JD's Journal
Everyone we know has experienced their unique journey of life, and along the way they have had their share of success and failure. Each of us have learned important lessons and gathered valuable resources that have allowed us to survive and thrive. This podcast is a place for sharing our stories and our resources for the benefit of others. It's a celebration of the resilience and tenacity of people in all walks of life, our local heroes.
Welcome aboard!
JD's Journal
John Milham: Turning Pain Into Purpose, Suicide Prevention
** Trigger warning** This episode does include some content that may be triggering for some listeners including losing a cherished partner, severe health issues, and men's suicide prevention.
What happens when life shatters your carefully constructed identity? For John Milham, losing his wife to cancer forced him to confront a devastating truth – the "iron warrior" persona he'd cultivated through decades in corporate IT couldn't protect him from grief's overwhelming tide. This breaking point became his transformation catalyst.
In this deeply moving conversation, John shares his extraordinary journey from self-described "self-indulgent wanker" to dedicated mental health advocate and suicide prevention specialist. With remarkable candor, he reveals how embracing his own vulnerability and mental health struggles – including complicated grief, anxiety, and suicidal ideation – gave him the authentic foundation needed to help others facing similar battles.
The statistics are staggering: 77% of all suicides are men – approximately 2,500 annually in Australia, almost double the road toll. John's work with Northern Beaches CARES and Kintsugi Heroes directly addresses this crisis by creating spaces where people, especially men, can share their stories without judgment. "Man up and show the courage to be vulnerable," he challenges, flipping traditional masculinity on its head while offering practical tools anyone can use to support themselves and others.
John introduces us to transformative concepts like the "morning mirror process" (a simple yet powerful self-love practice), the three levels of self-nurturing, and the countdown method for difficult conversations. He also shares unforgettable stories – like the man whose life was saved by his cat Marmalade – that illustrate how unexpected anchors can pull us back from the edge.
Whether you're struggling personally, supporting someone through crisis, or simply want to develop greater emotional resilience, this episode offers both practical wisdom and profound hope. As John quotes, "Pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice." Listen now to discover how embracing your broken pieces might reveal your most beautiful self.
Resources discussed in this episode
Kintsugi Heroes: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/
https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes/videos
Self-Compassion - Dr Kristin Neff - https://self-compassion.org/
There are several suicide prevention training options available in Sydney, NSW. Here are a few notable ones:
1. LivingWorks Australia - https://livingworks.com.au/
2. Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) Australia - https://www.mhfa.com.au/
3. Black Dog Institute - https://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/
4. Lifeline Australia - https://www.lifeline.org.au/
5. Roses in the Ocean - https://rosesintheocean.com.au/
6. Wesley LifeForce - https://www.wesleymission.org.au/get-support/suicide-prevention/
Hi listeners and welcome to the JD's Journal podcast where, every week or two, my guests and I share some of our life's journey, our successes and failures and the valuable lessons and resources that we've gathered along the way. This podcast is being recorded on the traditional lands of the Dharug and Gundungurra people who pay our deep respect to Elders, past, present and emerging. This land always was and always will be Aboriginal land. The content shared on this podcast is intended to inform and entertain and it should be applied with your own good judgment. As always, your feedback good and constructive is always appreciated. The podcast is produced by me, so please forgive the occasional glitches from time to time. Anyway, enough of the formalities, let's get on with this episode. Hi listeners, and welcome back to the JD's Journal podcast. Great to have you here. As always, another guest episode today. I'm actually incredibly excited by this.
JD:I have with me John Milham from Kintsugi Heroes today. I've known John now for gosh at least 10 years, maybe 12 years we go back but John is a coach, a trainer, a workshop facilitator and a speaker who I first met at the beginning of my journey doing my Master Practitioner and Trainer in Neurolinguistic Programming, and we'll probably talk about that a little bit during this conversation. Like me, john's got a pretty diverse career background, starting in IT at Westpac in the 80s and in service management at IBM. He's also a co-founder of a wine business, which I'm always curious about because I love my wine. He's a life coach and, more recently, a very dedicated focus on the caring for community and people, their well-being and their personal development. John has definitely dedicated more of his energy and focused the well-being and distress prevention side, with an emphasis on suicide prevention in the Northern Beaches areas, working with Northern Beaches CARES, or MB CARES as they call them, mentoring men, standby, support after suicide, as well as our parents beyond breakup. And now we're Kintsugi Heroes, which I hadn't heard of until I spoke to John the other day, and they're an amazing organization. We'll learn more about that as we talk, but they're an organization that supports and promotes storytelling as a way to help people deal with mental distress, trauma, depression, anxiety and ptsd and for the community. Basically, you know, looking at the well-being of individuals, but the entire community, particularly around after natural disasters and so forth.
JD:So john and I recently reconnected when he quite graciously invited me to be a guest on the Kintsugi Heroes podcast and I think that got published today in fact. So it's very exciting. We had a great conversation, it was fantastic and I thought you know you're a hero that I'd like to have on my podcast as well. So John quite quite generously decided he'd give up some of his very busy time to spend with us today, and I'm thrilled that he can be here on JD's Journal. So, john welcome. Wow, did I introduce you? Okay? Is there anything significant?
John:Like you know, there's a. I'll start up front with the confession that I am neurodiverse, right? So one of the characteristics of being, of having ADHD, is that is that when someone praises you, it causes you distress, right? So, because it's tied up with the anxiety about having to confirm and then, you know, act in a certain way and knowing that, you know that we've been told many times over our lifetime that we can't do that, right, that we're not capable. So one of the things I've done intentionally over the last few years is to sit in that, to lean into compliments and, you know, sort of positive bios and responses, right, and lean into that and just know that. You know it's my job, it's my respect for the person sharing that. That is most important. So, you know, I call it. I don't want to steal their Christmas, right, they're giving to me and it's me appreciating the gift, right. What's interesting is, like that was so good that I just like I was pushed to the edge, right. So you, yeah, so you, thank you for that, mate.
JD:That is more than generous I don't think I don't think I've overstated anything to go with you, john. I think we'll learn more about that as we talk, but, um, I'd say that there's many layers to you that I knew about years ago when we first engaged, but I've learned so much about you recently that I think is incredible. But that is a good segue, you know. So I always like to start. Once we talked about what a person does and who they're involved with and what they've been up to and so forth. I really want to know do you know, like, what is John Milham's purpose? Why are you on this planet? What's the legacy that you leave behind you?
John:I am fortunate in that I do. And I must admit the last, the journey I've been on has, you know, had big dark dips and, you know, incredible highs, and I realised at some point, and I realized at some point within the last you know sort of five or eight years, that it was shaping me, that it was honing me. You know that all of those lessons, wanted or unwanted, all of the experiences you know, positive or negative, they were all part of, you know, helping me understand that I had a purpose. I wish I'd found it 25 years, 30 years earlier, but I got there in the end. And basically it is a mission to reach out and share everything I have, you know, emotionally, material, whatever is necessary to help the people in front of me, especially my community right.
John:And I am drawn to helping men in particular because I believe that there's this big kind of collusion to leave men unsupported at some of the toughest times of their life, and that works in favour of the system almost, but it leaves certain men alone when they are most vulnerable and, as a consequence, we lose way too many men. 77% of all suicides are men and that means that two and a half thousand of them each year, which is almost double. The road toll will be lost to our community and the consequences of that are massive and not enough people you know no one. Everyone's sympathetic to hear those stats but not enough people are prepared to get out there and help change it. And I just do what I can.
JD:It's an incredibly confronting number and you know and I don't think the average person walking the streets is aware of the number I think, notionally, most people know that men commit suicide at a higher rate than women, and they've heard lots of reasons why that's the case. I personally believe one of the issues is that men can't be seen to be weak, they can't be seen to be vulnerable and they're the last to put their hand up to their mates and ask for help, and so I think that rings true For me. I learned a little bit recently about an organization called Trade Mutt who have these ridiculously colorful shirts and provide funding and counselling for tradesmen, and I've got a wardrobe full of their shirts now because I just think, you know, it's a very noble way to raise awareness and to get people talking to each other and having conversations. But again, I think you know what you point out there is incredibly valid, and I think we've got a lot of work to do. I'm so glad that a person like you is out there doing the good, and I think we've got a lot of work to do. I'm so glad that a person like you is out there doing the good work in that space.
JD:What was um? What was the catalyst for you, john? I mean, if there's, was there a moment in time where you know, that mission became super clear to you?
John:um, it was a slow burn, but there was an epiphany, right that I just shifted right and the burn started. You know, I was in corporate IT as well, and so I followed your career with envy and admiration because, you know, you scaled some amazing heights. And as a leader, right, it's particularly wonderful to talk to you because my mission is really important, to have conversations with leaders in the commercial and corporate world. But for me, I had to get out first, and that came about because I lost my wife after a struggle with cancer and for me to survive, I needed to find a new way to exist. Everything I'd known in the corporate battle right, I worked for the big blue and, you know, I felt myself well-equipped to move on to, you know, I felt myself well equipped to move on to, you know, higher offices when the opportunities came after working hard.
John:But what I wasn't equipped for was living life alone without my soulmate, who'd been with me since the age of 16, raising kids without her, even just navigating the everyday logistics of existing in the community. I was so I had to face incompetence, massive incompetence, for the first time in my life. Right, because I had this vision that I was. I had this overconfidence that I could do anything. I had this overconfidence that I could do anything and, to be honest forgive the language I discovered I actually wasn't a super guy, I was a self-indulgent wanker, right and that I had to decide at that point to hang around and then to, if I was going to hang around, who did I want to be? Did I want to be better? And I needed to be better for my kids and my family and my community and I took that on. I didn't know how and I had no idea how the challenges I was signing up for, but you know, I thought, right, let's get on with this and improve.
