# The cost of survival: Mark Wales Pt. 2

An episode of [I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1506667049), 6 Jul 2026, 58 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/5bc8c2ed-b718-4f44-beb3-ac2a005246cc/4c2f22b9-c1ed-4645-aa35-b47c008d93d2/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=786928c3-10c1-4cef-a7bf-ac2a005246d0

In part two of this conversation, former SAS soldier and Survivor winner Mark Wales returns to I Catch Killers for a raw and honest discussion. Mark opens up about surviving childhood sexual abuse and the difficult decision to pursue justice decades later, the mental toll of war and elite military service, and how he rebuilt his life through business school, boxing, reality TV, and writing. Gary and Mark also dig into some big-picture issues: the case for national service, escalating global conflicts in the Middle East, Russia-Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific, the changing face of modern warfare, and the rise of extremism in the social media age. Mark shares hard-won lessons on leadership and resilience from his book Mission Ready, drawing on his experience in Special Forces and top-tier business environments. Subscribe to our new Youtube channel. Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram: @icatchkillers Tiktok: @icatchkillerspodcast Facebook: @icatchkillers See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
[0:05] Speaker 1: Detective see aside of life the average person is never
[0:08] Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
[0:11] Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
[0:14] Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
[0:16] Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
[0:20] Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
[0:23] Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
[0:26] Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
[0:28] Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
[0:31] Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
[0:34] Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
[0:38] Speaker 1: Join me now, as I take you into this world.
[0:46] Speaker 1: Some questions don't have easy answers, and some stories don't
[0:50] Speaker 1: start or end where you expect them to. In Part
[0:53] Speaker 1: two of my chat with former SAS Commander Mark Wales,
[0:57] Speaker 1: I saw these unfiltered views on current global conflicts, including
[1:01] Speaker 1: the future of modern warfare, the rise of extreme ideologies,
[1:05] Speaker 1: and what it means for each and every one of us.
[1:08] Speaker 1: But the most powerful moment in this conversation has nothing
[1:11] Speaker 1: to do with the Battlefield. Mark opens up about finally
[1:15] Speaker 1: confronting the man who sexually abused him as a child
[1:19] Speaker 1: and having him put in jail where he belongs. We
[1:22] Speaker 1: also talked about Mark's new book, Mission Ready. There was
[1:26] Speaker 1: a lot that we covered. Have a listen, Mark Wales,
[1:30] Speaker 1: welcome back to Part two. If I catch killers national
[1:34] Speaker 1: service being pre introduced, I don't think there'd be any
[1:38] Speaker 1: political party that would be brave enough to do it,
[1:41] Speaker 1: and I don't think the public would accept it. But
[1:44] Speaker 1: when I'm talking national service eighteen nineteen, after you've left school,
[1:48] Speaker 1: you do twelve months in the military in whatever form.
[1:52] Speaker 1: We're not sending you to war, but working in that environment,
[1:57] Speaker 1: I could see some benefits of that. What's your will
[2:00] Speaker 1: take on it?
[2:01] Speaker 2: So they used to have it in OZ right, Yeah, Yeah,
[2:05] Speaker 2: they had national service and obviously the.
[2:08] Speaker 1: Draft they had, they had conscription during them, and I
[2:12] Speaker 1: think probably back in the Second World War, but they
[2:16] Speaker 1: had what was called national service with people and I
[2:19] Speaker 1: don't think it was twelve months. I think it was
[2:21] Speaker 1: three months. So I remember my father saying national service.
[2:24] Speaker 1: It was all part of it that you had to
[2:27] Speaker 1: go to the armed forces for three or four months
[2:30] Speaker 1: or whatever.
[2:30] Speaker 2: It was when I was at business school. There was
[2:32] Speaker 2: a handful of people from different countries that came from
[2:35] Speaker 2: systems that had that. I think Korea was one, Israel
[2:40] Speaker 2: was definitely another, and there are a few others. But
[2:42] Speaker 2: I remember him talking about their national service experience, and
[2:45] Speaker 2: I think, I don't know what the research says about it,
[2:48] Speaker 2: whether how effective it is or how it changes things.
[2:51] Speaker 2: But I mean I'm biased because I've been through it.
[2:53] Speaker 2: I think it's a good thing because it teaches you
[2:56] Speaker 2: all the skills around resilience and teamwork and leadership and
[3:00] Speaker 2: a sense of civic duty. Yeah, so they're all good things.
[3:03] Speaker 2: It's just a quit, Like you were saying, the political
[3:06] Speaker 2: capital needed to make it happen is so great that
[3:09] Speaker 2: it just has never been surfaced. But I don't know,
[3:12] Speaker 2: it might find depending on how the future goes, he
[3:14] Speaker 2: might find yourself in a situation where it is desirable.
[3:16] Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I'm looking at it not just for national security.
[3:20] Speaker 1: I'm looking at it for also for the sake of
[3:23] Speaker 1: building a more resilient society. My son, he hates me
[3:28] Speaker 1: talking about him on the podcast, but he did the
[3:30] Speaker 1: gap year after he left school. The twelve months in
[3:33] Speaker 1: the Army and went down did the basic training, and
[3:36] Speaker 1: then in the infantry after that, I reckon it was
[3:40] Speaker 1: the best twelve months of parenting I've ever done. But
[3:43] Speaker 1: what I observe, and he's a good, good man, but
[3:47] Speaker 1: a good kid. But if he went to UNI straight
[3:50] Speaker 1: away after leaving school, he would have been a clusterfuck. Yeah,
[3:53] Speaker 1: he would have been attempted by the bright lights and
[3:56] Speaker 1: everything else. What I saw with twelve months in the military,
[4:01] Speaker 1: he came back with discipline and had some structure and
[4:05] Speaker 1: some purpose. I saw that, And that's just from a
[4:08] Speaker 1: personal point of view, my observation of the impact that
[4:10] Speaker 1: I had on my son. But I think in a
[4:13] Speaker 1: society now that we've got we could really do with
[4:16] Speaker 1: something like that. I don't know how you'd sell it
[4:18] Speaker 1: from a political point of view, but you mentioned some
[4:22] Speaker 1: of the benefits that military life gave you.
[4:25] Speaker 2: I think it should just be an expansion of that
[4:28] Speaker 2: gap year. Like if you actually offered that up and
[4:30] Speaker 2: made it even more attractive, then it's a good exchange
[4:33] Speaker 2: to have people delaying university by a year or whatever
[4:36] Speaker 2: it is to do some service and they get paid
[4:38] Speaker 2: well for it. Like everyone's a winner on that front.
[4:40] Speaker 1: Well, that basically helped him pay his way through union.
[4:44] Speaker 1: He was set up very well.
[4:46] Speaker 2: And that improves recruiting as well. It's just I think
[4:48] Speaker 2: it's a positive. Well.
[4:49] Speaker 1: I think the trade off the Army were looking at.
[4:53] Speaker 1: If they give him an exposure for twelve months, half
[4:56] Speaker 1: of them will decide to stay and they might lose half,
[4:59] Speaker 1: but they'll gain And yeah, it's I just thought I
[5:03] Speaker 1: saw the benefits from it. And I see when we
[5:06] Speaker 1: talk about crime. Often when I look at the crime,
[5:09] Speaker 1: why people fall in the crime, they're not They don't
[5:12] Speaker 1: feel part of a group. They might have had had
[5:14] Speaker 1: trauma in their their childhood and yeah, family structure, yeah,
[5:20] Speaker 1: no good role models and this type of thing could
[5:23] Speaker 1: actually steering in the right direction.
[5:26] Speaker 2: So yeah, I think it's a good for any youth.
[5:29] Speaker 2: It's just a good foundation. You never forget it.
[5:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, listen if anyone's listening. I don't think they're going
[5:39] Speaker 1: to introduce national service just on the back of that conversation,
[5:42] Speaker 1: but it's food for thought.
[5:44] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[5:45] Speaker 1: Mental fortitude too, that's that's another thing. Like I laughed
[5:51] Speaker 1: watching my son go down there, and the only thing
[5:54] Speaker 1: I could give him the any gift, get yourself a
[5:57] Speaker 1: little bit fit because you're going to be running around
[5:59] Speaker 1: and so take him running or within the morning, and
[6:03] Speaker 1: then he'd be laying on the land thinking I've got
[6:05] Speaker 1: this covered. As it getting on the bus to go
[6:08] Speaker 1: to surprise down there. I'm just smiling, going have fun.
[6:13] Speaker 2: Especially when your body's not fully form, you're still growing. Yeah.
[6:17] Speaker 1: Yeah, interesting mentioned that I check with you before before
[6:23] Speaker 1: the podcast if it's okay to mention that you have
[6:26] Speaker 1: had court experience, and that was on the back of that.
[6:30] Speaker 1: You're a survivor, and I know people that have been
[6:32] Speaker 1: sexually assaulted as kids choose to call themselves not victims,
[6:37] Speaker 1: and that's a big thing that your survivor of childhood
[6:41] Speaker 1: sexual abuse. Do you want to just talk briefly on that.
[6:44] Speaker 1: I know it hasn't hasn't defined you, but it's something
[6:47] Speaker 1: that comes up quite often in this room, and a
[6:50] Speaker 1: lot of people who have gone down the wrong path
[6:53] Speaker 1: had that happen to them.
[6:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think it's I was talking to old
[6:59] Speaker 2: man about this not like less than a week ago.
[7:02] Speaker 2: They came over from w A and we were just
[7:04] Speaker 2: chatting about it at one point, but the for the audience,
[7:09] Speaker 2: so my brother and I we were six, and he
[7:11] Speaker 2: was two years old than me, so I was six,
[7:13] Speaker 2: he was eight. We would go to the southwest of
[7:16] Speaker 2: w A parents had a farm there. They were farm hands.
