Episode 31: Geoff Wilson (Part One) — Discovering a Life of Purpose and Adventure through Adversity
Dr. Geoff Wilson is a world-class polar explorer, dynamic keynote speaker and entrepreneur. He’s living a vast and varied life split between being a family man, veterinary surgeon and expeditionist - constantly squeezing every drop out of life.
Geoff has developed an intense resilience, gathered by a lifetime of pushing his mind and body through the harshest wilderness. This steel-trap mindset has equipped him with the fervour to pursue audacious challenges all over the globe, inspiring men and women along the way to abandon the perils of complacency and discover their greater purpose.
Geoff has an exhaustive list of accolades;
He holds World Records for:
- The longest solo, unsupported Polar Journey in Human History (2019/20)
- The first summit of Dome Argus, solo and unsupported (2019/20)
- The fastest solo, unsupported crossing of Antarctica (2013/14)
- The fastest unsupported crossing of Greenland, South to North (2017)
- The first to cross the Torres Strait by kiteboard (2012)
- The first and only wind-assisted crossing of the Sahara Desert (2009)
In part one of my conversation with world record-breaking polar explorer, vet surgeon, and entrepreneur, Geoff Wilson, we talk about his experiences in Indonesia as part of a humanitarian team in the aftermath of the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004. From his own life experiences and life-threatening expeditions, we also explore why hardship is essential to living a life of adventure and purpose.
To learn more about Geoff Wilson visit his website www.drgeoffwilson.com and you can follow him on Instagram @drgeoffwilson.
Subscribe Justice Matters — https://justicematters.transistor.fm
Support the show — https://patreon.com/justicematters
Full Transcript
Geoff Wilson
It's kinda like the, the dumby, everybody in the Western world particularly, has been sold in that, you know, hardship is.. you're doing something wrong and if it's hard, avoid conflict, avoid.. avoid, you know, hard conversations, avoid hard situations. It's just not real, like the growth is always in the hardship.
Tim Buxton
Welcome to justice matters, the podcast inspiring a world where everyone belongs. I'm your host, Tim Buxton.
Tim Buxton
Hey there, guys. It's Tim here. Today's guest is Geoff Wilson. And I've just spent about two hours talking with Geoff and I had to actually just go away and spend some time just decompressing everything that we had just talked about. He is an extreme adventurer who's done some phenomenal challenges like crossing the Antarctic coast to coast and going north or south of Greenland solo adventure spent two months, in some cases are alone in these adventures. In some of the wildest deserts of the world, the Sahara, he's crossed. And we unpack some of these journeys and the lessons he's learned. But we spend a fair bit of time in what's going to be a two part series of this, this podcast episode. In the first part, we spent a lot of time on packing his time when he was part of a humanitarian trip to Banda Ache in Indonesia shortly after the tragic tsunami washed into and devastated the whole and particular the tip of Indonesia, known as Banda Ache killing hundreds of 1000s of men, women children, and we unpack a bit of his experiences there. And we talk a lot about the human spirit. And what it is inside of all of us that when faced with trauma, when faced with hardship, what it is that we need, and the perspective that we need to bring to those hardships in order to live a life that's full of adventure that's full of hope that's full of having an incredible impact on other people's lives. And so you're going to be inspired by the stories and the life that Geoff Wilson shares with us today. A remarkable, remarkable person. And I'm just so grateful I get I got to have the conversation with him. And now that I get to share it with you. So strap your seatbelts on. Here's my interview with Jeff Wilson. Part one. Well, good morning, Geoff. Thanks for coming into the studio.
Geoff Wilson
Good to be here, Tim. I'm sorry it's an early start.
Tim Buxton
Oh, no, it's fine with me, mate. I'm just glad that you made it in. Sounds like you had a bit of a hectic day yesterday.
