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I have the career I have because of the brain that I've got,
but this brain that I've got nearly killed me.
I was a very anxious kid.
I remember hiding under the bed trying to get away from something,
but I couldn't get away from it because it was in my body.
And then sometime around the age of 14,
I found this magical elixir that made everything kind of just kind of turn down.
You know, at first it was fun, then it was fun with problems,
and then it's just problems, all right?
And I couldn't stop the problems.
There's this Lao Tzu line,
be careful of the direction that you are headed,
you may just end up there.
And it was very clear to me that I know where this ends.
I was drinking to blackout since, yeah, since I was 14.
When I see you on television, you look like a healthy, well-put-together,
you know, like a competent, great performer.
Well, at work was always the respite, though.
When I'm on camera, oh, thank God.
All the anxiety, everything's quiet.
Everything else is hard.
That's the easy part.
Osher, welcome to Straight Talk, mate.
Mark, I'm thrilled to be here.
First question for you.
I mean, apart from I've got a million questions for you, mate,
but first question for you is, when I was doing my research, your name's Andrew.
Where does Osher come from?
That's pretty out there.
It's the Hebrew word for happiness.
And it's quite a long story.
I'm not the only person to have changed my name as an adult.
You're the son of immigrants.
I'm pretty sure that they were known to their colleagues by a name that their mother didn't give them.
Well, like all my uncle's names were nothing to do with their Australian names.
Both my parents changed their names.
A bit with the Magdalena became Ruth.
And Michaud, my dad, who's 80 today, he was born on D-Day.
That's a heck of a story, that one.
He became Michael.
Yet, I'm pretty sure you've got kids, don't you?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you've changed your name.
I've changed my name.
Every man who's got a child has changed their name.
There's a name that only one person or two people in the world call them and it changes who they are.
When you get called dad.
It's a name that only this...
I'm now called Pop.
Well, even better.
Because of the grandkids.
When you're called this name, it changes who you are as a person and it changes what you're about.
It changes how you relate to this person and it changes the values that you have
and your actions and values away from that person.
As I'm sure the same thing happened with my stepdaughter, right?
Not even my biological son.
It happened with my stepdaughter.
My actions and my values changed completely once this person came into my life.
So names are really, really important.
I don't necessarily believe in any kind of interventionist God or anything.
But there was an experience that I had with a shaman who said,
oh, look, if you change your name, you'll change your life.
I'm like, all right, I can't help, can't hurt.
I'll give it a shot.
And so privately, I kind of did it.
And there's a lot to be said.
I think it's more of a kind of nominative determinism kind of thing.
The way I saw myself changed.
Publicly, it was definitely a delineation.
It was a delineation between drinking and using and sobriety.
So it happened during that period?
And it was an opportunity as the man that mentors me through my journey
in our super secret sober club.
When we talk about things that happened when I was still drinking and using
and using alcohol and things like this.
He said, well, the good news for you is you don't have to...
You get to live the rest of your life not being that guy anymore.
So putting a name on that.
That guy really helped me.
Is it actually a technique or is it a belief?
In other words, is it a technique to de-identify yourself from the person you don't like to be?
Ask Calvin Broadhouse when he steps out on stage.
People don't say C-A-L-V-I-N-B-R.
No, they say S-N-double-O-P-D-O-double-G-Z.
You know, who you are, the way you talk about yourself,
the name you put upon yourself changes who you are outwardly.
I think it's an internal thing.
Mrs. Carrington, sorry, Miss Carrington left.
At the end of grade two, see you, Miss Carrington.
Have a good summer, kids.
Three months later, Mrs. Smith, same lady, different clothes, different haircut,
completely different way of being with us.
She got married over the summer.
So she changed her name and it changed who she was.
It's very interesting what you just talked about then.
There's a great example of plasticity, neuroplasticity.
In other words, we are who we believe we are
and then we can continually affirm in our own mind through our actions
and through other people.
People's actions to us that we are that individual.
So that becomes our story.
But if you want to change who you are, you can.
That's what the brain can do.
The brain has amazing plasticity.
It's the superpower that every single one of us have.
But not many of us tap into it.
I've been very sick in my life,
so sick that I needed to be on two kinds of antipsychotics and NSRI and SSRI.
So I knew that my brain could change the way it felt about things,
but at that point my brain could not do it.
I needed those meds to loosen those switches up again.
But there's a superpower.
There's a superpower that all humans face is that when we have a healthier brain,
we can choose how we feel about something.
No one makes you feel happy or sad.
You're the one that chooses that.
You may not realize you're choosing it.
It may be based upon something that happened to you 50 years ago,
but ultimately you decide it and you can decide to do something else about it
if you take the time to investigate it.
And it starts with two super powerful words.
I'm noticing my breath.
It's quickening, quickening, noticing my tummy feels a bit strange.
Noticing my hands are shut.
Oh, I'm getting angry.
Oh, I'll take a moment here.
Don't want to do or say something that I don't because last time this happened,
I said something or did something that I made a lot of problems.
So it just starts with noticing.
It's like doing burpees for your brain.
Just noticing like burpee.
Everyone fucking hates burpees, man.
Because they're fucking good.
It's the reason you see nobody on the rowing machine at the gym,
because it's the fucking hardest thing in there and it'll do everything.
In 20 minutes, you're fucked.
Like, I'm noticing.
That's literally like doing burpees for your brain.
Spend a minute, just a minute.
Put a timer on your phone and just notice everything you can hear.
And then start to notice everything you can feel in your body.
Your socks and your feet, your shirt on your back, itch behind your ear.
The weird little thing you got in your knee from playing touch on the weekend.
Whatever it is, just what you're doing is you're getting your brain to get used to
having the observing mind come into the playing game rather than just the
The thinking mind that's just reactionary.
The thinking mind is like, I used to have a yellow lab.
She was white lab.
She was the best thing ever.
When she and a Frisbee got together, it was brilliant.
The thinking mind is my old lab chasing that Frisbee.
The observing mind is sitting on a park bench, watching that lab chase a Frisbee
But the thinking mind cannot see that chasing the Frisbee right now is not a
But the observing mind can.
The observing mind can go, oi, oi, and bring it back.
And getting our observing mind into the game, that takes practice, takes work.
But once you start getting used to it, once it's becoming more automatic, it can
really, really change things for you.
I mean, I often talk about being an observer or being a participant.
And we've got to do both.
But too often when we're overly participating, we forget to observe.
And that's when issues arise.
Things drop down between the cracks because we forget to do the broader
strategic things because we're just doing tactical things.
You know, like we're going to work every day, getting up every day, going to work
every day, kissing someone goodbye, you know, patting the dog, giving the kids a hug,
go to work, work, work, work, get home, have your dinner, go to bed, blah, blah, blah.
And we forget about making an observation.
Wait a minute, what the hell am I doing here?
What's actually my strategy around all this?
And I wouldn't mind parking that for a bit and just I'll come back to it because
I want to ask you a question.
You were born in England.
How long were you?
Did you live in England before?
Like three months, four months.
So you came to Australia straight after that?
So in Australia, were you brought up in which part of Australia?
I did the, well, the sandpit kind of stuff in Adelaide and then everything else in Brisbane.
So at what point did you realize that you would have a, well, that you wanted in fact
a career in media or was that not something you did earlier on?
Um, I was a very anxious kid.
Which means what?
You didn't like crowds, you didn't like going out socializing?
Like real, like big anxiety and like big feelings in my body, feelings I couldn't escape from.