[7:19] Speaker 2: They had cattle and dairy farms, and the extended family
[7:24] Speaker 2: was down there. So there was one farm which was
[7:27] Speaker 2: a cousin of my mother's and so it was it
[7:31] Speaker 2: was the cousin and his wife and they had a
[7:33] Speaker 2: couple of kids and some farm hands around. It was
[7:36] Speaker 2: a cool farm. They had dairy going, they had the
[7:38] Speaker 2: motorbikes and dogs. It was a great place for kids.
[7:42] Speaker 2: This guy would offer to take my brother and I
[7:45] Speaker 2: away to show us all the stuff around the farm.
[7:47] Speaker 2: My parents are like sure, and then on one occasion
[7:51] Speaker 2: he sexually assaulted my brother and I. And this happened
[7:56] Speaker 2: on a few occasions. Now I was young enough to
[7:59] Speaker 2: know that there was some I'm really bad about, you know,
[8:02] Speaker 2: bad about it. My brother as well. We had to
[8:06] Speaker 2: We kind of put it aside and we didn't talk
[8:09] Speaker 2: about it. When I was in high school. I think
[8:12] Speaker 2: I was in mid high school. I remember telling my
[8:14] Speaker 2: parents eventually I was like, hey, just so you know
[8:16] Speaker 2: this happened. Yeah, And they asked my brother too, did
[8:22] Speaker 2: that happen, and there was like, yeah, Dad's like okay,
[8:24] Speaker 2: And they packed the car and went straight down the
[8:26] Speaker 2: farm to go and confront this guy, and which they did.
[8:30] Speaker 2: The issue is and they did confront him, and we
[8:33] Speaker 2: chose not to go to the police. We just weren't
[8:34] Speaker 2: up for it. I was in grade nine. I just
[8:37] Speaker 2: wasn't up for it. When I was older, I was
[8:41] Speaker 2: thirty eight roughly, and I just had my boy, he
[8:44] Speaker 2: was only two years old roughly, and I remember calling
[8:48] Speaker 2: my brother and going, I think we've got to go
[8:51] Speaker 2: and get this guy. I think we've got to try
[8:53] Speaker 2: and prosecute him, just because having a son. And I
[8:56] Speaker 2: was like, how could you do that to a kid? Yeah, yeah,
[8:58] Speaker 2: put him perspective. Yeah, and so, and to my brother,
[9:01] Speaker 2: I said, I don't know what our chances would be.
[9:03] Speaker 2: I don't think they would be that high, just because
[9:06] Speaker 2: you know, the time and all that stuff, and I
[9:09] Speaker 2: knew nothing about the process for it. And to my
[9:12] Speaker 2: brother's credit, he's like, now, let's go. So we went
[9:15] Speaker 2: down to the police state. It was like in Northbridge
[9:18] Speaker 2: Police station in Perth, sat with a detective. She took
[9:22] Speaker 2: a statement and she sat down again and she was
[9:25] Speaker 2: she was great. She helped us with it and just
[9:28] Speaker 2: helped us understand kind of what was what the process was.
[9:33] Speaker 2: They left it, We left it with them. I remember
[9:36] Speaker 2: coming back to us at one point with a few
[9:38] Speaker 2: more questions, and just based on what they were asking me,
[9:40] Speaker 2: I knew there was more there. There was there was
[9:42] Speaker 2: other parts around that case that I didn't know about.
[9:46] Speaker 2: That he was he was a bad man. He was intelligent,
[9:50] Speaker 2: and I think this is true with a lot of
[9:52] Speaker 2: manipulate a lot of pedophiles, I think they are I
[9:55] Speaker 2: think they have to have a degree of intelligence or
[10:00] Speaker 2: charm or cunning, and he had that. And I knew
[10:03] Speaker 2: from what they were asking me that there were other
[10:05] Speaker 2: cases around this. So it took two years. This is
[10:09] Speaker 2: all happening during COVID, and then eventually I got a
[10:12] Speaker 2: call from the detective to go we're going down there
[10:14] Speaker 2: to arrest him. We've got you know, eight cars and
[10:17] Speaker 2: whatever it was. They went and arrested him and then
[10:20] Speaker 2: we went to trial I think a year later in
[10:23] Speaker 2: Western Australia, and so I had to go down to
[10:26] Speaker 2: the regional court with my brother and then go on
[10:30] Speaker 2: we go on stand troll and we talked to the
[10:31] Speaker 2: prosecutor before we went in, and it was just it
[10:34] Speaker 2: was super unusual. I remember walking into the courtroom and
[10:40] Speaker 2: I was I was afraid.
[11:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, understandable, so.
[11:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't I'd put it aside for decades, you know,
[11:11] Speaker 2: And then I was afraid of that. I was afraid
[11:14] Speaker 2: of that guy. And and and I went in there,
[11:21] Speaker 2: and I had my suit on and walked in and
[11:25] Speaker 2: as a gay of evidence, I kind of calmed down
[11:27] Speaker 2: a bit and I actually put it in that book originally,
[11:34] Speaker 2: but he hadn't been to trial at that point, so
[11:36] Speaker 2: we didn't put in the book. And I'd forgotten about it, Mate.
[11:42] Speaker 2: I didn't think it really had affected me, But you
[11:44] Speaker 2: can see it kind of does in a big way.
[11:47] Speaker 2: I think you can see how and I can see
[11:51] Speaker 2: now how people really that their life spins off in
[11:54] Speaker 2: a different direction. Mark.
[11:57] Speaker 1: I appreciate you you're honestly and talking about it. I think, yeah,
[12:03] Speaker 1: hearing someone like you and the impact it has had
[12:08] Speaker 1: on you puts it shows people what we're talking about here.
[12:11] Speaker 1: And you know, you said that the bloat was smart
[12:14] Speaker 1: and that you went in there and you were scared,
[12:16] Speaker 1: like nothing scares you, but that's you've been taken back
[12:20] Speaker 1: to your childhood and those predators they manipulate that and
[12:25] Speaker 1: getting the kids' heads.
[12:27] Speaker 2: And my parents made my parents feel like he was
[12:30] Speaker 2: a safe saber of hands and he didn't knowing for
[12:33] Speaker 2: well what he's going to do.
[12:34] Speaker 1: So that's that's what they're They're about their predators, and
[12:38] Speaker 1: they create the persona and it's always oh no, he's fine,
[12:41] Speaker 1: he'll look after That's how that's how they apply their trade.
[12:45] Speaker 1: I went into a prison doing a podcast called Breaking
[12:48] Speaker 1: Badness and spent time in a maximum security prison with prisoners,
[12:53] Speaker 1: so speaking to them, I know when I was in
[12:56] Speaker 1: the cops, I thought, yeah, the pedophiles were hated the
[13:00] Speaker 1: prison like they are the rock spiders and every other
[13:02] Speaker 1: name that they get called because of the nature of
[13:05] Speaker 1: the crime, which is understandable. But what I found out
[13:08] Speaker 1: that there were so many prisoners in there that had
[13:11] Speaker 1: experiences like yourself and that the trajectory of their life
[13:18] Speaker 1: went off track because of that. A lot of times
[13:22] Speaker 1: I sit down speaking the big tough, muscled up bikies
[13:25] Speaker 1: that the full hardcore gangsters, and when it's all said
[13:29] Speaker 1: and done, it comes from the pain that these predators
[13:34] Speaker 1: have done. I want the courts, and we go on
[13:37] Speaker 1: about a lot here on the podcast, but the courts
[13:39] Speaker 1: have fully understand the impact it has on people's lives,
[13:43] Speaker 1: and if we wanted to reduce crime in this state,
[13:46] Speaker 1: this country, I reckon, let's start start doing that. Will
[13:50] Speaker 1: have a healthier society.
[13:52] Speaker 2: I know the prosecutor there were two other witnesses they
[13:57] Speaker 2: wanted to get that were young guys that I think
[14:00] Speaker 2: either lived adjacent to that farm or had been farm hands.
[14:04] Speaker 2: Both of them had their lives effectively destroyed and they
[14:08] Speaker 2: wouldn't or they couldn't bring themselves to lodge statements. And
[14:13] Speaker 2: obviously my brother too. It affected him badly and it's
[14:16] Speaker 2: just shocking and you know, a hard thing to deal with.
[14:20] Speaker 2: And I think, coming back, this is why I'm proud
[14:25] Speaker 2: of my brother and I'm proud we did it because
[14:27] Speaker 2: it would have been very easy to kind of just
[14:29] Speaker 2: let it go. It would have been easier in a
[14:31] Speaker 2: lot of ways that I'm glad we kind of didn't.
[14:33] Speaker 2: And we went through the trial and the jury found
[14:37] Speaker 2: and found him guilty on think four different counts and
[14:40] Speaker 2: he got I think it was three years.
[14:43] Speaker 1: Good on you. They need to be accountable, and I
[14:45] Speaker 1: hope everyone out there listening that has been a predator
[14:48] Speaker 1: that thinks they got a way, but you never know
[14:51] Speaker 1: when the cops are going to be knocking on your
[14:53] Speaker 1: door or your pass is coming back. We've done a
[14:55] Speaker 1: lot of campaigning here with people that are working hard
[14:59] Speaker 1: to make sure that people convicted of child sexual abuse
[15:03] Speaker 1: and not allowed to give character references like yeah, yeah,
[15:07] Speaker 1: that dude, he'd roll up and everyone go, he contributes
[15:10] Speaker 1: to society, he does this, that's how they commit the
[15:13] Speaker 1: crimes that. Another thing that has been pushing for is
[15:18] Speaker 1: Andrew Carpenter, List of the Down in South Australia has
[15:22] Speaker 1: been pushing for super so you know, you'd have the
[15:27] Speaker 1: school teachers that go through their whole career and then retire,
[15:30] Speaker 1: they've got their pension for the rest of life, having
[15:33] Speaker 1: those pensions and superincuation attack too. Four predators, so really
[15:39] Speaker 1: hitting them, hitting them hard.
