 a couple of few hundred years ago dipped their 00:43:35.440 --> 00:43:38.619 toe in everything from history to philosophy, 00:43:38.800 --> 00:43:41.300 to medicine, to cosmology, the whole nine yards. 00:43:41.579 --> 00:43:45.440 It wasn't until then that we had sciences breaking 00:43:45.440 --> 00:43:48.579 up in two. Or these different areas breaking 00:43:48.579 --> 00:43:53.340 up into sciences. So, you know, that was it for 00:43:53.340 --> 00:43:56.840 me. And I guess this book's been kind of burning 00:43:56.840 --> 00:43:59.280 away inside me. In fact, the real book's still 00:43:59.280 --> 00:44:01.820 burning away, like we all have one burning away. 00:44:01.900 --> 00:44:05.480 And you know that better than most, James. This 00:44:05.480 --> 00:44:09.579 is kind of my first third of steps into... an 00:44:09.579 --> 00:44:12.139 area that I'm passionate about, which is kind 00:44:12.139 --> 00:44:14.119 of human performance, whatever that is, that's 00:44:14.119 --> 00:44:16.639 still emerging. It's in its absolute infancy 00:44:16.639 --> 00:44:21.840 at the moment. And I think that... There's a 00:44:21.840 --> 00:44:24.300 part that's always been missing for me in high 00:44:24.300 --> 00:44:27.139 performance and human performance since I set 00:44:27.139 --> 00:44:30.320 up a program for our special forces here in Australia. 00:44:30.639 --> 00:44:33.860 Most high performance or human performance programs 00:44:33.860 --> 00:44:36.739 are based around the three pillars, which is 00:44:36.739 --> 00:44:39.559 the physical, psychological and social pillars. 00:44:39.639 --> 00:44:43.230 And any performance program or management. kind 00:44:43.230 --> 00:44:46.690 of framework will borrow and lean heavily into 00:44:46.690 --> 00:44:50.329 those three aspects and it's it's really out 00:44:50.329 --> 00:44:53.369 of the biopsychosocial model of disease but that 00:44:53.369 --> 00:44:58.519 has evolved over time and And so for me, when 00:44:58.519 --> 00:45:02.059 I was looking into the world back in, you know, 00:45:02.059 --> 00:45:05.340 midway through my service with the regiment, 00:45:05.380 --> 00:45:06.880 when I was looking to the world and interested 00:45:06.880 --> 00:45:09.820 in how we prepare and maintain our operators, 00:45:09.960 --> 00:45:12.699 I saw these models, but I always had a sense 00:45:12.699 --> 00:45:16.139 there was something missing. Because when you 00:45:16.139 --> 00:45:18.579 think about it, all human performance and high 00:45:18.579 --> 00:45:22.239 performance programming, which is where... human 00:45:22.239 --> 00:45:24.739 tech interfaces that is most interesting, as 00:45:24.739 --> 00:45:27.019 far as I'm concerned. If you think about Formula 00:45:27.019 --> 00:45:29.360 One racing, the human tech interface, or you 00:45:29.360 --> 00:45:32.500 think about soccer or football, you know, football, 00:45:32.739 --> 00:45:35.619 there is no tech out in the field, really. It's 00:45:35.619 --> 00:45:38.019 kind of monitoring from afar, but the human still 00:45:38.019 --> 00:45:40.360 dominates the tech there. And these are why I'm 00:45:40.360 --> 00:45:44.119 fascinated by these domains. But it's all about 00:45:44.119 --> 00:45:47.159 outcomes. It's all about performance. It's all 00:45:47.159 --> 00:45:51.320 about the part of the human. not the whole human. 00:45:51.460 --> 00:45:54.260 And so NFL is one of the great examples. They 00:45:54.260 --> 00:45:57.639 treat their operators like a bunch of racehorses 00:45:57.639 --> 00:46:00.780 and they train them to with an nth of their life 00:46:00.780 --> 00:46:03.460 around one thing. If you're a forward in NFL 00:46:03.460 --> 00:46:09.300 or defensive, what are the front rowers called 00:46:09.300 --> 00:46:14.380 in NFL? The lineman, your job is simply be fast 00:46:14.380 --> 00:46:17.239 over five meters and push a guy around, you know, 00:46:17.239 --> 00:46:20.519 but we tend not to look at any other part than 00:46:20.519 --> 00:46:23.239 that. And what I'm most calling for with the 00:46:23.239 --> 00:46:25.719 fourth pillar, which is the philosophical pillar, 00:46:25.800 --> 00:46:29.659 is for us to zoom out and appreciate the whole 00:46:29.659 --> 00:46:33.420 of the human and not just the part that we're 00:46:33.420 --> 00:46:37.800 interested in for profit. or winning, as is the 00:46:37.800 --> 00:46:41.039 case in athletics. And a guy by the name of Percy 00:46:41.039 --> 00:46:43.460 Serity, I could talk all day about him, but I'll 00:46:43.460 --> 00:46:45.940 keep it very brief, who is well -known in the 00:46:45.940 --> 00:46:50.119 US in a kind of sub -cultural kind of way. He's 00:46:50.119 --> 00:46:53.239 the greatest coach of all time. There I said 00:46:53.239 --> 00:47:00.679 it. He raised a stable of amazing athletes, world 00:47:00.679 --> 00:47:04.579 champions, Olympic champions, all from a tin 00:47:04.579 --> 00:47:07.940 shack on the southern beaches of Victoria here 00:47:07.940 --> 00:47:11.900 in Australia by himself, without high -performance 00:47:11.900 --> 00:47:15.579 programs, without big gyms, without mental skills 00:47:15.579 --> 00:47:17.780 training and all the rest of it. He just had 00:47:17.780 --> 00:47:20.460 a philosophy that encompassed all of this. And 00:47:20.460 --> 00:47:26.389 his position, to summarise it, was that... Yes, 00:47:26.469 --> 00:47:31.289 he can create good physical, mental and social 00:47:31.289 --> 00:47:33.889 creatures for performance and win gold medals, 00:47:34.010 --> 00:47:37.289 which he did dozens of times. But he wanted to 00:47:37.289 --> 00:47:40.769 create the whole human. And at the core of his 00:47:40.769 --> 00:47:43.690 performance program, if you will, framework, 00:47:43.849 --> 00:47:48.170 was a philosophical grounding. And one of the 00:47:48.170 --> 00:47:52.550 greatest runners of all time, Herb Elliott, said 00:47:52.550 --> 00:47:54.969 you didn't go to Percy to be trained to become... 00:47:55.389 --> 00:47:57.690 someone who can run laps really fast you went 00:47:57.690 --> 00:48:00.530 there for a life's education and uh and that's 00:48:00.530 --> 00:48:02.889 that's what i would like to see our i think it's 00:48:02.889 --> 00:48:04.710 an obligation for our high performance and human 00:48:04.710 --> 00:48:09.530 performance systems to to do that so if you could 00:48:09.530 --> 00:48:12.210 kind of sum it up as far as the principles and 00:48:12.210 --> 00:48:15.110 philosophies for that in for example the fire 00:48:15.110 --> 00:48:17.909 service what is missing and what will be brought 00:48:17.909 --> 00:48:23.599 into that conversation Well, there's a lot missing. 00:48:23.760 --> 00:48:27.360 I think it depends on the first part is what 00:48:27.360 --> 00:48:30.159 is the framework now? Most human performance 00:48:30.159 --> 00:48:33.719 frameworks in the mission critical team area 00:48:33.719 --> 00:48:39.840 are inadequate, not because anyone's not good 00:48:39.840 --> 00:48:42.659 at organizing. It's just that we haven't kind 00:48:42.659 --> 00:48:48.070 of evolved that far to resource. how we treat 00:48:48.070 --> 00:48:53.010 humans and grow humans enough yet or giving it 00:48:53.010 --> 00:48:58.289 enough priority. You know, the fire service is 00:48:58.289 --> 00:49:02.300 in the business of creating... firefighting human 00:49:02.300 --> 00:49:04.639 platforms. That's kind of it. And it's the same 00:49:04.639 --> 00:49:07.239 in the military. We need military warfighting 00:49:07.239 --> 00:49:08.920 platforms. And that's kind of where we're at 00:49:08.920 --> 00:49:12.559 at the moment. And I guess, so what's missing 00:49:12.559 --> 00:49:15.659 and what do we add in? That's the case. That's 00:49:15.659 --> 00:49:18.119 the discussion I want to start. I've attempted 00:49:18.119 --> 00:49:21.559 to start in the book because there's no great 00:49:21.559 --> 00:49:24.000 solutions out there. And there's certainly not 