# How I Built Dis - The Resilience Project Story

An episode of [The Imperfects](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1476501557), 28 Jul 2024, 1 h 16 min.

Audio: https://enrichment.soundstack.com/4vjqq8/episode.flightcast.com/km3i1rkzk8id5t0x16pucag1.mp3

Dis episode is a little bit different, but if you’re as obsessed with Hugh van Cuylenburg as we are, we think you’ll enjoy it. The Resilience Project (TRP) is the company that Hugh started building 12 years ago. Today, it delivers evidence-based, wellbeing programs to over 1000 schools in Australia, as well as countless work-places and helps provide people with strategies to build resilience too! Hugh always knew that TRP would be something special, but god, it took a lot of hard work (and some might say resilience) to get it to where it is now. From the first spark of inspiration, to the make-or-break scene straight from a movie, Hugh gets pretty vulnerable with Ryan and Josh about all the ways he failed on the road to success. So grab your glitter pens, rule up your calendar, and pencil in dis super special episode. 📺 Things to watch • How Hugh Built Dis on YouTube - https://bit.ly/3y8gAId 💻 Things to check out • The Resilience Project - https://bit.ly/3zT8RhJ • The Resilience Project Journals - https://bit.ly/3K8Z9cK 🎧 Things to listen to • Martin ‘Rac’ Heppell - The other F word… Failure - https://bit.ly/4fUkDIk • The Vulnerabilitea House - Martin Heppell - https://apple.co/3ZerqqN • How I Built This with Yvon Chouinard (Patagonia) - https://apple.co/4bXMbdk 🦋 If you or someone you know is experiencing an eating disorder, these are some great resources to look into: • The Butterfly Foundation - https://butterfly.org.au/ • Eating Disorders Families Australia - https://edfa.org.au • Uncovery - https://bit.ly/3x4IOCO

## Transcript

[0:04] different sort of episode.
[0:07] It surely is.
[0:08] It surely is.
[0:09] This episode, we've never done anything like this before.
[0:13] This is like completely new.
[0:16] Yeah.
[0:16] So there's a podcast I listen to a lot and it's called How I Built This.
[0:20] And it's a US, a very big podcast in the US.
[0:22] And I speak to founders of organisations.
[0:25] essentially about how they built the organisation that they have built.
[0:28] And I love it.
[0:29] And I mean, as someone who started an organisation, I found it really, I just love it.
[0:34] Especially Yvonne Chinois, the CEO of Patagonia.
[0:38] I know I've shared that with you.
[0:39] Have I shared with you as well, Josh?
[0:41] I think so.
[0:41] It's incredible.
[0:43] Let's link that in the show notes.
[0:45] Yeah.
[0:45] And so whenever I listen, I've always, because I do get asked to do podcasts a bit and I always listen.
[0:51] Same.
[0:53] Yeah, I get asked heaps.
[0:54] How many do you get asked, do you reckon?
[0:56] How many do you get asked to do?
[0:57] Like a week?
[0:58] I'm not sure.
[0:59] I don't know.
[1:00] Yeah, just say our number.
[1:01] Three?
[1:01] Yeah, probably about four.
[1:03] Four for me.
[1:04] Yeah, I'm constantly knocking them back.
[1:06] Anyway, sorry, continue.
[1:06] I'm not going to play this game.
[1:10] And so every time I listen, I think, oh, I'd actually love to be asked to do this one, but it's a huge podcast in the US.
[1:14] I'm not going to be asked to do it.
[1:16] And then I thought, well, I could actually do it because we have a podcast.
[1:19] Yeah, we can do whatever we want.
[1:21] Yeah, we could do it.
[1:22] We could do it.
[1:23] We could do it here.
[1:24] And I thought, well, no, it's a bit self-indulgent.
[1:26] I don't think people will...
[1:27] be overly interested in it.
[1:28] But a few weeks ago, we had our induction for our new staff.
[1:32] We have seven new staff at the Resilience Project starting this year.
[1:34] And the Resilience Project, for those few people who don't know, that is the organization you started how many years ago?
[1:41] Pretty much 2011.
[1:43] And so, and Ben Waterman, CEO, said, could you talk him through how the Resilience Project came to be just as part of the induction session?
[1:51] So I did it.
[1:53] And as I was doing it, I was thinking, oh, no, this actually would be a really good episode because, well, first of all, the look on their faces, they were genuinely really interested, which kind of surprised me.
[2:02] I turned up thinking this would be a little bit token, but they really enjoyed it.
[2:05] And I just realized there is so much that can be learned from the journey of the Resilience Project that can be applied to all different types of pursuits in your life.
[2:15] I mean, if you're someone who has just started out on your own venture or perhaps you're thinking about doing your own thing, this will be really valuable.
[2:22] But I kind of hope...
[2:24] that people will learn so much, that they can apply to any area of their life, regardless of what they're doing, professionally or otherwise.
[2:32] So, I mean, the fact that it is still here today is a miracle.
[2:37] When I look back on the mistakes that I made, the stupid things, the amount of times I tried to get out of it, like I genuinely tried to, it's like, I can't do this, I'm out, this is just, and I took active steps to actually move away from this project.
[2:50] The fact that it's still here,
[2:51] Yeah.
[2:52] It's mind-blowing.
[2:52] It turns out it's quite resilient, which is a good thing.
[2:56] So I just kind of wanted to share the journey of the Resilience Project and people can...
[3:00] I love it.
[3:01] When you suggested this, I was so excited.
[3:04] Not as excited as I was when you mentioned the title idea.
[3:08] Yeah.
[3:08] Yeah.
[3:09] So you've probably seen the title now, but How I Built Dis is... And Dis, for those who don't know the reference, will become apparent soon, but... Yeah.
[3:16] Dis is very much a big part of the Resilience Project journey.
[3:19] So before we get into it, I do want to say that this is...
[3:22] I'm not about to do my talk.
[3:23] So those of you who have been to my talk, this is not that.
[3:26] This is the journey of the actual Resilience Project.
[3:30] So I'm going to...
[3:31] talking about this in a way that I've never talked about it before.
[3:34] I am giving detail I've never really given before because I think it'll be really helpful for people who are trying to do something big on their own.
[3:43] Last night I was migrating.
[3:45] I'm trying to get all my emails sorted and migrating email accounts.
[3:48] And it turns out when you do it, yeah, it's a really good way to spend two hours of your personal time.
[3:53] Stuff this episode.
[3:54] Let's talk about this.
[3:54] You should have invited me around.
[3:56] I would have loved to have been part of it.
[4:00] You can only have so many people there.
[4:01] So you're copying and pasting or like how are you?
[4:04] I'm doing an import procedure within Gmail.
[4:07] Oh, cool.
[4:07] Yeah.
[4:08] It's pretty cool.
[4:08] You just got to get your pop three sorted.
[4:11] Yeah.
[4:11] Make sure you set up your accesses right.
[4:14] Yeah.
[4:14] That sounds really fun.
[4:16] Hugh, what were you saying?
[4:16] Sorry?
[4:19] Anyway, just wanted to put that in there before we got...
[4:21] Pop 3 gives me kind of like traumatic flashbacks about setting up email.
[4:26] So you do remember a pop 3?
[4:28] Yeah.
[4:28] It never worked.
[4:29] Well, I got it working.
[4:30] I took about four tutorials on YouTube, but I got it working last night.
[4:34] Well done.
[4:35] Anyway, there was a point to this that...
[4:37] Once they started migrating across, it was like all my emails from the last 12 years.
[4:41] And the first one that popped in was from Hugh at the Resilience Project.
[4:45] Well, I know the first – in researching for this episode, I actually looked up the first email I ever received at the Resilience Project – at my Resilience Project email address.
[4:53] It was from Josh and the message of the email said, I hope this works.
[4:57] Now, I don't know if he's referring to my email address or the business as a whole.
[5:02] It's amazing that we haven't spoken about that because it was test, I hope this works and test again were the first three that dropped into the thing.
[5:09] Again, whether you meant my business venture or the email address, I don't know.
[5:13] That is incredible.
[5:14] Yeah.
[5:14] So Josh, I went to Josh for all my tech needs early on and still to this very day.
[5:18] You have three nodes.
[5:19] Yeah.
[5:20] Okay.
[5:21] I hope this works.
[5:22] So I could also be the title.
[5:26] I hope this works.
[5:31] It should have been the name of our podcast.
[5:34] I hope this works.
[5:38] There was no... No plan B.
[5:40] There was no capitals.
[5:40] There was no punctuation.
[5:42] It was just like, I hope this works.
[5:45] I'm a tech guy with confidence.
[5:46] Yeah.
[5:47] So if you don't know the Resilience Project, we teach schools, workplaces and sporting clubs positive mental health strategies, preventative stuff that you can do to try and really build your mental health and help you cope better in a really challenging time.
[6:01] As it stands today, we work with hundreds and hundreds of workplaces every day and we have, I think it's 1,100 schools around Australia that we partner with.
[6:10] So they do our curriculum every day, they have our presentations to staff, parents and to students.
[6:16] I mean, that's a very quick snapshot, the offering for school.
[6:19] It's quite a big offering, but I've tried to do that very quickly.
[6:23] But the Resilience Project really started a long time before I came up with the name or registered the business name.
[6:29] I have a very strong memory of when I first became interested in this area.
[6:34] As most people probably know, Josh and my sister, when she was 14 years old, was diagnosed with a mental illness, with an eating disorder,
[6:42] Fast forward a few years' time and I remember she was admitted to hospital for the first time in her battle with this eating disorder.
[6:51] And it was an incredibly, incredibly stressful and upsetting time for us as a family.
[6:56] But I remember coming home that night.
[6:59] from the hospital, still not totally aware of the impact or how serious mental illness was.
[7:03] Even though Georgia had been sick for four years, it was a little bit easier to kind of bury my head in the sand as a teenage boy.
[7:08] We weren't talking about mental health in the 1990s, especially not at school.
[7:12] So for me, it was a bit easier to just ignore the whole thing.
[7:16] I mean, I was supportive to a point, but also it was too much to engage in emotionally.
[7:21] I remember getting home from hospital that night and we're having dinner with Josh, mum, dad and myself.
[7:26] George was in hospital, obviously.
[7:27] And I remember dad got up halfway through dinner to clean up the dishes.
[7:31] And he was, I asked him a question and he didn't answer.
[7:35] And so I turned around to see why he didn't answer.
[7:38] And I'll never forget the silhouette of dad slumped over the kitchen sink in tears, crying about what was happening with our family with Georgia.
[7:46] And that hit me very hard.
[7:48] I mean, anyone listening to this right now, I think the memory of your parents ever seeing your parents in tears, it's incredibly confronting.
[7:56] I mean, for us, that was the second time I'd seen dad cry, I reckon.
[7:58] I mean, the first time was when our dog passed, we had to put our dog down.
[8:01] It was the second time.
[8:02] And it's such an unnerving, unsettling.
[8:06] Your parents are kind of like the people keeping you safe, but when they look like they're not coping, it's such an awful feeling.
[8:11] I remember it so well.
[8:13] That is the point.
[8:15] That was the very moment when for the first time in my life, I remember thinking I would have been 20 years old.
[8:20] What is it that makes people happy?
[8:22] Really, was it that conscious, do you think?
[8:24] I just remember thinking I wanted to know what to do in that moment to cheer for Josh and for mum and dad.
[8:29] I just really – I knew I couldn't help Georgia.
[8:32] That was well beyond me as a 20-year-old.
[8:35] That was the job for the psychiatrists and psychologists and everyone working with the doctors.
[8:39] But I just wanted to know what can I do here now?
[8:43] And I had no idea.
[8:44] I had absolutely no idea.