Um, I remember hiding under the bed trying to get away from something, but I couldn't
get away from it because it was in my body.
You know, this feeling, this horrible feeling was in my body.
Um, by the time I got to Brisbane, my parents went to see, like, what's going on?
My parents are both doctors, so they understand someone's up here beyond our expertise.
So they sent me to a psychiatrist.
What's going on with a five-year-old that you sent him to a psychiatrist?
Like that, well, that's what was happening.
It was like probably the one there.
And there was this fear and this kind of anxiety that was just with me everywhere.
And I guess like, I'm not alone in doing this.
It stemmed from a lack of, uh, I think looking back at as an adult, um, a lack of control
over a situation.
Um, later on, as I got, when I got diagnosed with social anxiety, uh, one of the symptoms
was being big, being really big.
Cause if I'm terrified of your thoughts about me, at least I want to try and be in control
of your thoughts about me.
So I'll give you at least something quite large to react to.
Therefore, I know what you're reacting to rather than just having to deal with what
you might be feeling about me.
As in a performance?
Oh, I would, I would talk loudly in elevators and I would make a, I was, yeah, that was
like showman stuff.
I was a child, but just like big.
I was about the age of eight when I, uh, I went to a, uh, like a, uh, like I said,
I don't believe it at intervention is God.
Probably a lot of it has to do with the amount of it that was rammed down my throat at the
schooling that I had.
And it certainly didn't make sense to me then makes less now, but every Friday we would
have a play that each class would take a turn to make a play or a, or a sketch or something
about, I don't know, picking up rubbish at the schoolyard or, you know, whatever you
do, don't masturbate.
Cause Jesus is always watching like that kind of school.
And so I walk out on stage, it was our turn.
I walk out on stage and there's just like 300 primary school kids.
It's like Koi carp, like, like that.
And the line was something along the lines of don't commit a sin, put it in the bin,
something like that.
It was about picking up rubbish.
And then I laugh.
And that was like the first high that I was like, Oh, cause all the, this feeling only
happened when I was on stage.
The reaction of that response.
I only just unleashed this thing in me, all the anxiety, everything just quiet.
It was like, Oh, this is amazing.
Cause what am I, I'm in control here.
I'm talking, you're all quiet.
I know what happens next.
This is brilliant.
And so I'll kind of chase that.
So my coping mechanism, my coping mechanism kind of became my career, but to be able to
be on stage, music was the thing for me.
So singing and playing, you had to have some level of proficiency.
So I did quite dedicate myself to at least the illusion.
Of proficiency, but I did, I always got something out of connecting with people, connecting
with an audience.
There was just really something about that, whether it be the non-verbal communication
of music or through song or just any time that I was able to have this collective experience
with people on stage.
Was it that controller?
And I had a very strange relationship to my self worth around that.
In sobriety, it's very different now.
Can I go back before sobriety though?
So I'd imagine then if you're a young man and you're, particularly if you're a teenager
or late teens or early twenties or something, and you all of a sudden have a realization,
that's what you've been doing the whole time.
I didn't realize that until I got better.
Then why did you get sick?
What was the cause of sickness?
Was it not a realization?
Well, clearly we come out 50%.
We don't just look like our, both my parents were refugees at one point, intergenerational
trauma is a real thing.
We come out 50%, all of our, generally the science is that we're 50% what our parents
give us as far as our jumpiness or whatever, and we're 50% what we then experience or happen
Social development.
So I've got two people who, it's 24 years apart.
They're the same Russians kicked in their doors and they had to get out of there.
So these are two people who went through life going, the authorities in a state can come
and take everything away, and that's kind of how they went through life, and I'm not
alone in our country of people who had that experience when the state turns against them.
So they were mindful and wary, and they had a way of being, and that kind of rubs off
My father lost family in the Holocaust.
So there was this thing that was very fucking real for both of my folks, and it's hard to
not pass that on to your kids.
My mom was on the road for, just walked from Lithuania essentially down to Germany at one
point, and it's hard to not have those things pass on vicariously to your children.
So I can only speak for myself.
That was a part of it, but there was always this anxiety, there was always this thing,
and then sometime around the age of 14.
I found this magical elixir that made everything kind of just kind of turn down a little bit,
and it was, I think it was Powers Bitter, Sorry Bondi.
There was a time when-
It was Alan Bond's beer.
Alan Bond had Power.
He sure fucking did.
And Wally was one of the big promoters of it.
They edited the Sorry Bondi out at some point.
I think he must have done something.
It was a fucking great line.
You only get one Alan Bond in your life.
You only get one Alan Bond in your life, and I've had him twice.
Fucking Kerry Packer line's amazing.
It's not dissimilar to your scenario with the-
It's fucking great, man.
It's like, I'm so stoked for you.
So yeah, it was that.
And then I had this beer, and then, ah, everything kind of got a little bit quieter.
Quite a lot quieter.
And I've, you know, if I'm holding up a glass for people who are listening, the glass is
half, literally, this is great.
The glass is half full.
I'm like, ah, it's a bit quieter because I've drunk this much.
I reckon by the time I get down to that on the next one, it'll be a whole lot better.
But I never got there.
That was the lie.
You never drank much more.
And that was always the lie.
That it'll be better when you're on the next one.
But did it get better when you had some more?
I mean, initially.
So what's your reaction if you drank too much?
I have a, I have an allergy to alcohol.
If I drink, I break out and fuck with.
Side effects include divorce, financial ruin, career suicide.
And other things.
And do you, like, how bad does it get though?
Look, I have, so essentially like my, my stepdaughter, she's got a peanut allergy.
Thankfully, it's not anaphylactic, but there's a kid at my younger staycare that does, right?
It's EpiPens at arm's reach, like defibrillators at the gym, right?
Just everywhere, right?
And if your grandkids were going to a party and that had peanut butter on their fingers
or hands, and you know, it's like, oh, we've got to wash your hands, mate, because you
know, little Jimmy's got, you would never dream of having a molecule of that shit anywhere
near a toddler because it could kill them.
Similarly, if a molecule of alcohol gets into my body, I have an allergic reaction.
I can no longer decide how much is a good amount to drink and my sense of right and
Your sense of judgment goes.
My sense of right and wrong, my moral senses change.
And only once that, and I cannot stop that reaction once it started.
It's like literally speaking to someone who's, I don't know, breaking out in hives.
Can you please stop breaking out and welts all over your skin from contact with a cat
Like they can't stop their body doing that.
Similarly, I can't stop it once it starts.
So not going near it is really, really important and only once the reaction wears off, sometimes
12 hours later, sometimes, you know, the next afternoon, two afternoons later, I turn
around like, who the fuck said that?
And I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't stop it.
And it became very, very clear that every day started to become the same.
I was no longer in, I was no longer able to make the choice.
The choices were now being made for me.
The days were just becoming very, very repetitive.
The drinking was getting earlier and earlier.
You do it every day?
Um, it had been years since I could remember the last day I didn't drink.
Uh, and the days just kept getting the same and the drinking was getting earlier and it
was getting worse and no matter which way I tried, like, oh, I started with beer and
ended with tequila.
This time I'll start with tequila and end with beer.
Same thing happened.
No matter what, no matter which way I tried to play it, oh, I don't drink beer anymore.
I buy $60 bottles of red.
I buy $100 bottles of red.
Cause I'm a fucking connoisseur.
No, I'm just a fucking drunk, drunk man.
And I couldn't stop it.
And I was lucky, really lucky.
I tried to stop a bunch of times.
Like many people.