[15:40] Speaker 2: But yeah, it's a it's a big issue. I think
[15:43] Speaker 2: it's it has to be massively underreported. I'm sure it's
[15:47] Speaker 2: like me. I would have it was kind of on
[15:50] Speaker 2: the fence about if we're going to pull it off.
[15:51] Speaker 2: So you must imagine it's pretty far more widespread than.
[15:56] Speaker 1: What we realize statistically too, I think it takes yeah,
[16:00] Speaker 1: as long as you take every time. It's twenty five years.
[16:03] Speaker 1: We had a hard ass cop from Victoria up here
[16:08] Speaker 1: on the podcast and talking about his career in some
[16:10] Speaker 1: of the cases he's worked, and then at the end
[16:13] Speaker 1: he said, look, you know, and he worked in child
[16:15] Speaker 1: sexual assault teams and all that. He said, I'm actually
[16:19] Speaker 1: going through the madam myself. He was working doing a
[16:25] Speaker 1: lecture to his team. He was a team leader doing
[16:29] Speaker 1: his lecture, and that's just sort of it's all come
[16:31] Speaker 1: up and he's gone, I got to deal with this,
[16:33] Speaker 1: and he ended up dealing with it, and surprise, surprise,
[16:36] Speaker 1: the person that sexually abused him had abused all these
[16:39] Speaker 1: other kids. Shocking, because they never get well, they more
[16:44] Speaker 1: than likely have committed more offenses than the ones that
[16:47] Speaker 1: they're caught for.
[16:48] Speaker 2: I that we spoke to a journalist. We spoke to
[16:50] Speaker 2: one journalist from the ABC about because I just wanted
[16:53] Speaker 2: to make sure that, you know, if there was someone
[16:56] Speaker 2: else out there that was in the similar position, maybe
[16:59] Speaker 2: to give him that nudge. And it was part of
[17:01] Speaker 2: the point I made. It's like, we found out that
[17:03] Speaker 2: it was far more widespread, so although it's difficult, you
[17:08] Speaker 2: might be saving not just yourself, but other people in
[17:13] Speaker 2: the future, or even other victims or sorry, survivors. Yeah,
[17:18] Speaker 2: but it's a shocker.
[17:20] Speaker 1: Good on your parents for dealing with too, because I did.
[17:24] Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of families. It's too confronting. It
[17:27] Speaker 1: gets raised and apparently worse, and people step away from it.
[17:32] Speaker 1: We just can't deal with that, and that is something
[17:35] Speaker 1: that we've got to We've got to change because it
[17:37] Speaker 1: is confronting. Let's I'll try and light that up. But
[17:42] Speaker 1: I look at you, I look at your life. You're
[17:45] Speaker 1: jumping from one thing to another, business school at Wharton Philadelphia.
[17:50] Speaker 1: As I said, reading your book, I thought, okay, you
[17:54] Speaker 1: got through sas you got through wars, years of tours,
[17:59] Speaker 1: and then you put yourself in the challenge like that.
[18:02] Speaker 1: I was getting I was getting tired, tired, So what
[18:07] Speaker 1: did you have to find something to match the intensity
[18:09] Speaker 1: of what you left on.
[18:11] Speaker 2: I think I had to find something that was also
[18:13] Speaker 2: an institution. But while I was kind of recovering, i'd
[18:17] Speaker 2: be at least learning something or developing myself because I
[18:21] Speaker 2: had no idea what I was going to do. Really
[18:23] Speaker 2: after leaving, I wasn't sure what career I wanted, but
[18:26] Speaker 2: I knew if I went through an institution like that,
[18:28] Speaker 2: I'd figure out something good or I'd meet a network
[18:31] Speaker 2: that could help, which is kind of what happens. I
[18:34] Speaker 2: went in. There was a lot I didn't know about businesses,
[18:37] Speaker 2: basically everything, and I think over time figured out there
[18:41] Speaker 2: were different avenues I could take. I wanted to do
[18:44] Speaker 2: entrepreneurship because I was like the idea of running my
[18:46] Speaker 2: own kind of show, but wasn't really sure how to
[18:50] Speaker 2: do it all. And I did do the entrepreneurship subjects,
[18:54] Speaker 2: and I eventually took a job in a consulting firm
[18:57] Speaker 2: because I'm like, while I kind of figure out to
[19:00] Speaker 2: do or just do this and figure out the rest later.
[19:03] Speaker 2: But it was great because I kind of it's it
[19:05] Speaker 2: was good training and there was a bit of an
[19:06] Speaker 2: apprenticeship in business, and I just loved it.
[19:09] Speaker 1: It was great fun, but it was it was challenging too,
[19:12] Speaker 1: and as you said, the cost of it, and it
[19:15] Speaker 1: was a highly sought after position and you really had
[19:18] Speaker 1: to drill down to get there. Once you were there,
[19:21] Speaker 1: did you feel like you fitted in or.
[19:23] Speaker 2: Did I just loved it, and I didn't. I didn't
[19:26] Speaker 2: really feel like a fit in. But there was a
[19:27] Speaker 2: bunch of other veterans there that were in the same boat,
[19:30] Speaker 2: and there was all shades and colors of people from
[19:34] Speaker 2: all different backgrounds went to this school, so you you know,
[19:39] Speaker 2: I'd be having one lecture with an Israeli jet pilot
[19:42] Speaker 2: and he'd be arguing there's some Lebanese guy on the
[19:44] Speaker 2: startup community and that these guys were really trying to
[19:46] Speaker 2: punch each other around. It was all types of people
[19:49] Speaker 2: coexisting in the same space. So it was pretty cool.
[19:52] Speaker 1: And you got a lot from the experience, and it
[19:55] Speaker 1: broke your way from the mindset of the military. It
[19:59] Speaker 1: was a good way that clear clear head.
[20:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, and I got up every morning excited to go
[20:04] Speaker 2: to school, so I knew there was going to be
[20:06] Speaker 2: some great professor. They were all kind of rock star professors.
[20:09] Speaker 2: They were if they weren't doing lectures there on CNBC
[20:13] Speaker 2: talking about the economy.
[20:14] Speaker 1: Or so inspiration.
[20:16] Speaker 2: It was really good fun and it was just Americans
[20:19] Speaker 2: have a totally different view of the world. They're very
[20:22] Speaker 2: much you know, like you go get yeah, let's go
[20:25] Speaker 2: get it. But they're ruthless too. They're just savage.
[20:28] Speaker 1: About you can stick your head up or say you
[20:30] Speaker 1: want to achieve that, and it's not like the tall
[20:33] Speaker 1: poppy syndrome.
[20:34] Speaker 2: And if you if you get shot down, people love it,
[20:36] Speaker 2: they're great, you know, go again. I think it's not
[20:39] Speaker 2: like Australia where it's a bit of a you know.
[20:41] Speaker 1: Well yeah again, because I've read your books, I know
[20:44] Speaker 1: your secrets. But you wanted the challenge over there and
[20:47] Speaker 1: you entered into Philadelphia boxing. Now I don't know if
[20:52] Speaker 1: you know the history of boxing, which well Philly is
[20:54] Speaker 1: a pretty tough, tough area like bred Joe Fraser, not
[20:58] Speaker 1: to mention Rocky. Yeah.
[21:00] Speaker 2: Yeah. The further I went into it, the more I
[21:02] Speaker 2: was like, oh, this is a real boxing.
[21:03] Speaker 1: Town, isn't it, And it's such how do you end
[21:06] Speaker 1: up in that? Because that's a good again challenge for myself?
[21:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, And I was. I was just in a ruck,
[21:11] Speaker 2: so I'd been over there and it's disruptive, and I
[21:14] Speaker 2: didn't have tons of money, so I was kind of
[21:16] Speaker 2: being badly and it just was just my fitness and
[21:19] Speaker 2: health wasn't great and I wasn't starting well because of it,
[21:21] Speaker 2: and you kind of need to be starting at a good
[21:23] Speaker 2: level so they have a boxing over again, I should
[21:27] Speaker 2: do this, It'll be great to train for and and
[21:30] Speaker 2: so I'd run down to a gym that was probably
[21:32] Speaker 2: nine blocks away, but it was kind of on the
[21:33] Speaker 2: fringes of you kind of the city's pretty good, but
[21:36] Speaker 2: as you get further out, it gets worse and worse
[21:39] Speaker 2: and a bit of razor wir and all that. And
[21:41] Speaker 2: by the time I got down to my gym, it
[21:43] Speaker 2: was a good Philly style boxing gym with you know,
[21:47] Speaker 2: every character in that you can think of. And I
[21:50] Speaker 2: kind of cornered a trainer who was an MMA guy
[21:53] Speaker 2: as well. You know, I had broken teeth and everything,
[21:56] Speaker 2: and it was probably like in his mid twenties. But yeah,
[21:59] Speaker 2: we trained together for about two three months and it
[22:03] Speaker 2: was great. It was just it was a great experience.
[22:05] Speaker 1: Really, and just going out in front of the crowd
[22:08] Speaker 1: and all that. And if you want motivation for training,
[22:11] Speaker 1: sign up for a fight.