Geoff Wilson
Yeah, I was lucky not to break my back crossing the bar just for the jetski. incident. landed, gave it back a good tweak, but it's getting better on one of my supervisors, rapid healing so
Tim Buxton
well. I'm relying on it again. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. It reminded me of the jetski incident at my brother had that almost killed him trying to get out across this, you know, a bar of a Seaway and yeah, the jetski came down on him and I can get ugly. Oh my gosh, but you ended up still jumping on the foil board that you had with you and
Geoff Wilson
Yeah, I've been struggling with the foil because we've got an adventure coming up. relies on foiling for a crossing and on the kite I'm fine because I've got a bar to hang on to but I've really struggled to get prying falling you know paddling in the way Yeah, so yesterday we were getting into bombs off the back of German bar which is a swell magnet. Yeah, gosh, I got one why which is just one of the best in my life I think epic no way just because you riding this ocean swell. You're not waiting for it to break. And the foil almost acts like a grappling hook on the back of the waves. You okay, kind of it felt like I was riding the back of the wave not the front of the wave. It was bizarre. really well.
Tim Buxton
Mate, you're like the Aussie Laird Hamilton
Geoff Wilson
No way, he was strapping into foils with boots that you couldn't release from? Yeah, doing Teeohpu waves like that years ago. He's hardcore
Tim Buxton
He is hardcore. Speaking of adventures, though, you said you've got one coming up. What?
Geoff Wilson
Yeah, we're training for all the time this probably is it'll it'll be pretty public knowledge descent attempted the best rate on foils. Oh my gosh, yeah. That'll be been awesome on but it's more an incredible story of human recovery from a good friend of mine who when I was in Antarctica, I got this horrendous news that one of my best sort of adventure buddies, Christelle lubeck. On French respond to kiteboarder who was the first woman to kite from Australia to Papua New Guinea with me? Yes. had just had this crushing blow where they were training down on the beach de wind, Sydney, and he had a kite malfunction, and he couldn't release the kite and it went into what we call a death loop, which is the last thing you want to kite to do and strong wind, where one line suddenly gets hooked up on something and it puts the kite into a very powerful loop. And if you're connected to the other end, you tend to get ragdoll. Which is fine overwater and he had one loop over water second loop over water where he was getting smashed, and you could seem as a 15 year old boy Lexie seem to release and in the third loop, he was over. Like a grinder rock Rhine suffered pretty horrendous sort of trauma and then either died in the helicopter or in hospital later on, but Frenchie had to watch, you know, the love of your life go through this. So she's gone from this warrior princess to, you know, who feared nothing could do everything to just a blubbering mess of humanity. And I've watched that process with grief myself, you know, and amazingly, she has started to piece itself back together. And I saw her honor foilboard on Instagram about six weeks ago, and Ranga has had you back in the water. Yeah, I won't touch it again. And I said, Frankie, that'd be a shame. I'm learning Lexi, I want you to not hide again. I said, Would you consider being the first woman to foil from Tasmania back to mainland Australia? Wow. And you hear something come back alive. You know, and she's been training and, and so it'll be kind of an advantage. It's all about Lexi. young boy and I for her I think it's more about connecting with other parents who have lost kids. And you know, it's a very unnatural thing for a human being to bury a very offspring, very child and on. I mean, there would be a grief that would rip the guts out of a human being more than that. You know, it's happening every day all over the world. It is Yeah. So I think Frankie's goal with this story is to just provide a bit of hope that I don't think I've ever seen human being where they grief more visibly, and a lot of her friends couldn't handle how open she was being with her grief because it's not really an Australian tradition we tend to internalize, put on a face, she'll be right she'll know. Right, which I'm not sure is entirely healthy. He was more European about it and wailing and gnashing of teeth and a lot of our friends left. Because I just couldn't handle them a bit. I think like, if you watch a zebra on the African plains of is injured. Oftentimes it's made for we'll leave it because it's attracting predators who was almost like that behavior with frente her showing such open grief, made people uncomfortable and almost like she was attracting predators. They left her to be to sink or swim. Or think something she probably appreciated for me is it I've just checked in, and, you know, not wanting to be anything other than where she was at. Despite, you know, hiding watching this incredible warrior, diminished. So it's been great in the last six weeks just feeling that light come on, and I think that's part of part of my story with adventures. Yes. You know, the whole of life should be an adventure and if if your life doesn't feel like an adventure, you probably need to, to look at it carefully, because we're not here for a long time. Yeah. And you know, part of my role is to get people off the sofa.