[8:45] Mm-hmm.
[8:46] And it did inspire me to want to become a primary school teacher because I thought I'd love to very naively just thought, well, if I'm a primary school teacher, the kids that I'm teaching, they won't get a mental illness because I'll stop it.
[8:58] I'll just stop it.
[8:59] I had no idea how I was going to do that, but I remember thinking I'll just stop that happening and went on and did a teaching degree.
[9:04] And I remember standing in front of my class the first day as a 24-year-old as a primary school teacher going, I didn't learn at uni how to stop teaching.
[9:13] That's all right.
[9:13] I'll make it really fun.
[9:14] This will be so fun, you can't possibly get a mental illness.
[9:17] That'll just be so much fun.
[9:18] Make it impossible.
[9:19] Yeah, and I'll build up their self-esteem so much that they are bulletproof.
[9:22] And that was all I really did.
[9:25] As my mum said, my favourite, when I was on Australian Story last year, my favourite moment was mum said, I don't think the kids learnt very much with you, but they certainly had a good time.
[9:34] Never as a truer word being spoken.
[9:36] They didn't learn much at all, but we had a bloody great time.
[9:40] And then a few years after that, my partner at the time wanted to travel and I didn't want to because I was very happy in Melbourne.
[9:47] I was very much a – I didn't like going out of my comfort zone.
[9:52] I was very sheltered to that point in my life.
[9:53] I was 26.
[9:54] seven.
[9:56] But she was going to go and I didn't want her to go without me.
[9:58] So I followed her to India.
[10:02] And when we're over there, she said, we should do some volunteer teaching.
[10:04] And I said, yeah, I mean, that's a lovely sentiment, but we don't have much money.
[10:10] I'm 27, you're 25.
[10:11] We should have some money by now, but I think we should get a teaching job and get paid for it.
[10:14] Was she a teacher?
[10:15] Yeah.
[10:15] Yeah, she was a primary school teacher.
[10:16] I met her at uni.
[10:18] And she said, no, no, I mean, look around.
[10:20] There's so many people here that could, you know, we need to volunteer.
[10:23] Like there's so many people who need teachers here that are not getting teachers.
[10:25] We need to volunteer.
[10:27] And I said, no, no, I really think we should get paid.
[10:29] And I'm looking up private schools in India that would pay the most.
[10:34] which schools would like a teacher and a cricket coach and all this stuff that was very good for me.
[10:38] And luckily she was the boss because we ended up turning up to a village in the far north of India called Tiksa in Ladakh.
[10:48] which is right in the northern tip, very close to the border of Pakistan and China.
[10:53] And we arrived there and we agreed we'd be there for two weeks.
[10:57] And when we got there, it was established very early on there was no running water.
[11:02] So if you want water, you walk all the way down to the river with a bucket.
[11:05] There's no electricity.
[11:06] Well, there was electricity.
[11:07] They couldn't afford to have it running.
[11:10] And there were no beds.
[11:10] Everyone slept on the floor.
[11:12] And I remember on the first night in this little mud hut thing saying to the principal, we're living with the principal, and I said, so I didn't mean, yeah, we didn't mean two weeks, we meant two nights.
[11:23] It'll be two nights, it'll be very quick.
[11:25] And he looked disappointed but not overly surprised.
[11:29] The next day was the first day teaching in the school.
[11:31] And in my head, I'm thinking we're out tomorrow.
[11:32] There's no way I can do this.
[11:34] And as I sat there, I remember thinking, never in my life have I ever, ever seen joy like this before.
[11:41] These kids are so unbelievably happy.
[11:43] And I remember being blown away by that because they didn't have much to call their own.
[11:47] They had nothing that we would consider valuable, I guess.
[11:50] And long story short, we ended up living in the village for three and a half months.
[11:55] And in that three and a half months, I was sort of watching what those people did.
[11:57] Because in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about Georgia.
[11:59] I'm thinking, well, this might be able to help Georgia.
[12:02] And this might be able to help me answer the question, what is it that makes people happy?
[12:06] Came back to Australia and felt very lost when I got back to Australia professionally.
[12:11] Didn't know what I was going to do.
[12:12] Went back to teaching.
[12:13] Didn't feel – I felt like I had something really big I wanted to do.
[12:15] Since coming back from India or just before then even?
[12:19] Yeah.
[12:19] I think something happened when I was over.
[12:21] I thought I want to do something really big.
[12:22] I think it was over there.
[12:23] And we had Joe Brum on our live show.
[12:26] I know this resonated with you, Josh, where Joe Brum said to us.
[12:29] Joe Brum, the creator of Bluey.
[12:30] Yeah, the creator of Bluey.
[12:31] He said, I knew I had something really big in me.
[12:33] I knew I had a Bluey in me.
[12:34] I just didn't know when it was going to be and how to do it and all that kind of stuff.
[12:38] And when he said that, I know it resonated with you.
[12:40] It certainly did with me as well.
[12:41] And Brian, I think you as well.
[12:43] It was annoying when he created Bluey because I was like, ah, I had a Bluey.
[12:47] So close to pitching as well.
[12:49] It was exactly the same.
[12:51] What a pity.
[12:52] So I remember on the plane on the way back to Australia after three and a half, well, it had been seven months in India, but three and a half months in this school.
[12:59] You were there for seven months?
[13:00] Yeah.
[13:01] And I remember- Like sleeping on the floor the whole time?
[13:04] Three and a half months on the floor, yeah.
[13:06] How's your discomfort meter going?
[13:07] Yeah.
[13:08] I mean, I would have really struggled.
[13:10] But like it sounds like at the start you were the same.
[13:12] Oh, the most – I mean, I was such a creature of – I needed my salad sandwich.
[13:19] You still are.
[13:22] I am very much a creature of comfort.
[13:23] But back then as 27, I –
[13:25] had spent time playing cricket in England and that's the only time I'd really left home.
[13:29] When I say left home, like I was, I didn't like leaving Bourne.
[13:32] I didn't leave Melbourne.
[13:33] I was like so sheltered.
[13:35] Yeah.
[13:36] So sheltered.
[13:36] You and me both.
[13:38] Yes.
[13:39] And so to arrive in a village where no one spoke English, I found myself feeling really insecure for some reason.
[13:45] I don't know why when they treat us like we were royalty, but I just felt so...
[13:52] At home.
[13:53] Yeah.
[13:54] This is how it should be.
[13:56] Finally.
[13:57] I just, I really struggled when I was over there.
[14:00] I found it very, very difficult.
[14:02] And because my part of the time was so much stronger than I was and was like, no, we're staying, we're doing this.
[14:08] I stayed because of her.
[14:09] If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have gone.
[14:10] If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have stayed.
[14:12] I love it when I hear those stories about relationships when you're sort of pushing each other into areas that you're uncomfortable with.
[14:18] Yeah.
[14:18] Yeah.
[14:18] That's really cool.
[14:19] Um,
[14:21] So on the plane on the way back, incredibly moved by what I just experienced.
[14:26] And I was a changed person, completely changed person.
[14:30] When you say you feel like a changed person, is that like your mindset each day?
[14:36] Is it just like you returned and like your priorities had changed?
[14:39] Yeah.
[14:40] I felt a sense of gratitude that I'd never experienced before for my family and for my friends and where we, it's like we won the lottery living where we live in Australia.
[14:50] I mean, not for everyone, but for a lot of people.
[14:52] And that's when I realised for the first time in my life how lucky I was to have a shelter over the house, to have food and water whenever I wanted it.
[15:01] The thing that blew my mind more than anything was taps.
[15:04] Like how lucky you are to have taps because they don't have that.
[15:08] And so I tried to explain to the kids what taps were once and it just didn't, they didn't get it.
[15:14] They thought it was a joke.
[15:15] Like what do you mean water comes out of the wall?
[15:18] And I went, oh, well, it's just like you turn this.
[15:20] I remember turning the hand, like I'd show them how to turn the handle.
[15:23] So when you do this and water comes out and they all started just doing this with their hand, like, and I went, no, no, you need to have a tap.
[15:29] You can't just do this with your hand.
[15:30] Yeah.
[15:30] Water starts coming out of walls.
[15:32] Did you tell them about zip taps?
[15:34] What's a zip tap?
[15:35] That's where you can get sparkling out of the wall.
[15:38] Or hot water.
[15:38] And you push it forward for boiling.
[15:40] Oh, right.
[15:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[15:41] No, no.
[15:41] I was...
[15:42] I mean, that would have been...
[15:44] It's next level.
[15:46] I did try to explain a shower.
[15:47] I did...
[15:47] I was like, well, if you think that's amazing, we have like... And then I stopped halfway through because I was like, they don't really need to hear this because they are so joyful they get to go to the river together every day and bathe in the river.
[15:58] Then why am I telling them what we have...
[16:01] when they seem so much more grateful to be able to stand under a bucket of cold water than we are to stand in a hot shower.
[16:07] So I came back to Melbourne and knew I wanted to do something quite big.
[16:10] I had no idea what.
[16:11] And I went back into teaching and I was teaching a group of kids who are disengaged in traditional schooling.
[16:18] It was a program called Cedar College.
[16:20] And I was teaching this group of kids and I thought, well, I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to teach them the stuff I learned when I was in India.
[16:27] So actually it wasn't in the curriculum, but I
[16:29] Every day we would practice gratitude, empathy, and mindfulness because that's the stuff that I saw this community practice every single day, almost religiously.
[16:38] It was just like you always practice gratitude, empathy, and mindfulness in this community.
[16:42] And so the impact it had on these kids, I will never, ever forget.
[16:48] Kids who had left the school they were in because it just wasn't working for them.
[16:52] So they came to this program constantly.
[16:54] and everything wasn't great in their world.
[16:56] I'm not saying it fixed everything, but my gosh, it changed them enormously.
[17:00] So I remember thinking, well, this stuff that I've learned really works.
[17:04] I still felt very lost, though, even though I was teaching this program, which was really important work, I felt like, at Cedar and great kids.
[17:10] And my boss was a guy called Ben Waterman.
[17:12] He was, he ran that.
[17:13] He was my program manager and he was... Oh, really?
[17:15] Yeah, and I'll talk about him in a minute.
[17:17] But I found his work ethic incredibly inspiring and just an amazing person to work for.
[17:24] but I just felt like I needed to do something else.
[17:27] While I was teaching, I remember a friend of mine I used to teach with, Bianca, who I'd taught with before I went, one of my really, really good friends said to me, do you want to come into my classroom and talk about your trip to India?
[17:38] It'd just be fascinating.
[17:39] Mm-hmm.
[17:40] And I said, yeah, no worries.
[17:41] And I went in there with a few photos that I'd just managed to grab at the last minute and had it like a – it was like a data projector like up on the board.
[17:48] Wheeled the TV in on that.
[17:49] Yeah.
[17:50] And I was a group of 30 kids who were 10 years old and I'd done no preparation.
[17:57] There was no message behind it.
[17:58] I thought I'll show them some photos, tell them some stories.
[18:01] And about five minutes in, I just remember thinking, I have never in four years of teaching had a group of kids this engaged.
[18:06] Wow.
[18:07] They were very moved, suddenly in tears.
[18:09] At points, they were laughing like I'd never had kids laugh before, but they were so incredibly engaged.
[18:16] And I got in the car and I was on the biggest high afterwards.
[18:19] I couldn't believe.
[18:20] So I've always loved public speaking.
[18:23] I've just always loved that so much.
[18:24] And I thought, oh my gosh, that was public speaking.
[18:26] And it was...
[18:27] And I think there's a pretty positive message in there around gratitude.
[18:30] But anyway, that was a really special moment for me because I just, it was the first time I'd done a talk basically and it went really, really well.
[18:39] Yeah.
