Embark on an intimate exploration of craftsmanship and the profound journey of personal transformation. Our latest episode features Glen, a master of the age-old craft of log home building, whose meticulous work not only constructs homes but fosters a deep connection with nature and healthier living. As Glen unfolds the narrative of his five-and-a-half-year project, we delve into the soulful satisfaction derived from such labor-intensive dedication. His story is a testament to the timeless allure of sustainable architecture and a life richly built on precision and respect for the environment.
This heartfelt exchange transitions into a contemplation on the complexities of modern relationships, redefining masculinity, and the quest for authenticity amid societal expectations. Together, we dissect the intricate layers of identity and the importance of reevaluating what truly enriches our lives.
We challenge the impacts of consumerism and reflect on the lost art of craftsmanship, inspiring a call to mindfulness and a more connected existence. From practical insights on meditation and Qigong to the cathartic process of crafting with our hands, this episode is an open invitation to reconsider the meaning of a truly abundant life. Join us as we share stories, insights, and the gentle reminder that sometimes, the richest journeys are those that lead us back to simplicity and self-discovery.
We're on a mission to elevate the professionalism of the residential construction industry, and help everyone enjoy building and renovating homes.
Easy to use Quoting software for Builders. Produce professional and accurate proposals. Quickly and accurately measure and markup plans in minutes. Win more jobs and track costs. 21 Day Free Trial.
check out more podcasts here...
https://levelupwithduaynepearce.buzzsprout.com
Embark on an intimate exploration of craftsmanship and the profound journey of personal transformation. Our latest episode features Glen, a master of the age-old craft of log home building, whose meticulous work not only constructs homes but fosters a deep connection with nature and healthier living. As Glen unfolds the narrative of his five-and-a-half-year project, we delve into the soulful satisfaction derived from such labor-intensive dedication. His story is a testament to the timeless allure of sustainable architecture and a life richly built on precision and respect for the environment.
This heartfelt exchange transitions into a contemplation on the complexities of modern relationships, redefining masculinity, and the quest for authenticity amid societal expectations. Together, we dissect the intricate layers of identity and the importance of reevaluating what truly enriches our lives.
We challenge the impacts of consumerism and reflect on the lost art of craftsmanship, inspiring a call to mindfulness and a more connected existence. From practical insights on meditation and Qigong to the cathartic process of crafting with our hands, this episode is an open invitation to reconsider the meaning of a truly abundant life. Join us as we share stories, insights, and the gentle reminder that sometimes, the richest journeys are those that lead us back to simplicity and self-discovery.
We're on a mission to elevate the professionalism of the residential construction industry, and help everyone enjoy building and renovating homes.
Easy to use Quoting software for Builders. Produce professional and accurate proposals. Quickly and accurately measure and markup plans in minutes. Win more jobs and track costs. 21 Day Free Trial.
check out more podcasts here...
https://levelupwithduaynepearce.buzzsprout.com
for me, one of the best gifts I can give people now is anyone on the street, no matter whether it's a client or a friend or, you know, fellow tradie or whatever is someone going through. Anything is just the gift of my ears to stop and listen and actually be truly present when I'm listening, you know to and acknowledge you know that's. That for me is a better gift than anything, than trying to give any advice.
Speaker 2:G'day guys. Welcome back to another episode of Level Up. We are back in a very hot shed this afternoon for another cracking episode. This is going to be a cracker.
Speaker 2:I am so pumped to introduce you to the guests we've got for you today. I'll just give you a little bit of a background on how we met so one of the other builders that you may have heard on this podcast, my mate Brett from Soldash Homes. He was involved in a project over on the south side of Brisbane in Queensland, where we are here with the gentleman that we've got here with us today, and part of that project is a traditional log home and Brett invited us over there to to check it out and look, believe me, it's an absolute work of art. So today we've actually got Glenn, who is a craftsman behind this project. He's actually been working on the job for five and a half years and, yeah, glenn and I just connected, glenn's reached out, we've had a few conversations and, yeah, we just hit it off on a lot of topics, not just craftsmanship and timber and logs and all that type of stuff. So I'm really, really excited and, as I said, it's going to be a cracking episode.
Speaker 2:So welcome, mate. Thanks for coming over having a chat. Thanks, dwayne, no worries's going to be a cracking episode. So welcome mate. Thanks for coming over having a chat. Thanks, duane, no worries, good to be here. So I guess, for those people that may not know what traditional timber framing or log homes are, do you want to give us a little bit of a background of how you got into this and, I guess, a little bit more detail around what it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I specialize in um log homes and traditional timber framing. So log homes that what I do is what we call a full scribe log home. So it's not, um, it's not the like, uh, flats and chinked or, you know, filled with silicon style. Uh, it's not a machined finish where logs are run through a lathe to all uniform. It's working with a complete natural log and big logs, um, so the ones you'd see, like in canada and the states, um, you know, all on your movies and tv yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of big um, like you'd see around what montana and yeah, um, yeah, canada and those sorts of places they like, they.
Speaker 2:They have companies over there that literally specialize in turning up with truckfuls of log and building log homes don't they?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's the one I did. So I did my time for New Zealand log homes, so that was equivalent of doing like a trade. As a carpenter I spent four years learning the craft of just log homes. So, yeah, there's a lot of time learning um, the, the craft, the skill, um, and I was sort of lucky enough that in working there at the time my, the company owner, derrick, had broken into a market of what a post and beam, which is a square timber sort of um carpentry as well, the big square timber and joinery and over in japan. So I had the. I was lucky enough to do not just the log homes but then experience, uh, the pre-cutting of post and beams and sending them to japan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you like you've got a huge variety of skills, haven't you? Like you, you're specialized in selecting the timber, sizing the timber, milling the timber yeah, um, and I think like one of the. It just blows my mind, like the amount of work. Like when people hear me say that you've been on this one home for for five and a half years, like they're probably like what the hell? Like, yeah, but like I didn't realize exactly how much was involved until we come and had a look at that place the other day. Like when you talk about like it's not, like you just go to a pack, you pick up a length of straight timber and you, you, you come up with your truss layout on the ground and you just nail it together, like you're actually like you've got to size the logs, find the center line of the log and then all your measurements work from that center line, don't you?
Speaker 2:because the log can be different shape on one side to the to the other yeah and then trying to get all that to line up, and then you don't use mechanical fixings, do you?
Speaker 2:no, no, no so everything's all timber peg fixings yeah yeah, like the majority of it, yeah the work like seriously for everyone that listening like the the work in it is insane. But like you can see it like straight away when you look at it. It's just incredible. Like you literally like I don't know something about timber in there when you walk into a timber home, like you just want to touch and feel it and and rub it like it's just beautiful yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:I remember, you know, starting out in building my. My dad was a builder, so that's what got me interested, you know, right from as a kid, to be a builder and he was also a mountaineer and an outdoorsman and hunter and so spent a lot of time in that um. And when I left school there was at the time in like the early mid 80s there was apprenticeships were just rare as hen's teeth so I couldn't. I tried and tried and tried, I just couldn't. I tried and tried and tried, I just couldn't get an apprenticeship. The economy was, yeah, not going well. So I sort of had to retrack and I took the other paths.
Speaker 1:Dad being really interested in the outdoors, I went and did an outdoor leadership course for a year down in the lower part of the North Island in a little place called Masterton. So I went down there and we did this whole outdoor leadership. We're up in the mountains and the rivers and in the bush and it was fantastic. But at that time I was 23 and my son was born. My first child was born that year, and so by the end of it then I'm thinking the only work then in that field was to go and temp at, you know, like outdoor pursuit centers and school camps and things, and I couldn't do that with a child. And just at the end of the course there was a sign at the TAFE there and it was a log home building school, like six weeks, log home building school. And you know, I saw that sign and bang.
Speaker 1:As soon as I saw the words log home building, I thought that's what I want to do, because I'd worked in the bush, I'd been, you know, as a country boy, I'd been on chainsaws. And then, you know, for a good part of my life and I saw that I thought something about crafting chainsaws, big timber, you know. I just thought, wow, I've got to do this. And so I left there. We had a young child, went back, sort of um, to the bay of plenty, where I'd come from, and I the only two companies in New Zealand at the time, one down the South Island and one in the North Island at Rotorua. So I hit the guy up in Rotorua his name's Derek at New Zealand Log Homes, and he didn't have a job for me at the time. So I just went back to being a country boy.
Speaker 2:I was in the skinning business and picking up hay for farmers and doing a bit of milking and I just hassled him twice a week, every week, if I wasn't ringing I'd make the trip over there, and I think a year later he Mate you don't, sorry to cut you off, but that for any young people who are listening, like that's like I've got a young guy that's been doing that to me at the moment and it's the first young guy that's had that persistence and commitment in a long, long time and I'm gonna have a meeting with him tomorrow afternoon but like that's what you got to do, isn't it? You got to hustle, like if you want something, you got to make it happen, that's right show your keen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for me it was a drive, I just so wanted to do it. Yeah, it was a drive, and I just kept turning up there and in the end, as literally as I turned up one morning and he said, glenn, you're a pain in the ass, he said, all right, just grab that tool and go over there and start peeling logs. And I started and, you know, had to pretty much like any it's basically like sweeping a floor. But the first job for months was just peeling logs, which is good. You got really in touch with the logs themselves. You know peeling, seeing the shaping before you know you even start learning anything about the craft. But it gives you time to see. Over those months I got to see all what the process was and you know.
Speaker 2:So when you say peeling that like is it debarking?