Tim Buxton
So, so So what makes then a good adventure what makes it if life is to be an adventure and embrace life that what makes a good adventure, someone who's you know, benched on incredible number of wild and crazy adventures yourself
Geoff Wilson
I think it's more your attitude to it, you know, you can, you can go through the daily grind, put your boots on every morning and grumble and not see the dawn and not see the color and the purples just before sunset, all of that stuff. Or you can open your heart and have an attitude of wonder, you know, God's creation around you and whether you believe in a higher power or not, you know, there's evidence of God in creation around us, or you just look at the beauty of it. You know, you can sit one person will look at that sunset and just see the end of the day, right? It's come again, have a beer and go to bed. And another is looking at it just with absolute wonderment at the light and color and, and I think the adventure in life is is making sure that we're traveling slow enough. All right, even in the tough times. Like I with Frankie story, we just talked about the coloring that is watching this incredible, resilient human spirit. Despite everything she's been through, piece itself back together and then it's almost like a dawn, you know, you're watching the dawn of another another era of her life and she'll think about Lexi everyday life. But I think she really feels that that young boy was an adventurous spirit and would not want his mom just to curl up in a ball and suck a thumb. Yes, the rest of law she's a lot more stories to tell. And yes, people to inspire. Yes. And she's one of those women that just inspires people around us. So it'll be awesome to see you back on the paddock. But I think the the adventurous approach to life is just seeing opportunity in everything, not seeing the obstacles. And and I think probably part of my role as I speak around the country is just to get people to understand that hardship is good for you. Sign in the hardship, look for the opportunity. Yeah,
Tim Buxton
I was gonna say that the opportunity is the obstacle. Yeah, you know why the the challenges or the hardship you face is actually the opportunity for you to, to, I guess, experience the fullness of life, in that sense, like, even when you said, going through life slow enough, it's like that. It's that ability to be in the present moment. And not to see that moment as just a means to the end of the day. But to be fully enjoy all of what that moment that you're in right there actually has for you.
Geoff Wilson
Absolutely. And I think our whole system at the moment is designed to get you thinking so far forward that you're not engaged in the presence. So for example, young couple now looking to buy property. Their whole life is gauged around. Okay, the house market is so inflated and expensive. We need to both work hard, we need to save we need to know our whole life is about getting this to positive, they get the deposit by the house and there's, you know, a euphoria for a short period of time, but it's a material possession that's going to lose its patina pretty quickly. And then I think a lot of the times we look backwards and go wow, with so much energy and effort into something that was so fleeting. I pass up time with friends with family to work took every shift available. I've used up some of my valuable young years for this house, it gives me nothing. Whereas I mean, you can you can get to that same goal. Yes, budgets from wind it back a little bit. take less shifts, more walks on the beach, more time with your partner more time with family more time with friends. I think this hasn't come to me. Suddenly, you know my first 10 years of business, we built a venery group called coast fat. And, you know, we were a young family. I worked incredibly hard. And it was a fella called, Halidan. Who was this wonderful Muslim man in ocho. I was involved as her translator for a French medical team. You know, straight after that tsunami, an earthquake hit northern Ache there's 600,000 dead people in that region. We had been vaccinating for smallpox, measles, tetanus in a lot of the survivors and as we left the school which was a rudimentary sort of refugee, the Enclave, I saw a man laid across three school desk push and push together in a dark room and I walked in, and his brother was feeding him crushed up rice straw. And I recognize all the sides of tetanus. And this is probably by now would have been day 10 post tsunami. And I said to him, how long How long have you been like this? And he said, I'd started yesterday and flustered game cat nai takes time. So you get a wound that the toxin forms as the bacteria starts to breed in the wound. So the timing was perfect for tetanus. And I said, I think he's got tetanus. And he will not survive if we don't get him help. Wow. So we loaded him into a truck and then went to the hospital in Banda Ache, which was overrun, nothing left. They were running out of intravenous fluid. And the American medical team had arrived the night before, for and the Ozzie military hospitals coming in about two days. So I got a little my motorbike and went and went to the medical. The American medical team said, Listen, this guy just needs something to relax the muscle spasm. Do you have any Valium? I