[18:40] Soon after that I was thinking, gosh, I loved that.
[18:42] That was, I want to do that again.
[18:44] And so I called my school where I went to school, Kerry Grammar, and I said, can I come and do a talk?
[18:48] And they said, of course you can.
[18:49] They arranged a group of students.
[18:50] And I went and did this talk again, but a little bit more structure.
[18:53] A little bit more preparation this time because I was senior school kids and I'm not a senior school teacher.
[18:57] And again, it was the most beautiful hour.
[19:00] I just loved it so much.
[19:01] Called the school where I used to teach and I said to them, hey, would you mind if I come in?
[19:04] And they said, yeah, go for it.
[19:05] And I was like, this is easy.
[19:06] This is people loving this.
[19:07] So I went to talk there at my old school where I taught.
[19:09] It went so well to the point where I thought, I'm going to do this.
[19:13] This is what I want to do.
[19:14] I'd like to do this thousands more times.
[19:16] Yeah.
[19:18] I just thought I wanted, I don't know what this is, but I love it.
[19:20] There's a positive message.
[19:21] Good for the kids to hear this.
[19:23] And I very naively, very ambitiously and very stupidly just completely quit my teaching job like that because I thought, oh, I'll go and do talks and people will pay me and that can be my job.
[19:34] But that seems like against character for you.
[19:37] If you're someone who likes comfort, your creature comforts and things, it feels like a big risk.
[19:43] I felt such a strong calling that outweighed any type of logic or I didn't even think it through.
[19:49] There was no, hang on, I need to be able to get paid.
[19:53] I was just like, oh, I think people will pay me to do this.
[19:56] I don't know.
[19:57] I mean, yeah, they might.
[19:59] Did you have like savings?
[20:02] Not a lot, no, hardly anything.
[20:03] In fact, I would say no, I didn't really have savings.
[20:05] And you were like renting.
[20:07] Yeah, I was renting, yeah.
[20:09] In fact, I've just gone through my partner who we'd been traveling together, we'd sort of just broken up as well.
[20:15] And so it was very much like a fresh start.
[20:17] But I remember telling Ben Waterman, who was running the program that I was responsible for,
[20:22] And he just said, that is such a great thing to do.
[20:25] He was so supportive and said, good luck.
[20:26] I think it's going to be great.
[20:27] You're going to do so well.
[20:29] And so with Ben's kind of blessings, I sort of went off and thought, right, I'm going to go and just call all these schools and get me to come in and do talks.
[20:39] Because obviously, like all these sorts of stories where we know that it ends well, but
[20:45] And so now it seems like, oh, of course, that makes sense.
[20:47] Yeah, put all your eggs into this basket, which you believe in.
[20:51] But it's scary.
[20:53] But I didn't even, I was so, I just was so excited at the thought of doing this for a job that it didn't feel that scary.
[20:58] So was this 2010?
[20:59] It would have been 2011.
[20:59] 11.
[21:00] So you're 31?
[21:00] 31.
[21:03] Yes, it was 30, turning 31.
[21:05] Now, that's another really, that's something I want people to know that like when I was 30, I had a guy message on Instagram the other night.
[21:13] He was 28 and he was frustrated at me for portraying success all the time and he said, it's all well and good for you being successful.
[21:23] I'm not, and I was like, mate, when I was 28 years old, I was two years away from starting this.
[21:28] So that's like, you're so far off the mark there.
[21:31] Yeah, you might go on to say this, but I remember there was an event on Burnley Street in Richmond.
[21:37] The Grand Hotel.
[21:38] Yeah.
[21:39] And I remember that you couldn't afford your own drinks.
[21:41] Yes.
[21:42] You had to ask.
[21:43] I hope you don't mind me sharing that.
[21:45] But I remember you seemed so, the amount of shame that was attached to that.
[21:49] Yeah.
[21:49] I remember you telling me that night how much shame you felt that you couldn't even get a drink.
[21:53] Yeah.
[21:54] I mean, that was a low point in the journey for me.
[21:56] I felt so much shame and I felt like such a failure.
[21:58] I remember thinking that on the walk home, the long walk home that night.
[22:02] That was such a failure.
[22:03] I remember it only because of the look on your face rather than – I didn't think anything bad of it, but I just remember I could tell that you felt awful about it.
[22:10] Yeah.
[22:13] So having quit that and having no – I called my school that I taught at and they said, yeah, well, you've just came in a few months ago.
[22:19] So, yeah, maybe next year we'll have you to come in and you can come in.
[22:22] Can't let you win every week.
[22:23] I was like, okay, that's – I said, you've got some other year levels that I could maybe – no, no, it's okay.
[22:27] We'll – in a year's time, we'll come back to us in a year.
[22:29] And I went, okay.
[22:29] Okay.
[22:30] So you're pretty much a salesman.
[22:32] You're kind of like trying to sell yourself.
[22:34] This is the thing.
[22:34] And people would ask what I was doing with my life and I would tell them and they'd go, oh, you're starting a business.
[22:38] And I would say, oh, no, I'm not doing that.
[22:40] No, I'm just doing talks.
[22:41] Yeah.
[22:41] Schools don't, which is a business.
[22:43] I'm like, no, is it?
[22:44] I don't think so.
[22:45] That makes it sound scary.
[22:46] Yeah, no, I'm just doing talks.
[22:48] That's my job.
[22:48] And they're like, oh, where are you doing your talks?
[22:50] And I go, well, I haven't, no, there are none.
[22:53] I don't have any, but I'm going to call schools and-
[22:56] I was two from two last year calling schools, so I'll get at it, get on the phone and pick up and just start.
[23:01] I've got contacts.
[23:01] Anyway, I wrote down 12 schools that I had contacts at and got phone calls on meetings with 12 schools in the first month.
[23:09] I'm like, this is great.
[23:10] My spreadsheet's looking good here.
[23:12] And I got a no from all 12 schools.
[23:15] Do you mind, how much did it cost to have you come and speak at their school?
[23:21] Yeah.
[23:21] So I had, I didn't know.
[23:23] I didn't know.
[23:23] Oh, you didn't?
[23:24] I didn't know what, because every question, every time I go ask, they're like, I guess, how much does this cost?
[23:29] And I'd go, oh, I don't know.
[23:32] How much you got?
[23:33] Yeah.
[23:33] It's pretty, it honestly wasn't fun.
[23:35] I'd go like, I'd often just go, okay.
[23:38] Um, $295.
[23:40] I'd go, what?
[23:42] So like an hour?
[23:43] And I'd go, yeah.
[23:44] And I'd go, oh.
[23:44] And they'd sort of laugh and go, okay.
[23:46] Yeah, I meant $295, like $2.95.
[23:47] No, no, but they'll laugh as in like, that's not very much.
[23:50] Oh, gotcha.
[23:50] And so I think they're like, this is shit.
[23:52] Yeah, yeah.
[23:53] This guy must be so shit.
[23:54] Yeah.
[23:54] But they'd all go, so who have you done talks for before?
[23:56] Can we speak to any, I'd go, oh, this school and this school.
[23:59] And I'd go, yeah, so where you went to school and where you taught, but anywhere else...
[24:03] And I'd go, no, you will be the first.
[24:06] Sounds like a good thing you don't come back to in a year's time.
[24:08] Right.
[24:09] And I said I was none from 12.
[24:10] And I remember going.
[24:11] None from 12.
[24:12] This is probably about three months in and I had no talks.
[24:15] And that is the time, Josh, where we're at the pub.
[24:19] Yeah.
[24:20] So every now and again, I'd get a school call and I would do the odd talk, maybe one every two weeks or something.
[24:26] And I'd be charging.
[24:27] I can't remember what it was, but it was not much at all.
[24:28] It was barely anything at all.
[24:31] So I started doing emergency teaching two days a week.
[24:34] And then it became three days a week.
[24:37] Because I just had no money whatsoever.
[24:39] Did you think about like asking anyone for a loan or like, I don't know.
[24:44] I didn't want to ask mom and dad.
[24:45] I don't know why.
[24:45] I just didn't want to.
[24:46] I think I didn't want them to know that I wasn't doing too well.
[24:48] At age 30, 31, I was struggling.
[24:51] Like a bank loan?
[24:52] Is that what you would?
[24:53] Didn't know to do that.
[24:54] Yeah.
[24:54] Didn't know.
[24:55] Yeah.
[24:55] I didn't know.
[24:55] I had, this is the thing that I would like people to know.
[24:57] I haven't, I had no idea and I have no idea about business and I don't have a business brain and everything.
[25:02] I remember the first invoice they asked me when I was leaving the school said, do you invoice us?
[25:06] Yeah.
[25:07] I went, do you?
[25:10] What do you mean to wear?
[25:11] I said, do you invoice me?
[25:13] I went, I don't, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do that.
[25:16] Good, good idea.
[25:17] Yeah.
[25:18] Okay.
[25:19] And then they were like, what's your ABN?
[25:21] And I went, I don't, well, what?
[25:23] Didn't have one.
[25:24] I didn't have one, didn't know what it was.
[25:25] What's with the 20 questions?
[25:26] Gee, you're taking this pretty seriously.
[25:27] Just pay me cash.
[25:28] I don't know if it is.
[25:28] It's cash, right?
[25:33] Cash.
[25:33] Yeah.
[25:33] So I just, I honestly had no, I just had no idea what I was doing.
[25:37] Yeah.
[25:37] But every time I got a yes from a school and I did a talk, the talk went really, really, really well.
[25:43] So I knew I did that extremely well and I loved it so much.
[25:46] Nothing made me happier than the feeling I got from doing those talks.
[25:49] They were exhausting.
[25:50] I was absolutely cooked the rest of the day.
[25:53] but I loved it so much.
[25:54] And what happened was every time I did a talk at a school, they would tell another school or a teacher would tell a teacher from another school.
[26:00] And very slowly through word of mouth, it just sort of gamed a little bit of – it was enough that I didn't quit it completely in the first couple of years.
[26:09] Someone said to me –
[26:10] When you're starting a business, you need to give it three years.
[26:12] You need to give it three years to either succeed or fail.
[26:15] That's what someone told you.
[26:16] I can't remember who it was, but someone said that.
[26:17] I thought, oh, gosh, I'm still a year and a half out, and it's definitely not working at the moment.
[26:21] I remember at one point I had – so there was the example Josh gave, not being able to afford drinks, but there was one time, which is in my book where – so I didn't get phone reception in my bedroom in the apartment I was living in.
[26:31] And as an emergency teacher, you get a phone call between 5.30 and 6.30.
[26:34] Oh, yeah.
[26:36] That's when the phone calls start coming in to go and do emergency teaching.
[26:39] And I never knew if I was going to get called to a state school, which was jeans and a polo shirt, to be a PE teacher, which is PE gear, or a private school, which is wearing a suit.
[26:48] So I'd put all three in the back of the car.
[26:49] I'd drive to a cafe 20 minutes away that opened at 5.30 in the morning.
[26:53] And I'd just sit there and I'd just wait for the phone to ring.
[26:55] and there's one particular morning it didn't ring uh the phone didn't ring and i'd waited till nine and i i was so shattered and i was thinking well that's it i need to that's the end of the resilience project i can't do this anymore i need to just get another teaching job i've never heard of a story where someone's literally waiting for the phone to ring yeah well that is literally what you're doing yeah yeah you're right i was literally sitting there waiting for someone to offer me work both talks or relief teaching
[27:21] It wouldn't have been for a talk.
[27:23] I was like, it wouldn't have been that.
[27:25] That ship had sailed.
[27:25] Yeah, no, it was like I was doing one talk every two weeks and I knew the ones that were coming up and I pretty much felt like I'd exhausted all my contacts.