[22:12] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so bloody intense, isn't it.
[22:15] Speaker 1: And I would imagine even and we'll talk about your
[22:19] Speaker 1: experience on Survivor. But yeah, you carry a reputation, whether
[22:23] Speaker 1: you like it or not. Being an x S A
[22:24] Speaker 1: S like you carry that reputation pressure. You're against knocked
[22:30] Speaker 1: out this blay s a s and you what were
[22:34] Speaker 1: you fighting at? You're a big, big fellow, heavy heavy.
[22:38] Speaker 2: Card for sure. Yeah. And the other fellow was a one.
[22:41] Speaker 2: The first fire had fallen out and they got another
[22:43] Speaker 2: guy that was a marine and he was just a slag,
[22:47] Speaker 2: but god, great guy. We chatted after and I lost
[22:51] Speaker 2: on points, but it was bloody great, great battle.
[22:53] Speaker 1: Good on you for challenging, challenging yourself. You had another
[22:58] Speaker 1: thing going you were trying to develop. Was it kill
[23:00] Speaker 1: and capture or capture kill? Yeah? Yeah, I started that
[23:03] Speaker 1: as a when I was in business school. Started as
[23:06] Speaker 1: a one of the entrepreneurship projects because I was, like
[23:10] Speaker 1: I liked I had to get closed.
[23:12] Speaker 2: I hadn't. I didn't have a lot of civilian style clothes.
[23:15] Speaker 2: I wanted to get a leader jacket just because winter
[23:17] Speaker 2: over there and it's cool. But notice there wasn't really
[23:20] Speaker 2: a market for all. The brands for it were a
[23:22] Speaker 2: bit just weird and didn't really appeal to me. So
[23:25] Speaker 2: I came up with the idea of kind of building
[23:27] Speaker 2: one that was based off some of the special Ops designs,
[23:30] Speaker 2: and so I had to I went and built prototypes
[23:32] Speaker 2: in New York City and got all made and started
[23:35] Speaker 2: selling it and yeah, I hopefully years we've sold it
[23:38] Speaker 2: to some interesting folks and even the head of Asus
[23:42] Speaker 2: his wife. His wife bought him one and I saw it.
[23:46] Speaker 2: I remember being on watching a TV when they were
[23:48] Speaker 2: in a prisoner exchange in Tehran. It was the Kylie
[23:52] Speaker 2: Moore Gilbert.
[23:54] Speaker 1: We had her on the podcast there.
[23:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, so he was over there doing the prisoner exchange.
[23:58] Speaker 2: I remember seeing the footage. I'm like, that's a bloody
[24:01] Speaker 2: kill capture jacket and he's on the tarmac in Tehran.
[24:04] Speaker 2: Bo he's swapping hostages wearing this jacket. So I had
[24:07] Speaker 2: a good laugh about that. But yeah, so we still
[24:10] Speaker 2: do it now, we build kind of more custom ones.
[24:12] Speaker 2: Now my mate's going to there's a filmmaker at Netflix.
[24:16] Speaker 2: He runs the operations in the US for Kill Capture,
[24:18] Speaker 2: and he's just made him a custom jacket. Yeah, it's
[24:22] Speaker 2: great fun. We didn't do it full time, but we still.
[24:25] Speaker 1: Got good stuff having to go. And you're quite right
[24:27] Speaker 1: if you get the wrong leather jacket, they're pretty bad
[24:31] Speaker 1: bloody pleth pleath jackets. Yeah, it's all good stuff. So
[24:35] Speaker 1: you branching out into different things. Get your thoughts on
[24:40] Speaker 1: a couple of things the world at the moment. What's
[24:43] Speaker 1: going on in the world, Russia, Ukraine, US, Iran, is Rael, Lebanon,
[24:49] Speaker 1: and China, possibly Taiwan. I get the sense no expert
[24:54] Speaker 1: by any means, but just watching and absorbing what's going
[24:57] Speaker 1: on in the world. It seems like we're on the
[25:00] Speaker 1: crest of something that could be bad. There's so many
[25:03] Speaker 1: different regions going on. What's your take, Having the experience
[25:07] Speaker 1: that you've got and seen what you've done.
[25:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, even ten years ago, this kind of theory
[25:13] Speaker 2: about state on state warfare wasn't really considered seriously. It
[25:18] Speaker 2: was very much a few regional wars happening, and the
[25:22] Speaker 2: US kind of still a dominant power. But I think
[25:25] Speaker 2: in the last ten years, what we've witnessed is China
[25:29] Speaker 2: and Russia saying we want to see at this table
[25:32] Speaker 2: as well. We want to be equal partners. We don't
[25:34] Speaker 2: want the international system to the international rules to be
[25:38] Speaker 2: American rules or the West, and so they have started
[25:43] Speaker 2: to push back in their fears of influence, which is
[25:46] Speaker 2: Europe for Russia or Eastern Europe, and then the Pacific
[25:51] Speaker 2: and Taiwan for China. And I think that America's desperately
[25:57] Speaker 2: trying to hold together the international war that they created
[26:01] Speaker 2: after World War.
[26:02] Speaker 1: Two as almost a sheriff of the but it's.
[26:05] Speaker 2: Kind of starting to fall apart, and I think I
[26:08] Speaker 2: don't know where it's headed. But one of my fuse
[26:11] Speaker 2: is that we could be watching the early stages of
[26:15] Speaker 2: a global conflict, because we've got these major, major conflicts
[26:20] Speaker 2: unfolding in Europe, the Middle East, and the potential of
[26:25] Speaker 2: one in the Pacific. So you're right, it could be.
[26:29] Speaker 2: It's a pretty full burning time and I have no
[26:31] Speaker 2: idea where it's headed. I just don't know it. But
[26:34] Speaker 2: I did hear and this is kind of hot off
[26:36] Speaker 2: the press. One of the senators in the US I
[26:41] Speaker 2: remember his name in a minute, but he's a Carolina guy,
[26:44] Speaker 2: has the ear of the president, and he was saying, Goes,
[26:48] Speaker 2: my prediction is this peace process is going to fail
[26:50] Speaker 2: and we're going to have to militarily secure the straight
[26:54] Speaker 2: up hor moves. That's like, that is a major, major war.
[26:59] Speaker 1: And we're looking at Iran. They're a big population and
[27:04] Speaker 1: a big.
[27:05] Speaker 2: Country in the US in Israel just through almost the kitchen,
[27:11] Speaker 2: they have a lot of other k hills they didn't use,
[27:13] Speaker 2: but they used some pretty severe capabilities. They hit eleven
[27:17] Speaker 2: thousand targets and Iran's doing just fine because I've been
[27:23] Speaker 2: heard obviously, But yeah.
[27:25] Speaker 1: Do you think, and yeah, just a thought that the
[27:29] Speaker 1: modern warfare has changed, like when we're looking at the drones,
[27:33] Speaker 1: and yeah, you see something of what's happening in Iran
[27:39] Speaker 1: or even Russia. Ukraine missiles to shoot down drones. The
[27:43] Speaker 1: drone might be worth ten thousand dollars, and missile the
[27:45] Speaker 1: shoe that down's worth one hundred thousand dollars. So you
[27:47] Speaker 1: just keep throwing those drones up. It's a different, different world,
[27:51] Speaker 1: isn't it.
[27:52] Speaker 2: I think that I kept thinking that the drones might
[27:56] Speaker 2: just be a kind of natural step in warfare, but
[27:59] Speaker 2: I think it might be a much bigger kind of swing,
[28:02] Speaker 2: kind of like gunpowder or rifle barrels. It might be
[28:05] Speaker 2: a major change in warfare. The reason being is because
[28:09] Speaker 2: they can exist anywhere in a three dimensional space. They
[28:13] Speaker 2: kind of render armored vehicles, which used to be pretty
[28:17] Speaker 2: hard to defeed, they're now easy to defeed with these
[28:20] Speaker 2: cheap drones. The casualties they're inflicting on people, they are
[28:25] Speaker 2: just unbelievable, So I think it might be. And they're
[28:28] Speaker 2: a cheap way. They're a cheap way to target people.
[28:30] Speaker 2: Like what would you rather do hit an oil refinery
[28:34] Speaker 2: in Geelong with a drone that costs a thousand bucks
[28:39] Speaker 2: or craft a missile in China that costs ten million
[28:42] Speaker 2: dollars that you've got to fire across the globe. Like, yeah,
[28:45] Speaker 2: it's obviously it's going to go this direction.
[28:47] Speaker 1: And like the technology, and again my observation is it's
[28:51] Speaker 1: not necessarily the country with the biggest army anymore, but
[28:54] Speaker 1: the most technically advanced might have the advantage. Yeah, and
[28:58] Speaker 1: that's that's a concern. And with it, it's not the
[29:03] Speaker 1: leaders that are sending their people in that. Okay, well
[29:05] Speaker 1: this is costing lives with what's happening in Russia and
[29:09] Speaker 1: the Ukraine. You hear how many lives are lost there.
[29:13] Speaker 1: But we're just sending drones in. It's almost like playing
[29:17] Speaker 1: a computer game for Yeah, that's where it gets gets scary.
[29:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's this and this is what I worry about
[29:23] Speaker 2: with any sort of operation in Iran with troops on
[29:27] Speaker 2: the ground, they're going to be heavily targeted byrones and
[29:31] Speaker 2: they're going to have. The Americans have obviously got capabilities
[29:33] Speaker 2: to defeat them. But these things don't always work. Just
[29:37] Speaker 2: things go wrong, you get bad weather or whatever, you
[29:40] Speaker 2: make mistakes. These drones can get in, they'll they'll kill
[29:43] Speaker 2: a lot of people.