need to listen, I've got just my little hand kit. The rest of the medical supplies are locked up in quarantine. I'll give you two vials of Vallium. And he sent a nurse with me and so she'll administer it. So we went found him gave him a shot of vallium. The nurse was so nervous, she dropped one of the balls of value and burst into tears. And I remember saying get yourself together and pretend like that didn't matter. Well, because Halidan was watching very carefully. He said if he thinks that she's devastated, yeah, just put him into a more of a panic. Anyway, with the vial of vallium, you just see him relax, he fell asleep. And a lot of the signs have faded, while we figured out how to help him. You know, the next morning, I went back, it was about very early in the morning, I had about four hours sleep, got back on the motorbike, went to his room and touched the shoulder and and he rolled over and it was another man in his bed dying of cholera. I'm like, where's Halidan, and he's doing good here to explain. So I found the warden for that part of the hospital. He said no, Halidan died last night. And I said I've only been away for hours. I've seen you know, multiple animals, humans, you know, the lights go out he had so much fire. There's no way that Howard and passed away in the last four hours. So almost pushed into a bit of a manic state. I went to the morgue for the hospital. I checked every other wing in the hospital or were opening bags in the mall to look for him. He wasn't in there. So I knew he hadn't died and went to three other hospitals. And by the end of the day, I was notified that I was to leave in the next day via RAAF Herculise. So I had this sort of manic looking for him. never found it. So I left and then my wife Sarah was incredibly patient with me because over the next three months, I you know now we know what PTSD looks like, I went into a pretty classic PTSD state drinking too much playing Xbox till two, three in the morning. Just unable to sleep, not trusting the ocean. If we took our kids in an eye, they went in the water I would just get images of all the babies and children dead in the water up in bhandar chain. Anyway, about three months of this went by Sarah came to me and said Listen, you you've taken a wrong road somewhere and you're not the man I married. That wrong ride was in Ache. You need to go back. Oh, wow. And take the right road. And you need to find Halidan because that's who's haunting you. Anyways, so we we raise some money locally for his family.. what was left of it, because he'd lost his wife and two girls on the morning of the tsunami. That wave came through their village at 90 feet. If you think in meters, that's like 30 meters is ridiculous. You're not going to survive now. to his wife and girls who killed he was carried six kilometers inland, cutting getting cut to pieces by corrugated iron and how he survived, is unbelievable.
Tim Buxton
Oh my gosh.
Geoff Wilson
So anyway, I'll fly back into Banda Ache is a different place to the one I've left, the cameras have gone. A lot of the first, you know, the aid, people have gone because once the cameras go they they don't see a real benefit being there, or I'm there were some diehards still there. Oxfam and Red Cross are still there. And the refugees were housed in bunk houses rather than just in the community. And here I've found the refugees from Lompu, their village, their Halidan was a part of Yeah. And I drive in and there was a Muslim sort of prayer platform. With all the men dress for the mosque all looking clean. Well present, his show is all driving, I stepped out and I bang, Helen has probably stood up and said the Mad Australian is back. And all in greeted him, the man Australia. And I said, Arbonne it is amazing, defined you, our family and friends back home, we've raised some money for you. Here's an envelope of cash that we've given him. He said, Listen, why? Why are you giving it to me? We'll elegance family. Give it to him? Where is he? He survived. He survived. Why the hell is it all when, when you came, not long after we were moved to a dying tent on the edge of the city. Because the Australians were coming in the leaders of the area were embarrassed by Halidan's condition. So they didn't want to see anyone who was on death's door, they moved to this dying tent. So there was a weird loss of face thing going on. Wow. And so I followed him in and I fed him through a straw for six weeks. And he refused to die
Tim Buxton
For six weeks,
Geoff Wilson
Six weeks. So if you'd spoken to a mate of mine in emergency medicine, he said without gamma globulin without intensive treatment, survival from tetanus is almost nil. Wow. So for him to survive with no medical care whatsoever other than his brother. Just the who refused to leave his side was amazing. So he walked me through these back alleyways. And then there was an opening mean the or or washing station, and a fellow in a sarong throwing water over his muscles back. was and I recognize some of the scars on its back being the same shape as the lacerations because I'd carried him from the school to the truck from the tribe to the hospital. Yeah, put him on a gurney. And so I'd seen his wounds. And I put a hand on his shoulder and he turned around. And we're both just stunned. Wow. So And the amazing thing