Why did you try to stop it though?
Did you know it was wrong?
Cause I could see it was like, I was unable to control it.
And I could tell that, you know, at first it was fun, then it was fun with problems
and then it's just problems.
And I couldn't stop the problems.
It couldn't, I, once the drinking started, I couldn't, it just, the next day was worse.
And then everything's a good idea after half a six pack.
So all kinds of other things went in concert with that.
And the people I was hanging with and the things I was doing and the choices I was making
was just like, this is what the fuck am I doing here?
And I was living in America at the time and I could see that, you know, it was prescription
painkillers got involved and benzos, all you got, it was a bad time.
Cause you can't sleep.
You gotta take something.
It was a bad time.
I'd had friends who had died because they're so hammered.
They've already taken their, you know, benzo and then they go and take another one and
See, you never wake up.
And I tried to, like I said, I tried a bunch of times to stop, maybe get four weeks, six
I couldn't do it.
And then there's this Lao Tzu line, be careful of the direction that you were headed.
You may just end up there.
And it was very clear to me that I, I know where this ends.
This ends with me in prison.
This ends with me losing everything.
This ends with me dead.
I, you know, I got one out of three.
I've managed, I got out losing everything.
And it's probably the best option out of all of them.
Bro, I was so fucking lucky, man.
And what was, what would be the, the, can you have a memory of what was the lowest point?
I mean, can you remember when you walked around the streets of King's Cross on your own?
It was just this, it was the same.
Just, you know, just being a boorish belligerent person.
Vomiting on myself, humiliating the people I'm with, not knowing why.
People were upset at me the next day, you know, blacking out.
I was drinking to blackout since, yeah, since I was 14.
Like, well, this is amazing.
I've been really lucky, man.
But you just, like when I see you on television, like you look like a healthy man.
Healthy, well put together, you know, like a competent, great performer.
Prior to 2009, look, great tailoring and good hair and makeup can do a lot for you, Mark.
No, but you had it all, you put it together quite well.
Well, our work was always the respite though.
This is the thing, like I was saying before, when I'm on camera, oh, thank God, bliss man.
Like for other people, speaking on a live TV camera, and at the time, Monday nights,
Australian Idol season, the first version of it, we were doing 2.2, 2.4 on a Monday.
The good old days.
On a fucking Monday, man.
Like pre-GFC TV money and everything.
Like for some people, that's terror, terrifying, 600 people in the studio, right?
For me, those 30 seconds, minute and a half are just-
Like if you talk to Kelly Slater about his perfect 10 at Chopes, he'll be like, his face
His face will just go to this complete moment of relaxation.
Even though that wave could kill him like that, right?
He's like, I don't know, I'm in it, man.
Everything else is hard.
That's the easy part.
So being on the camera, you saw me, your sample of my state of being was me in my most calm,
And so I guess that's, it was once I got off air, that's where I would basically, I'd go
to the green room, have one and a half drinks so I could drive home.
And then steal bottles from the bar and then, because the best kind of drinking is the drinking
that you do by yourself in your apartment.
Because ultimately the amount that I was drinking to feel okay to leave the house started to
be really, really dangerous.
And then the amount when I was at home, the amount that I was drinking just to make the
noise in my head go quiet was just bonkers.
And I just, I knew I had to stop.
Do you know this, do you think this is sort of prevalent in the entertainment industry?
Because it's funny.
I was just thinking to myself about stuff like when I get up on stage, like if I'm doing
a speech and prior to getting up on the stage, I'm not nervous, I just don't want to do it.
And I sort of, sort of semi resent it for some reason, it's silly, but that once I'm
up on stage, I love it.
And then when I get off stage, I'm exhilarated because obviously must be a whole lot of chemicals
flying around my head.
Because you're connecting with people.
Or am I controlling it off?
It's an interesting mix.
But do you see lots of people in the media game who are like that?
I often wondered about it because you know, I've spoken to a few media people and they're
They have the same.
So firstly, I can help you with the pre-stage thing because I still do this regularly and
I have learned so many fantastic coping mechanisms.
If you've watched me on telly from 2010 on.
I've learned so many relaxation techniques on live national television.
I do muscle stuff that no, I've taught, I've learned these really interesting things that
no one cannot be detected on camera.
And unless I tell you what I'm looking at, what you're looking for, you won't even see
There's a last time I was on Q and A, you can see me doing it.
I talked about it on my podcast.
I'm like, this is what I'm doing.
And you can see me do it five times.
During the performance.
During the set, during on there on Q and A with Chris Bowen and what's his face the
ex energy minister.
The look, I don't know.
Because everybody looks at people on TV and media and they go, oh my God, you know, they
do it so easy that blah, blah, blah.
But people with different people, everyone's got different brains and different brains
kind of all have a surface tension that brings them together around different careers.
If you go and find, I mean, if you go and say, for example, find the people who are
the best ever with Excel spreadsheet formulas, probably a few of them are going to have a
bit of trouble with eye contact and that's fine because that's where they go.
But people, neurodivergences always existed in society the whole time we've been here.
Yet we have these schooling systems that with a limited budget are trying to get the biggest
amount of the bell curve.
And there's people over here who can't stop jumping their knee like me, and there's people
over here who are very different and they are the ones that get in trouble with that
schooling system.
And it's all about the ones in the middle.
You're on a limited budget.
You're trying to get the most cohort as possible.
So I would say that, similarly, if you've ever been in a room with more than one MotoGP
rider, there's small kind of flighty, like racehorses, because they have to be.
And that's their brain.
Their brain can do that.
And it has to be, there's a specificity around who they are.
And so different people with different brains get attracted to-
They're fit for purpose.
And that's sort of my point.
I think maybe to some extent in media, we are all fit for purpose in that we are very
good once we get in front of the audience.
I spent my whole career working with people who-
Who could not sit in a cubicle.
Every camera operator, every audio guy, every field producer, every art department person,
you have a chat to them.
And certainly after I got my ADHD diagnosis, I kind of learned a lot more about things.
Every one of those people are like, oh no, I couldn't, I tried to desktop once, couldn't
But that's the bubble that I live in.
But there are other people who, they have a public service.
They have a public service job.
They get there at 8.29.
They're on at 8.30.
At 4.59, they zip up their pencil case and they get on the freeway and they never think
And they fucking love it.
And good for them.
And well, it's funny.
And as I said, and there's nothing wrong with being like this because as I said, it's fit
I would love to do that.
But Osh, you just mentioned the word neurodivergent.
So do you think it's important, whether there's any value whatsoever and actually putting
a tag on it at all?
Less and less, I think.
I mean, sure, we say ADHD or I'm on the spectrum, all that sort of stuff.
Now we call it neurodivergent.
Everything's a spectrum though.
Yeah, but totally.
Everything's a spectrum.
I don't even know what the spectrum is.
I don't know who worked the spectrum out.
Have they assessed every single person on the planet and any other place that might
exist in the world, in the universe today?
But do you think, can we just accept that everybody is different?
Different brains do different things.
And that's, if you're trying to get a cohort of people to the same goal, you're going to
have to understand that 80, 90% of them are going to respond really well to the structure
of whatever it is you're trying to get them to, whether it be doing your motorbike license
But there's been a couple of people on the edges, might need a little bit here, might
need a little bit there, and that's what they're going to need to get them there.
But then you've got, everyone's got the same outcome.
It's when we start to leave those people on the edges behind, that's when we start to
have issues that can compound.