[29:44] Speaker 1: Well, well, what's our vivid thing? Oh yeah, drones for
[29:49] Speaker 1: ol skuy That wasn't we have those that China has
[29:53] Speaker 1: those military parades and the US has the UFC and
[29:56] Speaker 1: we've got the vivid how drones fall out of the sky
[30:01] Speaker 1: Darling Harbor. That wasn't a good good look. Extreme extremists
[30:06] Speaker 1: and the areas that you've worked, you've seen what extreme
[30:10] Speaker 1: ideology can look like at the extreme. That sounds ridiculous.
[30:14] Speaker 1: But in this country, I get the sense that we've
[30:19] Speaker 1: got the right wing up here, we've got left wing there,
[30:22] Speaker 1: all the extreme ideologies. We had a counter terrorism expert
[30:26] Speaker 1: on that I used to work with and he said,
[30:28] Speaker 1: if the right rises, guarantee we don't just have to
[30:31] Speaker 1: worry about the right, We're going to worry about the
[30:33] Speaker 1: left because if one rises, the other rises. I just
[30:36] Speaker 1: get the sense in society at the moment I'm talking
[30:40] Speaker 1: Australia that there feels to be a lot of anger.
[30:43] Speaker 1: There's a lot of protests, there's a lot of extreme views.
[30:46] Speaker 1: We saw what happened in Bondai and extreme ideology. What's
[30:51] Speaker 1: your take on it. You've seen the countries where it's
[30:54] Speaker 1: led the war, you feel of what's going on here?
[30:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the I think smartphones and social media
[31:03] Speaker 2: mean that you can be effectively indoctrinated pretty quickly in
[31:09] Speaker 2: a way that you just couldn't ten or fifteen years ago.
[31:12] Speaker 2: Wasn't really that possible and it wasn't as effective. It's
[31:15] Speaker 2: like you had to go looking for it, whereas now
[31:18] Speaker 2: you can get that content fed to you pretty consistently,
[31:22] Speaker 2: just day to day. So I think that's probably the
[31:25] Speaker 2: major contributor to why things have diverged so much. It
[31:31] Speaker 2: has to be a big factor for sure.
[31:32] Speaker 1: Well, before we had access to social media and the
[31:35] Speaker 1: mobile phones, if you and I were hanging out in
[31:38] Speaker 1: the community and you had some extreme views, we'd sort
[31:40] Speaker 1: of laugh at you and yeah exactly and put you
[31:43] Speaker 1: down or whatever, or talk you down from that view
[31:47] Speaker 1: and you'd be left. But now you could have an
[31:50] Speaker 1: extreme view, and I suppose jump on social media and
[31:52] Speaker 1: you're going to find someone out there that's going to
[31:54] Speaker 1: support that.
[31:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, they talk about that echo chamber. Yeah, happening. So
[32:00] Speaker 2: that's one part. And then you've got all the other
[32:04] Speaker 2: issues that have come up recently where people lose faith
[32:07] Speaker 2: in institutions or government, like the lockdowns or things that
[32:11] Speaker 2: have viewed as not being democratic. And I lived in
[32:14] Speaker 2: Melbournere and that it was horrible, just bloody shocking. So
[32:17] Speaker 2: you can see people have less faith in institutions and
[32:21] Speaker 2: extreme ideology is starting to take hold. Yeah, it's pretty
[32:25] Speaker 2: I'm guessing at a policing level, it's a major issue.
[32:28] Speaker 1: I think that's the biggest concern of policing. And I
[32:32] Speaker 1: talked to a lot of police here and overseas, and
[32:35] Speaker 1: we are worried about the ideologies and the extreme mass killers.
[32:40] Speaker 1: You know, it used to be serial killers that would
[32:42] Speaker 1: get people's attention. Now the mass killers a concerned and
[32:46] Speaker 1: that's usually born from an ideology, and that's I know
[32:51] Speaker 1: in the United States were speaking to one of the
[32:54] Speaker 1: experts that helped identify serial killers way back in the day,
[32:58] Speaker 1: and they're now looking at the mass killers as the threat,
[33:02] Speaker 1: which is so worrying. You know, how to inflict violence
[33:06] Speaker 1: and if someone's got the will there's a way.
[33:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, and if they planned, if they planned a lot
[33:11] Speaker 2: and there's there's a soft target like it's shopping at
[33:14] Speaker 2: whatever it is, it is a real concern and that
[33:18] Speaker 2: fear never really left me. I remember when the Link
[33:21] Speaker 2: Cafe siege happened and I had that horrible feeling like
[33:26] Speaker 2: everything we've been doing overseas had come home. Yeah, it's
[33:30] Speaker 2: really it's bad, and it also has a disproportionate effect
[33:35] Speaker 2: on on psyche, national psyche as well.
[33:39] Speaker 1: Link Cafe was interesting when that happened. I ended up
[33:43] Speaker 1: I did the crime scene for Link Cafe, so very
[33:46] Speaker 1: much involved in it and saw what happened. But I
[33:50] Speaker 1: think that was it was almost like the nation woke
[33:54] Speaker 1: up at that stage. And I think because of the location,
[33:58] Speaker 1: because of yeah, seeing that the flag held up on
[34:01] Speaker 1: the window, the hostage is a terror, and how it
[34:03] Speaker 1: all played out, I think it was a wake up
[34:06] Speaker 1: call for all of us. I think from a policing
[34:08] Speaker 1: point of view, that probably eind out a few few
[34:12] Speaker 1: flows in the way that we respond to that that
[34:15] Speaker 1: type of type of situation. But yeah, that that bought
[34:18] Speaker 1: us into the world of what can actually happen.
[34:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, modern modern counter terrorism for sure.
[34:25] Speaker 1: Other things that I wanted to wanted to talk about
[34:28] Speaker 1: your survivor.
[34:30] Speaker 2: Survivor.
[34:30] Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, this is the real, real, this is a
[34:34] Speaker 1: real Now I've been watching I shouldn't like. No, I
[34:38] Speaker 1: don't know if I want to say this. On Married
[34:41] Speaker 1: at First Sight, I got looked on it.
[34:43] Speaker 2: I love it. I love it massive, hilarious.
[34:47] Speaker 1: It makes me feel better about my life watching that.
[34:50] Speaker 2: There's a lot of closet NAFS watches out there.
[34:53] Speaker 1: Just don't you're mad enough to actually come out and
[34:56] Speaker 1: come out and say that there is and anyone I
[34:59] Speaker 1: wouldn't watch that, and then they sit down for half
[35:01] Speaker 1: an hour and then no, I love it. Okay, Survival.
[35:05] Speaker 1: When you went on Survival?
[35:06] Speaker 2: What made the way that I remember being in I
[35:10] Speaker 2: was in New York and I was like, I was
[35:12] Speaker 2: doing the consoling stuff. I'm like, I don't want to
[35:14] Speaker 2: I want to do something that's different. I don't know
[35:16] Speaker 2: what it is. I kind of was just looking out
[35:18] Speaker 2: for something different. But then I remember a friend of
[35:21] Speaker 2: mine that I went to business school with in New
[35:24] Speaker 2: York talking about his friend that had played in the
[35:26] Speaker 2: Australia Sorry the American Survivor and just talking about how
[35:30] Speaker 2: awesome it was, and I was like, oh, that'd be
[35:32] Speaker 2: so much fun. And I went and checked if Australia
[35:35] Speaker 2: had something similar, and they literally just had the first
[35:39] Speaker 2: season The Survivor, and I was like, oh, I should
[35:41] Speaker 2: apply for the second season. Not sure, you know, I
[35:44] Speaker 2: never applied for a TV show, but I filled out
[35:47] Speaker 2: the application to apply for it, and then got an
[35:51] Speaker 2: email from the producers just saying, hey, would you jump
[35:53] Speaker 2: on a zoom call? And so I did that and
[35:55] Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, this could be good fun. And
[35:57] Speaker 2: then I had to do an audition for it, and
[35:58] Speaker 2: then I had to do some more homework on the show.
[36:01] Speaker 2: Because I've been in the Army, I hadn't really watched it,
[36:04] Speaker 2: so then started watching it. And then after about six
[36:07] Speaker 2: weeks of jumping through their hoops, got a call from
[36:10] Speaker 2: the main kind of director there and they go, hey,
[36:13] Speaker 2: do you want to join us for the next season.
[36:15] Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, okay, but I'm coming from New York,
[36:17] Speaker 2: like it's a long way, and I had to kind
[36:19] Speaker 2: of make a little logistics work, but went out and
[36:23] Speaker 2: just I'd never done anything in TV, didn't know what
[36:27] Speaker 2: to do, what to make of it, but it just
[36:29] Speaker 2: ended up being really good fun. I met my then
[36:31] Speaker 2: wife at the star of that show and went back
[36:35] Speaker 2: five years later to play again, and then played it
[36:38] Speaker 2: went back a second time as a fan. I thought
[36:40] Speaker 2: about what I did first time and just played a
[36:43] Speaker 2: much harder game and ended up.
[36:47] Speaker 1: Had a strategy second time.
[36:48] Speaker 2: I had a bit of luck and a good strategy
[36:51] Speaker 2: and got to win second time.
[36:53] Speaker 1: Congratulations. And there was a bit of financial reward there.
[36:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, I made a good prize for sure, So yeah,
[36:58] Speaker 2: that's good and yeah all worked out well. Yeah. Yeah.