00:49:24.000 --> 00:49:27.239 a sympathetic ear, particularly in the money 00:49:27.239 --> 00:49:30.940 managing department. the bean counters to put 00:49:30.940 --> 00:49:35.440 more money into your local, James, your local 00:49:35.440 --> 00:49:40.320 fire brigade or fire stations, how we manage 00:49:40.320 --> 00:49:43.960 humans in that sense. And that's why I've deliberately 00:49:43.960 --> 00:49:47.360 picked the high performance. areas of of life 00:49:47.360 --> 00:49:49.760 and in in in the mission critical team world 00:49:49.760 --> 00:49:52.179 it's probably the special operations world where 00:49:52.179 --> 00:49:54.119 they put a lot of money and effort into training 00:49:54.119 --> 00:49:57.400 maintaining and sustaining their operators they've 00:49:57.400 --> 00:50:00.039 got the time the wherewithal and the resources 00:50:00.039 --> 00:50:02.920 to do that because the nature of war fighting 00:50:02.920 --> 00:50:04.800 is you go away to fight wars and then you come 00:50:04.800 --> 00:50:06.820 home and recover and you've got lots of time 00:50:06.820 --> 00:50:13.679 around the gym and athletic environments where 00:50:13.679 --> 00:50:17.000 they have all the time in the world to spend 00:50:17.000 --> 00:50:20.679 crafting humans. So the book really is, hey, 00:50:20.840 --> 00:50:24.219 this is where we're at, this three -pillar focus, 00:50:24.400 --> 00:50:28.019 biopsychosocial kind of focus. It's overly and 00:50:28.019 --> 00:50:32.380 in an unbalanced way focused on outcomes, progress, 00:50:32.739 --> 00:50:36.690 profit, winning. and that's cool i'm not saying 00:50:36.690 --> 00:50:38.670 we shouldn't want to win because i love my sports 00:50:38.670 --> 00:50:41.309 as well but and certainly in war we want to that's 00:50:41.309 --> 00:50:44.269 we want to win but have have we gone too far 00:50:44.269 --> 00:50:46.929 and what's how do we rebalance this so that humans 00:50:46.929 --> 00:50:50.130 during their careers from the start of their 00:50:50.130 --> 00:50:53.530 careers are well connected to the world well 00:50:53.530 --> 00:50:56.269 connected to their communities outside of what 00:50:56.269 --> 00:50:58.869 they do for a living and so that that part of 00:50:58.869 --> 00:51:01.690 their life doesn't atrophy at the cost of win 00:51:01.690 --> 00:51:05.010 at all costs if you like um i i sit with athletes 00:51:05.010 --> 00:51:06.769 and it doesn't take long before the discussion 00:51:06.769 --> 00:51:10.389 comes to i'm i'm just a cog in this machine that's 00:51:10.389 --> 00:51:14.400 a that's i find That's really quite sad, you 00:51:14.400 --> 00:51:17.940 know, that if we have them thinking about themselves 00:51:17.940 --> 00:51:22.059 in that way, it's very mechanistic. And I think 00:51:22.059 --> 00:51:24.719 there's just a deeper level to untap here and 00:51:24.719 --> 00:51:27.800 goes to transitioning at the end of life and 00:51:27.800 --> 00:51:30.760 goes to the way you think of yourself and how 00:51:30.760 --> 00:51:33.659 you view the world. It's interesting because 00:51:33.659 --> 00:51:35.780 I've had that same conversation with a lot of 00:51:35.780 --> 00:51:38.719 athletes and coaches here in the States. And 00:51:38.719 --> 00:51:40.800 I don't know if it's the same in Australia, but 00:51:40.800 --> 00:51:42.019 I know certainly when I was growing up in the 00:51:42.019 --> 00:51:45.739 UK, unless you were that kind of golden child 00:51:45.739 --> 00:51:48.639 football player that was being groomed in these 00:51:48.639 --> 00:51:51.079 youth leagues and going to end up in Liverpool 00:51:51.079 --> 00:51:53.739 or Manchester United, the rest of us would just 00:51:53.739 --> 00:51:57.300 play in sports. But if you look at youth sports 00:51:57.300 --> 00:52:00.699 here in America, They are squeezing such a high 00:52:00.699 --> 00:52:02.960 level of performance out of high school and college 00:52:02.960 --> 00:52:05.940 kids. And then they break. And then you have 00:52:05.940 --> 00:52:09.659 this complete, you know, like nosedive where 00:52:09.659 --> 00:52:12.440 now our 30 year olds have got all these stories 00:52:12.440 --> 00:52:13.960 about how they were this high school athlete. 