with this story is that we caught up and then in time, I headed back to Australia and I left a lot of my demons there, okay. But he was, you know, really reminded me he just said, Listen, you you have no long hair long, you have no idea how long you have or what your timing is. So don't put all your stock in stuff. Over 1000 interviews with survivors of that tsunami, not one of them cared about motorbikes, houses, possessions and they had little enough to start with every one of them was, you know, lamenting the loss of friendship, or family, you know, companion community. So I came back with a completely shifted mindset. And I think, in business and adventure, I've always managed to, to, to make sure that I carve out enough time for family for friends. I feel like I've made a conscious effort to speak slower to be slower to make time just for the little things, so I was in Brisbane and I slept overnight in a rough hotel because after working to read hospitals that are right next to a teller in South Brisbane and I said Sarah, I just avoid the drive or stay. don't realize how beautiful and quiet I farm is because the street noise was horrendous was the night of that lunar eclipse. Okay, so everything seemed to be noisier than normal. The next morning I go to buy some toothpaste and toothbrush. deodorant is I didn't bring anything with me. We had the 24 chemists and there's a homeless guy at the front who asked for cash and I very rarely how cash will it didn't have cash. And rather than just throwing the cash and keep moving, just remind myself to stop, ask him his story. Have a talk. And I think, you know, those sort of lessons haven't taught me. So when I got back from finding halat, and Sarah could see a massive shift, you know, a lot of my demons had had gone and they, you know, the death that I saw in it still wakes me up. Sure, you know, you couldn't move without your foot popping through human torso. You just, there were bodies everywhere by babies, you know, in the rivers and all of the similar sized bodies accumulated in different parts of the rivers. So the babies for one section of, you know, kids, teenagers,
Tim Buxton
I can't even fathom
Geoff Wilson
Yeah, it was. I just don't, I can't think of a natural disaster where the volume of death was was so big and even turkeys earthquake, bam, were 20,000 people.
Tim Buxton
Maybe Haiti had a quite a devastating earthquake?
Geoff Wilson
Yeah, that's stuff but um, man, just the density of it. That was so hard to fathom mentally. But anyway, I came home and we put all of our businesses under management, and bought a sailboat out of Trinidad. Sight unseen, shipped it back to Brisbane, learn how to sail and then spent a year and a half at sea. And in that year and a half, I caught up on a decade worth of poor fathering of just just not being present, not listening well, and it just really tried to shift it. So I think the adventure side is definitely part of my DNA. I think it's more through those advances. I've met some incredible people. And the tail end of that stories is literally two years to the day from when that tsunami hit. Actually, we saw their own bike back into Lamu Bay to try and find Halidan. And I searched the old refugee camp was gone. Knocked over, or look for his brother, or went to the village. It was deserted. The only building left was the mosque. And I was about to give up. We're in the back of a pickup truck with this poor dedicated driver who had driven all over trying to find Halidan. And I had Sarah and the three kids sitting on a tire and they were hot. It's been a long day. Seriously, listen, let's get back to the bike. You've done your best. He's obviously moved. moved on. You've lost contact. And then we went past a road with a palm tree blockade on 240 gallon drums on I said he's down there. And Sarah said you like a dog on a buy? And you have to give this opposite No, no, he is down there. So
Tim Buxton
Let me tell you about one of our partners, freedom broadband. They are an incredible profit for purpose business. Freedom broadband is your all in one internet and telephone service provider, whether it's for your business, or your home. Now their internet connection and spades are simply amazing. And they're in another league when it comes to the quality of their customer service. But here's what really sets them apart. When you switch to any of their services. They'll donate $5 every month to a nonprofit cause of your choice. As the founder of you belong, an Australian based nonprofit charity, one of the greatest challenges we face is fundraising. And I think I can speak for almost all leaders in the nonprofit world when I say that being able to have a residual income coming into your accounts to support your work is a dream come true. And like most nonprofits, our work is dependent on the generous support of individuals and groups that share our passion to empower refugees to integrate and thrive here in Australia. But what that means is that we spend more time and energy, looking for ways to raise support. And what I desperately love to be doing is spending that time and our limited resources developing and growing the many successful programs that we run. But here's where our friends at freedom broadband came in. You see a few months back I was on a 4g wireless connection