[27:33] Anyway, I didn't get a phone call from a school as an emergency teacher.
[27:37] So I stood up and went to pay for my coffee and my card was declined.
[27:40] I had no money on it.
[27:42] And I think I cried.
[27:44] I don't think the person would have been a tell, but I turned around and I had tears.
[27:46] I was like, what am I doing in my life?
[27:48] I'm 32.
[27:50] I can't pay for a coffee.
[27:51] I've tried to start a business.
[27:53] It's just not working.
[27:56] And I called my housemates.
[27:58] I lived with this couple, Reid and Teagan, who you know, Josh, very well, who are just the best people.
[28:02] And they came down and helped me pay for it.
[28:07] Well, paid for it.
[28:08] No helping.
[28:09] Yeah.
[28:14] Yeah, my mom used to help me drive around Melbourne.
[28:20] And when I got home, they said, why don't we get your bond out?
[28:25] You can have your bond money back.
[28:26] We'll put our money in for the bond and you can have that.
[28:27] That'll get you by for another few weeks.
[28:30] There's people like the things like that that I'll never, ever forget and I don't ever thank them enough for that.
[28:34] So, because I hate asking favours of people.
[28:39] And I feel like at that point, it's really your lifeline is getting people to kind of help you out and you're having to ask people for favours all the time.
[28:47] How are you with asking for favours?
[28:48] I didn't ask anyone because I wanted everyone to think that I was succeeding in life.
[28:52] I just couldn't.
[28:53] I'd had quite a successful life up until that point and I couldn't handle the thought of saying to people, what I'm trying to do is not working, but I think it might work.
[28:59] I just need a bit of help with...
[29:00] I just didn't want to do that.
[29:02] Your pride got in the way.
[29:03] I think it was that.
[29:04] I mean, mum and dad would always say, yeah, it's going well.
[29:07] Yeah, but it was just not.
[29:08] Fascinating.
[29:09] And I didn't know too much.
[29:10] I knew a bit, but not this much.
[29:14] In this time, I got a call from a school, Kew High School, a lovely lady called Faye, who said, do you want to come in and chat to me about what your program is?
[29:21] Went in there and I said, it's an hour long talk and it's about this and this.
[29:26] And then she said, okay, could you do a whole day though?
[29:30] And I went, talk for a whole day?
[29:31] And she went, yeah, it'd be about probably, take out lunch and recess.
[29:34] You'd be talking about four and a half hours.
[29:36] And instead of going, no, it's just one hour, I went, okay.
[29:38] yep, I can work something out for that.
[29:39] And she goes, okay.
[29:40] Are you cool if it's the same talk four times?
[29:44] So it's all the year seven.
[29:45] So it's 280 kids.
[29:46] I thought you got them for the whole day.
[29:47] And I went, yep, that should be fine.
[29:49] And she said, oh, and also it'd be good if you brought in facilitators.
[29:52] So 10 facilitators.
[29:53] So break the kids up into groups of 25, whatever it is.
[29:55] I came to this day, didn't I?
[29:56] Yeah.
[29:56] Yeah.
[29:57] That's what I'm, yeah.
[29:58] And I went, okay, so hang on.
[30:02] Yeah, I can do that.
[30:03] I just said yes to everyone.
[30:04] At that point, I was saying yes to everything everyone asked.
[30:07] Not thinking through the financials of it.
[30:08] Did she think that what you were doing was something else?
[30:11] Like did she assume you were a bigger organisation or something?
[30:14] No, but she knew what she wanted for her kids and thought maybe I could deliver that.
[30:18] Yeah.
[30:18] And deliver it, I did.
[30:19] I turned up with like 10 wonderful people.
[30:22] Josh was one of them.
[30:22] Elias Curragiorgio, who works for Resilience Project now, he was one of them.
[30:26] I brought these wonderful young people to the school.
[30:28] We broke them up into groups and the day was incredible.
[30:32] It was the first full day I would have ever done.
[30:34] Yeah.
[30:34] And, I mean, it wouldn't work now.
[30:36] You guys had no training.
[30:36] You should not have been there.
[30:38] I'm pretty sure I had a working with children's check.
[30:40] No, I don't.
[30:40] Well, no one checked, but yeah.
[30:41] Okay.
[30:42] Yeah.
[30:43] Anyway, it was a wonderful day, but I remember then I hadn't even discussed- I ran sessions, didn't I?
[30:47] Yeah, you ran sessions.
[30:47] Yeah.
[30:48] You got up and spoke.
[30:48] I completely forgot about that.
[30:50] I spoke and like ran little workshops with kids.
[30:52] You were great.
[30:52] You were very good.
[30:52] You're much better than I was.
[30:53] What did you talk about?
[30:54] It's honestly, I'd completely forgotten it happened until just then.
[30:57] So, it can't have been too profound.
[30:59] I remember being in the library, I think.
[31:01] Yeah.
[31:01] It was wild that it happened, but-
[31:04] And I don't think we'd even discuss the price or whatever.
[31:06] And I think during the day she said, oh, how much is this going to cost?
[31:08] And I just panicked and said, hold a, it would cost $2,000.
[31:13] $2,000?
[31:15] For 10 people.
[31:16] And she went, okay, great, done.
[31:19] Handshake on that?
[31:20] Yeah.
[31:21] So then I went to invoice.
[31:23] I was like, that's cool.
[31:24] I got $2,000.
[31:25] That's awesome.
[31:26] Oh, do you have to pay 10 people for a whole day?
[31:28] The day ended up costing me $1,800.
[31:30] I didn't have any money.
[31:31] It cost me $1,800.
[31:32] Oh, my God.
[31:33] But...
[31:34] The talk was so good.
[31:35] I can see the kids love it.
[31:36] They got so much out of it.
[31:37] And so where did you get the $1,800?
[31:41] I can't remember.
[31:41] I probably, I can't remember.
[31:43] Maybe I had it at that point, but it would have taken me back to zero.
[31:45] The amount of times I went back to under $50 when I was trying to run this business was ridiculous.
[31:50] Anyway, around this time, school started to cotton on and it was going a little bit better, but it was never at a point where it was going to be full time.
[31:57] And also I was feeling really lonely because it was just me and I love being part of teams.
[32:00] I love being with people.
[32:01] Luckily, I had Melbourne University Career Club to throw myself into and I love being around that place because I felt like I was part of a team, but professionally, I felt very, very lonely.
[32:11] to the point where I actually tried to get out quite a few times.
[32:13] Like, I'm done.
[32:13] This is just, it's lonely.
[32:14] It's not busy enough.
[32:15] I'm broke all the time.
[32:17] I'm losing $1,800 on every gig.
[32:19] Every gig's costing me.
[32:21] $800.
[32:23] And so I applied for jobs.
[32:24] I applied for a job at Headspace and got down to the last two.
[32:26] And the Headspace position was school partnership manager, which we have many here at the Resilience Project now.
[32:31] And I remember in the interview, it was going really well.
[32:33] And she said, I'm going to leave you this.
[32:34] She said,
[32:36] Now, I'm telling a story because this is the point where the Resilience Project probably shouldn't have happened.
[32:39] I probably should have got this job.
[32:41] But she said, okay, I'm going to leave you this newspaper article.
[32:43] It's a fake newspaper article saying that Headspace is in trouble for something.
[32:47] And when I come back, I'd like you to talk me through how we're going to get out of this issue, how you're going to deal with this in the media if it gets out.
[32:53] And I went, right.
[32:54] And she left.
[32:56] And I started looking at it.
[32:57] And then I don't know if anyone's ever done this before.
[32:58] But...
[32:59] I read it, but I didn't take in a single word.
[33:02] Like I scanned the words and I was thinking... That's basically every time I read.
[33:05] Yeah.
[33:05] And I was like, this is a nice office here.
[33:06] I wonder where I'd be.
[33:08] Because I was like, I wonder if that's a nice office.
[33:10] I wonder if I get one of those really nice ones.
[33:12] Maybe I'll be a communal workspace.
[33:13] I don't know.
[33:14] And then the dreaded...
[33:16] Hugh, you done?
[33:16] Well, no, Knox just walked in.
[33:17] She goes, okay, how'd you go?
[33:19] And I stood up at that point going, could I get another five minutes?
[33:22] But I went, good, good, thanks, good.
[33:24] And she goes, so what would you do in this situation?
[33:27] And I completely made up an answer.
[33:29] What did you say?
[33:30] I said, well, I think the most important thing to do here is to check that everyone is okay in this scenario.
[33:35] And she said, who would you check on first?
[33:38] I went, everyone involved.
[33:40] She goes, what do you mean?
[33:41] And I went, okay.
[33:44] So, I don't, yeah, it's interesting.
[33:47] I didn't see this as being a huge issue with, and she goes, okay, do you want to, and anyway, it was a complete disaster.
[33:54] Yeah.
[33:54] Okay.
[33:54] Thank God.
[33:55] Because I was thinking about where my office would be, which obviously that's what I was thinking about.
[33:58] Yeah.
[33:58] So, that didn't work.
[33:59] I then applied for a job at Cricket Australia, and the job was, you guys will laugh so much at this.
[34:04] Opening fast bowler.
[34:06] Can I have the Pat Cummins position?
[34:09] Yeah.
[34:09] I've been watching it for years and always thought I'd love to do that job.
[34:13] That looks great.
[34:13] I've been playing for years.
[34:15] Bridget, our producer, who organised the stuff here, is going to fall off her chair when she hears the job that I applied for.
[34:20] I applied for the job of team manager of the Australian women's cricket team.
[34:25] So the person who organises everything for the Australian women's cricket team, that was the job that I applied for.
[34:30] The organisers is the word there that is going to shock Bridget.
[34:34] I just thought I'd love to be friends with Elise Perry, Lisa Healy and Mick Ghanning.
[34:38] I was like, I've become such good friends with them.
[34:39] They're amazing.
[34:41] This is a great job.
[34:41] I'll do this.
[34:43] I have the worst organisational skills of anyone I've ever met in my entire life.
[34:46] I went to the interview and I crushed it.
[34:48] I absolutely killed it.
[34:49] Yeah.
[34:50] I was like, oh, that went really well.
[34:51] Maybe I'll go to see an interview, then a third interview, and in the third interview they offered to be the job.
[34:56] They offered you the job.
[34:57] Yeah, they went, yeah, we'd love to do it.
[34:58] So I got the job as the manager, team manager, and then I was in this awful position of going,
[35:04] I went, okay, great.
[35:05] Thanks.
[35:05] I have some time to think about it.
[35:07] I went, oh, you seem so keen.
[35:08] I went, you had to say 24 hours.
[35:10] I had to call back 24 hours later and say, hey, I think I'd be really bad at this job.
[35:18] I was just going to be really honest.
[35:20] I don't think I could do this.
[35:21] Like, I have really bad organizational skills.
[35:23] I've never heard a person so confused in her entire life.
[35:26] The poor HR lady.
[35:27] There's nothing more self-deprecating than I don't want the job.
[35:30] I can't do it.
[35:33] No, we think you can do it.
[35:35] But I said, oh, it's also the resilience project is really important to me.
[35:37] I need to dedicate more time to that.
[35:40] And I said, okay, why don't you do a way tour?
[35:42] We've got a tour to Sri Lanka coming up.
[35:43] You can come and do that.
[35:44] And then we've got one to the UK.
[35:47] You could do that.
[35:48] I'm thinking, God, I mean, that would be pretty awesome.
[35:50] but I'd be so bad at it.
[35:53] Sounds like more organising.
[35:54] Yeah, do the hard ones.
[35:56] I'd imagine the players' gear would turn up in South Africa.
[35:59] That'd be in India.
[36:01] There'd be girls turning up to the wrong games.