JD:But, you know, I thought right, let's get on with this and improve. I'm not going to pretend for a minute that I can, you know, I can harmonize with the experience that you went through there, john. I, you know, I know that when my missus goes away for a week, I'm completely useless. So, to lose your wife in that time and under those circumstances, john, I think, uh, it's a testament to you that you, you know, clawed your way through that period and it become the independent. You know, man, that you are through that period, I think, think, particularly being in those large organizations, I do think we, you know, adopt a stereotype that is, um, unstoppable and, and you know, uh, completely connected.
John:I used to constantly say I was made of iron, you can't hurt me, right? You know, I don't feel pain, I don't sleep, I don't get sick, I'm just, you know, an iron warrior right. It's remarkable.
JD:I think we all do right and I think it's really interesting when you step out of that to have that different experience. I can't parallel um your experience and I can't walk in your shoes, but I'm you know. I think it's again a strong testament to you the journey that you've been on, but also the fact that that's translated into a mission to help others under all sorts of circumstances where they need that um and they need to be shown yeah, and it's brilliant because the mission came when I reached a certain level of maturity.
John:So the real maturity was the first challenge, right, the first time, because, uh, you know, it started out me, you know, I appreciate your words, right, but all of us have this moment where we realize we're not the sole purpose of the universe, right, and then it's what we do from there as a man that makes, I think, helps us become the mature individual, the elder who is ready to take responsibility for others and the community.
John:And I was, you know, I had to learn that it was years in, like you, you know, navigating the pits and troughs of um of this emotional landscape, realizing that I had to, you know, giving up, uh, ego and attachment and then understanding, first of all, you know, with a conscious incompetence, right, knowing that I wanted to be nicer and better and more connected, but not being able to do it, and then slowly practicing it, so that conscious competence. And now I feel deep in my, you know, deep in my being, how beautiful and how you know and how worthy others are, regardless of my biases. And that sounds pretty, that sounds a bit woofoo, but it allows you to connect with anyone for the right reason right. It allows you to be unconditionally positive about people.
JD:Well, and I think you know a lot of people have positive intention in terms of being able to work constructively with people. I've done a lot of work in with the LGBTQI community and and I'm trying to do more of that right now, but I'm not part of that community and and I think at times I do feel like you know I'm faking it and I can't really, I can't really empathize in a true sense what somebody who is trans or somebody who is bi or somebody you know who is going through that experience, the journey that they're on. I want to help them, want to support them, but I can't really say I've been there and I've walked in your moccasins. But in your case, in many ways you know you have, you've been there with those folks. You've been in that at the very lowest of lows and then gone through developing your own journey of development and recovery and then growth, and so does that empower you more. Do you believe in terms of working with people?
John:It does. I guess you know I said it was a, you know, a kind of journey milestones to a place where suddenly I had the background to find my mission and to launch into it, probably the milestone that there was when I understood lived experience. So you know, I identify as someone who had diagnosable, what they? I was diagnosed with a thing called complicated grief, right, which is like a weird concept, right, you can, you know you're grieving so bad that it becomes too complicated and you need to have a medical intervention. And associated with that was general anxiety disorder, social anxiety, those kind of aspects of depression.
John:So being crazy, when you believe, when you come from an area where and I can say that because I have the piece of paper right but when you have been an iron warrior, right, you know, an IT iron warrior where there's no amount of sleep that you need, there's no amount of crisis you can't handle, there's no amount of last minute ridiculous, impossible tasks that you're given to do that you can't handle. There's no amount of last-minute ridiculous, impossible tasks that you're given to do that you can't take on and to go into a place where you are literally told, you know, like told you're a bit of a broken unit. That was just like. That was the crazy-making stuff, right. I was not prepared to be that weak or that shameful or that I could not contemplate. It didn't exist in me to say, john, you know you're in the care of someone because you can't do this alone, right?
John:So going through that was transformational when I embraced the idea of lived experience, that I had been there, that I could accept the fact that I had had this experience and that then I could mine that for this amazing, rich understanding. And when you do that, when you start to accept and surrender to that truth it's not giving up. Surrendering is saying I accept this and I'm going to create space for this in my world then suddenly you become useful to other people who have that same experience. It is almost magical how talking through a shared experience like that will benefit both people. But someone who is struggling will be immediately reassured by the voice, without even like worrying too much about the content, by the voice of lived experience.
John:So I discovered that I could really everything everything that you would put on a list to hide from someone. If I could bring that out and make that part of who I was now, I could use that to make a difference in the world. And suddenly my mission became very clear man up, put it out there, be vulnerable. Man up and show the courage to be vulnerable, because most of a man up is about hiding your vulnerability. But I needed to show my courage to say, yeah, I have been through these things, they are real and I understand a little bit about what you're going through.
JD:Yeah, the relationship between you know, I think courage and vulnerability is a is a very strong one, and I see that all the time.
JD:There's a couple of things in what you just talked about that strike me, and one of them is, you know, the old age. The first step in the 12 step program is acknowledging you've got a problem, yeah, and then the journey can begin. 12-step program is acknowledging you've got a problem, and then the journey can begin, and I do think that's incredibly true that you've got to be comfortable, to be able to speak openly about the fact that I'm not where I need to be. And then I'm really curious, right? So you've gone through your own journey, if you like, from that lowest point to where you are today, and we're going to talk about the work you've done with different organizations. I've got a number of things that I want to go through with you on that, because I think there's some tremendous stories in there. But that roadmap, that journey that you've been on, at what point did that become orchestrated? At what point did you start to consciously think about? You know, this is part of my program.
John:Yeah, see, it's so interesting because we met around 2012,. Right?
JD:So 13.
John:Yeah, right. So, and it was. I left IBM believing that I needed to become a psychologist. So I went. I left IBM believing that I needed to become a psychologist. So I left IT thinking that the way to help people was to become a psychologist, because I was pretty upset. My experience with psychologists had not been good right. So I thought, well, there must be an opportunity to do it better. So I thought, well, there must be an opportunity to do it better.
John:When I started studying, I discovered that it was not a way to connect with people, that that was not the priority of psychology. So it wasn't what I thought it was. And at that point I met a coach and that coach was the coolest bloke I'd ever spoken to. Right, he was such a cool guy and he was an executive coach and he, like you know, he had care, he dripped care for people. And I, I, I went how do you know? That's awesome, how do you do that? And he said, oh, you can do anyway. I I discovered you know signed up for a coaching school that you and I both know, and, um, um, I went on.
John:I started on that journey and there are a couple of things that I discovered for the first time. The things that had got me into trouble all my life in terms of, like neurodiversity were actually pretty useful in the coaching world. So my, I had an acuity. Like adhd. People can be very good at reading people right and, um, very good at at at seeing patterns in in behavior and stuff like that. So those things were a strength. So I really loved coaching and you got to deal with people and help people from the start, so that was a great way of beginning the process. The the problem, um, you know, and then you learn all these tools and it's interesting. So then I started going down rabbit holes, right, you know. So, yeah, I was, um, what was the point of the question?
JD:I forgot. Well I was. I was really looking at. You know the, the, the roadmap or the journey that you've been on yeah how much of it was accidental and how much of it at what point did you kind of start to think you know consciously about your journey, what you were doing so?
John:yeah. So I thought that was the way forward. And then what happened is on my own journey, that started peeling the onion back on me. So all of the things that I had not resolved, which were many, they, they were legion, right, um, I had used the typical australian males therapy program, which is suck it and see, right, you know, put it away in the back drawer and don't open it up again, right, and once you start working on others, you work on yourself. And you know, I became a very.
John:So I struggled, you know, I got into training and all that stuff. But you know, in that whole time was my journey and all that stuff. But you know, in that whole time was my journey. When I'd done enough work, then I started realising I could be truly useful to people. But I also had put aside, at that point, part of my journey. Ed also said get rid of all of those. You know, the business side was a distraction for me. So I decided I would. I would be spend myself 24 7 helping people, but I didn't want that to be a career or a business. I didn't want to spend time marketing or whatever. I just wanted to be. You know, I don't know what? It's?
JD:not a very good strategy, but it was the strategy I had I think you're counseling me, so I just want to kind of share for the listeners. There's some incredible synergies here with john and I. So you know the point where I decided to join the same college that that john joined. I was struggling as well in terms of what's my direction and I hadn't gone through the tragedy tragedy you'd gone through. But I was kind of grappling with my age and what's my future and could I continue to do IT and so forth? And I, like you, I have a passion for people.
JD:But I looked at HR and I'm like dude, I'm no HR person, for the same reason that psychology is not the rap. That was never going to work. And I stumbled on a correspondence course for coaching and that was it for me, and then went through all the things that you went through and, like you, you know, I did establish a coaching business for a while before I went back into the IT space and I hated the marketing, I hated the business management piece. All I wanted to do was work with people and so I so get that.