Speaker 1:yeah, debarking that's what taking all the bath. So you'd have to get the bark off, but then you'd have to go through and take the camion knife. So we'll be using draw knives. I don't know if you know what those are, but they're like a half circle with two handles and you pull it along the log. Yeah, so we'd either.
Speaker 1:I watch a lot of youtube, mate, yeah yeah, well, uh, it's a bit harder than it looks. You know, there's a bit of an art to that too, but, depending on the type of finish on, the log would be using draw knives or just your little electric painters, so, and you'd have to clean the log up and then they'd just get put aside and then the craftsmen would come and choose as they want. So, um, yeah, it was. It was great to sort of be in a big working log yard, you know, like yeah, and slowly get the get the um feel of the whole process. And then it took the same though, because you didn't just automatically jump on, you know, you weren't just pulled off peeling and all right time for you to learn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hustled and had to, like would spend time after, you know, after the end of the day, and just get one of the guys and say hey, mate, how do you? What's the scribing? Can you show me, can I practice? And I'd just set up logs at the end of the day and till it was dark and you know, and just practice scribing and just doing that for, you know, a few weeks. And then the foreman, sort of, I think, started to see that I was really keen said to the owner I think we should give this guy some. So yeah, go and I got on Again.
Speaker 2:For young people listen, that is what you have to do. You've got to show well, not just for young people, it's for anyone that's employed, like people. That is what you have to do. You've got to show well, not just for young people, it's for anyone that's employed. People just sit back and want, want, want all the time, but they're not putting in that sort of determination or that effort. Yeah, it blows my mind. But working with Timber, this podcast has obviously put me in touch with some incredible people. It's the main reason you're sitting here today.
Speaker 2:We reached out after that meeting and, um, we've had a good conversation and, like you, brett's told me a lot about you and, like I said before, we've we've connected on a lot of different topics, but like I'm just so passionate now, um, about learning more about how things are meant to be. Yeah, like I'm sick and tired of being told this is the way you have to do things, yep, and, and that flows through my whole life now, like I don't want to live in a house just because someone's come up with a bunch of codes and opinions and whatever and says that I have to live in it and um, it'll be out by the time this podcast out. We didn't did an incredible podcast recently with um paula baker latrobe from the states. She's a she's been leading the world in in healthy home construction and right she was talking to me about and it just ties in so much with what you do with your log homes.
Speaker 2:People wonder why when they come back from holidays, they're so refreshed and revitalized and there's no stress, there's no anxiety and nine times out of ten that's because they've gone somewhere natural. So they've gone to a beach, they've gone to a rainforest, they might have climbed a mountain or gone for a bushwalk, they might have swam in the ocean, they've immersed themselves in nature. Yeah, and I just want to get back to that. I think it's the cause of so many of our problems. They've now, like obviously, all the new changes coming in the building code here in Australia and there's been some high-profile people come out in the States recently as well, because they're now identifying that a lot of illnesses are linked to the poor quality of buildings we live in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but, like Paula was saying, the reason it's not because you've had a week off work, it's because you've connected. Whether you've walked barefoot on the dirt or the sand or the grass, whether you've gone for a swim in the ocean or a spring creek in the mountain somewhere, or whether you've sat on the beach or climbed a mountain and sat in fresh air. And our homes don't have any of that. And our homes don't have any of that. We live in these boxes that are just full of VOCs and fake man-made materials and mechanical ventilation. We're literally getting air fed to us. That's right. A log home.
Speaker 1:You can't get any more natural than that can you yeah?
Speaker 2:Like I said before, we just well, 12 months ago now, we've spoken about we finished that CLT home Like nowhere near as incredible as a log home, but when you walk into a house that has large amounts of timber, yeah, you just want to touch it, don't you? Yeah, and connect with it.
Speaker 1:That's right, the timber, yeah, you just want to touch it, yeah, and connect with it. That's right. And that's sort of, you know, like what really led me to to stay in this craft. I've, I've taken a lot of sacrifices, you know, because I did go down the road for a while of becoming a conventional builder and you know, I tried, um, I wasn't very successful at it in terms of I had no drive, the passion wasn't there for it, and I just realized what am I chasing, you know, and all the stuff to get more money to, you know, all the stuff that I really didn't want anyway and I really just want to be happy and I want to be happy doing what I love to do and that's to craft. So, you know, I went back to that and I was lucky enough to have people who wanted those projects and they didn't come around that often.
Speaker 1:But just like what you're saying, with the stress too, you know, not just someone running any type of business, but living in these type of homes, but that stress for me I just like I don't want a part of that. I don't want a part of running a building business that's just churning out these stick frames and steel framed homes full of all of this. You know modern, yeah, chemicals yeah, chemicals, treatments, bloody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it's, it's insane, like. But I'd imagine, like I'd imagine it's a pretty sad day when you finish your project because, like for I'd imagine it's a pretty sad day when you finish a project because, like for a long period of time, like you've like correct me if I'm wrong, but like the roof trusses on that job you're on now, like the roof trusses alone, what did they take? 18 months or something to build.
Speaker 1:Oh well, it was two and a quarter years to just do all the crafting in the shed before we even stood anything up, holy shit. Yeah, so that was not just all the roof trusses itself, but you know, all the posts and beams and the braces, um yeah, and of course the dormers and the valleys and, yeah and scribing cutting everything in the shed. It was, yeah, two and a quarter years before one single post went down onto the site yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2:Just it blows my mind, but, like it, the finished product like is just incredible. Um, I don't know if we can get a couple of photos or whatever and shake and cut them into the video, but, um, for anyone that doesn't know much about log homes or log building, like there's plenty of stuff on youtube and that about it like it is huge in in parts of the world, isn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, and it's pretty big in new zealand too. It's pretty big in New Zealand too. It's a lot of good log homes, not so much. There's a bit of the traditional timber framing, like the project I've just done in Redland Bay, yeah, but mostly log homes. Yeah, the expense of some big homes there too. There's a lot more money pouring into New Zealand from American things and people wanting that type of home still.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of timber in there and things and people wanting that type of home. Still, you know, yeah, yeah, there's a lot of timber in there, yeah, yeah. And then, um, like I imagine when you're learning it's like even for our young apprentices learning now just to do stick framing and things like they make a mistake, you just grab another length out of the pack. Like imagine, on a log home, yeah, you get a bit more than a kick up the ass if you ruin a log.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, one one you. By the time I worked on it, one stick of timber and that could be a $2,000 mistake. Lucky I didn't have many of those and I think the one that I did have was able to be modified and used for a shorter length.
Speaker 2:But yeah, there's a real connection, isn't it Absolutely? But yeah, there's a real connection, isn't it Absolutely? And I guess not just logs, like when you put natural products in your home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that's something I have reckoned with, though in the last little few years is there's a lot of timber and, you think, a lot of those logs and a lot of this big timber, and especially some of it being native timber, and I think it could be cut more and it could be utilised more. It could be more projects out of the same amount of timber that I'm building with. But it's good now that a lot of these engineered timbers are coming out and more sustainable, and I think that's the way forward in this craft, and I'm starting to see it now in New Zealand. I was talking to the owner of the old company back there, new Zealand Log Homes, and that's what he's starting to do, not so with the logs, but with the big post and beam homes now, yeah, using a lot more of the engineered timber.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's some incredible buildings around now. Timber is. I think timber is really only just starting to come into its element. People are starting to realise how sustainable it is. And I don't know Again, just putting myself out there and having conversations, being open-minded with people in it. And look, I'm definitely not a religious person. I don't think I've spent a day in church in my life, apart from a funeral and maybe a christening. But I believe trees were put on this planet for us to use.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like to filter our air and to provide us with shelter. Like I don't know, with my little bit of knowledge, like from as long as we've been on this planet, like people have used trees to create shelters, whether it's started off with a few branches and leaves bloody piled over a centre log, or it's just kept evolving, hasn't it?
Speaker 1:Oh it has, and forestry management's got a lot better too now. Sustainable forestry so replacing as many as they're taking, or more than they're taking, and managing the forest well. New Zealand does that really well, and it's getting a lot better here too, you know what's the um the timber in new zealand's um.
Speaker 2:We did a tour. I can't remember where it was. What's um napier is?
Speaker 2:it yeah yeah, we did. We one time we're in new zealand we did a bit of tour around there and the um, like that. It had a huge earthquake there, didn't it at all like the hectares that rose up out of the ocean, which is now where the city is or something isn't? It was incredible. But they were saying in that tour that summer new zealand's timber is quite weak because it grows so quickly yeah, compared to like um, especially the douglas first.
Speaker 1:So you know in canada they grow in the states that it's 70 to 80 years to grow a good douglas fir tree. Um, in new zealand they're doing it 35 odd years so it grows quicker. It's still. The quality is still very good. Yeah, you know, but it does grow. So it's not as dense as what is in the canada, coming out of canada in the states, yeah, yeah so you've got experience with that, haven't you like grading the logs and?
Speaker 2:and yeah, I did a?
Speaker 1:little bit of forestry work here in new zealand, um, yeah, so mainly just sort of smaller scale. So went right through pruning and um, thinning to waste and then a bit of clear felling, yeah as well. So I'm lucky enough to have a little bit of experience before I went into the log home. So you know it was good to go from standing trees, uh, you know, to yeah, yeah through to the finished product yeah, it's really hard.