[37:02] Speaker 1: It's interesting that you say that you enjoyed the TV
[37:06] Speaker 1: side of things, because I would imagine the work that
[37:08] Speaker 1: you've done. It's very say dark, it's intense, intense in
[37:14] Speaker 1: the in the Army switch on. You obviously have your
[37:17] Speaker 1: downtimes and you laugh and carry on, but it's intent intense.
[37:21] Speaker 1: Work I did when I was in the Cops a
[37:23] Speaker 1: lot of work with the writers for TV series, and
[37:26] Speaker 1: that not paid gigs, but just they're looking for input.
[37:30] Speaker 1: And I enjoyed it because it was working with creative
[37:33] Speaker 1: people and just to me, it nourished my soul from
[37:38] Speaker 1: the negative side of the place where if you come
[37:40] Speaker 1: up with an idea, someone's knocking you down this or
[37:43] Speaker 1: that dark world or intense world, and then just creative
[37:48] Speaker 1: people and just sitting there with creative people, and I'd
[37:50] Speaker 1: walk out energize and then go back to a murder
[37:52] Speaker 1: soon and go fuck yeah, but yeah, I'm sure you've
[37:57] Speaker 1: got that out of it.
[38:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, it was the same thing. I just remember thinking, oh,
[38:02] Speaker 2: this is actually really good fun and there are all
[38:04] Speaker 2: these other fields in life that you can do which
[38:06] Speaker 2: are amazing, and yeah, I've been the best thing ever.
[38:08] Speaker 2: And I've even just from doing that and been in
[38:11] Speaker 2: that world. I've got now beautiful partner who's from that.
[38:15] Speaker 2: From that world, we got two kids and my first
[38:19] Speaker 2: kid as well, Harry. So mate, it's been it's been
[38:22] Speaker 2: a blessing. I'm glad I went down that path because
[38:24] Speaker 2: it's been a really really fun addition, you know that
[38:28] Speaker 2: you never knew about if you're in the army or
[38:29] Speaker 2: proppers or whatever.
[38:30] Speaker 1: How like doing something like that with the army, like
[38:34] Speaker 1: it's let's all conform and we.
[38:36] Speaker 2: All do this.
[38:37] Speaker 1: Did you have some negative feedbackward people?
[38:40] Speaker 2: Yeah? I did hear about it for sure.
[38:43] Speaker 1: I'm sure even your mates aren't been negative, would have
[38:46] Speaker 1: put shit on you.
[38:46] Speaker 2: I gave you heaps of shit and there was it was.
[38:49] Speaker 2: It was relentless, and I was like, it was too
[38:51] Speaker 2: late now kind of you know, I've already embarrassed myself
[38:54] Speaker 2: on national TV. So then I decided to do all
[38:56] Speaker 2: the other stuff, the book and all that stuff because
[38:58] Speaker 2: and I'm glad I did, because often times people don't
[39:02] Speaker 2: want to speak out of turn because they're worried about
[39:04] Speaker 2: what their old community will think. But most of the time,
[39:07] Speaker 2: no one's even paying attention anyway. And you know, so
[39:10] Speaker 2: I'll still hang shure on you, but everyone's happy for you,
[39:12] Speaker 2: I'm sure.
[39:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, doing the book like your first book, how did
[39:17] Speaker 1: you feel about doing that? The SAS And I know
[39:20] Speaker 1: there's a lot of books out with all Special Forces
[39:22] Speaker 1: guys and books out and reading that you're not giving
[39:26] Speaker 1: away methodology. It's a personal journey, it's a memoir. It's
[39:29] Speaker 1: about the impact of the things you have seen and
[39:32] Speaker 1: seen and done. How did you feel about writing the book?
[39:35] Speaker 1: Because I ask you that because when I left the Cops,
[39:39] Speaker 1: it offered for me to write a book, and I
[39:42] Speaker 1: was never going to write a book, and then I
[39:44] Speaker 1: thought about it and thought, yeah, I wanted to tell
[39:46] Speaker 1: my story and I felt like it was cathartic, like
[39:50] Speaker 1: sitting down. Actually it was actually getting me dealing with
[39:53] Speaker 1: stuff that i'd been through, processing it seeing the words
[39:57] Speaker 1: on paper. How did you feel with writing this book?
[40:01] Speaker 2: Pretty similar? I think I always wanted I felt like
[40:05] Speaker 2: what we'd been through and what we'd experience, I wanted
[40:08] Speaker 2: to share it just from a kind of selfish point
[40:09] Speaker 2: of view, but also I thought it was important that
[40:12] Speaker 2: everyone kind of knew about what had happened, because even
[40:15] Speaker 2: I was shocked. I was like, I remember, coming out
[40:18] Speaker 2: of one battle, how are we ever going to explain
[40:20] Speaker 2: how that? And I thought the best way would be
[40:24] Speaker 2: to just make it a story, and I tried not
[40:27] Speaker 2: to kind of center it just on that experience. I
[40:30] Speaker 2: tried to make it a life story with a kind
[40:32] Speaker 2: of a war as part of it. But yeah, that's
[40:35] Speaker 2: kind of why I did. I found it pretty cathartic,
[40:37] Speaker 2: and I just I knew that I knew I would
[40:41] Speaker 2: be thankful later that I'd written it, and that my
[40:44] Speaker 2: kids would be and other people that knew meal parents.
[40:47] Speaker 2: So yeah, I just thought it was a good experience.
[40:49] Speaker 1: Did you also find that when you put it all
[40:52] Speaker 1: on paper, once it's out there, it's out there, Like
[40:54] Speaker 1: if you're if you're a private person or a bit
[40:58] Speaker 1: of an introvert, Well, once it's out there, well, what
[41:01] Speaker 1: are you going to do? Yeah, it's there.
[41:02] Speaker 2: You can I was like, maybe I shouldn't have done it,
[41:05] Speaker 2: but then I was like, you know, no one really cares.
[41:08] Speaker 2: It's and a lot of people are being complimentary. They're like,
[41:11] Speaker 2: this helped me, you know, with something in my life
[41:13] Speaker 2: or or whatever. I think that people take a lot
[41:16] Speaker 2: of a lot of benefit from a life story. If
[41:19] Speaker 2: you if you're good about it or as honest as
[41:21] Speaker 2: you can be, I think it's good.
[41:22] Speaker 1: Well, a humility comes through through the book, and the
[41:25] Speaker 1: humility in the way that you're showing that you're not
[41:29] Speaker 1: a superhero because sa s Blake you can say we
[41:32] Speaker 1: did this, we did that, and you can know where's
[41:34] Speaker 1: your cape. But you're showing the vulnerabilities, the things that
[41:38] Speaker 1: you're scared about, where you've made mistakes, lessons that you've learned.
[41:41] Speaker 1: And I think everyone can take take away something from
[41:45] Speaker 1: a book like that.
[41:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember thinking and I remember being uncomfortable about
[41:49] Speaker 2: some of it. I'm like, if you don't if you
[41:50] Speaker 2: don't talk about some of these things that you did
[41:53] Speaker 2: badly or you're embarrassed about, you're going to be very unrelatable,
[41:58] Speaker 2: I think as a as a character. But thinking that so,
[42:00] Speaker 2: I'm like, probably have to talk about all the stuff
[42:03] Speaker 2: I'm annoyed about that I wish i'd rather forget. But
[42:07] Speaker 2: they're the things people talked about, like, Oh, I love
[42:09] Speaker 2: that part because you know you're expecting a super soldier
[42:12] Speaker 2: but you just another bloke from something else.
[42:14] Speaker 1: Makes it makes it relatable, like yeah, you're nervous before
[42:17] Speaker 1: you're doing this, or you're nervous, Like, okay, i'd be
[42:20] Speaker 1: nervous too. This bloke saying he's nervous, so it must
[42:22] Speaker 1: be a like it's so yeah, a good road. You
[42:27] Speaker 1: also had a go at fiction.
[42:29] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, fiction. I did that. I had this idea
[42:32] Speaker 2: I've done that one, and I was like, I'd like
[42:34] Speaker 2: to do fiction. I had an idea that I kind
[42:36] Speaker 2: of formed during COVID. I was like, this could be
[42:39] Speaker 2: a good story if I talk about it. I guess
[42:41] Speaker 2: an insurgency in Victoria in a fictional scenario.
[42:45] Speaker 1: So I've worked on that.
[42:46] Speaker 2: I found it it's actually much harder than nonfiction because
[42:49] Speaker 2: you're having to create that world out of thin air
[42:51] Speaker 2: and a lot of a lot of cases. But I
[42:54] Speaker 2: really enjoyed it. Took a while to get it down
[42:56] Speaker 2: and get it ritten and release that with the same publisher,
[43:00] Speaker 2: Pam McMillan, and loved it. I've still got people asking
[43:03] Speaker 2: for a follow up, so we'll see.
[43:05] Speaker 1: What's the name of the book. That's right, and I've
[43:10] Speaker 1: got it on the audio I'm going to I'm walking.
[43:13] Speaker 1: But yeah, writing fiction, I've only I've written one chapter
[43:17] Speaker 1: of fiction on the back of After the first book,
[43:20] Speaker 1: there was an idea that they had of different authors
[43:23] Speaker 1: writing different chapters in the book. Start off with a
[43:26] Speaker 1: murder scene, and you've got to follow You've got a
[43:29] Speaker 1: week the week after the other person has written the chapter,
[43:34] Speaker 1: you've got to follow on from the chapter. It was
[43:37] Speaker 1: hard to start with because I'm sitting there thinking like
[43:39] Speaker 1: a homicide detective, going okay, well, I've got to do this,
[43:42] Speaker 1: got to do that been really structured, and I thought,
[43:47] Speaker 1: this is fiction. I can take it wherever I want.