And I think later in life when, there's nothing more dangerous than a man who's been left
Someone who watches all their friends go forth and be able to complete things that he can't
and have relationships and make emotional connections that he can't seem to be.
I understand why people get resentful about such things.
That's a dangerous man.
Do you think then, it's interesting that when there's people on the edges, but what about
people in the middle?
Because they need an edge.
So for me, people in the middle don't have the same goal.
I'm just thinking.
Yeah, so it's really hard.
any edge to them. And as a result of that, they may also be missing it. Because one of my
experiences is that people that I know who have done very well, generally speaking, speak like
you, fast. No, I'm serious. My experience in business, at least, is the people who have been
the most successful are prolific. They prosecute, prosecute, prosecute in a good way. They speak
quickly. They have a mastery of the language. They look like they're really confident, but
they're probably not that confident. But they come across as really confident and in control.
And they control the conversation by speaking quickly and elegantly at the same time,
which is, that's you. I mean, and some people might say, oh, he's got ADHD. But who gives a
shit? We don't have to put a label on it. I just think that we are all completely different,
every one of us. There is no middle. You talked about the bell curve. I mean, I think there's
no point actually having a bell curve.
I think there's just an X and Y graph and there's just dots everywhere. And they're all over the
joint. We can't actually draw a bell curve. We're all different completely everywhere. And let's not
put labels on anyone else, and particularly ourselves. Because what happens is we get forced
to put a label on ourself. And all of a sudden, you're defending a lot. I mean, especially a
younger person. When we get older, we can deal with anything pretty much. But when you're young,
you think, fuck, I'm so different. How am I going to deal with this shit? I've had a few people on
with, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you
know, similar diagnoses that you, you have. And we, and they're all successful. You're successful.
Once you work your shit out, you become successful.
Well, this is the thing. Like, I have the career I have because of the brain that I've got.
Great. Fit for purpose.
But this brain that I've got nearly killed me. And the only reason that I'm able to keep going
and have a relationship with my wife and my kids and, you know, try to, you know, put a,
a, something of good and value into the world,
is because I want to do it.
work really hard to make sure the bits of my brain that don't serve me don't take over because that's
happened to me and i was very it was really dangerous and i got very very very sick uh so
having been um there was a magazine back in the day there were shiny things they held them in
your hands you open them like this you looked at stuff you couldn't zoom on it but i was on the
cover of men's health magazine i had a six-pack i had a six-pack for 18 hours mark it was fucking
hard all right you don't accidentally get it you don't accidentally wander around and then find
yourself on the summit of mount kilimanjaro you very very deliberately do this thing all right
similarly we don't accidentally have good mental health we have to deliberately cultivate it
similarly we have to deliberately cultivate resilience now i'm not talking about
uh i'm thinking about this quite a bit like resilience
vulnerability people go why men need to be more vulnerable but vulnerability is the opposite side
of the coin to resilience the extreme of that is fragility and i guess in you know being
indestructible all right now i have been both fragility the smallest thing can destroy you
indestructible nothing can harm me i haven't lost my i'll haven't i haven't lost my house in three
days all right i'm sitting at home just like gambling on internet poker and watching porn
and drinking but i don't have to deal with anybody so i'm safe i can't have any good relationships i'm
not very good for my career and i'm you know starting to really erode everything any i can't
make eye contact when i go to my groceries if i do so yeah i'm safe but it's not a fucking way to
live so but closer here this is resilience and you know if we can build up resilience so but if
you're here you're also super fragile right because anything can fucking destroy you but if we build
up our resilience then we are open to being vulnerable and we can build up our resilience
to be vulnerable and this includes emotional resilience okay um i would love it if in high
school we taught young men and young women how to get broken up with all right how do you mean
how to break a relationship how to be on the receiving end of someone not wanting to be in
a relationship with you yeah yeah i'd love it if that was a course that we did in grade nine right
because that you know the if you have emotional resilience all right and you know i'm really into
this person but they might not be into me if you know that you're not going to be able to
break up with them you know and we've all had breakups it's taken me a long time to you know
get this part get to this part if you know it really sucks i really like them i really had
i had all these ideas about what we might do oh that really hurts and now i'm sitting at a party
with someone that i also know oh that's really bad but i know i'm going to be okay and i know
there'll be someone else out there for me if we have that knowing that the next relationship we
get into we won't fear this loneliness we won't fear this thing we won't grasp and grab and
smother we'll be able to go and be emotionally open and be vulnerable because the only way we
can actually fall in love and have an open relationship open communication an open loving
relationship another person is if we hold in our hand at any moment this person could want to go
but that's what makes it amazing this is why having kids is incredible because it's unbelievable you
hold this tiny little human in your hand knowing you could die and so you hold this incredible love
and feel it and you're like oh my god i'm so happy i'm so happy i'm so happy i'm so happy i'm so happy
in your hand at the same time and it's really important that we learn to do that more and more
and and cultivate this emotional resilience uh so that when things do show up they don't destroy us
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bernstein an award-winning chef restaurateur and mom i'm michelle bernstein and i'm an award-winning
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you're when you when you went through the the crappy period what was it turn your life around
i mean like was it an event or was it an offer to come and do something
um like work well well which but you're talking about when i got mentally ill yeah well well i am
the drink and then oh that oh no but the drink and then the the illness that that
i got so lucky that i got sober first but how did you get sober why did you get sober
well because i i was gonna die did you book yourself in though or i knew i was gonna die
i was like i'm gonna end up dead or something this is i've got to stop this but i had rick
rossman here the other day and rick was telling me that he actually went and booked himself into a
place and he was like i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die
all right what did you do i didn't i i had no idea i grew up in queensland i had no idea what
sobriety looked like oh we're drinking i'll bring my gumboots like we don't stop until someone's
vomiting through their nose that's just kind of what is country drinking right yeah and so i didn't
know any other way to be around other people or to socialize or to what and slowly over time as
my mates went to uni and stuff like that i could see them you know i could drink less and leave
parties earlier and i'm like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die
what are you leaving for that's just about to start everything's about to get amazing
they never did and so like i didn't know how it could be and i was at this it was like i said it
was pre-gfc so i was making pre-gfc money all that's gone by the way and um i i was at this
party i'm in the caribbean at this party on an island as you do and it's like i can't even name
the people that were there because it would sound like a fucking wank but it was a party
i couldn't believe it i was so my self-worth was just ridiculous i was fucking blitzing myself
because i didn't believe i belonged there right and i see this guy just moving through this crowd
of people like oh um we're in darlinghurst if you go up the road to the bookshop you'll find a book
called tom of finland it was like if you're a kid and you're sketching pictures of the perfect wave
you'll draw chopu or something this perfect barrel right so tom of finland is like a cartoon
version of the perfect leather man huge
big forearms and big handlebar mustache and you know just chin that could cut cake and
and fucking there he is who's that and like he's this photographer he's got he's shot covers and
this cover and that cover that i know oh my god and he's live for the party and sober like oh my
goodness i'd never seen it like that how can you be so successful be so delightful be around all
this and be okay a couple weeks go by we're all back in los angeles i got his number and i call
him up and said hey man
you don't drink do you because no not anymore so can you take me to some of those meetings you go
to yes yeah sure i'll take you and so the first meetings i went to were all gay meetings but i'm