[36:02] There'd be buses not turning up.
[36:03] It would be...
[36:04] Anyway, so I said, I actually can't do the job.
[36:07] I'm sorry that I made you believe that I could.
[36:09] I would be shocking at that.
[36:11] So that was a whole new point of like... A whole new low of like... Wow.
[36:15] So I got a job.
[36:15] How old are you now?
[36:16] This is... 30, probably still 32 at this point.
[36:19] Yeah.
[36:21] What a power move to go through a three-step interview process and then decline the job.
[36:26] I'd still like to be friends with those girls if they're interested.
[36:30] That's a weird album.
[36:32] Because I like some parents listening to this.
[36:38] So around that time, I'm thinking, okay, so emergency teaching resilience project, neither are working for me at all.
[36:46] And I turned up to an independent school in Melbourne to do a day of emergency teaching in a suit.
[36:52] And I'm getting out of the car and this is the day that completely changed my life forever, a day that I will never, ever forget and think about often.
[36:59] As I was getting out of the car, I looked at my phone and that was back in the day when we were addicted and I was just going to leave it in the car back in 2013.
[37:08] Yeah, well, there's no need to use the phone until 8pm when it's free from Optus to Optus.
[37:14] Exactly.
[37:15] Why would you even use it before that?
[37:16] Church messages incoming.
[37:19] And as I was putting my phone away, I put it in the glove box and then I heard it ringing as I was getting out of the car.
[37:25] And I had a moment of like, it doesn't matter.
[37:27] Oh no, I'll check it.
[37:28] And I picked it up and it was a lady and she said, hi,
[37:32] I'm at a conference in Ararat, I think it was, in Victoria.
[37:35] I don't really know who you are or what you talk about, but I'm here with a group of principals.
[37:39] We've had a guest speaker pull out at the last minute.
[37:42] Someone, and it was Faye from Q High, has given me your number.
[37:46] Could you get here in an hour and a half to do a talk?
[37:49] She said, I've got 52 principals here.
[37:51] Could you get here in an hour and a half?
[37:53] And I went to the front desk at this school and said, I'm so sorry, I can't do emergency teaching today.
[37:57] And the principal goes, you're here.
[37:59] And I said, yeah, it's a long story, but I can't do this.
[38:01] But aren't you the really desperate guy?
[38:04] Aren't you the sub $1,800 talk guy?
[38:11] We were hoping to make some good money off you today and you're teaching.
[38:14] We heard you're really cheap and desperate and good.
[38:17] You pay us.
[38:21] And she said, I don't understand what's happening here.
[38:23] She said, she was so angry.
[38:25] Fair enough, because they didn't have a teacher for a class.
[38:29] And then I got in the car and then I got a phone call and I was like, I'm going to our, this is it.
[38:33] This is make or break.
[38:33] I got a phone call from the agency saying, you're off our books.
[38:38] That is teaching agency.
[38:39] Yeah, that is absolutely unacceptable.
[38:40] You're off our books.
[38:41] We're not calling you ever again.
[38:42] Fair enough.
[38:43] I was like, okay, there goes emergency teaching.
[38:44] I've been fired from that.
[38:46] And on the way to this principal comments, I thought, this is make or break.
[38:50] What a great story point to up the stakes in this.
[38:52] It really is.
[38:53] And I walked into this room full of principals and sitting in the back of the room was a familiar face.
[38:58] And I thought, I know who that guy is.
[39:00] He's that legendary guy who was five years above me at school, who played footy for Melbourne and St Kilda, who's just an outrageous guy, Martin Heppel.
[39:09] I didn't know that part of the story.
[39:11] So all the principals are facing forward listening to someone talk about...
[39:14] I don't know, policy something.
[39:16] And he turned around and he pointed to me the most aggressive point ever and then just pumped his fist and he goes, you are a legend, like whispered.
[39:24] And he goes, you are going to rock this joint.
[39:26] The roof is going to come off because of you.
[39:28] You're going to blow this joint to pieces.
[39:29] And he was giving me- Before you'd started.
[39:31] Yeah, he was whispering it to me really loud.
[39:33] Wow.
[39:33] I was just sitting in the back of the room waiting for it to be my turn and he just kept turning around at strange moments and he was going, you're a fucking legend.
[39:41] I am so pumped for this.
[39:42] And he was just getting me so hyped up.
[39:44] Oh, it makes me so happy.
[39:46] And I was like, wow, this is amazing.
[39:48] This is such a movie.
[39:49] And I got up there and I started to do the talk.
[39:52] And I actually had my phone in my pocket.
[39:54] I hadn't taken it out.
[39:56] And five minutes in, I knew it was the best.
[39:59] This is the best I've ever presented my story.
[40:01] It's just the most – I was really emotional because part of me felt like this could be the last time.
[40:05] But also I saw a group of people who so desperately needed this message.
[40:09] A group of principals, I think it's one of the most stressful jobs in the world.
[40:13] They were very emotional throughout the session.
[40:15] It was meant to go for an hour and they said, do you reckon you could do another couple of hours?
[40:18] Can we have the fae treatment?
[40:21] The four hour, we'll take the four hour.
[40:23] We'll bring you ten friends on.
[40:26] And I went for three hours.
[40:27] They just said, just keep going.
[40:28] And it was like a- What did you say?
[40:30] Oh, everything that I ever wanted to say that I thought was important for them.
[40:33] Really?
[40:34] And it was so, and my phone was going berserk as I was talking.
[40:37] I was like, this is ironic.
[40:38] This is schools trying to call while I'm doing this.
[40:41] But I don't know who's calling me right now or what they're saying.
[40:44] Anyway, I got off stage.
[40:46] What was on the phone?
[40:47] Who was calling?
[40:48] It was principals who were in the room booking me in.
[40:50] What?
[40:50] They were emailing me and booking me in as I was talking to their school.
[40:55] So I got off stage.
[40:56] I was like, I think that went really well.
[40:57] Martin gave me the biggest hug I've ever had in my life.
[41:02] He goes, you have no idea how much we needed that just then.
[41:05] We needed that so desperately.
[41:06] We've been through a bit as a group.
[41:08] And I checked my phone and as I'm sort of toying to people, I was looking at my phone going, what is going on?
[41:12] I've never seen so many notifications.
[41:13] And it was principals saying, because the email address was inquiries at the Resilience Project.
[41:18] It was just me.
[41:19] It was like, hi, we can't get back to you at this point.
[41:21] It's because, no, Hugh.
[41:22] Yeah, because I'm here.
[41:24] Yeah.
[41:24] Look up.
[41:28] The sole employee is working right now, obviously.
[41:31] I was like, hey, I'm not sure who manages Hugh's email and who does his, but we would love to book Hugh in.
[41:37] He's actually speaking to us right now.
[41:39] Could you book us in so we don't miss out this year?
[41:41] And in the next week, I booked in 48 out of the 52 schools that were represented in that room.
[41:48] and that's when I knew that this was just going to work.
[41:51] I just knew it was going to work from that moment on, and it was extraordinary.
[41:56] Can I – and I don't mean to get in the weeds so much about the price.
[42:01] I'm just – Didn't know at this point.
[42:03] Didn't know.
[42:04] So you hadn't even – you still didn't think to speak to someone who's a speaker and go like, how much should I be charging?
[42:10] No, I just guessed.
[42:10] I was like, well, I get $295 a day from emergency teaching.
[42:15] It seems a bit rich to charge that much.
[42:17] I'll do $250 for an hour.
[42:18] Yeah, right.
[42:19] So I just felt like it was a bit much to them.
[42:20] Yeah, of course.
[42:21] Which is ridiculous.
[42:22] Because you could do five of those in a day.
[42:24] Yeah, you might do five of those a day.
[42:25] Oh, my God, I'll be loaded.
[42:26] Yeah, yeah.
[42:28] But then on the way home from Ararat, I stopped at a subway and I got my laptop out and went – because everyone was saying, oh, can you email us a brochure?
[42:36] And I went –
[42:36] Yeah, I can get you a brochure for sure.
[42:39] Anyway, then I like stopped at Subway on the way home and was like, right, time to make a brochure, Resilience Project brochure on Word.
[42:47] And for those who don't know Hugh, if organisation isn't one of his strong sorts, I wouldn't say design is up there.
[42:54] Well, there was no design apparent.
[42:56] It was just like a word dog.
[42:57] It was in bold, the heading, like brochure, Resilience Project brochure.
[43:01] You don't have it, do you?
[43:02] No, I looked for it for ages the other day.
[43:04] Oh, that'd be so good to say.
[43:05] Yeah.
[43:06] Actually, this is something else that's popped into my head.
[43:08] How's this?
[43:09] This is going to make all of you just feel ill.
[43:11] But I didn't have any of these details on a computer, on a laptop.
[43:15] I didn't have any of the school contacts.
[43:16] I didn't have any of the – I had a spreadsheet that I'd ruled up with my hand – by hand.
[43:22] And I'd written in by hands of school, the person, the number, what program they wanted to do, like had I invoiced them and I had it on my wall in my bedroom.
[43:30] That was my office, my bedroom.
[43:32] And I had it there.
[43:33] And I remember when this was all going on, like all the emails are going out.
[43:37] At the top of the page, did it say, my talks in glitter?
[43:43] I mean, that would be a very fair way of presenting it.
[43:46] Yeah.
[43:47] So I'm booking.
[43:48] I'm halfway through booking all these schools, and I'm trying to find in dates for 48 schools.
[43:51] I'm like, this is amazing.
[43:53] I can't believe this is happening, but I need a second page for my spreadsheet.
[43:56] So I was like, I'm not going to do it by hand.
[43:59] I'm going to print out a table, and then I'll hand fill it in and stick it on my wall.
[44:05] I went to work one day.
[44:06] We had cleaners going through our apartment, and one of the spreadsheets fell off my wall, and the cleaners put it in the bin and just threw it out.
[44:12] So I lost all the dates that I'd booked in, all the – What?
[44:16] Everything.
[44:17] So I had to go – these are all the mistakes that I made along the way that were just ridiculous.
[44:21] You know how Bridge has a real aversion to disgusting things?
[44:24] Do you think she's more disgusted by your, like, rice in your nose?
[44:28] I think she's going to quit half of her.
[44:29] I think she's going to quit –
[44:32] but I did know that and people are going how on earth is resilience but you are so useless and I was so useless at so many things but when I got to a school How did you get the contacts back?
[44:40] Yeah And the dates I went back through the emails and had to sort it all out Oh and re-rule it Yeah Yeah Yeah I just thought of something else that happened there was this when I had no schools in all the books this is before the principal network thing the biggest school in Victoria Halebury College got in touch and said can you come and speak to our year 12s if it goes well we might be able to book you out for all the year levels across all four campuses
[45:00] I was thinking, this could be, this is it, this is mine.
[45:03] And so I wrote it on the wall, the date and everything, and put so much preparation.
[45:07] A lovely guy called Nick Frayn was the contact there at Haleby.
[45:10] I'm not sure where he teaches now.
[45:12] Anyway, I'm sitting at home in my office just like the day before the talk and I'm thinking, I was literally sitting there going, so this time tomorrow I'll be getting up and I'm going to be
[45:21] I think the talk's ready going.
[45:22] I'm feeling good about it.
[45:23] And my phone rang and it was this guy, Nick Frayn, and he goes, Hugh?
[45:27] And I'm like, yep.
[45:28] And he goes, how far off are you?
[45:29] I'm like, sorry?
[45:30] And he goes, how far off are you?
[45:31] And I'm like, sorry, how far off where?
[45:32] And he goes, what do you mean?
[45:35] I've got, I have bussed.
[45:36] Hell.
[45:36] He goes, I've bussed four different campuses to a central location.