[43:49] Speaker 1: But I'm amazed at the fiction writers that can just
[43:52] Speaker 1: churn out one book after another, Like where do they
[43:56] Speaker 1: get where do they get the It's got to be
[43:58] Speaker 1: ideas because I found it hard. You'd have to think
[44:02] Speaker 1: about a scene, and I know, average scenes about two
[44:05] Speaker 1: thousand words. I'll be like, Okay, I think I know
[44:07] Speaker 1: how this scene is going to go. And I try
[44:09] Speaker 1: and do half a scene in one day and the
[44:12] Speaker 1: other half the second day, and then I try and
[44:14] Speaker 1: edit a bit. But it's just I found it really
[44:17] Speaker 1: hard to build that world and have good characters with
[44:19] Speaker 1: good dialogue believable when none of it's really happened in theory.
[44:24] Speaker 2: I don't know how they do it. To give me
[44:26] Speaker 2: another level of respect skill?
[44:29] Speaker 1: Do you think with the writing that you would have
[44:31] Speaker 1: done as an officer in the army is very direct
[44:34] Speaker 1: and very structured and each word has a purpose.
[44:37] Speaker 2: Oh it's horrible, right, So you.
[44:39] Speaker 1: Came from that to then trying to write something that entertained.
[44:43] Speaker 1: We're in the news court building. I started writing here
[44:46] Speaker 1: after coming after doing fact sheets for thirty years, and
[44:51] Speaker 1: the first couple of articles just lighten up, a little
[44:53] Speaker 1: bit fun with had a bit of color. Yeah, that
[44:58] Speaker 1: type of thing. Okay, So advice now your book that's
[45:02] Speaker 1: out now or just coming out and mission mission ready, resilience, leadership,
[45:07] Speaker 1: elite performance. You can see by the posted Nations. I
[45:11] Speaker 1: picked up a lot of stuff in there. What are
[45:13] Speaker 1: the key takeaway points from that book? I read it
[45:17] Speaker 1: cover to cover. I enjoyed it, and there's a lot
[45:20] Speaker 1: of really interesting things that came out of about it,
[45:23] Speaker 1: about focusing on the mission, about not over complicating things.
[45:27] Speaker 1: What's the takeaways?
[45:28] Speaker 2: So I donote speaking where people have a they've got
[45:32] Speaker 2: a curiosity about how Special Forces unit works. Everyone's kind
[45:36] Speaker 2: of might have seen in the movies what happens or
[45:38] Speaker 2: but people are genuinely curious about how you either do
[45:42] Speaker 2: tim building or how you rehearse for a mission, or
[45:44] Speaker 2: how you plan one how you might operate when things
[45:47] Speaker 2: go wrong, and they're all the more I encountered those
[45:51] Speaker 2: questions and I was like, actually, there is some there
[45:55] Speaker 2: are some kind of nuggets around how the units organize themselves.
[45:59] Speaker 2: I just couldn't kind of translate it into the right
[46:02] Speaker 2: speak for people to kind of understand and apply themselves.
[46:06] Speaker 2: So I, after thinking about for a few years, I
[46:08] Speaker 2: kind of came up with what I think of the
[46:10] Speaker 2: right concepts and put it in that book. But it
[46:13] Speaker 2: centers around that stuff you dis mentioned, which is just
[46:16] Speaker 2: the mindsets around planning and just concentrating on the basics,
[46:20] Speaker 2: which the Special Ops teams were great at, keeping things simple,
[46:24] Speaker 2: focusing on things understanding concepts like Parrito's law, which is
[46:29] Speaker 2: the uneven application of effort and results, like how to
[46:33] Speaker 2: compress timelines and have a kind of more aggressive bias
[46:38] Speaker 2: to action and how that helps and how we used
[46:40] Speaker 2: it in Special Ops. And then I just try and
[46:43] Speaker 2: overlay that with the same habits I saw in the
[46:47] Speaker 2: top consulting teams, all the top business teams that I've
[46:50] Speaker 2: read about. I'm like, well, I saw those in both units,
[46:54] Speaker 2: so they must be useful. So I put it all
[46:56] Speaker 2: in that book. And yes, so somemary of those tips.
[47:00] Speaker 1: Skills and the stuff that you took away from working
[47:03] Speaker 1: at the elite level in the military and Special forces
[47:07] Speaker 1: what came across in the book too. It's very transferable
[47:10] Speaker 1: to the business. And there's also and you weren't sitting
[47:14] Speaker 1: there up on a pedestal that you thought you probably
[47:17] Speaker 1: were a Special Forces there's some business people that got
[47:20] Speaker 1: really sharp minds on the way to get a business
[47:22] Speaker 1: kicking a long yeah.
[47:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, they were complete weapons. And I was I didn't
[47:26] Speaker 2: realize how many blind spots we had when we came
[47:29] Speaker 2: out of the military. There were business leaders that were
[47:32] Speaker 2: much better organized and more disciplined in some of their thinking.
[47:36] Speaker 2: And that's what I've tried to capture it. Even just
[47:40] Speaker 2: the way you test a plan and after you've executed,
[47:43] Speaker 2: how you capture the lessons and just keep improving on it.
[47:46] Speaker 2: There's just a process you can use, and I think
[47:49] Speaker 2: any organization benefits from it.
[47:51] Speaker 1: And I like, you have the post assessment of an operation,
[47:55] Speaker 1: but the pre for and let's look at all the
[47:59] Speaker 1: things that can go wrong before it goes wrong, and
[48:01] Speaker 1: you use you use a couple of business examples and
[48:04] Speaker 1: also military examples about okay, let's get everyone in the
[48:09] Speaker 1: room and let's test what if this goes wrong, what
[48:12] Speaker 1: are the contingencies? And how do we act on that
[48:14] Speaker 1: sort of preparation beforehand. But there was a lot of
[48:17] Speaker 1: takeaways from it. The other thing I found interesting about
[48:20] Speaker 1: the ethical the culture of an organization. And there was
[48:24] Speaker 1: one example I just can't think of it off the
[48:27] Speaker 1: top of my head where it was a Volkswagen and
[48:30] Speaker 1: the yeah, tell us tell us much.
[48:34] Speaker 2: The long story short Volkswagen had was trying to enter
[48:39] Speaker 2: the US market. To do it, they weren't able to
[48:41] Speaker 2: do it because their emissions were at the right level.
[48:44] Speaker 2: So instead of actually fixing the emissions the hard way
[48:47] Speaker 2: in their vehicles, they chose a shortcut where they were
[48:50] Speaker 2: just entering software and that would basically cheat the emissions tests.
[48:55] Speaker 2: So they weren't actually changing their emissions and doing the
[48:57] Speaker 2: right thing. They were kind of cheating. They've actually got
[49:00] Speaker 2: found out and they basically just instead of spending five
[49:05] Speaker 2: billion converting the engines, they lost thirty billion, and you know,
[49:08] Speaker 2: everyone got put in jail. So just like if you
[49:11] Speaker 2: just made the right choice at the start, this would
[49:13] Speaker 2: have been a lot easier, you know.
[49:14] Speaker 1: So, and you use a lot of studies about keeping
[49:18] Speaker 1: an ethical culture and it might be the short term game,
[49:21] Speaker 1: but the long term you will benefit from it.
[49:24] Speaker 2: Yeah. And also everyone's kind of watching how the leaders
[49:26] Speaker 2: behave to take all their cues off that. So as
[49:29] Speaker 2: a leader, you've got you've got to kind of set
[49:30] Speaker 2: this right standard and you can't kind of say one
[49:33] Speaker 2: thing and do the other. Then the organization will follow you.
[49:37] Speaker 1: The leadership aspect in there too, very much in what
[49:40] Speaker 1: I've observed in the police of the good leaders how
[49:43] Speaker 1: it's very inclusive. Homicide, we have briefings, and the first
[49:47] Speaker 1: time I went into a homicide briefing, I'm the young
[49:50] Speaker 1: kid sitting in the back of the room thinking I've
[49:52] Speaker 1: got no right to even speaking. Yeah, and then the
[49:54] Speaker 1: person conducting the briefings going, yeah, Gary, what do you think?
[49:58] Speaker 1: And I thought, Wow, Yeah, I didn't think anything to speak,
[50:03] Speaker 1: I didn't know anything. We'd better find the killer. But
[50:08] Speaker 1: that sort of inclusiveness, and I tried to learn from
[50:12] Speaker 1: good leaders that I work with, and the ones that
[50:15] Speaker 1: I did work with had that inclusive type of approach
[50:19] Speaker 1: to the leadership that everyone's part of a team. And
[50:22] Speaker 1: I know on a homicide investigation when the pressure is on,
[50:25] Speaker 1: if everyone feels like they understand what their role is
[50:28] Speaker 1: and they're all contributing, you can get much more work
[50:31] Speaker 1: out of that. Applied to business and military.
[50:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think there's always that kind of stereotype
[50:38] Speaker 2: of a leader which people have, which is often it's
[50:41] Speaker 2: often a really flawed view of how I think I
[50:43] Speaker 2: think a good leader operates. I think a good leader
[50:45] Speaker 2: is often pretty studious and quiet, but very focused on
[50:49] Speaker 2: the job, and they, like you're saying, they bring everyone
[50:51] Speaker 2: with them, make everyone feel like they're contributing. And it's
[50:56] Speaker 2: often not flashy or showy, but it's far more effective.
[50:59] Speaker 1: Well yeah, there was an example in the book about
[51:02] Speaker 1: the touch Shop lady. But oh yeah, yeah, And I was.