Speaker 2:I think it's it's hard to explain um through a podcast, but, like for anyone that, yeah, I guess, ever gets the opportunity to go and check out or learn about the craftsmanship that's involved in a log home, like, I think it's an incredible experience, like, and it really makes you appreciate how easy we have it, just using stick timber and, yes, yeah, and and pre-nailed roof trusses and all those types of things, like with um, like one of the things I didn't get to ask you. That day we come and I look at that job, like with the roof trusses, like if you're working everything from a center line, with, like one of the things I didn't get to ask you, that day we came in and I looked at that job, like with the roof trusses, like if you're working everything from a centre line and like obviously you're going to put some sort of purlin or batten on top of it to take the roof. Like you're always working backwards, aren't you?
Speaker 1:Because every log's going to be a different diameter, yeah, and even so I was working with both. So we had some cypress that I had cut from a station and logged, oh, about 17 years ago, so a whole lot of cypress that was. And then we bought back and milled there. So it was milled but never dimensioned, never put through a four-sider, so it was never dimensioned. So we have a big planer there that I used that I would just dress it, but it was of course still natural. So it's gone through the mill. It's roughly a certain size, but it could be five or so mills either way.
Speaker 1:And then the bows and the twists and that's what I got to work with. So it just became dress. But then we brought in a whole lot of timber from New Zealand as well, some Douglas fir that was put through a four-sider. But even then, yeah, you've got a closer dimension, but as it dries still it twists and it moves and so you've never got an. It's not like grabbing a piece of steel, you know where. You can just chuck a square on it and cut joinery, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:What was the big feature at the end of that home where you use natural logs to create like? I don't even know the word for it?
Speaker 1:I a particular trust. You might not be thinking I was the crook trust.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, at the end of that outdoor area, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:so that was we basically between andrew and I. We looked at just, we modified the crook trust to sort of with timber we had and some big slabs so we're able to work with it and go, yeah, okay, this will work, that won't, and come up with the design. And then with the scribe technique you can do a bit more. We can sort of lay out. You don't have to be so. The scribing allows you to exactly place one piece of timber onto another scribe, a face onto another face. There's a lot of setup. It sounds easy, but there's a lot of setup in that the other rules like when you work for off an axis of a centre or you can work from a line that's say 40, 50 mils in from an edge, is what we call square rule layout. And so then you're basically creating a theory axis or a theory line through all your timbers and then you work from that theory line and protrude out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a lot of work and you can, like I said, in the finished product. Well, it's not finished yet, is it Like you've still got a?
Speaker 1:lot to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've got now, since the carport's all been finished, which was you know you know six, seven months um, I've got to now do the tie-in of the new home.
Speaker 1:It's the best looking carport I've ever seen, by the way. Thanks, mate. Yeah, um, yeah, the old home still there, which is this old brick and tile, you know, yeah thing that needs to be demolished, which pretty much will be. But then the tie-in from the new to the old, uh, and then make the old look like part of all the new.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, um, yeah yeah, no, it's definitely been a work of art because, like the frame's, only one part of it, isn't it? And then you've got to come up with ways of getting the windows and the doors to fit within the timber frame, within the log frame and, uh, the handrails along the verandas and things like filling the gaps. Yep, yeah it's just insane. So, mate what, how have you um like what made you come to australia and like what's?
Speaker 2:yeah like what's been your progress. So you, you obviously learned how to do log frame and you had a crack at traditional sort of building for a while, and yeah.
Speaker 1:So I had some experience with the square timber side, um, and with new zealand log homes, and I'd been there about seven years thereabouts and we had a little place out on the beach, a little place called Pokahina, straight out from Rotorua, and I was halfway through renovation on it and I'd got to as far as I could, being foreman of the company there at the time, and sort of like ran out of money, you know. So I thought, hmm, and also in our area was my boy was about six or seven, going to school, but the there was a lot of the culture there at the time. There's a lot of pot smoking, there's a lot of, and you know, yeah, it's like um, and you know which, I had partaked in a bit there too. But I was realizing me and my wife sat down, thought, is this where we want to be? And you know, still keep going with our lives and sort of come up. No, so I had a look, yeah, and just in Australia, and I'd heard about one company and I've seen there was a couple on the internet. One was in Sydney and another one which I didn't know I've called Great Bear Log Homes down in Victoria. So I threw out a couple of emails and got a head straight back. These two brothers down in Victoria, up in the high country, at Mount Buller they had Mansfield. Yeah, they'd started this company One was a carpenter and one was a pastry chef and they went and did a three or a few weeks log building course in Canada and came back and tried to start a log home company.
Speaker 1:And they managed to starting but they needed help. So they were like, yeah, we'd love to have you. So ended up coming over there and being a naive Kiwi, you know they, they um, just promised me everything there. Well, didn't sign anything, didn't. You know, just um took their word for it, came over and promised the earth and really was delivered nothing.
Speaker 1:So it was sort of pretty hard. Just lived in a donger, in a caravan park, you know, for pretty much most of the time we're there. For a year and a half, yeah, it was. Yeah, had an old clapped out falcon that we were given, you know, to drive the family around, and but you know it was an experience and I was there for 18 months and ended up going back to do work for builders and clients that had gone through that company. That couldn't finish because, yeah, things weren't done well there. So I ended up going back and doing some work there. And then my wife and I decided she had lived in Queensland before, so she said let's go to Queensland. So so, yeah, we just up and left and came up here, didn't know a soul, wouldn't have thought there's many log homes in queensland no, well, that's right.
Speaker 1:And I at that stage I just um, was that part of my life. I, you know, I just needed a change and it wasn't working out down there, um, so we came up here and I thought, oh, oh well, I'll just come up here and build if I have to do conventional building for a while, until I see what happens. But that's the other thing is, you know people think log homes or timber frames, they need to be in the snow. But that's not really the case. You know, the only reason these homes are put in the snow is they have a high-pitched roof for the snow loads. But also the high-pitched roof allows you to show off a lot bigger roof system. You know nice big trusses. So you know you can put that in the country and anywhere.
Speaker 2:I love it, mate. Well, like I've been talking to you, I want to build a big barn on my new farm. I believe there's a market for it. It just needs to be marketed correctly, that's right. Look, because there is a lot of people out there that well, look at how many people travel to those areas and they love going those areas, not just because of the snow and the skiing and all those things, but because of the, the experience they get to have staying in those types of homes and buildings.
Speaker 1:oh, that's right yeah, yeah it was, it was nice. While I was down there to work, you know, I did a two or three projects in the yarra valley, around the wine country. I did some a couple of little smaller ones up in the snowies, um, you know, so it was, it was nice down there, and when we came to queensland I just thought, oh, I'll just conventional build and then I'll see how I go. You know I'll, I'll try and promote it slowly, but it was hard, not having a lot of money and, you know, no network here as well. So I just had to go back to conventional building for a while, which I didn't enjoy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then how did you so? At the moment like this, the client you're working for now, like they actually employ you full time on this project, don't they?
Speaker 1:Yeah, full time on this project, don't they? Yeah, yeah, so when I ended up, just I was building here for a while and then I was just a bit jaded. So I ended up going. Andrew, my current client, he's an arborist, has a tree lopping business, and I had a friend that was working there at the time and he said why don't you come back and do a bit of tree lopping mate for a while, have a break. And why don't you come back and do a bit of tree lopping mate for a while, have a break? And I was sort of a little bit, you know, depressed. I wasn't, things weren't well, I'd been a lot of the time traveling. So when we first shifted up from Victoria to here, I was called back to New Zealand. I was doing six-week stints back in New Zealand, did a few of those.
Speaker 1:I was going back down to Victoria finishing projects for some builders and clients down there, yeah, and I was over it, though I'd be continually being away from family and I didn't want to be, you know, from my kids. I just had a daughter that was just born, yeah. So I just decided to know I need to, you know, just get some work and stay put for a while. So I went tree lopping for andrew um and I was just having a break, you know uh, he saw my skills and decided he wanted to um, try and do something with it. It just built that huge shed and so, yeah, we ended up um, I had a uh station um down in dubbo, just a bit north of dubbo, of a whole lot of trees there that I'd found for a project that I, a barn that I went and built down in victoria. Um, it was a one for an old log home client down there went back and asked me to go and build a barn. So I drove around looking for timber for two weeks, staying at pubs every night just trying to find timber, and almost gave up. But we found this station anyway, and so when I met Andrew he said oh well, let's go down there get some logs. I went down there, bought a couple of road trains of logs back to his place and we milled and thought, oh well, what are we going to start with? So I built a little office for him there and it didn't really work out. So I just went out on my own then and just was a contract carpenter and I got a lot of work over on Coochie, mudlow Island. We did a log post and beam home over there, andrew and I, and then I sort of went on my own and it won me a lot of work. I did a lot of renovations, extensions et cetera. I worked on Coochie for a good 10 years, yeah right, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then Andrew started. He had all this timber at his house and he started to think about oh well, I'll design his own home. So I was involved in that process for a little while with him, just helping him design. Luckily he was really interested in the craft. So he did a bit of his own research, enough to know what he wanted, what types of trusses he wanted. So, yeah, that was good. And that took a couple of years, you know, for that process to happen. And then of took a couple of years, uh, you know, for for that process to happen. And then of course it had to be all engineered shop drawings, done you?
Speaker 2:know it was. Another year go by. So how's all that stuff work with a? Because that is the main thing from my experience that pulls a lot of these types of projects out, like there's a lot there's. Quite often you have people out there that want to like think outside the box and experiment and try, try something else or do something that's done in other parts of the world, but when it comes down to the, the planning and the engineering and the approvals it, it gets squashed or they don't. They don't have the right connections to know how to work through it, so it just ends up being a normal home oh, exactly, and that's what happened to andrew.