00:52:14.119 --> 00:52:17.119 If it wasn't for the ACL, MCL, you know, whatever. 00:52:17.260 --> 00:52:19.320 And now they're deconditioned and now they're 00:52:19.320 --> 00:52:20.980 obese and now they're struggling with their identity. 00:52:21.360 --> 00:52:24.239 And it is a huge disservice to the well, you 00:52:24.239 --> 00:52:26.480 know, the well -being and the longevity of these 00:52:26.480 --> 00:52:29.889 young athletes. And if you look at the fire service, 00:52:29.909 --> 00:52:31.769 and I'm including Australia because I've seen 00:52:31.769 --> 00:52:34.630 a lot of my friends post from Australia as far 00:52:34.630 --> 00:52:37.170 as the struggles they've had, it's that same 00:52:37.170 --> 00:52:40.949 misprioritization where, again, like you said, 00:52:41.010 --> 00:52:42.710 disposable heroes. Well, there's someone in a 00:52:42.710 --> 00:52:45.590 seat, so we're good, rather than how do we forge 00:52:45.590 --> 00:52:48.369 longevity and performance in these people that 00:52:48.369 --> 00:52:51.389 we asked to show up on our very, very worst day. 00:52:52.119 --> 00:52:54.699 But what we have is, you know, if you see strength 00:52:54.699 --> 00:52:56.320 and conditioning and nutritionists come to our 00:52:56.320 --> 00:52:59.900 professions, it's a try not to die less conversation, 00:53:00.039 --> 00:53:02.659 not a tier one watching performance conversation. 00:53:03.179 --> 00:53:05.340 So just as a closing thing, because I know we're 00:53:05.340 --> 00:53:08.039 going to be mindful of your time. How do we get, 00:53:08.119 --> 00:53:10.719 let's just focus again on the fire service, police, 00:53:10.780 --> 00:53:15.760 EMS. How do we get society to look at the way? 00:53:16.480 --> 00:53:19.559 you know, the value of these professions and 00:53:19.559 --> 00:53:22.500 invest in these people so they can perform at 00:53:22.500 --> 00:53:25.360 the highest level, but also have a long and fruitful 00:53:25.360 --> 00:53:29.639 career and then retirement? Yeah, well, I think 00:53:29.639 --> 00:53:32.639 we're getting to that. So if I was to answer 00:53:32.639 --> 00:53:35.719 the perf, the golden answer is that resourcing, 00:53:35.820 --> 00:53:41.300 making time, prioritizing humans over hardware. 00:53:41.400 --> 00:53:44.679 It seems when we want to buy a new kit and new, 00:53:44.820 --> 00:53:50.969 let's look at, information management systems 00:53:50.969 --> 00:53:53.489 that seem to change every three years and cost 00:53:53.489 --> 00:53:55.909 a billion dollars to transfer and upgrade, et 00:53:55.909 --> 00:54:02.510 cetera. prioritize that less and increased prioritization 00:54:02.510 --> 00:54:05.650 on the human factor, we might have a few more 00:54:05.650 --> 00:54:07.730 people through the door, be able to sustain them 00:54:07.730 --> 00:54:11.349 and maintain them for longer and take the hurt 00:54:11.349 --> 00:54:13.829 off the people who are doing all the work with 00:54:13.829 --> 00:54:16.269 less resources, less time and less people for 00:54:16.269 --> 00:54:18.789 a start. But that's not going to happen anytime 00:54:18.789 --> 00:54:22.389 soon. You know, I think acting at a local level 00:54:22.389 --> 00:54:27.920 is really important. You made a really good point 00:54:27.920 --> 00:54:30.780 about athletes, and they're a good example, and 00:54:30.780 --> 00:54:35.059 I think they are a good exemplar for the mission 00:54:35.059 --> 00:54:39.099 -critical teams like the Fire and Rescue. They 00:54:39.099 --> 00:54:41.820 go into a system at 14. These days it's even 00:54:41.820 --> 00:54:44.579 younger, 12, and they're in that system for 10, 00:54:44.659 --> 00:54:47.719 15 years, some of them, and they're chasing the 00:54:47.719 --> 00:54:49.860 dream. They're moving around inside the system 00:54:49.860 --> 00:54:53.610 at lower levels of performance. competition and 00:54:53.610 --> 00:54:55.789 in the nfl like you know college football i'd 00:54:55.789 --> 00:55:00.769 stay there or go and compete elsewhere but there 00:55:00.769 --> 00:55:02.769 they keep the dream alive until i don't know 00:55:02.769 --> 00:55:06.250 you know 25 30 years old or they have a career 00:55:06.250 --> 00:55:11.409 -ending injury and percy serity would would fume 00:55:11.409 --> 00:55:15.329 at that because his his philosophy was that we 00:55:15.329 --> 00:55:19.050 spend so much time investing in that that athlete 00:55:19.500 --> 00:55:22.780 That they, and not only, you know, not only these 00:55:22.780 --> 00:55:26.420 days in their physical and mental capacities, 00:55:26.719 --> 00:55:29.420 but their social capacity in the book. I make 00:55:29.420 --> 00:55:32.199 the point that the social element or pillar has 00:55:32.199 --> 00:55:34.960 been the fastest evolving recently. It was, you 00:55:34.960 --> 00:55:36.699 know, 15 years ago, no one would have said, I 00:55:36.699 --> 00:55:39.000 love you or care for you or spoke about mental 00:55:39.000 --> 00:55:43.820 health in men's context anyway. But he would 00:55:43.820 --> 00:55:46.670 say that we build up this embodied wisdom. in 00:55:46.670 --> 00:55:49.170 a young athlete. We spend all these resources 00:55:49.170 --> 00:55:51.289 that we pump into and we make this great human 00:55:51.289 --> 00:55:53.690 being that has a great understanding of themselves 00:55:53.690 --> 00:55:56.670 physically, mentally, et cetera, and then we 00:55:56.670 --> 00:55:58.869 squander it. Then we just kind of ship it off. 00:55:59.269 --> 00:56:02.010 And the greatest responsibility as a society 00:56:02.010 --> 00:56:05.230 is to help these individuals who are exceptional. 00:56:05.409 --> 00:56:06.889 There's no way of putting it. There's no gold 00:56:06.889 --> 00:56:09.530 stars for anyone in my camp, mate. So there's 00:56:09.530 --> 00:56:14.420 the... The individuals that have all this fortune, 00:56:14.519 --> 00:56:17.639 we need them to go on to become great citizens 00:56:17.639 --> 00:56:21.380 and to go on to the world and run the world for 00:56:21.380 --> 00:56:25.780 us. In embodied wisdom is common sense, and that's 00:56:25.780 --> 00:56:27.420 kind of lacking. You talked about who's running 00:56:27.420 --> 00:56:30.079 the planet at the moment. I think Elon Musk should 00:56:30.079 --> 00:56:32.650 pick up. pick them all up, all these nutbags, 00:56:32.849 --> 00:56:35.110 jump on a ship and go and test out his trip to 00:56:35.110 --> 00:56:37.989 Mars with those if they're the biggest brains 00:56:37.989 --> 00:56:40.489 on the planet. Jane Goodall literally said the 00:56:40.489 --> 00:56:42.530 exact thing that you said, one of her parting 00:56:42.530 --> 00:56:46.349 words to this planet before she died is exactly 00:56:46.349 --> 00:56:48.750 what she said. He could get on a spaceship with 00:56:48.750 --> 00:56:51.309 Trump and Putin and some other people and go 00:56:51.309 --> 00:56:55.000 explore Mars. Yeah, well, that's great. That's 00:56:55.000 --> 00:56:56.699 a great endorsement because I talk about it in 00:56:56.699 --> 00:56:58.960 the book. If you want to do something, if you're 00:56:58.960 --> 00:57:02.119 an explorer, go and explore, mate, and take all 00:57:02.119 --> 00:57:07.239 your buddy. Anyway, so this embodied wisdom that's 00:57:07.239 --> 00:57:10.719 collected, we need to do something with it. It's 00:57:10.719 --> 00:57:14.639 just stupidity to let them wander off into the 00:57:14.639 --> 00:57:18.320 world and go and live on a Mediterranean yacht 00:57:18.320 --> 00:57:21.320 somewhere. And they want to. It's evident. all 00:57:21.320 --> 00:57:24.639 of these athletes who reach the top level, what 00:57:24.639 --> 00:57:27.619 do they do? They almost to a person come back 00:57:27.619 --> 00:57:30.159 and give back. That's what they're overarching. 