John:So true, and you're given the same lies, the rational lies, right, which is rationalising the reason you go away from your passion, right? Oh well, you've got to sustain yourself. You've got to. You know making money is good for you, so it's good for the world, right, and you know those lies are about. You know about industry and profit, right and sure. Look, I don't think it's evil, it's just not my values. And I had to find a way to be strong enough and courageous enough to stand in my values, right, and also to realise I had to learn that material things were not my idea of wealth, right, and I had to give up all of those things that the corporate world want us to lust after, because then we become really dutiful and conscientious at providing them the resource they need well, look again.
JD:Everything you've said is so incredibly relatable for me and I think you know the only people who are making money in that industry, the people who are telling us we should be making money. I always find it's kind of thing that the people who are fostering the business of the people making money are the ones who are actually doing the job and not making money. Yeah, we, you know, we get the rewards out of it the other way. Um, I am curious, you know. So we went through that, that fairly arduous process. I think you know that getting through master prac is master practitioner in neurolinguistic programming and the other and the training, like becoming a an nlp, nlp trainer.
John:I added it up, right, I had spent about 1,000 hours in some form of workshop or NLP training or supporting and providing support for other NLPs groups and trainers and stuff. So you know it, you know a wispy commitment it is not.
JD:It is not is a huge commitment and and credit to tlcc. I think they also had a bias around practical experience, which is one of the reasons what I went with them, yeah, but that meant a big commitment in terms of time. It did mean you had to do the work, not just read and answer the tests, and I think that was really good. I'm curious you know we did all that again back 2014 2015, I think is when we you and I both went through that journey yeah um, how much of all of that are you using today?
John:A lot, right, I have conversations. I call them care conversations, peer support, mentoring. I have them every day. I have them with people, intentional ones, people who seek me out, and I have them unintentionally. I bump into someone in there and because I have a practice of being Socratic in my questioning, like you know, I'm interested and I go down instead of sideways right asking about the weather.
John:People will share, you know, a moment that they're going through and then you know a moment that they're going through, and then you know I, you know, employ some of the techniques to invite them to an insight. You especially will, you know, will understand, and maybe for the listeners, the trick of coaching is I don't tell people what to do, I help them find what they know to do already. And I've heard you say something like that, john. So you know, I was just at, you know, I just left mentoring in a high school, so it's for an organisation called RAISE, which are amazing.
John:I love their work and I was walking with a 14-year-old right and it's just. You know, sometimes they're a mystery to be unlocked in some way and I just love that process of feeling, you know, feeling helpless and thinking, oh, this is, I'm not making a difference. And then you pick up something and then you follow it using some of those techniques and what, what? What people will be surprised about is after that that you know work that we did in that, in those techniques. They are significant, right, they do pop up and you do realize you are having a different type of conversation and they do work. People find something in that conversation that is useful for them.
JD:I concur it's powerful. And for me, because I went back into the corporate world after I'd gotten my master practice, you know, for me it changed my leadership style because I led by questions as opposed by direction.
John:Curiosity. You cannot be negative or judgmental with curiosity and positivity right. So that must mean you're a different type of leader in my mind.
JD:It definitely does.
JD:And and I guess the other thing that that for me, and I'll be sure to see your perspective as well, but for me I think, you know, for a little while you kind of do lp on people, you're kind of helping them um, which is horrible, and you know I I regret so many conversations I have because I'm like that was so bad, um, but you do go to a point where it's not even conscious that you're using these frameworks unconsciously in just how you communicate. I know I drove my children completely nuts because I NLP'd them for ages, but when you get out of bed?
John:My boys would be. You know I'd be driving them back from footy and you know they were talking. You know the usual the car is the safe space for teenage boys, right? And they'd say something and I'd ask them a question and my oldest would turn to me and say don't you try that coaching stuff on us, right?
JD:I've totally had that conversation with my kids and I found out later on they were talking about me behind my back as well, about me being this stuff. So I think you unlearn that. But what you do learn is to instinctually leverage these language models or these approaches with people, and for me, I would catch myself afterwards and I'd go. That was great. That was slight of mouth right there and it really worked.
John:Yeah, it's like the NLP communication model for the folks at home. If you want to check it out, it's really, it's a. It's a a really valuable way of looking at things, because it talks about, uh, deletion, distortion, and and um, um and uh, yeah, what's the third one? Addition or modification, right, so add, delete, distort right.
John:And when you look at it, right, you think what am I? You know, why is miscommunication such a problem? Right, and then you go, oh, because we mess with the data that comes in, right, and then we don't have the discipline to, or the awareness to, go. Well, I need to do something with that process. I need I can restore some of the meaning back, or I can undistort some of the meaning, right, and when you embrace the ability to do that, suddenly you are creating what I call a dyadic process of listening, which is a shared meaning, right, you start to enhance every form of communication, right, and it's such a powerful experience. And the good thing about it is we, you and I both understand that if, if, uh, if it's a, our truth, then it's our reality, right, so you can change your reality by understanding differently the truth, right well, and the work that you've been doing.
JD:I have to believe, like we know, that the dialogue we have with ourselves shapes our thoughts, shapes, shapes our actions, shapes our behavior. And so a large part of what we learned to do through that process was to help people change. Their internal dialogue is to help them think differently and to the point that John was just making. It's very common to find people who say I always fail at this, or I can't do this, all right, you know, or people always discriminate against me, or whatever it happens to be yeah, yeah, the, yeah.
JD:The world hates me, or you know, technology hates me, right, yeah, and so and so what you know, what nlp helps people do is is to restructure that, reframe that thought pattern to be, you know, something more like. Occasionally, I had this experience where people discriminate against me, for instance, but actually most of the time they don't, and I have a choice in terms of how I respond to that when they do. So it's kind of just reshaping that. But I'm curious is there because, with lots of frameworks that we learn right, is there one that you? That's your favourite?
John:Yeah, there's actually two, right. The first one is a practical one RAS, right. Reticulation, the reticular activation system, right, which is a physical area of the brain, right, and what it's in charge of is instructing you know very, very non-neurosciencey. It's in charge of instructing our unconscious parts of the brain, the limbic system and the amygdala. It's in charge of instructing them what to spend their time and focus on, right. So the good news is, you know, I love explaining this.
John:You know, if your sister rings up and says, you know, oh, great news, I'm pregnant, and then you go to work the next day, you end up seeing like 600 pregnant women, right, you know, and that's because suddenly it's come into focus. It's like when you're in a room and there's everyone's talking at once, so it's white noise, like everyone's realised that, oh, there's this general buzz, and then someone says John, and you look at them, right, you hear it like it's an announcement, and that's because your RAS is constantly on alert for your name, right, your RAS is constantly on alert for your name, right. So resetting, that is an amazing capacity to have, right. So it's saying what do I want to focus on now? And, of course, the best use of that, that I work with people every day on is a gratitude process, because if you start the day setting your RAS to grateful, you change your experience of life from the time you clean your teeth to the time you go to bed, right, from wake up to lie down, you have a different experience of the things that happen to you, because your ras is helping you extract the gratitude out of the experience and is avoiding focusing on some of the negatives that will also be there if you want to focus on them, right? So that's the number one.
John:And the second one is like is is one I just I play with because it just amuses the crap out of me and it's Cartesian questions, right? And it's basically to explain. It's when you mathematically approach a style of questioning that works with negatives and positives. So I know, you know, but but people, when you say two negatives, you know that cancels out, right. But one of the the one of the processes is, if you use Cartesian questions, like two negatives in a in a question, you confuse somebody right, consciously, but their unconscious gets the question right. So sometimes, if I'm just not getting through, I try to frame a Cartesian question, so it'll be something like well, jd, so you're not really good at podcasting, unless you're very good at podcasting right and you're people going what the what you know like?
John:what how do I? And, of course, your unconscious mind says oh, I'm good at podcasting, right, I'm great, right? So, and because your conscious mind filters, your obstacles are out of the way, biases, those beliefs that get in the way, right it? It helps open up that process, but I love the level of confusion that it produces. Like people, are going. What did I just hear?
JD:and it is interesting, right, because the that last one, cartesian questions is a perfect example of the fact that, unconsciously, you, you know, you know a lot.
JD:It's remarkable how much you know and how and how organized and together you are yeah, yeah but that, that lack of congruence between the conscious and unconscious mind, is where things get a bit problematic. And so sometimes what you're doing in nlp and to some degree in in cognitive behavioral therapy as well, cbc is your, is your going around the conscious mind um to, to bring forward the epiphany and it is.
JD:That's what I love about it. You know, people ask me what? What about coaching isn't mentoring? What's the difference between the two? And I always say well, mentoring, you have subject matter expertise that often you're imparting and guiding somebody. But with coaching, it's their subject matter expertise that you're imparting and guiding somebody, but with coaching, it's their subject matter expertise that you're just eliciting. You're bringing it out, and Cartesian questioning is a perfect way to do that.
John:And it's not an everyday thing, right. It's like quite complex, but just every now and then you find an opportunity to use it. That makes me very happy. But it's interesting when you talked about mentoring and coaching. Right, because my, my with you, like the, the founder of Kentucky Heroes, also founded mentoring men and what we've developed from that point is a kind of lifestyle mentoring that is much more peer related. So the the sense of I'm a subject matter expert in the moment, right, because I'm intentionally creating space for you to do some exploring. So it's really a merge between mentoring and coaching. And of course, we borrow models like the Regerian model, which is unconditional, positive regard, right, and people-centred. You know recovery, you know therapy. We borrow the Regerian model CBT, dbt, act, all of these things which I would put into a pot and say, uh, kind of um, people have made money out of putting letters to common sense yes, I hope to agree with you and, by the way, I'm sure you're flip-flopping between mentoring and coaching all the time.