Speaker 1:You know, it's like he went through three architects because each one of them really wanted to just put their spin on it, didn't listen to what he wanted with a traditional timber framing, um. And then so by the time we he finally got a design through, it was just through a really good draftsman, you know, who listened and came up with a good design. But then it was the engineering and we put it through one or two engineers here and they wanted to put all the steel in it. I just said, no, I'm not doing it. Not doing it.
Speaker 1:If you want to put all these brackets and steel in there, it's not the craft, it's not, you know. So I managed to find, I knew of a guy down in Victoria who actually in Victoria, who actually he runs the timber framing school and he has a workshop down there and building timber frames. So we sent the plan down to him and he did the shop drawings for us. So he did all the joinery and then we got his engineer to do all the engineering for it. So we ended up with what we wanted.
Speaker 2:It's a shame, isn't it? And I think that's where it really pays. Like if for anyone out there that is ever thinking of something that is a little bit outside the box, you've really got to search for people that know it, have experience in it, like that's what you pay for, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yep.
Speaker 2:You don't just decide, hey, I want to log home and then pick up the yellow pages and it'll pick up bloody.
Speaker 2:Whatever you use now social media and find the nearest builder to you do you know, you've got to find whatever you're doing, but definitely in our industry, like if you want to build a special type of home, you need to find a bit well, not not as a builder, but a builder with a team that has experience in what you're wanting to do. That's right, because otherwise, yeah, it'll either get squashed and your dreams will get deflated, or whatever the case may be, or you'll have to change your design because you'll get told no by a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's what happened. You know, like some engineers just saying that won't work, yeah, and I said, well, why is it working in many other countries? All around the world and why is it working, even in australia? Yeah, and why are people doing it and they can't answer?
Speaker 1:they just want to put steel in there, obviously for their own insurance, yeah, yeah so it's, it's hard, but you know, I put posting them, put the plans down there and the engineer is like no problem. He's familiar with the work, obviously, but he would have had to gone through, you know, to learn as well we, um we get this same situation, um, with trying to recycle a lot of old hardwood.
Speaker 2:So I'm really passionate about when we do demolitions and reno's on old houses, like we save, like whatever we can salvage um, we save the timber because and we repurpose it for all types of things half the stuff, half the shit around my place is all recycled timber. But when you want to use that timber in a project, the engineers knock. So you've got like you can have a 75 by 50 or 100 by 50 hardwood stud that has been in a home for a hundred plus years. That is still as straight as a die. That is far more, um, well, there's far more strength than the new shit that we would replace it with. And yet an engineer will say oh no, I don't know the grading of that, you can't use it.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, what do you think that is doing? Like you know, is it, is it? They don't want to risk their insurance, they don't want to.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, I think it's, it's all those things yeah well, probably number one is they're not taught.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like they go to university, they go wherever and they just get taught about the products that are currently readily available. But we recently, like late last year, we actually did a trip down to. We did a road trip, drive 23 down to Amrit, toria with our Live Like Bill members, and we visited Bamber Forestry Farm. I think it was called, and Yangyang Gert West. Uh, bamber, bamber forestry farm, I think it's called, and yang yang girt west, but, um, yeah, bamber forestry farm.
Speaker 2:He grows, like on this, 40 or 60 acres. He's got over 140 or 160 species of trees from all over the world and he, he does. He's got his own little mill. He mills the timber up, he grades it, and then the other people we've met when we've done trips down there is Robbie from I think it's called Revival, sustainable Practice, I think, down there.
Speaker 2:But his big thing is they go into old buildings and pull out everything, everything, anything that's studs, veneer, timber, veneer walls, vj, like whatever it is, bricks, you name it and he's now got a collaboration of people that he works with that help him grade the timber and come up with ways of repurposing it in the jobs that he's doing, yeah, beautiful, and I think there's got to be more engineers and more designers and architects that get on that Like. I know there's a lot of designers and architects out there now that they've got all different names for them, but they're basically doing demolition plans now on renovations, and part of that process is identifying any materials that can be repurposed back into the new build. Great, and like it's the way it's got to be. Yeah, that's right. Like I don't know. I could bang on all day about it, mate, but I believe, like if people were serious about sustainability and whatever you want to call it climate change, saving the planet, all these types of things I believe we could change it like that.
Speaker 1:Oh, for sure, and it needs to be, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we could reduce our wants. We could stop driving around or riding around on electric skus and electric pushbikes. We could turn off our lights in the nighttime, stop building highways that like what, how come? How come our cars have lights and yet we've got to build these roads that are completely lit up like what's what's?
Speaker 1:the purpose of that. Yeah, that's right, mate. I mean I look mad at these. You know like the look at. You know much about the amish community you might have seen a bit of, you know a little bit yeah, and but even you know and this is where my craft came from was with.
Speaker 1:You know, people, they did things in villages and so you know, a lot of the men in the village would get together, they'd have a big workshop and they'd be building a house for each member of the village. You know, it might be a small cabin, it might be a big home, whatever, but they'd build. All the men would come in, they'd do this project. Then the whole community would be involved in raising day and they'd have and fantastic engineers back in the day of doing it without cranes and machinery, doing it with ropes and hoists and winches. You know, like, yeah, all um, it was incredible to to watch and that was not only did they have the skills and the craft, but they had community there. You know that everybody was involved, right from cooking the food to helping the rays and lifting the ropes. Yeah, you know, and the whole, and that's to me the spirit of community, what, and that's what attracted me to as much to the craft as well as doing it, you know yeah, and I would like to return to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's my goal now.
Speaker 2:It's powerful stuff, isn't it? When you like, we've had conversations about it and I really hope we can do some work together in the future, like that part of Camille, and my plan with our new property is like we, everything on it has to be built from either recycled products, 100% sustainably sourced products they've got to be 100% recycled that they're in use, um yeah where, well, at this stage, we're looking at all sorts of things for, like, biogas for the cooking, and um and heating, um, I won't go into too much detail, but like pulling energy out of the ground to power the lighting, gravity fed water and like the whole.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to let too much out of the bag, but the whole idea of our property is going to be to disconnect, to reconnect.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We want to be able to give people an experience of you actually can live extremely well without having very much. Yeah, like just go back to simple shit man, that's my life now.
Speaker 1:You know, I don't have much, I don't know much. I have a shitty old ute, you know, and I have some tools to do my craft. Um, if I don't use anything within six months it's gone, and and I really love that my weekends are walking the dog out in the bush, going for a bit of a paddleboard or a kayak, walking around in bare feet and having time to just be. You know, I'm not, I'm 53 now and I'm done with that drive of trying to get more and achieve more.
Speaker 2:Well, it's not success, is it? No, it's not. I find it funny that well, actually, I don't find it funny. I find it frustrating that every single person on this planet is qualified or quantified by how much money you have. Yeah, yeah, like, it's all about a dollar value. Yeah, like, and the more, the more dollar signs you have, for one reason or another, you're, you're seen to be, a more powerful person.
Speaker 1:That's right or the letters in front of your name, or the yeah, the job you have, the role you do yeah, and it just blows my mind.
Speaker 2:I think, like I know, I know a lot of people that have done incredibly well for themselves and I wouldn't for one minute say that the amount of dollars someone has is a sign of success, because I know a lot of people that have got enough money that they could do whatever they wanted to do with, but they're not happy. Yeah, yeah, but they still have the same problems. They're not happy, yeah, yeah, but they still have the same problems that you and I have. Yeah, they're still stressed, they're still worried. They don't get time with their families, like for like. Success to me is is freedom, yeah, like it's being able to. If I want to go for a walk with a dog, go for a walk with a dog. If I want to pick my kids out of school, I pick the kids up from school. If I want to spend time in the bush, I spend time in the bush.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's me too. You know I don't have a lot, don't want for a lot, but I live a happy life, you know. Or I could say I live a peaceful, calm life. It has its moments, you know you live if you're living here on in human and you're relating to people. Of course there's always moments in relationships isn't there, you know, but. But I, happiness is another emotion that can come and go, but I, I know I live a relatively calm, peaceful life, but that's taken work in a journey you know it's taken nine years of a lot of self-exploration to do it yeah, so have you, like I'm.
Speaker 2:I'm assuming you're like most people in business and life, like you've had some challenges along the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah. A lot came through business as well, and I listen to a lot of podcasts and you know, relate to a lot of the young builders and you know who have taken on got a lot of drive, a lot of passion for the industry. You know who have taken on got a lot of drive, a lot of passion for the industry. But you know you get there and after a lot of that work and you knock back after knock back and realise what am I doing this all for, you know, and I got to that place. Luckily, I went back to my craft and I was happy with who I am and what I'm doing and the amount of money that could get me to pay my bills and live a life still. Yeah, yeah, amount of money that could get me to pay my bills and live a life still, yeah, yeah, um, but I had a about eight or nine years ago was, yeah, running a couple of jobs at a time. I had a friend who was um, a counsellor retired counsellor actually on coochie, and he he actually came to me and said I see what you're like. I said I'll just let you know you got a crash coming and I said oh yeah, oh, thanks, mate. Okay, didn't really take too much notice, you know.