00:57:30.260 --> 00:57:32.320 You speak to anyone that they had this overwhelming 00:57:32.320 --> 00:57:34.760 desire to want to give back. So there's a human 00:57:34.760 --> 00:57:37.980 innate quality that we all have to want to give 00:57:37.980 --> 00:57:40.000 back. And I can tell you now I'm nearly 60 years 00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:43.960 old. That has overtaken my drive for business, 00:57:44.159 --> 00:57:47.420 for money, for accolade, for reputation. This 00:57:47.420 --> 00:57:49.619 book's not Harry reaching out to the world wanting 00:57:49.619 --> 00:57:51.750 to one -up. everybody else or anything. This 00:57:51.750 --> 00:57:54.349 book is speaking not to you, James, I'm sorry 00:57:54.349 --> 00:57:56.469 to say, but it's speaking to the operator, to 00:57:56.469 --> 00:57:59.730 the 22 -year -old man and woman. And I'm so rapt. 00:57:59.789 --> 00:58:01.590 The book's been really well received. Football 00:58:01.590 --> 00:58:04.909 clubs have picked it up and the young athletes 00:58:04.909 --> 00:58:07.130 are saying this really hit a note with me and 00:58:07.130 --> 00:58:10.849 how I look at myself and what I do for myself. 00:58:11.590 --> 00:58:15.869 The last thing I'd say to that end is that it's 00:58:15.869 --> 00:58:17.969 the same with our mission -critical team operators 00:58:17.969 --> 00:58:21.559 and it's more important. The world is not getting 00:58:21.559 --> 00:58:25.840 easier to police or to rescue or to put out or 00:58:25.840 --> 00:58:28.480 to fix up once they're bent and broken and you're 00:58:28.480 --> 00:58:31.719 dead right, mate, we turn up on the worst day. 00:58:31.860 --> 00:58:36.760 A person's worst day is our every day. You think 00:58:36.760 --> 00:58:40.820 of an athlete embodying that wisdom, then I think 00:58:40.820 --> 00:58:43.840 it's two, three, four X that a mission critical 00:58:43.840 --> 00:58:48.000 team operator learns about the world, not only 00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:51.610 about... themselves and how to compete in a sporting 00:58:51.610 --> 00:58:55.570 context but also in a mission critical team operator 00:58:55.570 --> 00:58:58.849 they learn about the world the worst of humanity 00:58:58.849 --> 00:59:01.929 what it means to be compassionate what it what 00:59:01.929 --> 00:59:04.550 it means not sorry what it means not to be compassionate 00:59:04.550 --> 00:59:06.969 what it means not to be empathic and what it 00:59:06.969 --> 00:59:09.289 means not to be a good community member and these 00:59:09.289 --> 00:59:13.429 are these are lessons that humanity cannot afford 00:59:13.429 --> 00:59:16.949 to squander and here we are it's what we do relentlessly 00:59:16.949 --> 00:59:20.750 almost When I go back and speak with special 00:59:20.750 --> 00:59:24.110 operators now, in a mentoring and an elders kind 00:59:24.110 --> 00:59:28.090 of role, if you will, I embrace that role. The 00:59:28.090 --> 00:59:29.789 first conversation I had to them is what's your 00:59:29.789 --> 00:59:32.969 plan B and plan C? That's the very first, and 00:59:32.969 --> 00:59:34.309 it kind of takes them aside because all they 00:59:34.309 --> 00:59:36.809 think is I'll see themselves as this, you know, 00:59:36.869 --> 00:59:39.789 war platforms, human fighting platform, whatever 00:59:39.789 --> 00:59:44.210 is pumped into them because it could all be over 00:59:44.210 --> 00:59:46.980 tomorrow. And this is only a part of who you'll 00:59:46.980 --> 00:59:48.860 be. So you need to be someone else at the same 00:59:48.860 --> 00:59:51.260 time. And as hard as that is, or as hard as that 00:59:51.260 --> 00:59:55.039 sounds now, it'll make perfect sense later. But 00:59:55.039 --> 00:59:58.239 trust me, you need to be a whole lot more and 00:59:58.239 --> 01:00:03.179 treat all parts of who you are. And I think that's 01:00:03.179 --> 01:00:05.739 our greatest responsibility. And I really hope 01:00:05.739 --> 01:00:09.500 this book kicks off at least a discussion. This 01:00:09.500 --> 01:00:12.460 book is, I'm not a philosopher, so it's not about... 