JD:I think you're right. I think that there is a a blur there that goes on, naturally, whereas commercial.
John:you know like corporate mentoring is very, you know, is one end of the spectrum.
JD:Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I agree with you in terms of you know, one of the things that struck me as we did our NLP, in fact, is that so much of what we learnt through that process is like duh, it's kind of obvious stuff, right, but thankfully, what they've done is that they've articulated it and formulated it in such a way that it's trainable.
John:Yeah, and that's a really important thing. Can I share a quick story on NLP? I was blown away. I attended a conference with probably the number one exponents of clean language NLP, right, and what that is is it's questioning and working with someone in a way that takes you out of the picture completely. So it was Penny and James Walker. I think it is right, and so I, and believe it or not, here's the gift. Right, I attended that conference because you couldn't make it and you gave me your ticket.
JD:Is that right?
John:Yeah, yeah.
JD:Well, I'm glad I did that.
John:Yeah, and because, and I since then I bumped into them and I, like you know, I had conversations. But one of the things that was amazing is, so I was talking to James and I'm saying, oh, you know, I'm not sure I can remove myself completely out of the process, right, because I'm engaged, I connect, I want to be a part of the process, because I want to stay connected and empathic. And so I said, oh, I've got a clean intention, right. And you know he said that's good enough.
John:And then I remember having a conversation with someone at the time, like another coach, who'd rung up for going through a bit of trouble, so I would do some mental coaching. And I thought, hang on, I'm going to practice. You know a bit of clean language, right. So clean language has nine questions only, and you ask them and then you repeat them over and over according to the form of the inquiry, right. So you do things like, oh, where do you think that came from, right? Or you know what was the thing that was happening immediately before that came into your mind, right? Things like, you know, finding insight, right.
John:And I went through, you know, as many clean questions as I could and I resisted the urge to throw in. You know the usual coaching like how did that make you feel, right? And at the end of the conversation she just had an epiphany and she's going oh, that's fantastic, yeah, that's really good. And I go do you know, I have, actually I have not said this at all during and she's going what do you mean, right? I said I didn't ask you. You know any real questions, right, I just got reflected back your words. And she's going no, that's not the case, surely? So the process was so inward that she could not even recall what I'd said. My involvement was just the classic facilitation of her experience.
JD:So she was actually having an internal dialogue that you were effectively the catalyst for, but the dialogue was all hers. I think that's remarkable, I really do.
JD:It inspired me because it was that like it was a immediate confirmation that what we were studying john was powerful, right well, and I think you do trust it I think that's the other distinction that that excites me about, you know, excited me about coaching then, and still does, is that there's an element of teaching to fish that's different from counseling and psychology and all of those sorts of things. Is that a big part of what an NLP coach particularly I think an NLP coach does is you're creating capabilities that are repeatable in the individual. You're effectively working on your own redundancy.
JD:Yeah, totally Good coaches putting themselves out of business, because what they're actually doing is they're developing synapse within the customer that they can use themselves, and that's what that sounds like to me, is that's kind of you're empowering them to solve those problems again and again. I think the parallel for me is in leadership. My philosophy in leadership has always been every good leader is trying to make themselves redundant. Oh yeah, so true. Every good leader is trying to make themselves redundant. Oh yeah, so true. And you're doing that by hopefully teaching your teams, teaching your individuals, to be self-empowered, to be able to think critically and make good, strong decisions when you're not there. And in a perfect world as a leader, it doesn't matter whether you go to work or not. The business runs the same way. And so I see, I see the synergy there.
John:I think it's quite powerful I, you, I believe you're spot on man and I I like I remember a leader in ibm who had been a commander of ships in the navy and he moved on and he was flying. He was becoming um a general manager of asia pacific, which is a massive role in IBM, and he just told me. He said the problem, john, with you is you're indispensable. He said I'm the least important person in my team, so when anyone calls up and says, can you send someone, it's me who goes right, because everyone else has to stay here and do their job right.
John:So I always used to say that irreplaceable is unpromotable I should say that to my team members all the time, right, yeah if I can't replace you, I can't promote you, look um, yeah sorry.
JD:I mean there's so much in terms of what you're doing now, what you've been doing recently, that I want to make sure that we get to. So I wanted to kind of pivot now and talk about the work that you've been doing. I know that you have been working with NB Cares, or Northern Beaches Cares, on suicide prevention. I wondered if you could share a little bit about how you got involved in that, what it entails, what they're doing and what the listeners can know about that.
John:Yeah, fabulous and it's really important. Yeah, fabulous and it's really important. And there was one thing I really wanted to talk with you about because of your, like you know, listening to JD Journal and it reminded me, right of all of the. You know how much I used to love the technical side of management, right. So, you know, and discussing stuff, and that's you know, I reached out to suicide prevention for two reasons.
John:The first was my journey to accept the fact that I had suicidal ideation. So I would sit and talk to a psychologist and she'd go, well, you're suicidal and I'd go, well, hang on. You know, like, yes, I am thinking about killing myself, but you know really that. Well, hang on. You know, like, yes, I am thinking about killing myself, but you know I really that's not. You know, like I couldn't even admit it to myself, right. So, anyway, that journey, um, became a really important aspect of me getting to a strong, safe place, right, mentally, psycho, emotionally.
John:And I realized that so many men aren't having that discussion, they're going through that process and, to be honest, psychologists don't know much about suicide, right, because suicide is not something, you know, doctors train in. You know, I think psychs only do about 10 hours on aspects of suicidality, right, and usually it's associated with a medical issue. Well, most men will come to a point where they ideate which is the sense of thinking about ending their own life from situational distress. The vast majority of men's ideation relates to something that is a terrible situation, right? So separation and family separation and relationship breakdown a massive area for men. Of course, the work world is an incredible determinant. You know a risk factor, you know. You talked about trading nights. Those guys are amazing, right the same with you know tradesmen, you know working alone. And right, they are three times more likely to suicide than, say, you know someone in a sort of office role.
John:So you know the work environment can be really important. And then, of course, the real wound that men have that causes us to get into this space is shame, right, and shame can be as irrational as I don't look a certain way, or I don't act a certain way, or I've let these people down right, and you don't even talk to them, but you feel like you've let them down so badly that you might want to take your telltale. So the first thing I would talk about is for men, suicide is it's not necessarily mental health. I think mental health is often a symptom of what is causing distress, and then it's not illness. You're not broken. It's a reasonable response to be troubled and distressed by certain aspects of life. And then, when we go forward, it's our own ability to solve things that gets us into trouble, because what we're trying to solve is not fixed life, we're trying to stop pain.
John:Suicide is largely a response to the need to stop hurting, and whether it's a physical illness. So chronic illness is a challenge for men to deal with, whether it's an emotional one, where we lose love or intimacy or companionship, or it's a psychic, a psychological pain, right. So those things are really important to understand. And I went into suicide prevention because I was finding out about those things as a desperate way of dealing with that. So I was lucky in a way, because I went down rabbit holes in response to the pain, rather than, you know, I could have taken to the bottle or the pill or, you know, run away, you know, but my response happened to be useful in that way.
JD:It was a perfect response. I mean, obviously it's turned into a perfect response for you and for the people that you work with. It's interesting you talk about career-related as well. I know there was a time when dentists had the highest suicide rate and then it became IT. Middle management, actually for a period of time, were the worst ones we were, we were, we were insane.
John:Yeah, right, I remember walking over the dead body of my boss, right they were working on him in the in the foyer of the of the edifice at 60 martin place. I remember stepping over him, right with a couple of blokes going to lunch and, of course, no upset that someone's not you know had a heart attack or whatever. But the conversation over coffee was like who's going to get his place Right? We?
JD:were insane.
JD:Yeah, it was intense, no question about it, and that intensity again and again. I think one of the challenges is that you know you don't look at an IT, a middle manager in IT, as a person at risk. Yeah, you would think that person would be the last person who'd go home and say to their wife I'm feeling like I want to take myself out. It's a conversation that they wouldn't have. Yeah, and so I mean, I've lost a few people to suicide myself in my life and none of them showed signs Like these are people I was very close with. There were no clues, and I think that is you know. That's the takeaway for me is that people who appear to be in great situations, who I would have said were in the prime of their lives, have taken themselves out because the demons that they've been dealing with and hiding so cleverly in fact have gotten to a point where you're right they're getting away from the pain associated with that and the only way that they felt they could do that was to take themselves out.
John:It's horrendous that people get to that point such an important point you raise there too, because here's what I would offer when we look at our peers in that way and we don't see any reason why they would suicide, what we're looking at is through the exact same frame that led them to not share or offer right, because we've got the same biases and the same perspective as they have. So we didn't see any reason. Because when you look at all the things that they had, you go, yeah, they're achieving things right. But when you change your perspective, when you shift the mirror right, suddenly realize, hang on, they're not getting that. You know they're not getting the reinforcement, the emotional security. They don't know who they not getting that. You know they're not getting the reinforcement, the emotional security. They don't know who they are and they don't know they don't feel safe in any way to find out or to offer a question or ask. Something's going wrong in that identity and safety space, so and we're not equipped to see it right.