[45:40] Oh, my God.
[45:41] Please tell me you're joking.
[45:42] And I went, oh.
[45:43] I'm about an hour away.
[45:45] I could be there an hour.
[45:46] And he goes, so I entertain 480 kids for an hour by myself?
[45:50] Is that what I'm doing?
[45:51] Yep.
[45:52] And I went, I'm so sorry.
[45:54] I thought this was tomorrow.
[45:55] And he goes, mate, I've got to go.
[45:56] I've got to decide what to do with 480 kids.
[45:58] And he just hung up.
[45:59] Now, this is not how we got him.
[46:01] He is absolutely well within his right to be upset.
[46:04] Yeah.
[46:04] Yeah.
[46:06] Yeah, he's within his right.
[46:08] I think he handled it pretty well.
[46:10] He's pretty calm.
[46:11] I love how you're giving him a chopper.
[46:16] No, but you know what?
[46:16] In hindsight, I actually think he had a point.
[46:18] No one out there blame Nick Frey for this situation.
[46:22] I don't want any hate directed at Nick Frey.
[46:27] That's so gracious of you.
[46:30] No, you're right, actually.
[46:31] He did have a leg to stand on.
[46:33] He did.
[46:34] Might have been a bit your fault, in hindsight.
[46:42] So once the program started rolling in after the teacher conference, it was just, I was, I, because I'd, people had said no for two and a half years at this point.
[46:52] I just, I said yes to absolutely everything.
[46:55] I remember one day I drove from Melbourne, a school in Melbourne, I drove five hours to Portland to do, so I finished at 10 in the morning, drove to Portland.
[47:03] for a 3.30 talk, finished at 4.30.
[47:06] And I drove back to Melbourne that night to do a parent talk.
[47:09] So I did a talk in Melbourne, drove for five hours, did a teacher talk, then drove back five hours.
[47:15] The stuff I was doing was outrageous.
[47:16] And then before I knew it, it was five, six talks a day sometimes.
[47:21] The level of exhaustion I experienced was like nothing else.
[47:24] But I'd said, I just, I had energy for this.
[47:26] Like, no, I'm doing this.
[47:27] This is what I want to do.
[47:28] I loved it so much.
[47:29] Which is probably why, like, I know I keep bringing up the money thing because I just think it's interesting as a, like, a business thing.
[47:34] But I guess you're so focused on doing it because you just care about it so much.
[47:39] Yeah, the money wasn't secondary.
[47:40] I didn't care.
[47:41] Yeah.
[47:41] To the point where, and I'm probably jumping ahead a bit in the story here, but to the point where the first time I brought on an accountant, so I brought on a, Helen, who is now with us today, one of our, in our leadership team, and one of the best people I've ever met in my entire life.
[47:54] The first time I employed her, I handed over Xero to her.
[47:59] Xero is the app that you use to do your accounting on.
[48:02] And I was looking at her, she went completely pale and she said, do you know you've got $285,000 outstanding?
[48:10] And I had no money at this point because I was still trying to like – Oh, my God.
[48:13] I just wasn't running the business as a – and I said, oh, yeah, I did.
[48:16] It's just that like they're saying that they can't pay or they didn't understand it was that much or they just don't have money in the budget even though we agreed on it or some people are saying, oh, we thought it was for free.
[48:25] $285,000.
[48:26] And she said, I'll get that $285,000 and give me two months, I'll get it for you.
[48:30] And it was like a red rag to a ball.
[48:33] Watching her extract that $285,000 out of people out of the next two months was unbelievable.
[48:39] Yeah.
[48:39] That's why she was working at night and always had people in her boot.
[48:45] Well, it's funny you say that.
[48:46] Not far off.
[48:47] It is not far off.
[48:48] I remember once she said, give me the email.
[48:50] I just want to make sure that we're not charging people for what they didn't know they were.
[48:54] And often it was I'd say to schools this much and they'd go, yep, no worries.
[48:57] And they'd go, oh, actually, we don't have the money this year.
[48:58] We'll pay you next year.
[48:59] After you'd done it.
[49:01] After we'd done it, yeah.
[49:02] And I would hear her on the phone going, what, they're not available to speak to me.
[49:06] No worries.
[49:06] I'll come down now.
[49:07] I'll wait outside their office until they're ready.
[49:09] Like she was like, I am getting this money because, yeah, she was amazing.
[49:14] Helen Soprano.
[49:15] Yeah.
[49:18] if you saw if you'd seen what Helen looks like that is even funnier because she does not work so I'm from The Sopranos so people kept saying to me you need to bring on another speaker and that I found I was like yeah I agree but I can't I don't want this to sound like I'm being arrogant or over endorsing my own work but for all the stuff I've told you that I was really bad at you're pretty confident that you were the best I knew the talk I knew the talk
[49:42] I knew the talks were very good.
[49:44] And I felt like when it's on mental health, you can't roll up to a place and just say some mental health statistics and share a boring story and just hope that it – my feeling was the kids had to leave the session going, that's the best thing we've ever seen.
[49:57] If it's got any chance of sticking, those principles, they have to go, that's the best thing we've ever seen.
[50:02] That's what I wanted it to be.
[50:03] So in getting another person in, I wanted to find someone who the kids would go, that's the best thing we've ever seen.
[50:09] Mm-hmm.
[50:09] I was at a school.
[50:11] I was at Martin Hebel School.
[50:13] The guy from the...
[50:14] The guy from the comments who gave me the big cheer up.
[50:17] He was an assistant principal to school and he did an introduction for me.
[50:21] The introduction he gave me is still the funniest minute of stand-up I've ever seen.
[50:25] It was preps, I think it was.
[50:27] He ran into...
[50:28] It was like one of those swivel, like a chair that's got like the swivels around on wheels.
[50:32] Yeah.
[50:33] He jumped onto it and because he jumped onto it, it was spinning around.
[50:36] So he was doing slow 360s.
[50:38] He was wearing a tweed jacket with like, with elbow pads.
[50:42] He had a tie that was like ACDC tie.
[50:44] It was tiny shirt and buttoned up.
[50:46] He had a pair of football shorts, not football shorts, but shorts that were football short size.
[50:50] Sock pulled up to his knees, basketball boots on.
[50:53] And he's spinning around saying, everyone, get your boogers out.
[50:55] Let's get our boogers out.
[50:56] One by one, flick your boogers, get your boogers out of your nose.
[50:58] Because this guy's going to talk.
[50:59] You don't want to be distracted by your boogers.
[51:01] Let's get our boogers, all of us.
[51:02] All these kids are picking his nose.
[51:04] Oh, my God.
[51:05] Here's the principal.
[51:06] Assistant principal.
[51:07] And he goes, who wants a magic trick?
[51:09] And they're like, yes.
[51:09] And he goes, I'll make this biscuit disappear.
[51:12] And he got this biscuit out of his pocket and he threw it up into the fan above his head and it exploded everywhere.
[51:16] And he goes, it's gone.
[51:17] Incredible.
[51:17] The biscuit's gone.
[51:18] Incredible.
[51:19] And he goes, this guy's a legend.
[51:21] I love him, so you'll love him.
[51:22] See you later.
[51:22] And he sprinted out the door.
[51:26] That guy, like that guy is, that's who I want.
[51:30] Yeah, special.
[51:31] Yeah.
[51:31] So the whole time I'm running these programs, I'm very much listening to what schools wanted because everyone was telling me what they need and what they want and I was very, very tuned into that.
[51:40] And a lot of them were saying, you need another speaker.
[51:41] And having had that experience with Martin out of his school, I remember calling him a few months later and saying, would this be something you'd be interested in doing?
[51:51] And I said, the only problem is I really need you.
[51:54] But at this point in the business, I can only afford to pay you half of what you – literally half of what you're on right now as a assistant principal.
[52:01] So I understand if it's a no, but I just want you to know I'd love you to do this.
[52:04] And one day I'll hopefully be able to pay you enough.
[52:06] And he said, I don't care.
[52:07] I'm so passionate about what you're doing.
[52:11] I don't care how much you pay me.
[52:12] I'm in.
[52:12] And I'll never forget that.
[52:14] It was incredible because I – he then literally meant we could double the size of the business overnight –
[52:21] Probably even more that because his energy for it was he was doing five talks a day, you know, every single day of the year pretty much.
[52:28] Yeah.
[52:29] And he was so incredible that, I mean, like the demand for him was just off the charts as well.
[52:35] So all of a sudden, I actually look back, I never trained him or anything.
[52:38] I never said this is what you should do.
[52:39] I just said do a talk on mental health and do it how you want to do it.
[52:42] Like just 100% back in the way you want to do it.
[52:45] Because the talk that I'm assuming you were doing even back then was so much around your personal experience, which he couldn't do.
[52:52] Yeah.
[52:53] It's made me realise along the journey, I've found really, really great people and 100% trusted that they will do a great job and will try their hardest.
[53:02] And Martin was just, I mean, he changed everything.
[53:07] Well, you don't micromanage.
[53:09] You're not like telling people how to do the thing that you've hired them to do.
[53:12] Yeah.
[53:13] And Helen's a good example.
[53:13] I've just said, I don't know anything about money, so just do everything you think you need to do.
[53:17] Just do money.
[53:18] Yeah.
[53:18] That's been made pretty clear.
[53:19] Yeah, just do money.
[53:21] I think from an outsider's perspective, I've always...
[53:24] I think one of the things that you do extremely well is you know the things that you're good at and you know the things that you're not good at and you're very good at choosing other people to do the stuff that you're not good at and basically not spending any wasted energy on that stuff.
[53:39] Yeah.
[53:39] Well, it's actually a really good segue to the next thing I want to talk about, which was when we found our first CEO, who is still the CEO today.
[53:48] Schools are saying you need to do curriculum.
[53:49] We need curriculum.
[53:50] We need to be able to do this.
[53:52] Once you've gone, we need to be able to...
[53:53] you know, revisit this stuff all the way along.
[53:55] And I, yeah, but how do I write curriculum?
[53:58] How do I write curriculum?
[53:58] And I said, it needs to be every year, prep to year 12, textbooks and everything.
[54:02] And I went, okay, yep.
[54:04] They were saying that you have to do that.
[54:06] Well, the Resumance Project needs to offer that.
[54:08] Like once you've been to a school, you do this talk, it's great.
[54:10] But like, what are you leaving us with?
[54:11] Oh, what are you leaving?
[54:12] Yeah, gotcha.
[54:13] And I thought, yeah, that is actually very true.
[54:15] So I found a group of people who would help me write this curriculum.
[54:20] They wrote their curriculum and with very little instruction from me, just like, I want this minute lessons on this, this minute lessons on this, this, and then, and with limited support, they did the absolute best they could do.
[54:31] They did a really good job.
[54:32] But it was our first iteration of curriculum.
[54:34] So it never really, it didn't match the national curriculum.
[54:38] It didn't flow to the next level that well, really.
[54:40] There was no consistency throughout.
[54:42] It wasn't incredible.
[54:45] And the group, Product Dynamic, who we still partner with today, who are wonderful, who do print out all our journals and everything, the guy from there was calling me all the time because there's so much back and forth, me and him, and I was just never available because I was always doing talks.
[54:58] And he said, you need a CEO.
[55:00] Like, this is ridiculous.
[55:01] I can't.
[55:02] I can never talk to you.
[55:03] You're always too busy doing talks.
[55:05] I need, you need a CEO to run this business.
[55:07] A CEO, can you spell that?
[55:12] And the first person I thought of was Ben Waterman, who was my boss at Cedar.
[55:17] Mm-hmm.
[55:17] At that point, the only CEO you'd actually met.
[55:22] I'll take that one.
[55:24] Well, he was good.