Speaker 1:And it a trigger then for me was actually I'd been in a house for 13 years and then we shifted and went to a new home. And just that trigger after a lot of stress, running jobs, and then the trigger of shifting home, I don't know what it was, but I just crashed. And a few weeks after that home, just coming home, found myself, as soon as I was home in the mid-late afternoon, go into the room, shut the curtains, lie there, come out for dinner and pretty much do the same on the weekends function, be involved with the kids, still help around the house a little bit. But didn't want to know, just yeah, didn't want to socialize, and just crashed and went back to this guy who warned me about having a crash and um, yeah, and then a journey began so what's do you like?
Speaker 2:looking back and reflecting on that, like is it? Do you know why that happened or why you got to that point?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, sure do, mate um. So through my um apart from the business side of it, of of, you know, just running a lot of jobs and neglecting to look after myself and taking time out Also, I think I was medicating that stress too. So through my probably late 30s into early 40s, I started drinking a lot more. I was always a present dad and a good dad. I didn't like drinking at home a lot, but I drinking more and, uh, going going out to drink more with mates, um, and then started medicating with and came a few party drugs and things you know, and I started smoking a bit more marijuana, which I hadn't done for since new zealand. I was, yeah, tried to stay away from um and yeah, so that the drugs came more into my life. And then, yeah, then this shift of the house which was the trigger and then the crash, yeah, so it was a.
Speaker 1:Then also at that time, my wife she was just cooking for an early learning center at the time. She wanted to better herself and she wanted to go to uni and become a dietitian. So I said I said to her great, you do it. You know, you followed me from all over the place around New Zealand and into Australia and doing what I want to do, you go and do it. So we were about to build and buy at that time. I said to her no, let's not do that, you go to uni. So she went to uni and then so she got her head in the box. I started partying, started with the drugs, then we shifted the house and then that, yeah, the the crash hit.
Speaker 2:So we were sort of our marriage was separating a bit um, did your wife know you were going out drinking and getting into the drugs and stuff?
Speaker 1:yeah, not as much as she didn't know as much as what was actually happening. Yeah, so, um, yeah, I was definitely doing it more than what she knew about. Um, yeah, and then, after this crash, you know, I just wasn't proud and our marriage got worse and, uh, you know, wasn't I wasn't proud of behavior, until the point that she says I can't, I can't do this anymore. And I was at that point, you know, I just it was a pretty horrible time, like I just, at that moment I basically packed up a few bags out of the house, you know some, my few essentials, birth certificate and passport, and bags of clothes and still had kids at home and I just drove away. I luckily had a client on Coochie who just sort of knew a bit was going on, said to me mate, come and have my cabin, have the cabin and just stay there as long as you like, do a bit of work on it, take the time you need. So I had this cabin and I left and driving away, I was just thinking, man, I don't know if I'm going to see my family again.
Speaker 1:I was under so much sort of guilt and shame about the way my life had gone down, you know, just over a period of a year really, the drinking and the drugs and um got to coochie and just crawled up in a ball basically and and that's when I started getting counseling I luckily had this friend who was a retired counselor. Um became, you know, a good friend and mentor and I just started doing a lot of sessions and I spent nine months in this cabin, no tv, no radio, nothing, just my guitar, and just got very clean and very healthy and fit. But you know I'm reflecting on on that. I remember getting driving myself to get fit and the energy, the drive was out of shame. It was like you're just a miserable piece of shit. You know, look what you've done, look now where you're at You've. You know you've left the family behind and that I would use that energy to drive me to get fit.
Speaker 2:I think it's really important and, mate, I take my hat off to you for being open and talking about this. Like I've been to that point I didn't get to a point where I got very close to probably losing my family and I wouldn't to be honest, I wouldn't have blamed Camille if she had left, but she stuck around but like it's really powerful, like for females and males, and we need to talk about this sort of stuff don't we, because there are so many people out there, there'll be people that probably listen to this, that are thinking, holy fuck, like that's what I'm going through right now, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think the thing is to realize that you're not alone, like, and there is a way out of it, isn't there? Oh, absolutely, look. So what was like you must have something, must have sparked for you to have a turning point, like I know for me sounds similar to what you're saying, like that was basically the same for me, like I was like fuck me, like I'm letting everybody down like I'm a piece of shit like I've I've let all these people down my family, my friends, my clients.
Speaker 2:Like I need to fucking take responsibility yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I was at, certainly, mate, and when I landed on coochie, in that state, you know, I was a reflected I. When I was eight, my dad killed himself, so I had no dad and so for three years after that, um, then my mum, I woke up one morning in the house. There was a new man in the house, became my stepdad. He was a alcoholic, um, very abusive, and I copped a lot of shit for the next few years. And so, coming out of that, you know, until when I met my partner and we had kids, I I wanted to be the opposite of that, you know, and so I'm proud of being, you know, for most of my life there with my kids, a very present and active dad and as good as partner as I could have been at the time. Yeah, um, you know. So I was proud of that.
Speaker 1:But going to Coochie I sort of crashed because then I realized, holy I've been. You know, I haven't so much become them. I wasn't aggressive and violent, but I let them down. And who have I become? I was drinking and taking drugs, and now I'm not present in that time. So I was really really low and I'm not afraid to admit I didn't consider suicide, but I went many a night or go to bed wishing I wasn't going to wake up. You know that's yeah, I was at that real low point. I was just lucky that I had, yeah, this friend who started the council. And that's a first step of the last eight years of a lot of continuing work, you know. But it was enough, those first eight to 10 sessions and then entering men's groups and going and doing all sorts of courses after that and sort of never looking back from that moment. And we ended up getting back together, me and my wife, for a few more years and did really well.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it was a hard time, yeah but it's something you're really passionate about now, isn't it? You're actually pretty heavily involved and you do some courses with people, yeah, but it's something you're really passionate about now, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Like, you're actually pretty heavily involved and you do some courses with people. Yeah, yeah, just going through and participating in men's groups. I went through a number of different groups and then, as I was doing them, I started to get asked to come back and help and just sit in, just share my experience of going through the course the previous time and then slowly just doing a bit more training in different areas. Um, and to, yeah, to the point where I ended up starting to learn and facilitate and run men's groups. Um, and run rights of passage. You know, go out and help lead rights of passage programs and I think that's something that really interests me like and I.
Speaker 2:I until we Until we've had a couple of conversations, I didn't realize you were that heavily involved in it, and when you're talking to me about that, you go and spend three or four days in the bush with nothing, do you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, basically just enough to boil some water, find water and boil it so you can drink it. You get a couple of taps, but yeah, that's about it.
Speaker 2:A journal, yeah, and a pen and like that can be the best experience of your life, can it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, can it? Yeah, strip back to nothing and sitting with nothing no phones, no entertainment, no books, no musical instruments, no nothing.
Speaker 2:and so you have to sit there in your own thoughts you know nothing, and so you have to sit there in your own thoughts, you know, and then pull them out and start make sense of them. You know, I think this is such powerful stuff and I I would highly recommend for anyone listening to this. Um, look, you don't even have to go to that extreme, but, like I've told people before and I've definitely do it every now and then like I think one of the best exercises you can do is just sit on the end of your bed with no noise, no lights on in the dark and ask yourself who am I, what are my goals, what am I doing? Just ask yourself the hard questions and don't be surprised if you sit there and you start tearing up and having a cry, because when you seriously put the pressure on yourself and ask yourself those hard questions, you'll be surprised what comes up.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:It's a hard thing, isn't it? Like a lot of people shy away from it, like a lot of people think that everything's perfect and they're cruising along.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's painful to often go into that. You know these areas. It's it's painful to to go in there or it's painful not to medicate them. You know not to drink, not to take those drugs or use anything or go and play golf and avoid the family, or go and work on cars or you know whatever. It is often that's avoiding, you know. You even sitting and working through your stuff, you know. And then also having the guidance, someone pointing the way to. Well, what is it I'm working on? You know what is it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny. I find it really strange now I know I sound like a broken record. Like you, just I love these conversations, the people this podcast has put me in touch with, like you were just saying then, like you're going to have a game of golf because that have, like that's distracting you from what you, you know you really should be doing. And um, to bring it, to bring it back to um, like our main listeners are tradies and and builders. Yeah, I believe that's a really um.
Speaker 2:That's a point where a lot of builders get stuck and that's without taking responsibility and ownership. So a lot of builders will tell themselves that they've got to be on site with the team or they need to go and check on that job because they don't want to take ownership, that they really need to be sitting in the office or they really need to be understanding their numbers or they really need to be doing some personal development. Yeah, but in their mind they just tell themselves they're busy. Oh no, I've got to get to the side. I've got to see the boys. Oh, I've got to meet that plumber over there. Oh no, I've got to beat this client over here. Like it's the same thing, isn't it. Yeah, that's right, it's avoiding. They're just avoiding. They're avoiding what they actually their guts is telling them they really should be doing.
Speaker 1:That's what I meant. Yeah, and, like you were mentioning before, you know when you're talking about connection, going out into nature and being connected no-transcript, and you know that's helped me a lot.
Speaker 2:Well, again, they'll take the week off and they'll go to a holiday at the beach or camping or whatever, and in that time they probably they might have a few great ideas and clear their head because of that environment they're in. But as soon as they get back home and back to work and back to the business, they let that shit take over. But it doesn't have to. You can still get in that zone. Like I said, sit on the end of your bed, find a quiet spot in your yard, just pull over on the side of the road, go to a park, like just I believe it's really powerful just to take that moment. I reckon I'd probably do it once a week. Yeah, like I quite often will just do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I'll write down everything in a journal. The most common time for me to do that is I do it overnight, like once the kids are settled down, camille's watching a show, whatever, yep, I'll just sit in the in the room in the quiet on my own and have a deep dive for five minutes and then just scribble it all down in a book, and that that really helps me. Yeah, yeah, nice, but um, you've got to, you've got to do that, don't you.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I'm not trying to do that. I have, and I try and do it every day, and I try and do it in moments throughout the day and even when I'm working, like, um, you know, it's nice to be, you know, working on a beautiful big piece of timber and working away, and and it's good. But I find myself, you know, and it should be in my head, you know you're using the head then as a tool to do what you need to do, but I find from in my head and then, if my head starts wandering off, I know, okay, it's time to just, you know, wander outside and just have a look outside for a little while.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have a few breaths and come back to me, you know, and then click back into the work, you know.