sitting there in west hollywood uh in a room full of men beautiful men and um i'm hearing some kid
from kansas with his mid western accent tell my story you know he's 22 and i was like oh i'm not
a special snowflake all right this happens to some people okay all right well i'm not a special snowflake
what do i do now so i got really really lucky that i i saw this guy because it's very much like i
didn't know what it could be so say i blindfolded you and brought you in here where you know
opposite the trop uh trop cafe and in you know darling host but i said to you okay so you what
color are the cars on the street you know they're out there you can't there's a blank space in your
head i didn't know what to do to get from here to there so i just had to trust these people i was
told just find something to do and i was like oh my god i'm not a special snowflake i'm not a special
one who's got what you want and do what they tell you and that's it so i found a pretty simple yeah
it's good i found a guy who he was had been divorced he'd married again uh he had kids his
career again i was like what do i do and i just did what he told me because i had to come to the
understanding that the best i could do the smartest i could be the cleverest i thought i was being had
ended me up here that was my my ideas my best thinking might be time for someone else's thinking
once i started following what he told me to do it was such a relief because it was no longer on me
and he he took that weight for me for a while and it was incredible and so similarly when i got
really sick um mentally um so i've been diagnosed with social phobia and generalized anxiety and
well sort of ptsd i got ptsd i was in new york on september 11 i got ptsd after that's a really
weird one he's not physically hurt but you can't do anything it's super strange and so that all
and then somewhere around 2014 as is often the case i was quite fragile all right um at the time
bachelor hadn't been renewed for a second season and i wasn't hearing if it was or not so i'm
effectively i'm overseas paying rent out of my savings i have no job um uh i'm in a relationship
with a person that is really inappropriate for me um my father got sick uh quite ill
and i had to pack a bag and get ready to get back on qf12 at any moment to get back to australia
and then one day just my brain just fucking popped man and i started experiencing um paranoid
delusions i started experiencing psychosis episodes of paranoid delusions paranoid delusion
is there everyone's coming to get me right literally like for me it was climate anxiety
uh which is a very fucking real thing but what does that mean climate anxiety um
as far as i was concerned the absolute worst possible case scenarios
were happening today and i'm the only one that knows about it and i would start to see visions of
the mountains around los angeles on fire and i was like oh running usually made it better so
my run i would leave my apartment in venice run down touch santa monica pier run back
that was 10k and as i'm running those little bay watch towers they're all while they've got a
concrete block underneath them but a chain connected to the bottom of them and as i'm
running i look over to my left and i see them kind of floating and i'm like oh my god i'm
holding against this chain like this and then glitching it back again and then glitch and
there it isn't back again and i look up at the palm trees above me and they're no longer above
me they're now kind of weird lily pads sitting on the surface of the ocean because the ocean's now
five or ten meters above me becoming like delusional oh yeah but it was it was like glitching
in and out and i was like something's really fucking wrong and every time one of these things
happened it would be horrible pain like awful awful awful pain um running through my body and
it was happening like every five days and i was like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my
god i'm like 10 seconds and i started to swat at the at them and kind of go every time it happened
and i knew i was in a lot of trouble so i didn't even make it to the pier i turned around and ran
back and there's quite a sizable homeless population in venice it's even bigger now but
a lot of it's quite untreated mental illness it's quite sad the health system over there it's such
an incredible country and i don't look after their people it's really sad i was over there recently
it's so fucking sad and and i'm running up behind this bloke i'm trying to
get home as fast as i can because i've got to call my guy and i'm running up behind this bloke
and i can see from behind there's this plume of urine on the back of his pants he's got no
shoulder and he's got no shoes on his pants are way too big for him he probably hasn't eaten for
a week and he's shuffling and he's swatting he grunting he's flinching and i run up next to him
and he's about 10 years younger than me and i was like oh fuck we're doing the same thing
but i know something's wrong
i ran home and i called my man david and i said but you gotta get out of your house if you can't
get out how's he gonna get up to the mountains because the fucking world's gonna end
have you got a gun get a gun uh you gotta go to the mountains he's like mate
you need to get to a doctor now like right now um he said you're lucky because crazy people don't
know they're crazy you know something's wrong and you need to get to a doctor uh but i couldn't see
my doctor for about three days so uh that was really hard really hard what'd you do lock yourself
what'd you do if you had to wait three days you lock yourself down
fuck me i went to i went to vale on a ski trip with a mate that was fucking horrible it was
horrible did you do that to distract yourself no i was booked in to go and i was already booked
you know as you know as is often the case you lie no i'm fine i'm fine you know you lie to the
people around you and yourself it was horrible horrible horrible and i finally got to see my
shrink and i had this beautiful eames recliners like original season one eames recliners beautiful
i find them uncomfortable
but yes i i sit on the edge of his desk and i'm like you just go up to big bear and you're gonna
you get an esky filter full of all the food and can food he's like
hmm you're experiencing paranoid delusions and i was like my brain the first thought was like
holy fuck he doesn't know and i knew in that moment i don't know what it was i got really
lucky mark part of my brain went hang on a second hang on hang on and i was able because i had
learned to meditate as a young man
And I had been meditating quite a bit to try to help myself
and I was able to just peel my brain away for a second,
look and go, wait, wait a sec, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
What happens if you don't believe it?
And I was so lucky that, but my first thought was he's in on it.
And I can understand why people, you know, don't take their meds
and then just leave because it's real, as real as you're sitting in front of me.
And I ended up, you know, it took a while,
but I ended up on two kinds of antipsychotics and SSRIs and NSRIs.
Is that what they are?
Yeah, but like I was on olanzapine and what's the other one?
I can't remember the other one.
Like antipsychotics are amazing because have you ever seen like a plane
that have had to evacuate because it kind of caught fire on landing or whatever
and it's just this ball of foam.
It's like a fin sticking out.
Like it's a giant ball of fire retardant foam.
I was in so much trouble because after a while,
and when you do the intro to this, you're going to need to do a bit of a,
you know, a bit of a, just because I've learned through sharing my story,
people have blocked shit out and when suddenly something will click for them,
they might not realize, oh shit.
So it's important that you preface your episode with, you know,
a bit of a, you know, at least a lifeline number
and talking about, you know,
the risk of suicide.
So this feeling wouldn't stop.
This feeling was just on and on and on and on for weeks, months.
They tried so hard.
They helped me with different kinds of concoctions and things.
And about every 10 to 20 seconds, there's a fucking flinch, man.
Like I was sitting in front of my psychiatrist doing this, like just flinching.
And it hurts every time.
your brain just goes, hey man, I've got this great idea.
I've got this idea of how I can make all this, you want to make this stop?
You want some peace and quiet?
Come here with me.
And I had lost friends to suicide, like everyone.
And I had never understood why.
And in that moment, it wasn't a scary thing.
It wasn't like, I'm not into this person.
I'm going to have to go and meet them and tell them we're going to break up or I've got to fire someone, you know.
Not TV fired, but actual fired, you know.
You hired them because you loved them, right?
And you're like, you're going to be great for us.
And it really hurts when you actually have, especially if you come to know them.
Like you feel a thing inside you before.
It wasn't that at all.
It was no fear about it.
It was this, do you surf?
Do you ever surf?
You're not, you're in your two, three, not your five, four, right?
Four, five, right?
And you can't feel your hands.
And you're out there.
And you're like, oh man, when I get home, that shower.
Oh, that's going to be the fucking best.
I'll get the jacuzzi on, but yeah, it's that, that, oh my God, that's going to be the most
amazing thing when I do that.
And then once again, I was so lucky that I was able to notice and go, hang on a sec.
My brain's trying to tell me that the world's on fire and I'm underwater right now and I'm
glitching in and out.
Maybe this thought's also a distortion.
And that's all it took for me to go, oh Jesus fuck.