[55:26] Should I look further?
[55:26] No.
[55:28] He actually wasn't the CEO at Cedar.
[55:30] He was the program manager.
[55:31] Right, right, right.
[55:32] And he came on board again with a good example of just an unbelievably great person who works so hard, who understands how to run their business.
[55:41] And I just said, here's everything you need to know.
[55:44] I remember the first thing he called me once and he said, so any of this curriculum that you're doing that you said is like an extra, you know, passive income for you guys usually go out.
[55:51] I said, yeah, and he said, it's actually costing you money every year.
[55:54] He said, you're not charging.
[55:56] The amount you're charging, how much it costs to get it made, it's actually costing us money.
[55:59] I went, oh, this is great stuff for you to sort out for me.
[56:02] I've been here before.
[56:05] Sort of consistent with my business plan.
[56:09] And so he came in and sorted out so much of it.
[56:12] I remember him saying early on, one of the things he said, which I'll never forget, he said, what happens if you and Martin get sick?
[56:17] What happens if you and Martin just can't go to schools and can't do talks?
[56:20] Like how are we going to – we had staff about – this is back 2017.
[56:23] I think we had about five staff members and four staff members.
[56:25] He said, how are we going to pay everyone?
[56:27] I said, oh, that day will never come.
[56:29] Like we were always –
[56:31] have the energy and we'll always be able to do it.
[56:32] And he said, but what if something happens where we can't?
[56:34] And I said, it's just, I don't know.
[56:36] And he said, well, if you don't mind, I'm going to diversify this business.
[56:38] We need more income streams rather than just you and Martin going and doing face-to-face talks.
[56:43] If COVID had happened and we didn't have Ben as our CEO, we wouldn't have survived.
[56:46] There's absolutely no way the business would have survived.
[56:49] But when COVID did hit, we had digital presentations that schools could take out to their students and send out to them.
[56:55] we had the journals, we had curriculum, we had all this different stuff.
[56:58] And these are the gratitude journals.
[56:59] But how early were the gratitude journals?
[57:02] Oh, they started pretty early on.
[57:03] Yeah.
[57:03] I think as soon as Ben started pretty much, we started producing those.
[57:06] So they were pretty early on.
[57:07] Yeah.
[57:08] Okay.
[57:08] And so was he trying to, would he like look at the things you were teaching and talking about you and Martin and go, okay, how can we now turn that into something which is a revenue generator?
[57:21] Yeah, for him it was more about how can we meet people where they're at.
[57:24] So it was like someone may not want to do a six-month journal, can we just create a 21-day journal so they dip their toe in the water?
[57:32] And if someone sees you speak, we need to have a way they can engage further and keep going.
[57:38] Like straight away.
[57:38] Because I remember when I came and saw you speak at the convention center maybe, I was like so inspired and you were selling journals out the front and I was like, well, I'm definitely getting one.
[57:50] Yeah.
[57:51] You just, you're so moved in the moment.
[57:54] You desperately want it.
[57:56] It's such a, it was such a smart thing to do and helpful things.
[57:59] Like really helpful things.
[57:59] I actually got a lot of that insight and then spoke to Ben about this from the Wiggles of all people.
[58:03] So we had a meeting, it was really weird.
[58:05] We had a meeting with the Wiggles many years ago.
[58:07] I think it was just before Ben started.
[58:08] Yeah.
[58:10] And I can't remember why we were meeting with them, but we were chatting about potentially doing something together.
[58:15] I'm going to do some meditations for our app or something.
[58:17] It never happened.
[58:18] And one of the guys said, you don't have a car park.
[58:22] I said, what do you remember?
[58:23] And he said, well, the circus, for example, you go to the circus and you pay a ticket.
[58:27] It's not that much.
[58:29] But then the car park costs $40.
[58:30] $40.
[58:31] Oh, to park your car at cost... Oh, right, yeah.
[58:34] And he said, you don't have a car park.
[58:34] People come to you talk, but there's no car park to support it.
[58:37] You need to have something else that is... Well, the kids are sometimes six, seven years old, so they're not driving.
[58:43] It's all good and well for you with their toot-toot chugger chat.
[58:46] Sorry, Damien, that's going to be 40 bucks to park that Tonka truck here.
[58:51] So he said, I think you need to sort out your car park because right now you're trying to grow this business, but you can't because all the revenue comes through.
[58:58] And when I spoke to Ben, he said, yeah, I understand.
[59:00] I get it.
[59:01] I agree.
[59:02] And Ben's job was to build out the car park, I guess.
[59:06] Focus has always been to help as many people as we can.
[59:09] That's always been the primary focus.
[59:10] And Ben's just made sure we can grow in a healthy way.
[59:14] And when we bring people into the organisation, we can look after them really well.
[59:17] And then from there, I mean, Ben's taken us from...
[59:20] Martin's incredible hard work.
[59:22] He continues to go out and do the talks.
[59:24] I don't have that in me anymore for now.
[59:25] Well, that's also worth saying for people who don't know that Martin Rack, who's been on this podcast twice, is still doing talks and still a big part of the results.
[59:33] He's away somewhere in a community somewhere doing talks somewhere.
[59:36] Incredible.
[59:36] He's unstoppable.
[59:37] But I would say, I mean, we've now got, I think it's 37 staff now and then we've got another eight casuals on top of that.
[59:46] At $250 a day?
[59:51] I can hand on heart say I love every one of them.
[59:53] They're such great people.
[59:55] Because when I go back to when my admin was terrible and, you know, I would do three or four talks a day and then I'd go back to my bedroom and then I'd do the invoicing and I'd answer the emails.
[1:00:06] I'd do everything the business required in my own bedroom all night up till 1, 2 in the morning trying to stay on top of everything and often I wasn't.
[1:00:14] There was so much that was letting me down with like admin and invoicing and that kind of stuff.
[1:00:17] But I know what kept the business afloat was the relationship that I had with the people I was working with.
[1:00:23] I don't think it ever felt transactional or felt like they were part of a business.
[1:00:28] It was like – I felt like I was really good friends with the schools, the schools we work with.
[1:00:31] Still close with a couple of the people back in 2011, 2012, some of the first schools we went to.
[1:00:36] Faye?
[1:00:36] Faye.
[1:00:37] I haven't seen Fain in a while.
[1:00:39] But I think their relationship is good.
[1:00:42] And every single person we've got at the Resilience Project, they've sort of continued that.
[1:00:46] I see the email conversations they're having with your schools or out, and they're such great people.
[1:00:53] You monitor them?
[1:00:56] How do you see their email conversations?
[1:01:00] I sit in the dark at night and watch all the email correspondence.
[1:01:06] No, I see.
[1:01:07] We'll often share really nice interactions with teachers.
[1:01:14] So you said earlier that you got told at one point that it takes three years for a business to kind of like work.
[1:01:21] But how many years had you been doing the talks for when it first became kind of profitable?
[1:01:26] Yeah.
[1:01:28] Probably three years, I reckon.
[1:01:29] Oh, it was three years.
[1:01:30] About three years where I started making a profit.
[1:01:31] Yeah, spot on.
[1:01:32] Yeah, so about three years, yeah.
[1:01:33] Okay.
[1:01:34] But I think the reason I wanted to share that story today was that I feel like seeing the Resilience Project now, I think people wouldn't see the amount of failures that happen along the way, the amount of mistakes that happen along the way, the amount of times that it was just too much.
[1:01:49] And I'm reverse engineering this a little bit.
[1:01:52] There was never a point 15 years ago where I went, okay, okay.
[1:01:55] What does the world need right now?
[1:01:57] What am I good at?
[1:01:58] And what's my interest?
[1:01:59] But I look back on it and realize, you know when you play computer games and you choose like an avatar and it's got different strengths and weaknesses and like speed can be up and then agility can be low, whatever it is.
[1:02:11] Have a think about where you are really strong and sort of start from that point, if that makes sense.
[1:02:15] So like for me, I think my strength was always public speaking.
[1:02:19] I love that.
[1:02:19] So I – and my interest was mental health and education.
[1:02:23] That's what I was so interested in.
[1:02:25] And I worked out that the world definitely needs it, like it needs it right now.
[1:02:29] And so you sort of bring those together together.
[1:02:32] into your sort of business ideas.
[1:02:34] So you are absolutely playing to your strengths.
[1:02:38] So I knew whenever I did a talk, I knew it would go really well because that was my thing.
[1:02:43] That's what I was good at.
[1:02:45] I didn't say, I didn't articulate that before I started the journey, but I look back and one of the reasons it's success is because I was definitely doing something that I was good at.
[1:02:51] I wasn't trying to do something...
[1:02:53] You think about various business ideas along the way that would be good for someone else, but it might not be your strength.
[1:02:59] I mean, feel free to go for it, but you are much better if you look at what you're really good at and what you love doing.
[1:03:05] I think that's why the Resilience Project has succeeded because I love doing the talks.
[1:03:09] I was good at them to start with and I worked so unbelievably hard for so long at it.
[1:03:16] And I think if that is the template that you use, you're definitely setting yourself up.
[1:03:23] You're making yourself a bigger target for good luck, I would say, when you are coming from that starting point.
[1:03:30] I know you've talked a lot today about failing and mistakes that you made, but I think something that needs to be said is how hard you worked.
[1:03:37] I've never seen anyone work as hard as you worked for those years getting this thing off the ground.
[1:03:42] Yeah, I probably should have mentioned at some point in the episode that hard work was the key ingredient.
[1:03:48] I think it's just so amazing.
[1:03:51] But I also, I don't know if you're getting to this, people might be listening going like, yeah, this is great, but why how I built this?
[1:03:59] Yeah.
[1:04:00] Like what's this?
[1:04:02] And if you've heard the dis story, don't switch off because I'm going to tell you something about the dis story that you probably haven't heard.
[1:04:09] Yep.
[1:04:09] So.
[1:04:09] It's all made up.
[1:04:13] What a reveal.
[1:04:16] So when I was living in India, there was a boy called Stunzen who, he was the one I really was most moved by and most inspired by.
[1:04:24] He had things particularly tough, but whenever he saw something he was grateful for, he would point to it and he would try and say the word this.
[1:04:30] But T-H, English is his second language, T-H is very difficult to pronounce.
[1:04:34] And I was trying so hard to teach them how you pronounce T-H, but he would point to something he was grateful for, like his shoes.
[1:04:41] He'd put on his shoes and he'd say, sir, this, this, this, this.
[1:04:43] What he was saying was, how lucky am I?
[1:04:45] I got shoes on my feet.
[1:04:46] And I would say, yeah, so like this, and he'd go, yes, this.
[1:04:51] And I'd go, no, this, he'd go, yes, this.
[1:04:54] It was just too hard to say.
[1:04:55] Anyway, he would say this, and I loved it.
[1:04:56] It was when he was playing with his friends.
[1:04:58] If I walk past, this, this person, this person, this person.
[1:05:02] If he was at lunchtime, he couldn't afford to bring lunch to school.
[1:05:05] So he had rice every single day and he'd walk past with his rice in a little cup and go, Sir, this, this.
[1:05:10] He's saying, how lucky am I?
[1:05:11] I get rice every day.
[1:05:12] This kid was so amazing.
[1:05:14] And that was very moving for me.
[1:05:15] And that was the example of gratitude that I give when I talk.
[1:05:19] But I didn't always do that.
[1:05:20] For years, I didn't tell that story.
[1:05:22] It was just in the back of my mind there's something really moving that happened when I was away, but I'd never think to tell the story when I was at schools.
[1:05:28] One day I got invited to go and speak at a jail.
[1:05:31] It was a juvenile detention.
[1:05:33] I can't remember how old the boys were, but it was rowdy, and I got told it was pretty full on.