Speaker 2:Are you into into?
Speaker 1:breath work and stuff. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, so I do. Now I'm a practicer of um qigong, tai chi, but also my partner she's a facilitator of breath work, so she does trauma breath work as well and ice baths and you know all that sort of type of things. Um, so, yeah, I do regular breath work plus also do my my own with Tai Chi and Qigong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's powerful stuff, isn't it, mm? I'm really, really grateful that so many people that follow me on Instagram and listen to the podcast are hearing me talk about this stuff and finding more interest in it and having a go themselves, because it's not like the old days where if you did this stuff, you're a hippie or it's all woo-woo or whatever. It really does help.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. And we don't sort of realise, especially as men, when we're taught right from day one to not talk about feelings, not to open up, and then how much we bottle up, and then where does it bottle up? We have all these memories, the way our brain works and storing memories, and then where does it bottle up? You know, and we, we have all these memories, you know the way our brain works and storing memories, and then when something's triggered in the brain, then all of this energy in their body gets triggered as well. So, and I think that's what breath work and meditation you know, helps meditation might help the mind in its processing, yeah, um, and then the breath work really helps release a lot of energy that's blocked in the body. That's what I find doing both really works for me, yep.
Speaker 2:So you've spent the last eight, nine years working on yourself, yeah, finding who you really are and taking a new journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, yep, absolutely, and doing a lot of different courses. You know, when I first got back together with my wife after being on coochie for nine months, we got back and by that time we both had a lot of counseling, um communication. We were like, just like really good friends again. You know, it was we're dating and um. So I shifted back and it was just great, you know.
Speaker 1:And she, uh, one saturday she said, oh, we're going down the beach. It was a friday, so we're going on the beach tomorrow. We've been down. She said, we're going down the beach tomorrow. We'd been down there a few times, you know, go down, have a swim, whatever. And she said, but we're not going to the beach. So we get down to the coast. And I pull up to this little community hall down in Tugan, I think it was, and boardies and singlet, you know, and get out and what's going on here, you know, walk up to the hall and there's this sign outside the hall that said emotional release workshop. And I'm like, holy shit, what am I doing here? And I but you know I'd done enough at that time to just open my mind to like, okay, just don't procrastinate, just jump in and do and have a go be uncomfortable you know being uncomfortable that's right.
Speaker 1:And so, you know, my wife smiles at me and I smile at her and we walk in and we did this day and it was, you know, crazy and yelling and screaming and doing all sorts of you know weird stuff. That was you know. But at the end of it just feel alive again. And then the next, you know, a couple of days later, I get an email from the lady running this course and it was an eight-week program. And, you know, a couple of days later, I get an email from the lady running this course, and it was an eight-week program.
Speaker 1:And you know, I just I had been a procrastinator in my life, you know. Yeah, guilty of a bit of that, but I opened this email and I saw this eight-week program and I just immediately, as soon as I opened, I thought, glenn, just say yes, right now, don't begin to leave in another second. So clicked yes and get a call, you know, a day or so later and I'm on the safe week program and it sort of just started from there. I just jumped into everything and anything, wherever I could go on a course and a retreat and, um, you know, stuff that was cheap and free, but I still, even though I still put, you know, invested thousands really to going and doing it and it wouldn't take any of it back the um.
Speaker 2:I get a lot of, quite a lot of messages now from people saying are you, um, like this is this is a few months ago saying that like we? We hear you talking about breath work. We hear you talking about like, working on yourself. Like, um, what do you mean? And like, again, I just find it so incredible how the universe works.
Speaker 2:But the journey of this podcast, the journey that I've been on for probably four or five years now, just seems to be ramping up and like, I guess, becoming more aware of the things I'm learning, the conversations I'm having, like I just cannot believe what.
Speaker 2:Like the opportunities that it's opening up, the vulnerability that's happening, and then the flow on effect of all of that just better relationships with my wife, better relationships with my kids, better relationships with my staff, yep, more like just being I don't know if being more financially stable is the right word, but just I think it probably comes back to just again being more aware. Like you said before, self-awareness, it's just self-awareness. I think I used to put so much pressure on myself and I'd love to hear if it contributed to you, but I know a big part of the tough time I had was I was always trying to be someone and have things that weren't me. Yeah, like I. I don't know if it was because the way the, the things I heard growing up, or whatever. And I think it's only worse these days, especially with social media and stuff, because everyone just sees fake that's right, um, look at what facebook, isn't it?
Speaker 1:and then it's a persona, isn't it?
Speaker 2:so your best foot forward, yeah, what you want the world to see, and that's that's why I love these conversations, because and that's why I love keeping it real, like I I do believe it was a huge contributor to the position I got myself in, and it was purely because I hadn't found myself. I, I didn't know who I was. I was just trying to keep up with everybody else.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was the worst thing I could have ever done. Yeah, Like all it did was get me into a lot of trouble, a lot of debt, a lot of a shitload of anxiety, a lot of depression and, yeah, to a point where I nearly lost it all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's happening all around us, isn't it? Yeah, it's so much you know, and that's why I've got a heart. Now you know, as much as I have a passion still for my craft, I have an equal passion for men and the way that you know the suicide rates are, and it's, you know, everywhere. And it's now not just men, eh, kids as well. The statistics are getting crazy, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'd love to hear your opinion on this and I don't know, I might stir a few things up, but I'm not sure on the wording to use. But I believe males are having a very difficult time now, like we're. We're being pushed to be something that we're not meant to be. Yeah, absolutely like. What's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1:yeah, well, you know, since, since sort of um, you know the it's great to see now woman going right over and into the industry and feminism, feminism even taking off. I think that's great and um, but you still see now, men lost and not knowing where, what their role is, you know, and some are trying to be leaders, some don't know. You know, um, you've got a lot of unsurity in men and what their what, what their role is. Now you know, and even as providers.
Speaker 1:But you know, I look now what, for me, a healthy marriage or healthy relationship is just equal partnership, you know, not one being the leader it doesn't matter who's bringing in more money but the capacity to both come together and make decisions together. You know, I don't like that old, you know, and I think it's come through christianity, maybe not against christianity, um, at all, but like this form of that, the man needs to be the leader of the house and making the decisions. I think that's carried through in a lot of our culture as men anyway. Um, so now you know, I just think it's why can't we be equal, equal, you?
Speaker 2:know that's my thing. Why does it have to be taken to extremes? Yeah, like why can't we just be equal? That's right. Like whether you're black, white, male, female, young, old, like who gives a shit? Like you are who you are, I am who I am, I am, and that's okay. That's right if you want to be who you are go for your life yeah, like well, I don't understand why we need to have all this stuff pushed on us. Yeah, or yeah, I don't know, but um, I think it's complex too, isn't it?
Speaker 1:when relationships, when there's ownership, you know that, um, this, this thing, that two people become one and I, I just I don't agree with it, I don't like it it's. You know, there's two individuals still that they came together liking each other's company and hanging out, uh, and got married or whatever, or just decided to spend and live life together. Um, why isn't there that still that carry through, like the, the capacity to be individuals and not own and try and change someone? You?
Speaker 1:know, it's like and and then look at, okay, if there's issues there to not to be men.
Speaker 2:Like there is certain things in life that like men need to be men and women need to be women.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And like I, don't know, I just don't think there's like we're losing that, like we're losing that, like we're losing like skills, like really really important skills that men should have and that females should have, are getting lost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. Well, you know, we have grown up in a pretty toxic culture, haven't we? You know, with men, yeah, the way that we've been showing right from the start about feelings, you know, being able to and not talking right through to, you know, men should be like this um, but we have. We're as different, you know, we're all as different. There's eight billion of us on the planet and however many men, we're all different, like different things. Yeah, yeah, to be individual, I think is, you know, that's still the key, you know who you are you know?
Speaker 2:yeah, but then just but yeah, having those those life skills, like being able to um, like it, something I think about all the like, the way I see the world going and like we really like, I teach my young girls a lot of things that a lot of young girls probably don't get to learn near future, like what, what happens if someone's stuck out in the middle of the road in the bush right In an electric car and they don't know what to do? Like their phone doesn't work, the battery's flat, the car runs out of energy, they got no food with them, yep, like they're going to freak out, they're going to panic, they're going to bloody, get anxiety, like that Cause they won't't know, like they will not be able to survive that's right.
Speaker 1:And the and the pressure too now are, you know, with so much mum and dad both working full-time, you know, and then coming home they're tired, they're exhausted, so then they're not being able to be present with the kids and having that quality time. Kids are growing up stressed and then they're not learning these skills either. You know, yeah, and that's why, you know, we do rites of passage, because and it's good to see some more of these programs coming up you know it used to be, you know, in a village, you know, when a boy was of coming of age, um, he was under mum, you know, and he was still in that, under the care and and um of his mother. And then they hit that age, they want to be stepping over into a manhood, you know. But it's like there's a crossover there and to have a whole village of men around that take this boy away and that boy has to go through some rituals, some hard times.