John:So one of the things we talk about in, say, training for suicide prevention is there will be an invitation to suicide. Someone will invite you to connect in some way that is deeper than the usual, because they are in need but it may not be obvious, right? So that invitation may be up to you to interpret, right, and guess what? Interpreting on the safe side is not a crime. So if you even have a little tiny intuition bell ringing, ask the question. You know, like there are questions, you can go and ask how are you going? You know, let's have a talk. We haven't gone deep for a while. You're right, like over a coffee over it. So you can. And it's not. It shouldn't be the case, but the care and likely when somebody is in that rumination, that cycle of despair, it's going to be someone who is brave enough to break through those biases and ask the question is going to make the difference.
JD:So I mean, I think that's a great segue to a question around preparedness. If I'm sitting, if anybody's sitting here thinking I'd like to know more, I'd like to. I don't want to go into this as a as a full-time gig it's not but I want to know enough one that I can observe and two that I can ask the right questions. I can, I can use my sensory acuity.
JD:There's a yeah, yeah, fantastic, I can use my sensory acuity, uh, to observe something, a pattern like you just talked about. But I also want to know how do I engage in a constructive way if I'm seeing that? Where can people learn that?
John:That's a perfect question, and I love that you use sensory acuity, because acuity is exactly what we need to trust, because acuity is not noticing who you are, it's noticing the difference in you, right? So, and that's so important. So where we can go is there is a couple of courses like there's a two-day course that is very popular at the moment called Mental Health First Aid and that talks around some of the medical models, right? So? Anxiety, depression, alcohol and other drugs and suicide. What I would offer is there are some series of courses, you know, that are four hours, right, and what they do is I call it triple C.
John:I want to give you confidence to ask the question capacity, want to give you confidence to ask the question capacity so you know what question you're going to ask. And connection, right, you know that you are. You know that it starts by you reaching out and creating a connection. So if you just get those three things, you don't need to have a white coat, you don't need a psychology degree, you don't't even need a Cert 4 or a Cert 3. You don't need any of it, right? What you need is some confidence, some practice on the questions and the ability and the commitment to connect right.
John:So, to do that? I would say the four-hour course. There's one by Living Works called Safe Talk, which is wonderful. Accidental Counselor by Lifeline or you can see Accidental Counselor online. That's again a sort of limited course. You know Wesley, the Lifeline people. They have suicide prevention cut-down courses, so just that you know those basic skills. There are longer courses if you want to dive a little deeper into it and they're all good. But you know certain people are offering let's Talk courses, so two hours of connection, so anything like that, and you'll find them locally and sometimes they're sponsored, so you don't even have to. You know, either get your company to pay or you know, get on a community group who will offer it for nothing, you know.
JD:I'll include some links in the notes from the show too. Uh, both in terms of helplines that you can call if you're feeling like you need to talk to somebody, but also those training courses. That's great. I want to double underscore something that john mentioned, um, and that is you know, we talk about sensory acuity, and sensory acuity is about noticing micro differences in people, and it might be how they look. It may be how they're grooming themselves. It might be as simple as will they look you in the eye or not. It may be body language.
John:Food, excess drinking, not doing the things they normally enjoy doing, and it's change that you're looking for, right.
JD:So if you want to know, like if you take nothing away from this session than this, if a person behaves a certain way or looks a certain way normally, and suddenly you see change, that's when you need to be curious, that's when you need to be observant.
John:Absolutely, and curious is the word, that's you need to be curious, that's when you need to be absolutely, and that's curious is the word. That's the invitation to be curious. Yeah, yeah, and I love, I love putting it that way, because the permission to to be curious is there, is there in in their actions, right, so, and you may not know, you make a difference.
JD:It's an interesting thing, right? So one. So a couple of episodes ago I talked about lollipop leadership, about the fact that something that somebody a leader says or does can have a lasting impact on people. They may never know about it. It's equally true that just asking how somebody is or telling them they look great today, or whatever, you may not ever see the results of what you did, but it's actually possible to save somebody unconsciously, just by engaging and connecting with them and showing true interest and compassion with them.
John:That is so I call it anchoring, and it's particularly useful for men because men won't sort of, they don't want to spend a lot of time thanking you for saving their life, right, there's that. You know, there's all that gravitas attached to that kind of connection, right, so they disappear, right. But you know, months, years later you bump into someone and they'll go oh, you know that conversation that changed everything. You know that was the moment I said, oh, you know that conversation that changed everything. You know that was the moment I said oh, and then I went and got some help or I spoke to someone, or, you know, I went home and I talked to my wife or whatever. So you know that men anchor on as little as a conversation and for me I was lost in grief at one point.
John:I remember walking down Bilgola Beach, just, you know, doing the whole. You know, sad and wistful, on the beach, lonely day, you know, and I bumped into a mate from footy and uni, right, and he was a barrister and I respected him, his intellect and his kindness. He was such a cool guy, respected him, his intellect and his kindness. He was such a cool guy and we were chatting and of course he knew about the missus passing and he just said he said what are you doing? Are you getting some help? And I go oh, you know she's going all right, you know I'll be fine. And he just looked at me and said if I was you I'd run screaming to the nearest psych because I couldn't get through this myself. And I went oh okay, and just that permission, that started me. That was the very first time I reached out for some help because he gave me permission, and I think that's what we can do for people, just by having those conversations.
JD:Absolutely, and that makes so much sense. We need to know that it's normal. We need to know that it's okay to ask for help, and so often I think men in particular struggle with that ability to say I'm drowning, not waving, I'm actually in trouble here. I love that.
John:Yeah, great band. By the way, drowning, not waving, I'm actually in trouble. I love that. Yeah, great, great band, by the way, but um, even more, even more jd. I would say it's not just okay, I say it's best practice. Yeah, because men are designed to achieve things as a, as a group, as a team. That's our best process, right? Our best practice is to work together on things that are too big for one person, and that is exactly what's at play but we're warriors.
John:We don't need help because we why, if we're warriors and brave, why are we so scared of help, of reaching out to another bloke, right, what's going on? Yeah?
JD:yeah, it's ironic right, that's right yeah, it is quite ironic going on. Yeah, yeah, it's ironic, right, that's right, yeah, it is quite ironic. Hey, listen, I, I want to, I want to kind of pivot a little bit again. Um, you know, uh, I talked about kintsugi heroes. Uh, you got the sign there behind you, um, which?
John:is a bit creepy really. I need to update it.
JD:He's looking, he's looking like he's looking over his shoulder by the way, yeah, yeah, he keeps me company.
John:It's a little spooky.
JD:well, he's looking at you quite sassy actually, but anyway.
John:Yeah me him car park now right In the old days. Right, that's right.
JD:So can you talk to us, like tell us what's Kintsugi Heroes and what are you doing with them and why is it important?
John:Oh man, what a great question. Oh man, what a great question. I, you know I'm a bit of an advocate and consulted with you know companies and been on warm lines and you know peer support programs and all of this stuff, right, and that's all wonderful, right, it's one-on-one which is so important and you know it's group stuff and it's training and all that stuff and, yeah, like you can do that, it feels awesome to do, it feels worthwhile. But there's another side which is normalising, as you said right, making the stories of people's journey through this available to others in the community. Who, by listening to that story, someone told me last night I was at a Story Room event, right, and it was. So the organiser said oh wow, that was a bit darker than I thought.
John:People shared, incredibly, on a stage, so much they were so vulnerable about terrible things that had happened to them. And I just said you know, those stories need to be told. They're tearing the membrane between us and moving forward. Right, the obstacles of stigma and shame are being reinforced by our reluctance to share our experience. Lived experience will bolster someone to feel like they have possibility. It's the re, it's the rekindling of hope in their life that gives somebody the spark, you know it sort of ignites the movement again. You know the gets the engine turning over slowly so that you can start to take agency. When you accept where you are, you also accept the responsibility of just of moving out of that pain and suffering. It's not, it's not right that people have to do this stuff. It just, it's just truth, you know that it's up to us to get going.
JD:So I will include the link to both the Kintsugi homepage and also the YouTube channel. It is it's an incredible library of stories, but we should take a step back.
JD:So Kintsugi is a Japanese word, oh yeah, yeah, I didn't explain it, it's a craft and, if you've ever done it, you basically would take a pot, you would smash the pot and then you would put the pot back together, and there's a sense within the Japanese culture that you're creating something even more attractive, even more brilliant, because you're taking the pieces and assembling them in the same way. And, john, I love the, the metaphor, right, I love the metaphor that you take the broken pieces of a person's life or the broken pieces of their story and you put them together and you come up with something that's even richer, even even, you know, more precious, more valuable.
John:I think it's a tremendous metaphor and people get it right Because our imperfections, the scars that we show, even though we feel sometimes like we need to hide them, it's the beauty of the experience that led them there. It goes back to that moment when you start to see unconditional beauty in people, right, you realise their behaviours are not the people you know and their suffering has made them interesting, has made them glow with learnt experience and wisdom. Sometimes it's made them sad and that's also important to acknowledge. You know they're just so much to acknowledge. You know they're just they're so they're so much richer. You know, and you know I'm, I have a very different relationship with my scars, of which I am peppered, right, physical and emotional, right.
John:But when I came to that, you know, like you you talked about epiphanies earlier, one of the great epipies I got very sick with, like so sepsis, and to be honest, it sounds dramatic now I feel a bit self-conscious saying it, but it was that moment where I was like teetering on the edge of death, right and physically right, and to manage that I was forced to look at who I was and who I wasn't. When I disappeared, right, like what I was going to lose, right by not being anymore, and the Stoics call it memento mori, the idea of the moment of death. Right, who are we and how will we live until that moment? So I decided I just rolled over and said, look, no, I'm good with this now, right, and that changed me again, right, that was like everything changed, because I said I'm being.