And I just started calling people and I was in the Middle East at the time and I'm, I
just looked at the world map and saw who was awake and I started Skyping my brothers who
were in Australia the other week at the time.
And I just kind of waited till Los Angeles woke up and I spoke to people.
I don't know how many people I spoke to that night.
What did you say to them?
Just, just to connect.
I needed someone else's break.
I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I
I just needed someone who was thinking about the world without my brain.
Someone who I needed to hear what the world looked like through their eyes.
You rent them out.
Because I couldn't trust.
Every piece of visual auditory sensory input was being distorted.
And my body, my brain was telling me that these things were happening and they, I knew
they weren't, but I couldn't resist that.
It was so connecting and being in connection with another person and having that phone
I made a documentary about suicide prevention and.
What was that called?
It was called Life and Death.
And where is, where, where was that published?
We won essentially the, the Oscar of Asia.
Makes it easy to make a second film.
And what was that about?
The second film was about chronic pain, but that's another story.
Chronic pain in that, in physical pain.
What was the first one though?
It's about suicide prevention.
Suicide prevention.
And we, my brother who works in comms at the Ford Motor Company, he's like an amazing guy.
Um, we interviewed him and he, about that phone call.
And it was, it's really interesting.
He goes, yeah, I remember that.
I remember you calling me.
And he, you know, it's the way he talked about it.
It was kind of, yeah, you, I just know I kind of had to stay with you for a bit.
And cause I knew that from getting sober, um, process goals are always way easier to
hold onto than intention goals.
Oh, I should really go to the gym.
But if you go, when I get up, I put my shoes on, I walk out the door.
As a process goal.
As a process goal.
As a process goal.
If you have a process goal, you will.
You will act through your intention.
So I knew before you pick up a drink, pick up the phone.
So similarly, and I had done that and I, I had known that my brain's not making good
decisions right now.
I need to see somebody else and ask them what should I do and trust that they have my best
interests at heart and just follow what they do.
And so that's what I did.
So it's important to have a support group.
You're like, uh, but is that something you recognize or is that, that is something that
you just happened to fall into because you had close family and close friends?
Uh, I don't know.
I think because my folks were doctors, they kind of did model, this is bigger than my
Let's go call, well, let's call, call the specialist.
I don't know anything about tropical diseases.
Let's call, you know, Paul, Paul knows it.
And that was kind of what they did.
Like, this is beyond my area of expertise.
I'll call someone who I trust and I'll trust them.
And that's, you know, science is the, uh, what's the word?
Science is a, um, uh, specific application of doubt.
Uh, essentially, uh, to try to find a agreed upon truth or a reality that we could both
make a choice from.
And so my parents always did that.
And so we kind of knew as kids, like, oh, if it's bigger than me, I'll call someone
But that was kind of, you know, I'm a white Australian boy.
So I didn't want to do, you know, I, I, I denied it for a long time.
Uh, to the point even where my doctor said, here's the antipsychotics, take them when
Ah, if I don't take them, I don't need them.
No, it got way worse.
Did you struggle with the fact that, uh, did you get through a period where you struggled
with the fact that you thought you might've been, you know, unwell?
Did you ever sort of fight that?
I'm not, I'm fine.
I got off an antipsychotic, I got off an antidepressants in 1999 when I first arrived
But I'm like, nah, I'll just have a beer.
It's ridiculous, man.
Uh, it's such, if we were to, if we, if alcohol was invented today, I doubt we would ever
It is such a fucking damaging drug.
It is a socially acceptable.
It is a socially acceptable, readily available, self-administered depressant that is proven
And it is a class, it's in the same class of carcinogens as asbestos.
Right now in Sydney and Melbourne, we are digging up playgrounds everywhere because
they're asbestos.
Yet I don't think the bottle has got a digger anywhere near it.
So how long have you been sober for?
I'm fine somewhere, 14 years, two months and something.
So you must be getting close to 50 or maybe already 50.
I just turned 50.
Just turned 50, yeah.
You've really been sort of, you said you started at 14, so that's like 36 years of
like sort of been a fairly amazing, at a personal level, I'm not talking about your career,
but a fairly amazing journey.
Like, and then you've done, what did you say, 14 years, how many years so far?
14 years, two months or so.
And you started when you were 14, which is quite interesting.
So you're 14, and I'm just looking at you, you look very fit.
You look really well.
Because is that part of the strategy around staying fit?
Well, that is out.
I mean, you're, you know, I think you're, you're a bit older than me.
Not too much older.
No, not that much older.
20 years, nearly 20 years older than you.
Well, you look amazing.
If I look like you when I'm 68, I'll be thrilled.
The thing is, I will be, and I did these sums when Wolfgang was born, I'll be your age when
he graduates high school.
Because I've been through it with G, she's 20 now.
I know how much it takes to keep up with a 16, 17 year old.
I need to have ability, resilience, physicality, vitality.
Because the, the father, yes, you can have it.
Audrey raised Georgia by herself.
Audrey's your partner.
You can, yes, you can be a single parent.
And Georgia's her daughter.
Georgia's her daughter.
And she's my stepdaughter.
She's an incredible kid.
Her and her, she's an amazing woman.
Having a strong, having a, the absence of a father in a child's life is so fundamentally
linked to poor outcomes for that kid.
You know, you just, you gotta fucking be there.
You just have to.
And here's my plan.
Fit, fit, fit, fit, dead.
I saw Tracy Grimshaw talking about wants to live forever.
No, no, I'm fine.
Like, there's going to be a point where I stop getting scans.
I'll be like, meh.
It comes for me, it comes for me.
And maybe at a point where you're no longer fit or no longer well.
And again, it's fit for purpose.
I just want vitality.
But it's a bad fit for purpose.
So fit means to you when you're, let's say, when you're 70 or, and your stepdaughter's
having kids and you're, let's call them, you've got grandkids to look after.
I want to be, if I'm, I want to take my grandkids to do jitsu in my 70s.
What's fit for purpose mean to you at that point?
Uh, I can walk stairs.
I can just toilet, ride on a bicycle, ride the motorbike, um, uh, you know, be able to
pick up a toddler when they're being a pork chop, be able to do the school run.
And if you're, if, if you've ever tried to get a four-year-old that doesn't want to get
into a car, into a car, you can't do it if you've, I mean, I've got a fake hip and everything
like you, you need to have meat on your bones, but plus our body only, I train to give my
The neurotransmitters that I need to shift mood states throughout the day.
There's certain things that our bodies release into our bloodstream that only happens when
we're doing resistance training or kind of zone two, uh, as it's known training.
And if we don't do those, we're doing ourselves a disservice.
We're designed to move.
We're designed to lift.
If we live a sedentary life, we actually have to deliberately move our bodies because our
brains don't work properly.
We don't digest food properly.
We don't sleep properly.
The, the endogenous things that can get released.
It's into my system.
Um, you must come around.
I don't know if it's your thing, but, um, but the first thing that I did when I figured
out that I was, uh, no longer having these two big TV jobs was install a sauna in my
backyard because I now have this little space where I just sit and think, uh, expose myself
to deliberately expose myself to discomfort.
And then I jump into the little pond, the little cold water thing, and I can feel the
endogenous opioids just get released into my body.
And dodges being internally as opposed to anything exogenous, which could be a drug.
And I'll sit there and I'll look at the stars and I'll think about the photons that are
hitting my eyeballs, left that object before humanity even existed.
I'm like, I am so high right now, but naturally, naturally.