Speaker 1:You know it's like to discover who he is, what he's made of, has he got what it takes? You know it's like to discover who he is, what he's made of, has he got what it takes? You know, yeah, um, and be to go away and alone and get through that and then come back now not under the nurture so much and care of mum, broken that attachment to mum and now go on to now he's getting mentored by the men, the dad and the uncles, the men in the village you know, and supported on his journey into manhood. From there, you know there's just, but what now that's happening is there is none of that, isn't there. So these kids are turning to each other so they write some passages going out and drinking and have fun.
Speaker 1:And you know, they go out, and. And what does this culture teach them to how much can we drink and how many drugs can we take. And you know well, go out, and, and what does this culture teach them to how much can we drink and how many drugs can we take, and you know well, there's not even a, there's not even personal connection.
Speaker 2:There is it no, you want to naughty. You just jump on the phone left or right, like that's right. There's no connection, there's no communication, there's no relationship. Yeah, like it's just, yeah, I think it's terrible. Yeah, yeah, it's um, it's I definitely don't. It's just yeah, I think it's terrible. Yeah, yeah, it's I definitely don't think it's healthy.
Speaker 1:No, no, that's right, yeah, and it's. I think we need more and more for men. And look at, you know, on some of our Rites of Passage programs I mean one I led there was a 70-year-old going on there. You know, it's not just about the teenager, because we've got men that have still got a boy's attitude in their 60s and 70s. And you often see it, don't you? In this midlife crisis, Some it might be a depression or crash, and some others it might be the Harley or the sports car and the gold chains and, you know, driving around and just still doesn't know who he is and how he's acting or how he's behaving, Doesn't really know anything about himself. Yeah, yeah, and you see, and we've still got men and that boy's attitude right through. So, yeah, it's good to see in the rites of passage now we're getting from 17-year-olds to 70-year-olds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's crazy, isn't it? Like I firmly.
Speaker 1:It's crazy, isn't it like I, I firmly believe now again like a broken record, like 99 of people on this planet will never find out who they really are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, mate, and for me that took you know, um, you say that to people like I say that to people now, and they they have no idea what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, and and because it even goes beyond who they think they are. You know, when, when you investigate, you know, because we're actually not the ideas or a set of rules that they were born into. That's right, and so some of the programs that you know that we do is we actually look at that and we look at, you know, working with understanding. What is that conditioned side of ourselves, so like when we talk about a true self, false self, another, the false self being everything that's been conditioned in us from birth. So we've might.
Speaker 1:What people think is an a big ego, might actually is our persona. You know how we want to face and front the world, what I want you to see of me, um, and so we investigate what's our ego, what's our persona, and then what we call the shadow, what's the dark parts underneath that, um, you know, I'm not even aware of myself, what's unconscious in me. So we investigate all of that, and part of that, like you're talking about with culture, is with ego, is to see, you know, what are my values, and when I look back and see, well, hold on some of my values. This is what this I was led to believe I should value, but they're not actually what I value. So what do I value personally?
Speaker 1:Value, and it's a really good exercise, you know, and I sat with a lot and it adjusts sometimes. You know what do I get? You know, I hit sort of that middle-aged afternoon shift of life and now looking for meaning rather than wanting to become something. What does it all mean? And so it's still for me. I'm adjusting you. What am I valuing?
Speaker 2:Values is an important one, isn't it? Yeah, and like when you ask people to do that exercise, like write down your values, some people will just scribble it down very quickly without even thinking about it. Yeah, and when you question them about it, yeah, they'll say to you well, that's just that's what mom and dad taught me. Yeah, like that's what my family believes in. That's right. Well, what do you believe in? What's your value?
Speaker 1:yeah, values what school and what school has drummed into them. And yeah, the rest of society you know has drummed into them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it was like something else.
Speaker 2:I think that's really important is it's like whatever you feel and whatever you think, that is okay yeah like you do not have to have values just because of shit you see on social media or things that your friend might have said to you or your mates have said to you or you think you need to have because that's going to get you to a certain position, like, yeah, just can't. Like be yourself yeah, that's the most important part, isn't it? That's right and speak. I think you've things got to come from the heart. If you can't honestly sit in some front of someone and speak from the heart and be yourself, then you've you've actually got a real problem, don't you? Oh?
Speaker 1:heart and be yourself, then you've actually got a real problem, don't you? Oh, yeah, and be completely honest, yeah, and I'm quite a spiritual person, but I'm a practical spiritual person. I just believe spirit is energy, and it's energy within us and energy within everything, and I think you know that. Someone, a teacher that I listened to, said you know, if you want to be spiritual, then learn to tell the truth, learn to tell the absolute truth. See what comes up for you and see what comes up for the other person, then negotiate. It's true, matt, it is it is true.
Speaker 1:And you look at how much we hide, it might not be that it's even a little white lie, but it might be just something I'm not saying I. It might not be that it's even a little white lie, but it might be just something I'm not saying. I'm not actually saying my truth here. I'm not setting a boundary and expressing and look, I'm not great at it by any means, but I try and I practice it every day if I can, and I've now got a partner who is very open to bringing it up as well. Hey, I noticed your energy today. You're a bit like that. What's going on?
Speaker 2:yeah, and that's really important, isn't it? Like that's I've actually, that's my thing this year, like I want to. I want people to pull me up on things. Yeah, because I actually think that's important. I think it's something else that society is frowned upon now. Like oh you're, you're, you're an arsehole, you're a prick. Or you're not allowed to say that. Like telling someone that they're being lazy. Or like get off your ass, you're fat, because you're not doing anything. Like it's like there's certain things that really should be said, like except everything's. Like oh no, we can't say that that might offend somebody, but if, in reality, if we're all a little bit harsher on people, more people that actually get off their ass, pull themselves into gear and be the person they want to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's right. You know I did some, run some courses in addiction for a while and it's interesting, you know you look at why people become addicted and then start having compassion around what's not why the addiction but why the pain. And then you look into the pain and you often see and disease come up through the pain as well. So and then you see a lot of them they've bottled so much stuff from not being able to set their boundaries, not being able to say their truth, not being able to express and get it out, you know.
Speaker 1:so it's just crammed the body holds on to everything, that's right holds on to everything that's right, and then it comes out through ailments and disease and addiction. Yeah, so yeah, I think that's something that I just practice in life. You know, now a lot is hey. If I'm not telling the truth, why can't I? What's going on?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so you must get a lot like. It must be pretty rewarding running those retreats and just seeing the change in people and absolutely, um dwayne, yeah, absolutely, it's.
Speaker 1:In fact, it's probably the my best, the best thing in life for me. Now, you know, I I love my craft, I love my work in that way, but I love relationships, you know so, and I love you know. It's not that I'm helping, but if I can provide a platform of support that enables someone to empower themselves, to get themselves right and seek help, you know, that's what I love, yeah. So just providing the platform and doing it with some other guys that will help and provide that platform as well, yeah, and opening it up, yeah, and getting men to talk, you, some other guys that will help and provide that platform as well, yeah, and opening it up, yeah, and getting men to talk. You know some guys that can come along for six months and barely say a word, you know, but, and then might not be me, it might be someone else, it might be somebody's just turned up on a night. That's uh, and that's just. That's triggered them to start talking.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, yeah, oh, it's incredibly powerful stuff. And, um, you're doing a few more courses this year, aren't you? Like you're, uh, you sound like you're, like, I'm addicted to it. Like you sound like you're pretty similar like you. Once you, once you get on this journey, it's hard to get off, isn't?
Speaker 1:it. Oh yeah, if you've got an open mind.
Speaker 2:It's just incredible where the road will take you yeah, that's right, matt.
Speaker 1:I hope I'm doing it to my last breath. Really, you know like still investigating and exploring. You know what's going on for me you know, and being able to express and talk about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I went through a bit of a couple of two and a half three years ago. I went through when my wife and I actually divorced. We split up amicably and realized after years it wasn't going to work. We separated and then six weeks after we separated, my best mate died of cancer and I'd been sitting with him for a year, you know, for on and off, and I spent the last week with him and his family just sleeping beside him Basically he was quadriplegic, so in a bed in his lounge and asleep on the couch, you know, helping his family and minister his drugs through the night and stayed with him until his last breath.
Speaker 1:And I think you know that taught me a lot of lessons. I had to face my own mortality and be comfortable around him as well and death and with the family and supporting. I think that's helped me a lot. Now be with other people as well, not just, you know, with their issues, not needing to, not needing to try and fix or heal any situation, not seeing as anyone is broken, but just being able to be and be there, you know, and and listen and just acknowledge. I think that's, you know, for me one of the best gifts I can give people now is anyone on the street, no matter whether it's a client or a friend or, you know, fellow tradie or whatever is someone going through. Anything is just the gift of my ears to stop and listen and actually be truly present. When I'm listening, you know to and acknowledge you know that's that for me is a better gift than anything, than trying to give any advice, you know isn't it funny?
Speaker 2:because that's pretty much what all our wives and partners want yeah we often get in trouble because we don't don't do it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that's something that I work quite hard at because I know I'm not good at it, but it's very powerful when you listen. We've had Rick Rushton. I'm a big fan of his books. He's done some work with our Live, life, build Elevate community. He's a Melbourne guy. One of his books is called the power connection and that that's his big thing. Like you've got to, you've got to listen. Like the trouble with the society this these days is the person being spoken to yeah, has already already knows what they're going to say back to someone before the person talking has even stopped talking, because all they're thinking about is themselves.