John:It's in the moment that we can care for someone, because we have the attention. It's not on ourselves, you know, the mindful moment is not about us, it's about our connections. So when you want to care for someone, when you want to ask a deep question, when you want to support them, when you want to validate them, when you want to edify them, it's being present. And to do them, when you want to edify them, it's being present, and to do that you've got to move the spectrum from me to you yep, yeah, well, again, I think it's.
JD:It's very hard to walk in some of these moccasins if you know, if you haven't had some level of hardship again. It's, it's an interesting, it's a weird parallel I'm going to make. I actually did a guest spot on a different podcast yesterday for an incredible person who's a recruiter with a lot of experience. So we were talking about you know, what do you look for in a candidate? What do you look for particularly in a leadership candidate, and what would write off a candidate straight away?
JD:And I've got to say I look for lived experiences in candidates. I want to know that they've had successes, but they've also had failures. And the minute a candidate tells me that they've never made a bad decision in their lives and they've had perfect success, they're no longer a candidate in my eyes because they've got their lived experiences. Same is true I wouldn't want to be sitting down with a doctor who's never been sick. Uh, you know, or, or you know, somebody hasn't been down that path. So I, I get that synergy again. I, uh, I strongly recommend listeners, get yourself onto the kintsugi site, have a look. There's some tremendous stories there.
John:Um, john is is, I think, the first one that was released, I think was the first, yeah yeah, I was the first one talked about the process of getting through grief, raising kids and stuff like that, so I spoke probably need to update that because, like you're constantly growing and talking to people is one of the great ways of growing you just have such an appreciation and such a gratitude for the diversity of the world, right?
JD:so it's a tremendous episode. It's a very moving episode. It's oh, thanks, man. It's very hard to listen to, uh, because of the experience you went through, but it is. It's a tremendously um, open and vulnerable story that you tell and I think it really was a good bedrock for the rest of the series that they put together there. I think it was a good foundation for that, no question about it.
JD:So, as we, you know, as we listen to what you've done and again, we haven't gotten a lot of detail on these, but the work that you've been doing with all of these groups there's this common theme. You know, there's such a strong theme around your efforts and your commitment to help individuals and communities be better, be in a better position and so forth. There's a I mean there has to be, at times, a lot of personal burden that goes with that. I don't think it's possible to have that many conversations with that many people who are dealing with that many challenges and be completely Teflon in terms of not taking that on board. So, you know, the obvious question I've got for you is how do you look after you, like, what is it? What is your way of managing that and keeping your own balance in that environment?
John:Yeah, it's such an important question. Self-care is an aspect of every discussion around. You know men and people in this space, right? There's a couple of things I'd point out. For me is, first of all, I have, really I've, done the work. So I've been working on answering these questions about who, what, why me, and what do I do about it. For you know, over 10 years, right.
John:So you know, my wife passed away and then you start to wander through a landscape and look for the lights and explore the secrets, and you know, so I became a seeker and I saw a lot of experiences Before I became a coach. I would seek other gurus, right, and find out and uh and have them and, uh, have them. You know I've, you know I have a faith that that I sought out intentionally. I have, um, you know I have a craft. You know that I work constantly on as a coach, slash, mentor, um, and I now have a purpose and those things kind of inoculate me a little bit, but that doesn't mean I don't have to care. So I have a particular model. I call it the three levels of nurturing, self-nurturing, right, and you know Christian Neff is the guru on self-care. She writes, she calls it self--sympathy or whatever, something like that.
John:But um, so I believe everyday activities that maintain your well-being are important. We know that you know physical and you know dietary and sleep and so on, to the best of your ability will improve things. And then there's some things like people love to go, you know kite flying or surfing or whatever. They add that everyday element to maintain. But life will throw crap at you and it builds up. So you accumulate those troubles, right, and it's vicarious trauma. So you're picking up those conversations you have. Caring for people can be really hard carrying what they've gone through because the empathy neurons have fired and you're picking up, you know, sort of collateral damage and when that becomes overwhelming you have to treat right, which will be concert, you know, live music just fires me up, right, and it's so immersive and that it's like cleans you. You know it's like going through decontamination, special time with people.
John:So there are certain people you reconnect with my granddaughter is, you know, and you know she, she resets the buttons and things like that. So I, I have a, I have a plan for some of those. Then there's emergency and there are people I, I, I call it my personal care team and there are people you need to work with to establish their involvement in your emergency response. So there are people I know at midnight I could call and say I'm having a desperate moment and you use those safe words, right, like you have a language, you don't need to go into it. When I say I'm having a distress moment, some bloke knows exactly what he has to do, right, which is all right. Let's talk, or grab a coffee, or I'm coming around or whatever it is right Now. If you can put them together, it doesn't have to be so dramatic. But just, you have your regular catch up or whatever, but you need that emergency response option as well, and that's just essentially my what I call my self-care process.
JD:Well, I love that you consciously have done that and I think that in some ways has to have been out of necessity, um, but I but I do think it's a grand thing that you've done to to consciously kind of shape that. I love the notion of kind of having your support crew, um, and and those keywords that let you send the signal without having to send a signal, because that's the bloke thing, right, I can't use the words. I need help, but if you say I'm having one of those moments, the message is the same and I guess what I would. I think you know we'll go back to the fact that there are people in the real world, you know, in different careers and so forth, who also need to have their support team, absolutely.
John:And different levels of support.
JD:yeah, yeah, and probably have their own keywords right, absolutely yeah, and put a mentor on the list, right.
John:Yeah, so you can. You know you regularly connect with a mentor or a peer support or a support person. What I like to call is a companion, you know like so, community companion or community care companion, right, or something. Yeah, you know sport, you know you go, you know you have your people, your go-to people, and you build them right If you don't feel like you need. You know lifeline, that's cool, right, but you know, have someone you can talk to, right, and do it intentionally before you need it.
JD:Yeah, a cup of coffee could be the game changer. I think that's. And again, that takes the drama out of it. It takes the whole sense of overreaction out of it just to know that you can connect with somebody and have that moment of sanity that helps you be grounded Again. I love the simplicity of that. I will share her name as well. I think that if she's got a set of guidelines, I think it makes a lot of sense.
John:Dr Kristen Neff. She's the self-care guru. A quick story, if I might. On one of my Kintsugi Heroes podcasts, I spoke to a guy who he shares. It's a very, very challenging and beautiful share where he talks about the loss of his 15-year-old son to suicide.
John:Right, and he had a terrible upbringing, right, he was, you know, abuse and so on, and at one point, when he was 15 this is the bizarre thing he was also going through a moment of um, uh, he was making an attempt, right, and he was uh, so he was going to, uh, he was going to perform some self-harm. The only thing in his life that was loving was a ginger cat he owned, called Marmalade, and Marmalade refused to let him complete the action. So the cat came in and interfered with him doing something to hurt himself and, uh, and what? What I I loved about that story was he decided. Then he said well, I can't leave you to face the place alone. Right, he found an anchor, you know, as we spoke about. But from then on he would call those moments of teetering on the edge a marmalade moment. And he now runs a walk and talk for life sort of group right, walk it off, right, group, and he talks about marmalade moments right, his, his, his, uh. Catchphrase is who's your marmalade?
JD:I love that. That's such a brilliant story. I mean I knew where you're going the minute you start. You mentioned the cat. I'm like I know where this is gonna go, but what a brilliant, what a brilliant story in terms of great outcome for him. I think it's amazing. But taking that and then turning that into an asset for others. I also love the walk and talk.
JD:I've got to say there is a direct correlation between physical activity and mental health. We know that, and getting people out of the, the typical environments, is also a game changer. I I learned again as a leader not as a coach so much, but as a leader. I've had many situations over the years where I've taken employees on walking one-on-one meetings just because we needed to get out of that environment. We needed to get with a space where we could engage differently and see the world differently. And it really can. It can. It can literally change the world just getting outside and doing it somewhere else sitting in a park, walking near a beach, you know whatever. Just talking and walking can be so much of a of a of a healing activity totally, and it's interesting too because there's NLP in that.
John:It's called a pattern interrupt right.
JD:So, yeah, you're right. Yeah, change of situation. So this has been awesome. I've got a few questions that I'm going to go through, which are kind of my standard questions for all guests.
John:Go for it, mate.
JD:And I'm going to hit you with those. So I don't think we need to talk about your most significant hurdle. I think your most significant hurdle is well understood by the audience.
John:I do encourage you Just on that moment, can I reflect quickly? It is a significant hurdle. It's the worst day of my life, right. So losing that part of me, right. What I find challenging to share now is the consequences of that have not all been terrible, right. So while I would take that moment back in an instant, you know the things that have come from my relationship with my kids, my mission, the chance I've had to help and be a part of things I wouldn't give them up, right.
JD:So good and bad is kind of irrelevant at times, you know you know, john, I actually have a podcast, a future podcast that's partially kind of framed up times. You know. You know, john, I, I actually have a podcast, a future podcast that's partially kind of framed up already for myself. Um, and it's exactly that point. So, if I go back through certain moments in my life that at the time, were absolute tragedies again, not to the degree of losing a wife, but certainly significant tragedies for me personally there actually isn't one of those. There isn't one of those where I can't tell you about incredibly positive things that happened in my life. As a result of that, now I don't look, I, I, in one sense, I could say I think things happen for a reason.