[1:05:37] And I went in there, and you're not allowed to take a laptop in or anything, so I didn't have my photos.
[1:05:42] My photos are very much my crutch.
[1:05:43] Sorry, they're not photos of my crutch.
[1:05:50] I think photos and crutches shouldn't go together.
[1:05:52] I've seen those photos.
[1:05:53] Didn't know they were your crutch.
[1:05:59] So I wasn't allowed to take my laptop in, so I couldn't use my presentation.
[1:06:02] So I just had to talk for an hour without any video support or anything.
[1:06:06] And so 10 minutes in, I'm finding this –
[1:06:09] I've never really had an issue of engaging a crowd, but this is probably the most trouble I've had.
[1:06:13] And it was a fight broke out about a minute in and it was pretty big and I had to stop.
[1:06:17] And then it was a massive fight actually.
[1:06:19] I had to stop and then come back in about 20 minutes later.
[1:06:22] And I don't know where it came from, but I just told that story, the diss story.
[1:06:28] And not a sound.
[1:06:30] They were so – they were leaning forward and they were very moved and the whole hour was unbelievable.
[1:06:35] It was so good.
[1:06:36] And when I was leaving the prison, I was walking through the – it was like a pathway that's covered in – that's been wired off for people to walk through.
[1:06:45] And I heard the boys in the yard saying, dis, pointing at the sun and they were pointing at grass and they were pointing at each other and they were pointing at – they were just pointing out all the things they were really grateful for.
[1:06:53] Mm-hmm.
[1:06:54] I remember thinking, oh my God, this is, this or this is huge.
[1:06:58] Later that day, I went to a primary school with prep and grade one kids and told the dis story and it was, they loved it.
[1:07:04] And I could hear them in the classroom afterwards pointing out things they were grateful for, dis this and dis that.
[1:07:09] And then that night I had a group of parents and I told the story to parents and they were equally as moved and equally as receptive to it.
[1:07:16] And I could hear, and I was saying to them, when you get home, just have a think about the things and they're going dis, dis, dis.
[1:07:21] It was just...
[1:07:22] And so really that's been such a big part of the Resence Project story.
[1:07:25] And Stunzen's now like, what, like in his 20s, I guess, isn't he?
[1:07:29] He's 25, I think, probably.
[1:07:30] 25, yeah.
[1:07:31] Amazing.
[1:07:31] Yeah.
[1:07:31] So I did manage to get in touch with him.
[1:07:34] I literally looked up everyone with his name or similar name on Facebook and just messaged all of them with a photo of me and him and said, if you know this person, I couldn't find him, but I was like, it's a very unique name and these people are from the same region.
[1:07:45] And like a year later, I just got a text message.
[1:07:48] I was up at Darwin.
[1:07:49] I'd been at a school in Darwin, went to the US track and got a message.
[1:07:52] And it said, this Hugh, it's Dunson.
[1:07:56] And I thought, well, that's someone's mate.
[1:07:58] That's not Dunson.
[1:07:58] That's someone like having a laugh.
[1:08:00] So I wrote back and said, who is this?
[1:08:01] And just said, it's Dunson.
[1:08:03] And then after a while, a message, I realized it was him.
[1:08:06] And all of a sudden we're in touch.
[1:08:07] And I remember saying to him, oh, I've got so much to tell you.
[1:08:10] I said, mate, you are...
[1:08:11] You were in front of the paper the other day.
[1:08:13] You were in front of the Herald Sun the other day because Richmond beat someone after the goal and they quoted this.
[1:08:19] And I've been talking about you to everyone in Australia and everyone knows how incredible you are.
[1:08:22] You're so amazing.
[1:08:23] And I went in way too hot.
[1:08:24] He just wrote back, okay.
[1:08:28] So I came in way too often.
[1:08:29] Yeah, well, I guess it's not like he's not gonna be like, really, The Herald Sun?
[1:08:34] Cool.
[1:08:34] In Richmond.
[1:08:35] Not Dusty.
[1:08:37] Who was it?
[1:08:38] Couldn't have been, not Trank Archie, who was it?
[1:08:45] Anyway, I did manage to thank him and tell him the impact he's had.
[1:08:47] He didn't understand, but I told him anyway.
[1:08:49] Oh, that's good.
[1:08:50] Wow.
[1:08:51] It's incredible.
[1:08:52] What a, I mean, it is so unbelievable what you've created.
[1:08:56] Well, I tell you that, can I put a full stop to it all and just say that this is the thing that I'm most proud of, I guess, in all this.
[1:09:04] And I'm not saying this to both.
[1:09:07] I'm saying this so people know that it works.
[1:09:08] I often feel concerned that people are like, yeah, but does it actually work?
[1:09:12] Adelaide University in 2019, someone reached out to us and said, does this actually work?
[1:09:17] We're going to research this.
[1:09:18] We're going to actually test this and see if it actually works.
[1:09:20] And I said, do you have any evidence?
[1:09:22] And I said, yeah, we've got some evidence.
[1:09:24] nice emails from people, lovely emails, nice text messages.
[1:09:29] And they said, well, we're going to do a three-year evaluation of this and actually see that it works.
[1:09:32] Oh, my God.
[1:09:33] And I felt sick.
[1:09:34] And I did for those whole three years because, like, I know it's helping people.
[1:09:37] I know the feedback we get is incredible.
[1:09:39] But, like – And what do they come back with, yes or no?
[1:09:42] Like, no, it doesn't work.
[1:09:44] It's a detailed report.
[1:09:47] Just like a thumbs up, thumbs down emoji.
[1:09:49] And they got, so they got 185,000 kids from around Australia who are doing the Resilience Project and they compared it to 185,000 kids in Australia who aren't doing the Resilience Project.
[1:09:59] Big study.
[1:10:00] Yeah, it was huge.
[1:10:01] It went for three years.
[1:10:02] And amazingly, it was during COVID.
[1:10:04] And what they found was that in 2020, I mean, this might be a huge surprise, but those are kids who weren't doing Resilience Project.
[1:10:13] symptoms of depression and anxiety went up and feelings of hope and life satisfaction went down.
[1:10:19] But the thing that I'm most proud of this very day is that in 2020 and 2021, for the kids doing the resilience project in their schools, there was no spike in anxiety.
[1:10:27] There was no spike in depression.
[1:10:29] And feelings of hope and life satisfaction actually went up during COVID for kids doing our program.
[1:10:33] Wow.
[1:10:34] And so to have it evidence-based now to say this actually works is – I remember the day I got to present that back to our staff at a meeting not too far from here.
[1:10:45] And it was just the most –
[1:10:46] I mean, there's a lot of relief to be honest, but it was also this lovely thing of like, hey guys, the work you're doing is really, really important work and you're doing such a great job.
[1:10:55] Could probably up the price to 300 bucks a talk now that it works.
[1:11:01] Anyway, that's how I built this.
[1:11:03] Wow.
[1:11:03] That is just, I mean, it would have been, it's pretty amazing like thinking like to kind of like circle back.
[1:11:10] to young Hugh looking at your dad, the silhouette of your dad, and to think, like, to be able to tell him, well, yeah, this is what you're going to do.
[1:11:21] You're going to have this impact on this many people.
[1:11:23] You're going to be $1,800 in the hole, but, you know...
[1:11:28] People will be thankful for it.
[1:11:31] It's quite, it's just so inspiring, like so, so inspiring.
[1:11:35] And I just like a, this is not about me at all, but when we first met and you brought up the idea of doing the podcast, doing the Imperfects, I remember thinking, well, he obviously knows what he's doing because he started the Resilience Project.
[1:11:52] He didn't run with this in the pitch?
[1:11:54] No.
[1:11:55] It's like, well, I mean, I'll be fine because he knows what he's doing.
[1:11:59] Sounds like I'm joking, but I think because you had done what you'd done and I was just so blown away and moved by everything you'd created, it felt like I'm, for want of a better term, getting in bed with a guy who clearly cares so deeply about
[1:12:16] about people, it gave me like so much excitement, but also just a level of like trust.
[1:12:24] Yeah.
[1:12:25] Yeah.
[1:12:25] Nice.
[1:12:25] Thank you.
[1:12:26] Yeah.
[1:12:27] And the other thing I just want to say is that I have found in running a business and being a founder and anyone wants to start their own thing.
[1:12:34] Like saying that you don't understand something or you don't know is one of the most powerful things you can do.
[1:12:40] I probably only learned that halfway through this journey that there is so much I don't know the answer to.
[1:12:44] And I'm so happy to say that now.
[1:12:46] And it's just so much better for everyone.
[1:12:48] It makes life a lot easier.
[1:12:50] And it also empowers the people around you to do the same.
[1:12:53] Yeah.
[1:12:53] That's like my parting bit of wisdom.
[1:12:55] What, so you, and also just again on your, you said it took three years to be successful, but at what, how old were you when, when it was like, okay.
[1:13:06] This is working.
[1:13:06] This is working.
[1:13:07] I'm making it, I can make a living from this.
[1:13:10] I was 34, I reckon.
[1:13:12] I was 34 when, I remember when I was 34, I made the same amount of money that I would have made as a teacher.
[1:13:19] And I remember going, oh my God.
[1:13:21] You've done it.
[1:13:22] I am.
[1:13:22] Yeah.
[1:13:25] Genius.
[1:13:25] Yeah.
[1:13:26] And it's so amazing and I think that is a crucial part of it because most people, if they're not like, if they haven't taken over the world by 34, 35, they very, very understandably will feel like, well, I've got no hope.
[1:13:45] I remember when I learnt that, I'm pretty sure I'm getting this right, I learnt that George Harrison was like 27 when the Beatles broke up and I was like,
[1:13:52] well, I'm fucked.
[1:13:53] Yeah.
[1:13:54] I've got no chance.
[1:13:55] But there are plenty of those.
[1:13:56] But then there are so many great stories of people who don't really hit their stride until 40, 50, you know.
[1:14:03] Yeah, absolutely.
[1:14:04] They're just not told.
[1:14:04] So this is really valuable.
[1:14:06] Can I say something you just said there?
[1:14:08] Yeah.
[1:14:09] I've oversold that.
[1:14:09] So when I was 34, I made the same amount of money that I made in my first year as a teacher.
[1:14:14] My first year as a teacher, I was paid $42,000.
[1:14:17] That was my salary.
[1:14:19] And then I had to pay tax on top of that.
[1:14:20] So in the end, let's say I was 35.
[1:14:23] Let's say I was 35 before I started.
[1:14:25] But I think that's so helpful because I know people who are that age who think like, well, it's kind of like, you know, it feels so far away.
[1:14:34] And you had been working at it for what, like six?
[1:14:37] Yeah, it was five years pretty much before I could say, oh, I'm quite proud of this.
[1:14:42] Well, this is enough to- It's sustainable.
[1:14:44] Yeah, it's sustainable.
[1:14:45] But even if you had started when you were 35-
[1:14:48] And being like, you know, then you hit forward.
[1:14:50] Like I still think it's just a crucial thing because I think people do put a lot of weight in age and thinking they should have reached a certain goal by a certain age.
[1:15:02] And it's just simply not true.
[1:15:05] It's just not relevant.
[1:15:05] It's just not relevant.
[1:15:06] It just doesn't matter.
[1:15:07] It's like when you find what you want to do and you back yourself in and yeah.
[1:15:12] And also it would never have worked if you didn't care about it deeply.
[1:15:15] True.
[1:15:15] That's very true.
[1:15:16] Yeah.
[1:15:17] That's how I built this.
[1:15:18] Awesome.
[1:15:19] This is great.
[1:15:20] This was great.
[1:15:21] Thank you.
[1:15:22] And this continues to be really great.
[1:15:25] Thank you.

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