And I haven't had to call anyone to buy any, anything from anywhere.
And I'm able to induce this state if, but you can't sell that.
And you can't market that.
And you can't get the.
Queensland cricket team on a fishing trip in the wet Sundays telling you that everything's
going to be awesome if you crack a can of it.
Which is what I believed marketing did a lot of jobs, you know, and having that knowledge
And certainly like when I'm in that sauna and I'm an idiot, uh, you know, so I, I push
it, I know, you know, I'll do a Paris, uh, uh, like Paris, um, what's it called polyvagal
breathing, which is five in 10 out, uh, it simulates your vagus nerve, which is how you
can induce a calming body breathing.
So I, it hurts like fuck, right?
It's like really uncomfortable, but I know by count two of the exhale, I'll be fine.
And I'm good till about count seven of the exhale.
And then it starts to be really uncomfortable again.
But then I know it's cool, man.
I only got like eight more counts and I'll be okay again.
And just training myself to be with that discomfort.
It never gets easy, but what it does is that things that used to shit me just don't shit
me that much anymore.
And it's extraordinary.
And it's all I'm talking about.
It's like, I'm building.
My resilience and keeping my resilience.
And I think it's so important as we get older, we have to very deliberately do it.
My mom was a doctor until the day she saw her own x-ray and went, yeah, I've got about
six months with the cancer diagnosis.
She diagnosed herself looking at her own x-ray.
Um, she would always say over the age of 40, make your body, your hobby, whatever it is,
no model train sets, you know, golf, tennis, fucking gardening, whatever you make your
body, your hobby.
You've got to make the physical.
You've got to make the movement at part of your day, commute under your own power.
When you can, we are designed to move.
We're designed to lift.
And there's a certain point in life, as you know, if you don't look after it, like you're
probably the fittest of all in a good way.
I dare say you've got the genes.
Bear in mind, my grandfather who was a doctor as well in Adelaide, got off the boat from
He was like, I only see old Greek guys.
I don't see any old Irish guys or poms or anyone.
I only see old Greek guys.
And he, so there's my Lithuanian grandfather eating feta cheese and olive oil.
Like, you know, discovery, like this is in the fifties, man.
He kind of knew something was up because that was the only old men that he saw.
So there's something in it.
No, I agree with that.
But unfortunately, not unfortunately, but my mum's Irish.
So my dad's Greek, my mother's Irish.
But I mean, I, but I, I, I get, hopefully I get other things from, from my mother's side.
It's most, it's diet, man.
It's like anything.
It's what you put in.
And, and it's funny you should say that because it's, it's mental health is a part
of our overall health regime.
So we, we tend to forget about it.
But if we, but for me, if I do physical health, my mental health will follow or can follow.
As long as I'm not doing anything, you used the word endogenous before.
I think the exogenous thing is really important.
For me, it's about what I put in my body.
And because I can do the rest myself.
I put just the basics in, the good stuff in.
I don't need to have anything exotic coming in.
I don't really need to have booze.
I don't drink much anymore.
I definitely don't need to have any drugs.
I try to resist medications as much as I can.
But obviously you have to take some medications from time to time because if you get ill.
But just relying on your own body to produce what it is you need.
We're so fucking efficient.
As long as we fuel ourselves properly.
And on medications, I'm, I'm on meds now.
I have the, I have the life I have because very, very clever psychiatrists have come
And that's the only, like the life I have, the career I have, the relationships I have
are because of the meds that I'm on.
But the meds don't do the job.
As a cyclist, anyone would be familiar with the great Lance Armstrong battles up the Alpe
You see any photos of him and then the documentaries later on, you know, that everyone is on the
But you see a photo of Lance paddling up the Alpe d'Huez.
He's working his fucking balls off.
Last night I'm there with my big ring-bound book.
I'm doing all my writing.
I'm doing, there's certain processes that I do that involve writing down.
I do it in the morning when I have a cup of coffee before everyone wakes up.
There's stuff that happens every single day.
So what are you doing now?
Tell me what you're up to.
You got your podcast.
What's your podcast called?
Oh, my podcast is called Better Than Yesterday.
because how many times a week is it once a week once a month so i'm three times a week three
times a week yeah mondays wednesdays and fridays three times a week three times a week i've been
making this podcast since 2013 wow you're one of the early starters i i was late no but in terms
of australia there's not too many podcasts in 2013 and it's it's interesting because
independent digital broadcasting is is now one of my main revenue streams and so i'm in this
i've chosen you know there's people like movie quotes because it sums things up i think my
favorite one it used to be you're going to need a bigger boat which i do love but it's uh hyman
roth to michael corleone godfather part two where roth is complaining to corleone about a friend of
his who got whacked and corleone ordered the whacking and he goes but i never complained
because it was business and this is the business we have chosen i chose this yeah i chose to have
the last 32 years of my life getting really fucking good at doing this and to this business
which is now currently experiencing extraordinary contraction and correction and transformation
restructure huge i have this very particular set of skills to quote another film um where do i
deploy them how do i make sure that i can put myself in the value chain uh and how can i make
sure that i make something that is in accordance with my values
which i did want to ask you um i believe it was the notorious big who said the more money you've
got the more problems you see um you don't need to work you don't need to do what we're doing
right now why are you sitting here selfishly you're right but i do need to because i'm not
a very social person and this is my social interaction so ordinarily i would never get
to meet you perhaps or if i did it would have to go somewhere to meet you which i don't like to do
um because i've never been good at it so i get to sit down with osher ginsburg so i can i can sit
here with you for an hour and a bit yeah and find out about your life i'm socializing with you at
the same time but i'm also learning i did notice you struggled making eye contact with me for the
first five or ten minutes i'm not very good at it i'm in fact i'm hopeless at it hopeless but i do
get up on stage all the time like once a week and i'll perform and people can't can't believe it but
when i get off the stage i can't wait to get it i've got to get out of here
get the fuck out of there i've got to get out of there because i'm just no good at the other stuff
so for for me maybe i have some of these neurodivergent things i'm not here to disclose
my particular problems but or issues not problems issues but who i am but but i i selfishly do this
because i get a great deal out of it right i had to come to this to um jim fannin wrote a book called
he's the guy that took uh alex rodriguez from the texas rangers to the um new york yankees he's the
guy that took agassi to you know yep wherever he got to and he said you got to ask what is the
thing that you do best what is the thing you do better than anybody and that's the thing you think
about when you're at the stadium screaming and whatever whatever you've got it's got to be one
sentence and it took me a long time to think about that but i have one job my job is to make people
feel less alone that's it whether i do that in a podcast on stage screaming take it off at a giant
popcorn machine the writing i do writing a book being on stage myself doing a keynote speaking
whatever it is that's my job that's the thing that i do and the thing that i would get out of bed
to do if i got paid to or not all right so i would ask you the same question my job is to ask people
questions that's the truth yeah yeah just ask them why what's the thing that you what's the value you
get out of that it's not the value i get out of is the value they get from answering you've got to
get something out of it no i'd like to hear people answer the questions yeah what does that give you
i learn about myself or remind myself about things about myself so this is this is therapy
for me oh i know a guy i know i have sent that many therapist kids through private schools i'm
sure people and i think that's also this is therapy therapy for me because when you're
speaking i'm thinking about similar events in my own life yeah not just you but other people
come yeah of course of course chair but and that's why i have such a diverse set of people
in for straight talk straight talk started off as a thing i did because i was originally a bit bored
yeah we're doing my other podcast the mentor and i thought i wouldn't mind talking to people just
and then i started talking to you know adult porn stars and murderers and all sorts of things and
yeah and i thought wow this is pretty good i really enjoy it and then it is very selfish because i we