JD:I'm actually not convinced, that's true. Um, I think we as humans are incredibly capable of taking the worst of things and and and then turning them into value, and I think that's one of the power of of humans is that we have that ability to be able to say the house burnt down, disaster, oh, it's a fresh start and now I can have a house that's more like the house I wanted to have, or whatever. Um, and so I, I, I don't doubt that one bit, john and I and I, I know it must be hard to say those words out loud because of the situation, but I I you know I respect the courage for you to say that and I think there's some truth to it well, I think it helps.
John:It's that part of putting a story out there that can help people. I just finished a project talking to, uh, people who went through experiences on the river murray when it flooded in 2223, and speaking to people who you're like they would light up when we moved away from the damage to the river. Right, they, you know, and they'd say, oh, the river's so beautiful now, right, because of the process of flooding. Right, so their house was lost, but they are in love with the river. That was a consequence of the flood. People are amazing.
JD:There are going to be lots of stories out there about people who had adversity that ultimately turned into a really good thing in terms of the direction that they took.
John:But I've distracted you from your questions.
JD:No, no, no problem at all. I think it's a great point. I really do. I'm glad you made it and I think it's uh, it's really an incredible lesson, because I do think to your point is that when you're in that darkest moment, it gives you balance to be able to think what. What's going to come out of this, like what's what's? You know, I always think about the fact that australian uh plants often don't germinate until there's fire, yeah, and so you have to burn. You have to burn the forest for the forest to grow you know, I think it's a great metaphor.
JD:Um, if you went back to the beginning of this journey, so I guess that's you know not long after you lost your wife and you started this kind of road back, knowing what you know now yeah you know what's, what's the conversation you're having with yourself. What would you be telling yourself back then?
John:oh, um, so, um, the the light that you're pushing towards, moving towards, is like I was so self-conscious I was so sure that I was. There were two things that I wasn't worth it. Right, that I'd snuck through somehow, you know, almost like you know, stephen Bradbury of life, right, you know I'd got the gold medal. And the other bit is that it was being examined that the whole thing, if I, you know, dropped too much, dropped the ball too much, that it would all be snatched away from me, right, and I didn't have any kind of understanding that when you brave, you know to love and to care and to give. Right, you build incredible muscles and incredible anchors. Right, you are grounded and become more immovable. The more you love, the more you give, the more you serve.
John:So you mentioned themes earlier and I don't do goals because I'm ADHD, so goals freak me out, but I do themes. Right, so that gives me a guidance. Right, I choose anything that's in a theme is worth pursuing, and my themes are service, platform, providence, right, and you know, I want to serve others to have a platform. I want to serve others to have a platform, to share what I know and then to pick up the gifts as they go, which we just mentioned. They're the three things that are there and you don't need anything else, right? So I would tell that bloke that you aren't giving up anything, that you're actually gaining stuff.
JD:Yeah, I love that. That's very empowering.
John:I hope it makes sense.
JD:It does make sense. No, I think it does make sense. It makes perfect sense. Who's had the most significant influence on you and the person you are, and in what way?
John:My wife saved me. There are a lot of important people in my life, you know, organisations like men who, in the surf club and rugby club, who framed for me what good, healthy masculinity looked like. Men who taught me honour, men who forgave me and showed me that that's possible as well. Like my friend you know, my best friends forgave me so often and that's inspiring. But the person who became the holder of my being as I lost all strength and was reshaped. I was destined, given my upbringing, to be a bit of a rat bag right, and I don't know that I would have improved by myself, and she gave me a framework where I embraced the concept of trying to live up to the standard I needed to be to honour her. And when she passed away, that didn't stop I became. It became more important to be a bloke, who you know, who honoured her gifts to me, you know, before she went.
JD:Yeah, I was just going just gonna say she's still having influence on you, uh, today, no question about it. You can. You can feel it, no question. Yeah, okay, um, maybe an odd question, but it's so topical right now. Um, artificial intelligence, you can't get away from it. Everybody's talking about it. What do you what? How does it affect you, or how do you think it's going to affect you in the future?
John:Yeah, it's to be okay. So this is a complex question. But I would first say, as somebody with neurodiversity, I'm excited by AI, right, because, to be honest, ai can do a whole bunch of things I used to get into trouble for not doing right. So, you know, I do think it's going to require a really, I hope, the world first of all. You and I both know the tech boys need to grow up. They need to learn stuff because they are using tools they don't have the maturity to manage. They have the smarts, but they don't have emotional intelligence.
John:Guess what? If you have something that can do something, even if it's going to hurt people, you probably shouldn't use it right Now. That doesn't mean stopping ai. It means when we use ai, we should be co-designing the it and the tech with the humans, and otherwise it's. It's a disaster, right, it's just a form of annihilation. I think we'll come through that. I, first of all, I don't think ai is as competent as tech bros think it is right. I think that it's got its issues and they as they, as we use this more and embrace it, that'll come through and people will start to realize that it's a useful tool, not a overlord to be feared yeah, I, I'm aligned with you.
JD:I'm kind of split brain myself. I love it, I'm excited by it. It absolutely helps me do so many things right now, including including this podcast. It does a lot of work for the podcast for me, uh, but I, uh, I can see the risks associated with its misuse and so I'm like you. I'm a little bit like we better be grownups in how we do this.
John:Yeah, we need to listen to the ethicists as well as the IT guys. It's interesting, jason Silver, who is an exciting sort of young philosopher around cyber stuff and so on. He talks about our evolution. Now is cultural and technology as well right so that we now need to integrate our evolution? So biotech is the way we now evolve, because standard you know, genetic evolution is no longer fast enough, right? So we need to evolve and I agree, I personally can't wait to be upgraded, right?
JD:I know I want john 2.0, right, so plug in some extra ram right because I can't remember most names right we really want the chip to plug in so I hate elon, but I like his chip, right, you know.
John:So, um, but uh, yeah, but I think it's a very like any great tool see the industrial revolution. We're still working stuff out from that kind of great change, right, and this is even bigger, right. So we really need some careful caring as well as some careful thinking.
JD:I'm upset. No, I'm in line with you. If you could only read or listen to one book for the rest of your life, what book would it be? I reckon I'd just have to go with Lord of the Rings right. I believe that, I totally believe that.
John:And then I could you know just. You know run a. You know model. You know play. You know when you stop reading you get up and play. You know learn your sword craft right.
JD:That's right.
John:Chopping out a tree or something right Good excuse to have an adventure.
JD:Yeah, I agree with you 100% Exactly. Is there a ritual, a hack, a habit that has significantly impacted your confidence or your competence in what you do?
John:is it something that you do every day or yeah, so I um one of the ways I I coped. There was a time. So one thing about like sepsis is a is a, not a well-known disease, right, and it actually kills most of the people who have it right. It's about your body um going toxic with infection, right, and your immune systems and your organs and all sorts of things fail. Um.
John:For me, um, so in the pain that I was in at times, the only way I could describe the physical pain was I. It felt like I was wearing a lava body suit, right. It was like Wolverine in the movie, where he was burning and walking right. To be honest, the only way I got through so many miracles in my life. Somebody gifted me a place because it was COVID. At the same time, it was online. It was a meditation course.
John:Now, I'd all played with meditation but I had not persisted because it's very difficult for someone who is kind of flighty right to do that. But I, I dived into this and there was discipline and we practiced at m and there were you know, we practice as a group and individually and there was accountability. So I learned. It was an eight-week course, so I learned good, healthy meditation tech tactics and then I followed that up by modifying it for my own situation so I could do. I could do it regularly and and and then I joined.
John:We had a group online where we, every week, we'd hold ourselves accountable and that process during covid, that changed. It helped me survive and then it changed my overall mindfulness capacity and when you can bring attention to a problem, you can solve it. Part of the problem, you know, like anxiety is me, is a mini loss of control and logic. Right, fear is a loss of perspective. Right, depression is a loss of control. Right, all of these things radiate around the same way for me. So mindfulness became a way of me, just, you know, putting the big pegs in so that the tent wouldn't blow away in any breeze. I don't know if that makes any sense.
JD:I love that, and I'm one of those people. You've gone farther in that journey than I've gone by far, but I used mindfulness when I was traveling, constantly moving from time zone to time zone, and I used an app on my phone that did guided meditations and that really kind of helped me sleep no question about it, really helped me stay centered when I was all over the place, but I wouldn't say that I'm a person who meditates on a regular basis these days. It was like a, a healing thing for me. But you, but you've gone further than that, and so I guess the following question is you know, for anybody listening to this who wants to get into mindfulness, what do you recommend?
John:You know, there's a process I believe every bloke can start right, and it's the beginning of mindfulness, and it begins by opening yourself. Start right, and it's the beginning of mindfulness, and it begins by opening yourself up, right. So it begins self-reflection and mindfulness, and I call it the morning mirror process, right? So you know how, when you get out of bed, you usually end up at some point in the sink, right? Whether it's teeth or, you know, hair or whatever, right? And that cold water splash is always impactful, right? When you splash cold water on your face, you're actually having a somatic moment, so it's a somatic process of care. So, if you then associate something with that somatic moment, you're actually like connecting to your unconscious, right? So you're doing what we were talking about earlier, right?