01:00:12.599 --> 01:00:14.820 philosophy in that sense. It's about my own philosophy. 01:00:15.460 --> 01:00:18.139 I don't own the corner store on human performance 01:00:18.139 --> 01:00:20.360 programs. I know nothing. All I know is that 01:00:20.360 --> 01:00:22.880 I've learned from a lot of better thinkers than 01:00:22.880 --> 01:00:27.239 me. But I agree with Percy Serity that it's a 01:00:27.239 --> 01:00:31.800 philosophical, whatever that is for you, a philosophical 01:00:31.800 --> 01:00:36.159 capacity within us that has deteriorated and 01:00:36.159 --> 01:00:39.679 is in danger of being impoverished in our... 01:00:39.900 --> 01:00:43.559 outcomes -focused world. And in this book, clumsily 01:00:43.559 --> 01:00:47.280 maybe, and definitely at times, I try to outline 01:00:47.280 --> 01:00:50.860 what is why we need philosophy back in our life 01:00:50.860 --> 01:00:55.500 and how we can implement the praxis of philosophy 01:00:55.500 --> 01:00:59.239 in and around not only life, but those high -performance 01:00:59.239 --> 01:01:01.900 programs where I think they have the greatest 01:01:01.900 --> 01:01:05.519 opportunity to show us and how we can do better 01:01:05.519 --> 01:01:09.219 for all of us in the world. Absolutely. It's 01:01:09.219 --> 01:01:11.400 such a refreshing concept, too. I mean, the kind 01:01:11.400 --> 01:01:13.400 of fusion between the kind of career that you 01:01:13.400 --> 01:01:15.320 had for a long time and now this philosophical 01:01:15.320 --> 01:01:18.099 element that was part of your early life, too. 01:01:18.219 --> 01:01:21.380 So, I mean, it really is. It's nice to hear something 01:01:21.380 --> 01:01:24.260 other than the kind of same old leadership stuff 01:01:24.260 --> 01:01:26.699 that we get told over and over and over again. 01:01:27.360 --> 01:01:29.300 Being mindful of your time, people listening, 01:01:29.519 --> 01:01:31.340 where can they find the book? Where can they 01:01:31.340 --> 01:01:36.119 learn more about you online? I'm on LinkedIn. 01:01:37.240 --> 01:01:40.920 And the book's available. Just Google The Fourth 01:01:40.920 --> 01:01:43.860 Pillar on Modern Stoicism and the Philosophy 01:01:43.860 --> 01:01:46.239 of High Performance. A bit of a mouthful name, 01:01:46.400 --> 01:01:50.519 but just Google The Fourth Pillar, Harry Moffat, 01:01:50.559 --> 01:01:53.239 and there's available on all Audible platforms. 01:01:53.860 --> 01:01:57.559 And we're trying to break into the US. That'll 01:01:57.559 --> 01:02:00.679 take a little while, but having some success. 01:02:00.820 --> 01:02:03.079 I'd love to have it distributed and published 01:02:03.079 --> 01:02:05.900 in the US or the UK, but it's... always hard 01:02:05.900 --> 01:02:09.260 from Australia. But you can, it is available 01:02:09.260 --> 01:02:12.840 through Amazon. So I've been actually quite pleasantly 01:02:12.840 --> 01:02:14.980 surprised at how many people are picking up from 01:02:14.980 --> 01:02:18.579 the US, both Audible and the hard copy. Brilliant. 01:02:18.699 --> 01:02:21.000 Well, I want to thank you so much for yet another 01:02:21.000 --> 01:02:23.480 incredible conversation. It really has been amazing. 01:02:23.599 --> 01:02:25.239 So I want to be mindful of your time though. 01:02:25.320 --> 01:02:27.980 So thank you so much for being so generous with 01:02:27.980 --> 01:02:29.880 your time and coming on the Behind the Shield 01:02:29.880 --> 01:02:34.190 podcast. Thanks, James. And congratulations to 01:02:34.190 --> 01:02:36.349 you, mate. I'm excited about, probably can't 01:02:36.349 --> 01:02:38.070 say too much about what's coming up for you, 01:02:38.110 --> 01:02:40.469 mate. And I can't wait to see, read and hear 01:02:40.469 --> 01:02:41.110 more about it.