all have a little bit of a character in everybody yeah i i see a little bit of my character and
every just about everyone who sits there not that i've ever been a porn star but i have a little you
know well but maybe i could have been you know what i mean shit you haven't seen that video have
you i'm only joking no but i'm just saying um i i
see a little bit of myself in everybody who sits in front of me and i think it's important for you
to have a look in the mirror yeah and find out about yourself but this is the thing that uh
i i i really really believe that we we talked about looking after our bodies what we put into
our bodies if we if you pulled someone out of a glacier in norway we would be fundamentally
the same physiologically as the dawn of humanity 300 000 years ago we're exactly the fucking same
there's nothing different physically
probably have access to more calories and better you know we have antibiotics things like this but
we are the same we are creatures that everything was evolutionary everything in our bodies
evolutionary we're predisposed to things that are negative because that kept us alive which is why
the new cycle was like fucking everything's on fire because their business is not to tell you
the news their business is to keep you on their platform to sell you ads that's their business
be careful uh so similarly there's a whole community aspect things that get released in
our brains only when we are helping
another person moving in concert with another person moving at the same time singing together
being with each other helping each other do a collective thing there are things that happen
in our brains only when that happens and more and more as we sit in a room alone looking at a screen
we are denying ourselves these things and ultimately that leaves us as a community as
a society far more fragile and that's a dangerous place for us and as individuals and as individuals
but wholly we become very suspicious and jumpy and worried
about oh fucking brown people or whatever the fuck is lately uh and we're really easy to push
around and manipulate yeah totally no and then we're not thinking for ourselves and and and
institutions or organizations or businesses or people will manipulate us absolutely because
that's the nature of humans that if there's an opportunity to manipulate to get advantage
yeah that's sort of nearly an evolutionary thing the antidote to that is to deliberately try to
you you can do it you can replicate the kind of conditions that we evolved in
a small cohort of people if you like think five people that you would trust to call
if you couldn't make the pickup from school all right you need to find start with one all right
if you've got one you're lucky try to find five all right you've got five people in your life and
relationships that take nurturing they're like pot plants you gotta look you gotta keep them alive
you get those five people because of that you'll create this thing around you and your problems
when you face them will not be yours alone
to face there will be people get around you and that makes that's what we're designed for we're
never designed to hold things by ourselves so it's important that we actually actively cultivate this
and so i'm glad that you're doing this and i am too and it's but i just and i just and i try to
take one or two things out of out of everything i do every show i do and one thing i'm just going
to take out of is what you just said it's a very it's a really good analogy people like i like pot
plants for anyone who's used to being a gardener which i am um and you do have to you have to look
after things otherwise they just won't grow on their own and won't survive on their own
they need water they need nutrition they need light they need fresh air um they need maybe to
take some dust off they need to be looked at you need to look at them and be part of it and you're
right you can't you can't look after 50 things in the garden you can look after maybe three four
five perhaps and that's a good point um so don't you know beat yourself up
you can't you can't look after 50 things in the garden you can look after maybe three four
A lot of people beat themselves up, oh, I don't have a big enough group.
It's not possible to have a big enough proper group.
You might have hundreds of people that you know,
you just talk to them, say hello, blah, blah, blah,
but they're not your pot plants.
Facebook friends won't come and help you move a couch.
And that's a really good point, Osh,
that I'm glad you sort of articulated that to me and it's a very –
And you're very good at it and it goes right back to your very question to me,
why do I do this sort of stuff?
I take something out of everything and it is therapy for me.
And I don't mean it in a sense that I have some major issue,
but it is therapy for me and I think everybody needs therapy too
and I don't think anybody needs to be – and we don't need to –
and I also don't believe we need to be – anyone needs to tell us
that we fit into a certain category.
We are all a bit unusual, every one of us.
Is therapy just another way of reflecting as we –
to take us back to the first part of our conversation,
is therapy just reflecting on choices we may not realize
that we've been making?
Or choices we haven't been making.
Yeah, and then going, maybe I could choose something else.
And if we do it enough times, then that becomes the automatic –
then we think about it as much as we – we weren't under stick shifts anymore,
but there was a time, the very first time you reversed down a driveway
in a stick shift, you're like, everyone fucking shut up.
You know, you couldn't do anything but.
Then, you know, cut to a year later, you're doing it,
eating a sandwich, putting the radio on until someone fucking, you know, whatever.
Those automatic behaviors, we may not realize if they're serving us or not.
Especially if we do it enough and enough and enough.
We reflect through a conversation.
We go, hang on a second, I don't know about that.
Maybe I might try something else.
And I think that's why podcasts, what you do, what I do,
and what a lot of other people do too, podcasts are so important.
Because what we see on – unfortunately, here on radio, and I love radio,
I still listen to radio, but what we hear on radio is like four-minute sections,
three-minute sections, and there's an ad.
Television's the same.
It's, you know, 42 minutes of TV, but it's all sort of overproduced in my view.
Podcasts are great because people get an opportunity to listen
to a whole conversation, our whole conversation we've had today,
and get a full context, and take out of it what they think is important for themselves.
That's why podcasting is – I think will emerge as the number one media.
Such an intimate form of broadcast, and particularly for men.
Because men don't talk face-to-face.
This is uncommon.
Men don't talk face-to-face.
Men talk shoulder-to-shoulder, all right?
And men's speech centers only really work properly when they're moving.
So men tend to listen – and like I, I don't listen to podcasts.
I don't sit there in a room by myself, listen to a podcast.
I listen to a podcast while I'm doing something.
You've got emotion is involved, particularly with men,
particularly with the kind of stuff that I talk about on my show.
It's people are doing stuff.
I listen to the nerdiest shit when I'm at the gym.
I mean, I love it.
I love all the, you know, science-y stuff, you know, like about the brain.
And it's like feeding myself, like nutrition for me.
Like I have a massive thirst for it.
And I wonder to myself, what the fuck was I doing before a podcast came on?
I mean, like seriously, what was I doing?
And I don't know.
And life is a lot more simple then because there wasn't many mobile phones around.
You know, everything was much different.
But today, I don't know what I would do if I didn't have the opportunity
to listen to podcasts, given all the other shit that's going on coming at us,
left, right, and center.
I really enjoyed meeting you.
I really enjoyed this conversation.
And I want to say probably the most important thing from my point of view
is your fucking dead set honesty.
You just say what you're real.
Well, we have no time to be anything but inauthentic.
Yeah, but I just think it's so fucking real.
You are going to die.
I'm going to die.
The producer in the corner is going to die.
My kids are going to die.
Everyone's going to die.
There is a clock somewhere ticking that has the exact amount of hours.
I rode a motorbike here.
I might not even make it out of here.
I might not even make it home.
I try as much as I can to reflect upon my own death.
And I never want to leave a room with people wondering how I felt about that.
But not in a morose way.
Reflecting on our own death is so important because it helps us from making fear-based
It's like if this was a, you know it, but there'll be a, and you've done it with your
big kids, but you don't know when it happens.
There's a last time you put them down.
You're never going to hold them back.
You're never going to hold them again.
There's a last time when they're in bed with you.
I was being, he's asleep, he's striking my spiky beard like this.
I'm like, it's days.
And he'd be like, fuck off, dude.
You've got to cherish every moment like it's the last time you do it.
Otherwise, you know, what are we, what are we living for?
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