Speaker 1:Yes, because there's a real art in being present, isn't there? Yes, it is.
Speaker 2:It's hard because you've got to switch off everything you're thinking about. Yes, you have to completely switch off whatever thoughts you've had, whatever you've got to do that day or that afternoon, and you've just got to take it in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. And the big part that's helped me through that is meditation. I had martial arts through a lot of my early part of life and things, so I was always interested in Tai Chi and Qigong and that led me into an avid reader of Eastern philosophy. I like it. I'm not religious at all, I don't attach to any one belief system. I like to try and take the true messages of any of them and see what I can get out of them. But certainly Eastern philosophy has helped me and meditation has really, really helped.
Speaker 1:And that self-inquiry and, like you were saying before, the question of who am I, you know, and it's it's actually being able to sit and be without any thoughts of, well, of who am I? Because they're just thoughts, you know, and any perceptions of this on this type of person, on that type of person, or you know, I think on this or I do that, and I'm glenn, I'm a builder, I'm a craftsman, all of that, but but letting all that, laying all that down and actually just sitting there and breathing and seeing what comes up, you know, and that's taught me who I am.
Speaker 2:That is incredibly powerful. Like I don't. I would like to get to that state more often. Like I think that's one reason I really, um, like I loved, like I was riding into my downhill mountain bike and when I was a kid and motocross bikes, and I still love getting out fanging around on a motorbike. Now, um, like when you're strapped to a downhill bike and you're flying down a hill and you're going off bloody six meter jumps and things, or you're on a trail bike flying through the bush, or like I've had a drag car for a while, like those things that you're. You're like you just have to. You don't think about anything. Like for that few minutes you're racing down that hill, or that hour you're out with your mates fanging through the bush on a motorbike, or that seven seconds you're racing down the quarter mile. There's nothing else in your head.
Speaker 1:No, and there can't be. Is it Because you're so focused on what you're doing?
Speaker 2:And that's something that I've really struggled to be able to do naturally, and it's something I'm working on, like I think I'm nearly there with the breath work. I think that's why that's probably the biggest reason, I think, why I've connected with breath work and the cold baths.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the ice baths.
Speaker 2:Because, like you have to focus, oh yeah, and for me, I think that's why, well, I know that's why it's so refreshing, because, yeah, for that two-minute ice bath, all I'm thinking about is like breathe, breathing, like just breathe, yeah. And when I'm doing a breathing exercise, like that's all I'm concentrating on is my breath. Yeah, it's powerful, yeah, it's very powerful. When you get all that noise out of your head, it's, it's amazing what happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right and it's good to even.
Speaker 1:You know, for me, amongst all of that is to actually still sit there without having anything to do whatsoever.
Speaker 1:So not, uh, you know, and I remember starting with meditation and you know, and that was like just learning to count and follow my breath, you know, and, and count maybe one to ten and repeat or count up to a hundred breaths, and just following the breath, counting, not forcing anything, but it gave my mind something to do. And then, after a while, the next step was to actually not count, to just sit and breathe and not follow anything, not count, to just sit and breathe and not follow anything. And then, yeah, watching the mind start playing out and then being able to laugh at where it goes, but then just returning back to the breath again. You know, yeah, um, that's yeah, to learn to truly sit and be that that actually brought a lot of peace, a lot of calmness, and if I to my life, if I do that in the morning, um, you know, if I do at least three, four times a week, get up, do a little, a bit of Qigong and then just sit.
Speaker 2:What's that one? You keep mentioning Qigong yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, qigong is similar to Tai Chi. It's, yeah, basically Chinese breathing exercises with a bit of movement, yeah, yeah. So it's when you you tai chi's, if you like a dance or if you know martial arts, you hear about a kata or a pattern, um, but it's a series of moves all put together. Well, qigong is like the individual moves just practicing them on their own, without being in a series, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, qigong's beautiful, brilliant, and it's really becoming popular now. It's, um, you know, I see the movements, it's really starting to get close to yoga, I think. Well, I know a lot of people trying to get it there.
Speaker 2:Anyway, yeah, yeah a lot of those types of things are like those cultures are just they're different like to us, aren't they like?
Speaker 1:they're just very relaxed, yeah, people yeah, well, the mindset's different you go to. You know you've been, if you explored over into the Asian countries.
Speaker 2:I've only been a little bit, yeah, well same.
Speaker 1:But you see that the mentality of people, people are for the people there, so they do things as a community and that's been their history for thousands of years. Where our culture is everyone man for themselves. Pretty much we're wanting to achieve and get greatness or get this or get that's for ourselves.
Speaker 1:the um, the culture with a lot of asian countries let's say it's everywhere but it's they do things for each other as a community, what's good for the community, not what's just good for me. Yeah, and that's carried through and it's not obviously like in china, it's. You know, the new way is different and yeah, they're losing a lot of that. But yeah, like we're losing these old schools of our crafts and things that are disappearing. You know that's going to yeah oh, mate, craftsmanship is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we didn't, we didn't really get into that much, but, like craftsmanship is just, it's going to be a thing of the past like we're getting.
Speaker 2:We're going down a road where, like, even even carpentry, like I don't, I believe it's not far off, where, well, I think it's all it's happening now, um, same as plastering and stuff, but like you'll literally do a fit out apprenticeship or you'll do a cladding apprenticeship or you do a framing apprenticeship, like the days like I think I'm very blessed, like I got in at a time where, like, my apprenticeship was carpentry and joinery, yeah, so, um, it was old school and luckily I had a old school boss and we did everything. We did roofing and concreting and framing and earthworks and yep, um, and I think that's like I try and drum it into my team like the younger guys like you should be very grateful that, like you get the opportunity to do all these other things, because there's a lot of people out there that do apprenticeships or even become builders that have no experience in all these other aspects.
Speaker 1:That's right. How many stories have we heard? I've seen young guys turn up and you ask them to sit out a deck or something. They've never done a sit out of even a deck. They haven't even hung a door. It's actually sad and it's not their fault.
Speaker 2:It's a systemic fault. It's not their fault.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and it's not their fault, it's a system. Yeah, you know, but it is really sad the way this whole system's going how it's so streamlined now. Yeah, it is really sad, and my craft I know it's a real, it's a real shame. You know there's two or three places in australia that do it. You know that's it. It's, um, yeah, a few in new zealand, but it's, it's a dying art I'd love to still be able to pass on. You know my skills too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's um, it's a shame, but it's just the way.
Speaker 2:The way the world isn't it like everything's just so fast-paced, everything's like a production line, everyone like they're spitting out all these volume built like cookie cutter houses, like yeah it's um, which goes right back to where we started this podcast like people living in houses with all this synthetic products, all VACs, everything, unhealthy kids growing up crawling around on carpets and floor coverings that are full of chemicals. That's right. It's horrible, glenn. We might have to wrap it up, mate, because I could seriously sit here and talk all night. I really, really appreciate you sitting here and being being vulnerable. I um.
Speaker 2:One of the things I tell people now a lot is, I think, vulnerability, like if you're like, especially with the builders we work with in live life build. Like if, if you're at a point in your life where you're not achieving what you want to get to, or you're struggling with things or what, or you're having a difficult time, I believe the change doesn't happen until you're vulnerable. Yeah, absolutely, you've got to. You've got to be vulnerable, and and once you're vulnerable, the floodgates open oh, that's right and it's it's like I believe so much.
Speaker 2:Um, that has helped me and I we see it a lot now with our live, like bill members is you've got to be part of a community that accepts that and that makes you feel safe and comfortable to be vulnerable. So, yeah, mate, I really, like I said before I take my hat off to you, I really appreciate you telling your story and being vulnerable today and talking about all the experience you've had, and I really think a lot of our listeners will have gotten a lot out of what you've discussed. So, mate, yeah, you might be one of the people that come back for round two, mate.
Speaker 2:I think we'll see what happens over the next couple of years, but like, is there somewhere that people can reach out to you or find you if they want to do these sessions?
Speaker 1:Yeah, mate. Well, I'm a part of a really good community called Living Real. It's got a website. If you just Google Living Real, there's all the programs on there. So there's contacts in there to enter our men's group. The rites of passage program's on there, so, yeah, everything's there, at a phone call away. So, yeah, you can engage, engage, see when all the courses are coming up, when rites of passage programs are coming up. Yeah, jump in and engage. You know, I um, and it's, yeah, it's hard, it's uncomfortable to go and make a start. I um, you know, talk about me being vulnerable. Today. It's made it actually comes naturally for me. Everywhere I go, I'm able to just talk open. Um, probably because I'm doing it all the time and I like to be like that because it's just showing other men, hey, it can be natural to do it too. Yeah, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's important, isn't it? Oh, absolutely, yeah, no, look, wrap it up. Another cracking episode. Look, if you're sitting out there, you're listening to this podcast and you're experiencing difficult times. Make sure you reach out to someone like Glenn or his team, or the guys at TX or Lifeline or any of those things. But, as usual, if you love the podcast, make sure you like, subscribe all those types of things, share content, comment all those types of things and look forward to seeing you on the next one. Are you ready to build smarter, live better?
Speaker 1:and enjoy life. Then head over to livelikebuildcom forward slash elevate to get started.
Speaker 2:Everything discussed during the Level Up podcast with me, dwayne Pearce, is based solely on my own personal experiences and those experiences of my guests. The information, opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only, and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. We recommend that you obtain your own professional advice in respect to the topics discussed during this podcast.