John:So what I would love you to love everyone to do, is to splash the water in their face, right? Recognize, you know, just be with that feeling, that coldness behind the ears, the coldness on the neck, which is quite kind of pleasure, pain, and then look at yourself in the eyes and give yourself five I love yous. Now, that is going to be kind of difficult, but one of the things I find is it's, it's, it feels so silly that I'm doing it that I actually smile at the end of the process, right. So it's like lightening up my condition, right. So at that moment I usually do a little visualization about what I want to be or choose to have you know in the day, right? Um. So I just I I say I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. And then I look at it and go and I do a picture of me sort of doing something, and then I go right, let's go.
JD:I think that's magic, John. And I think it's magic because it feels like weird and awkward and silly and whatever. And don't let the wife catch me telling myself I love myself either. Yeah, I know, and whatever.
John:And don't let the wife catch me telling myself I love myself either, but no one take photos, but I love it because it is so simple and so quick.
JD:So one of the things that I I've always done with my leadership programs is one of the first things I teach them is hark allow. For those that aren't aware, hark allow is an incredibly simple meditative process. It literally takes 30 seconds and if you do it repeatedly, it's literally look at a spot on the wall, become conscious of it.
JD:I always do that, yeah, and I teach people Harkalau and I teach speakers Harkalau because it takes away fear. Yeah, very powerful. But why I love Harkalau is because I can do it in 30 seconds and nobody knows I'm doing it. And I like this, yours, for the same reason, because it's this. I can't make the excuse I don't have time for meditation, which is the excuse I normally get, and it's that self-affirmation thing. It's that reward of acknowledging that I value myself and my goals.
John:So true, and I'd point out something that people don't get all the time, particularly men. Look, when was the last time you looked into your own eyes? Yeah, and that you cannot. You can't run away, you can't use avoidance, which is the number one tactic for dealing with emotions for men. You can't look away when you say I love you and you look into your own eyes. It's not, oh, you know. You know. It's not ditto, right, it's not oh, you know what I mean. It's you are addressing the biggest challenge you have, which is to admit that you are lovable, and you're looking at the person who is has to receive it. So and this goes back to the warrior, stand in front of the bloke you are most challenged by that is the man in the mirror it's gold, john.
JD:I love it. I absolutely love it. Thank you, that's a gift. Right there you're welcome. I've got two questions kind of back to back here. Uh, the first one is you know, when you know you've got something hard to do and maybe it's a tough conversation or a confrontation or whatever, but you know you need that extra set of energy and courage and confidence to get things done. What's your rocket fuel? Where do you source that?
John:Self-dialogue is absolutely the way I go now. It's a whole conversation and there's bargaining in that and there's sort of um, you know, cost justification processes, right, um, but in the end it comes down to there are two things I used. It's a sense of this has to happen and I feel enough love for the people involved, including myself, to do it right, so it becomes a love activity, right? I say we have to sort this out. This is going to impact on a relationship we can't do right. And then I use the countdown method. So when I'm in, when I'm right there, right, uh, it's uh you get used to when you use a countdown method, you, you go right, don't want to do this, I'll do it. Five, four, three, two, one, by the way, right. And it's like it's amazing how, when you count down in your head, it literally sort of feels like the momentum, it's like getting a running start, and then you just blurt it out, right.
JD:And once you've said five, you've committed right you count.
John:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's interesting, can I? Here's an example of that was I walked my oldest son it was his 13th birthday when his mum died and I was really angry on that journey and, of course, he was the most impacted by it all. So there's still echoes of that difficulty in our relationship. You know, we're great but it's also problematic at times. And he hadn't found, I hadn't seen him for ages. He'd been married and I hadn't seen him. And I was getting, you know, that sense of rejection, that rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria and all that. I was getting needy.
John:And I remember he said he'd come over and he didn't come. And then he said he'd do it again and he didn't come. And then he turned, like there was a knock on the door and he showed up with him and the missus after They'd come back from a holiday and I remember there's a long hallway, so he's walking down the hallway and I'm sitting at the desk here and I go bloody you know mentally bloody time. And I just at that moment I realised, if that's how I greeted him, right, that was going to create a problem, right. And so when he turned around the corner I just went oh, fabulous to see you Like, it changed at that moment. So I did that 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, right, I basically interrupted the thought process.
John:So a bit later he was talking about his holiday and he said, oh, have a look at this, because I was talking about Japan and he was in Japan and I said, oh yeah, that's the Emperor's Garden, that was great. And then he said, oh, look at the next one. So I swiped and it was an ultrasound. He was telling me that he was pregnant and that I had a granddaughter coming, and I was so grateful for the work I'd done all the way up until that point where I was able to interrupt myself and and I had processes that said, no, this is a loving situation, it's difficult, but I can wear this because I want the outcome. So I chose love at that time and interrupted it with the countdown and the payback was we had this incredible family moment, right, and I just go. You know, if that was the only benefit I've gained from all of this walk and fight kind of process, then it was worth it to me.
JD:Well, another brilliant gift, john, because how many magical moments have been ruined because you, because you want to score a point, because you want to win the fight right? How many times have you ruined things? And I'm being self-reflective here, john, be honest with you, you know, because I wanted to score a point by saying something narky uh, no, I love. That's a tremendous story and that must have been such a magical moment to man I like it.
John:You know there's a lot uh, sometimes it feels tough, but there's also moments when you go back and you just go.
JD:I'm so grateful for yeah, yeah I hear you, so let's flip that. Uh, what's your kryptonite? What is it that's going to sap your energy from you? I?
John:um, I have had a lifetime of not finishing stuff, so I the, I am the, the great, I am the ideas man, I'm the you know, the, I'm the big picture, I'm the patent recognition guy. I'm the, I'm the deep dive, I love and I'm positive and I'm passionate. And then I'll get the deadline. Anything will be completed 12 minutes before It'll be started. Anything will be completed 12 minutes before you know it'll be started 30 minutes and completed 30 seconds before it's due, right? So it's crazy that I do that to myself, right?
JD:That's the best practice called just-in-time right.
John:J-I-T.
JD:Someone turned it into a model, right, that's right I bet he was ADHD, like was Deming, was that a Deming?
John:process, I bet. I bet he was ADHD. Like was Deming, was that a Deming process?
JD:I bet, I bet that's where Agile came from, I'm sure.
John:Agile. You see, now that's beautiful, right. I love that because I was talking to interviewing a guy who became he was neurodiversity. He had a really challenging childhood. He never completed a degree, right as a teen. Later on he became a master's and all that like when he looked. But he joined the police force and he became the head of the crisis negotiation and I looked at him and I said why are police forces around the world recruiting ADHD kids? Right, because, like, they're perfect for it, right, yeah exactly it's a good point.
JD:Yeah, absolutely, all right. Last question for you Is there a quote that for you is memorable or something that you fall back on? A famous quote of some kind?
John:Well, there is, now, there's actually a couple, but, like, my favourite quote is the one from, like, from Roosevelt, right, the you know daring greatly right, it's not the man in the stands, it's the bloke in the arena, you know, covered in blood and sand and sweat, right, who you know. It's quite a lengthy quote, but that, that and it is, you know, whatever happens, I know, you know that I have dared greatly right, so that that is my favorite quote. But there's another one that talks about providence. Right, there's a bloke who, um, without mountaineering experience, climbed the Andes in the 19th century.
John:But the one I probably use constantly is now, it's attributed, maybe incorrectly, to Marcus Aurelius, but it's. The pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice. So that's either Buddha or Marcus Aurecus aurelius, right, you know, or perhaps no one at all, but um, that just works. That constantly reminds me of um, of, also of uh, the you know, um, the man's search for meaning, with, uh, victor frankl, where he talks about there's a moment between trigger and react, right, and in that moment there's a pause, and in that pause there is freedom, right, and that just reminds me that that moment, that pause, right, is a choice and I can choose not to suffer it's so like, it's so synergistic with your mission, like that it really is right.
JD:I can see you falling back on both of those, in fact, as you're engaging with people out there, because I think it's so very true. The reality is is that our circumstances are often outside of our control, but how we respond to those circumstances, how we see those circumstances, you know, and how we act in those circumstances is generally completely within our control.
JD:Yeah totally, and I can choose to be defeatist or affronted or offended or marginalized, or I can choose not to be. And that's what I take away from both of those quotes is that is that I I can't choose the circumstances, but I can choose my thoughts and I can choose my actions as a result of those. I think that's so, so aligned with everything we've talked about here. John, for the whole thing, it's a beautiful bookend, I think, for the conversation we've had Beautiful. This has been amazing. I really want to sincerely thank you for the conversation. I want to thank you for your transparency and your vulnerability. I think you've shared a lot here. That is incredibly valuable.
John:And your journey is absolutely inspiring. You can go back to spreadsheets next week, mate.
JD:No spreadsheets for me, buddy, I'm done with spreadsheets. You can have that. No, it's been a tremendous conversation, so thank you. Some great resources as well, and I'll make sure that we capture all those in the notes.
John:What a joy mate, sure that we capture all those in the notes. Um, listeners enjoy mate so good to like. Uh. You know I've always uh lived vicariously through your success and this has been an absolute privilege to to have another a great chat with, with a, with a man I'm a fan of thanks, jd next time we talk has to be in person, my friend I'm looking forward to it, mate, mate have to. Cheers. Thank you listeners.
JD:Thanks for joining the podcast again. As always, love to hear your feedback, any questions you've got. I'd also love to hear about local heroes that you'd love to have featured on the podcast, like John here. That would be fantastic. Whatever you're doing, I hope you're living your best life. Please be good to each other out there. Thank you.