[51:05] Speaker 2: Telling her the other day. I was like, man, I've
[51:06] Speaker 2: got you in my book. Are you doing a great job?
[51:09] Speaker 1: I thought I'm going to be reading about yea, all
[51:12] Speaker 1: these Yeah, this operation was unbelievable. Leadership and all that,
[51:16] Speaker 1: and the touch Shop Lady.
[51:17] Speaker 2: There were a lot of sandwiches that day, but it
[51:19] Speaker 2: was and the pressure.
[51:20] Speaker 1: Was on how you cut the salad. But the way
[51:22] Speaker 1: that that was told, and I could see exactly what
[51:25] Speaker 1: you meant by that, that was that was inclusive. You
[51:27] Speaker 1: know what music do you want to play? Enjoy yourself.
[51:30] Speaker 1: Let's all work as a team. If if you're falling
[51:32] Speaker 1: behind or you don't know how to cut the salad,
[51:35] Speaker 1: she shows you.
[51:35] Speaker 2: Yeah, and she's she's dealing with volunteers. She kind of
[51:38] Speaker 2: knows how to. Yeah, she can't tell people what to
[51:41] Speaker 2: She's just got to bring them all with you.
[51:42] Speaker 1: And that's a good point too, if they're there because
[51:45] Speaker 1: they want to be there, and then the leadership flows
[51:48] Speaker 1: from that.
[51:48] Speaker 2: I heard there there was some there was one of
[51:51] Speaker 2: the business leaders. I think in McKinsey said that he goes,
[51:54] Speaker 2: you know, you have to understand everyone here is a
[51:55] Speaker 2: professional voleunce here. Yeah, they're choosing to be here, right,
[51:59] Speaker 2: you know, they've chose in this company like you have
[52:01] Speaker 2: to treat them with that respect and respect that they're
[52:05] Speaker 2: treatm like adults and take everyone with you.
[52:08] Speaker 1: That's leadership. About team teams, what's your view on teams
[52:12] Speaker 1: or something that you picked up on teams?
[52:16] Speaker 2: I think the big one is that I think the
[52:21] Speaker 2: ESAs had kind of figured this out through and a
[52:23] Speaker 2: lot of militaries have, is that the team size. Beyond
[52:27] Speaker 2: a certain size, you lose accountability in people. So you've
[52:30] Speaker 2: got to keep them quite compact for them to be
[52:33] Speaker 2: high performing. The study done by Google into effective Teams,
[52:38] Speaker 2: I thought was really interesting, which lists five key attributes
[52:42] Speaker 2: for top teams, and they're not kind of what you
[52:44] Speaker 2: would think necessarily. The top one is psychological safety, so
[52:49] Speaker 2: everyone feeling like that can take a risk and that
[52:50] Speaker 2: can be punished for it. And then the points you
[52:53] Speaker 2: made about everyone delivering impact, everyone knowing what their role is,
[52:57] Speaker 2: and the leader just kind of keeping everyone heading towards
[53:00] Speaker 2: that mission because so easy you get distracted by all
[53:02] Speaker 2: the other garbage that is in the workplace. I think
[53:05] Speaker 2: the best leaders were just good men and women that
[53:08] Speaker 2: you wanted to work for and just had a clear
[53:10] Speaker 2: understanding of what to do.
[53:11] Speaker 1: I think, because I might come as a surprise, but
[53:16] Speaker 1: I think it's just a thing that happens in the
[53:18] Speaker 1: police and that happens in the army. You argue with
[53:20] Speaker 1: leaders above, but that's identified I think in the book
[53:23] Speaker 1: that you need that have to. You've got to argue up.
[53:26] Speaker 1: I always said, you know, when I'm a sergeant, well,
[53:29] Speaker 1: I should be arguing with the inspector if I don't agree.
[53:31] Speaker 1: And when I was an inspector, I should be arguing
[53:33] Speaker 1: with the superintendent. That got that worked real well for me.
[53:37] Speaker 1: I still maintain that is that is the way to go.
[53:41] Speaker 2: But in a good organization, yeah, it is.
[53:45] Speaker 1: To question and because that stops that group think and
[53:49] Speaker 1: that that came out there's a couple of examples in
[53:51] Speaker 1: the book there that it stops that group think by
[53:54] Speaker 1: people making it comfortable to speak up if you don't
[53:58] Speaker 1: agree with something like I.
[54:00] Speaker 2: Talked about how we didn't do it well in Afghanistan. Yeah,
[54:03] Speaker 2: so at the tactical level. Were pretty good at that,
[54:05] Speaker 2: but I think when it came to the bigger beast
[54:08] Speaker 2: of strategy, maybe you know, you need to challenge that.
[54:11] Speaker 1: All The other thing I found interesting was the size
[54:14] Speaker 1: of the meetings, like not having too many people in
[54:17] Speaker 1: the meetings and working in the public service. And that's
[54:21] Speaker 1: what the cops are shockers for it. Some of them
[54:24] Speaker 1: meetings just go kill me, now, like what is happening here?
[54:27] Speaker 1: No one's really invested in it, No one's someone's up
[54:30] Speaker 1: there and they've got for their next job application the
[54:33] Speaker 1: description I held a meeting with twenty people or whatever.
[54:36] Speaker 1: But I like that that mentality. Where's that born out from?
[54:41] Speaker 2: So that came from That was very much McKinsey and company.
[54:46] Speaker 2: So they were utterly ruthless about the use of time.
[54:50] Speaker 2: Their focus was all on speed. They were all like,
[54:52] Speaker 2: we need to bring this, We need to introduce these mechanisms,
[54:57] Speaker 2: whether it's cost savings or a revenue task, whatever it was,
[55:01] Speaker 2: it needs to be introduced immediately. Because if it's a
[55:05] Speaker 2: million dollar task over every year, every month you're lay
[55:08] Speaker 2: it's worth eighty thousand dollars. So they're like, when you
[55:12] Speaker 2: organize a meeting, you better have the right people there.
[55:16] Speaker 2: If you don't have a very clear problem solving statement
[55:20] Speaker 2: for it and a very clear output, will tell you
[55:25] Speaker 2: once and if you do it again, you'll be sacked.
[55:27] Speaker 2: Right Okay, So they were like, and you better better
[55:30] Speaker 2: stick to that schedule precisely. There will be no meandering.
[55:33] Speaker 2: Everyone's going to contribute and we're going to solve that
[55:34] Speaker 2: problem and there will be deliverable at the end and
[55:37] Speaker 2: that's it and anyone who's not required to be there
[55:39] Speaker 2: won't be there. Well, yeah, they were ruthless with it,
[55:42] Speaker 2: and it taught me that you do have to be
[55:44] Speaker 2: really aggressive with time.
[55:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, well a time, we waste time.
[55:50] Speaker 2: And I've seen companies. We go to companies where they
[55:52] Speaker 2: just had back to back meetings and it's just a
[55:54] Speaker 2: it's a cover for being We.
[55:56] Speaker 1: Had stacks in there. About the average executs how many
[56:00] Speaker 1: times hours a week they're in the meeting that it's
[56:04] Speaker 1: just it's ridiculous.
[56:05] Speaker 2: My partner's a corporate lawyer form of corporate and she
[56:08] Speaker 2: would get pulled into meetings just for people to ask
[56:11] Speaker 2: cover themselves to have the lawyer in there. She's like,
[56:13] Speaker 2: I don't need to be here. So she'd often walk
[56:16] Speaker 2: out of these meetings, so she agrees.
[56:19] Speaker 1: With me, Well, I've enjoyed our chat. What's what's the
[56:23] Speaker 1: future hold for you, mate?
[56:25] Speaker 2: We well, we've got four months ors, so we're just
[56:27] Speaker 2: we're looking yeah, yeah, not not getting much of my
[56:33] Speaker 2: doing much my own advice at the moment with self care,
[56:35] Speaker 2: but we're just concentrating on that. I've obviously got the
[56:38] Speaker 2: book coming out of this month, and I've built an
[56:41] Speaker 2: online course for it as well, so it kind of
[56:43] Speaker 2: links to that at the end, which has been a
[56:46] Speaker 2: bit of a process too, So we're just going to
[56:47] Speaker 2: be working on that pretty much this year. And and yeah,
[56:51] Speaker 2: maybe look at moving to the Central Coast as well.
[56:53] Speaker 1: I'll speak to you off off. Yeah, but look, I've
[56:59] Speaker 1: really enjoyed how vigor and congratulations on what you're achieving now,
[57:04] Speaker 1: but also thank you for your service. And I think, yeah,
[57:07] Speaker 1: I speak on behalf of most people in the country.
[57:09] Speaker 1: We know the sacrifices you guys may and yeah, sadly
[57:14] Speaker 1: sometimes it gets lost in the woods with what's happening
[57:18] Speaker 1: with the media, but you guys are really out there
[57:21] Speaker 1: and put it all on the line for us. So
[57:23] Speaker 1: thanks for your sacrifices. To the country.
[57:24] Speaker 2: Thanks mate, and congrats to you for the for the
[57:27] Speaker 2: podcast and bringing I guess such a very bunch of people.
[57:32] Speaker 2: I was impressed to see that the variety of people
[57:34] Speaker 2: you got that you might not hear from in society otherwise,
[57:38] Speaker 2: people from all parts of the of the country.
[57:40] Speaker 1: So it's worked out well. It's a good platform interesting.
[57:44] Speaker 2: People, and it's turned out well.
[57:46] Speaker 1: On the end, I'll show them all right, Thanks Mars,
[57:51] Speaker 1: appreciate it.
[58:00] Speaker 2: Y

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