at home through one of the largest phone and internet companies here in Australia. And each month I was nervous about going over our usage getting nasty bill at the end and I was working on a lot of the podcasting and videos at home and the speeds I was getting would just painfully debilitating and I finally decided to give freedom broadband a call and within two minutes I was on the call with Graham completing application and within a week, I had completely switched over to their $79 month unlimited plan. And I can tell you firsthand, the service has been phenomenal. And I have a direct line to their customer service team whenever I have a question or need assistance, and now a studio and office where I work as switched over to freedom bar band as well. We're on their business plan, and we haven't looked back. And how cool is this little by little connection by connection. Ozzie owned and locally run freedom broadband is now actively supporting the great work of nonprofits, in communities all around Australia. Simply by switching your internet to freedom broadband, you can help transform the lives of those less fortunate. And that's why I love these guys, and get this head to freedom broadband comm.au. And, quote, Justice matters on your application form. And they will donate $50 from the activation fee to support justice matters that's going to enable us to continue this podcast and inspire the world where everyone belongs. That's freedom. broadband.com.au say goodbye to expensive, mediocre Internet with poor customer service and how low to top notch internet service and the good feeling of knowing you're supporting a great course. Join freedom broadband today, quote Justice Matters and let's partner together with the internet that's helping to change the world.
Geoff Wilson
So I got the driver to come in and I pulled the blockade apart and we drove through. And it was a T section to the beach, the road went right to the beach. And there was a little fat hut there with three fishermen with lions in the water last year. And they all had caps on and I walked over and said does any of you know Halligan from long poo, which is how he was known. And the guy in the middle stood up and took his hat off and said I'm Halligan from lumpy. And I recognize the scars again, and we embraced and just thought this is the most bizarre meeting. Wow. just wouldn't have happened. It was supernatural. Wow. And we've been in contact ever since. So he he's been a special sort of, I don't know if you'd call it a flagpole moment in your life. Where if you pinpointed a shift in your attitude. And you know, I think this whole concept of your, your mentors and your guides in your life having to have the same belief system or religion. Of course. It's completely false because I learned so much from this devout Muslim man in an area that is now known for, or was up until then known for creating jihadists again, yes, my worldview. So we're doing very easy to go in there with attitude and not being open to anything but hell, and to this day reminds me of so many things.
Tim Buxton
I mean, that that's a beautiful story, I hope you do get to write that in a book and share it with the world. In some ways, although it will never have the same I'm sure impact it's had on your own life. You know, you shared something just at the end our it's this perspective that we bring to our trauma and our pain. And it kind of reminds me of this, this story of a man who said what trauma, he got diagnosed with cancer, and this cancer was this cancer was going to end his life. And instead of him saying this is the worst thing that could have happened to me. He had a loving wife and children. But he said it was the best thing that happened to him. Because he realized how neglectful of a father he had been, and how even how he had hadn't. Exactly the most important things for his life, his relationships, his friends, his wife, his children, he neglected and he said for the for this moment in time that I have left. I'm going to become the best father and the best husband that I possibly can be. I'm actually going to have the chance I have the chance now to leave a new legacy a memory of who I am to them and had had cancer not come my way. I would not have had that opportunity and It doesn't have to be something as terrible of law or life threatening as that that comes our way to force us to wake up. But I think there are the gifts in the challenges there are the gifts in the pain is the gift in the tragedy that we encounter to remind us.
Geoff Wilson
I think that's kind of like the the dumbing everybody in the Western world particularly has been sold in that, you know, hardship is you doing something wrong or if it's hard, avoid conflict, avoid, yeah, avoid, you know, hard conversations, avoid hard situations. And it's just not real. Like the the growth is always in the hardship
Tim Buxton
The uncomfortable, you don't grow sitting on the couch, being in your comfort zone, you grow when you're stretched beyond what you're.. capacity
Tim Buxton
And I had a unique experience last month, where I got to speak to some of the top brass in the Australian military just on resilience, development and mindset development, because even with the young soldiers, they're having a real issue with early tap out. And you know, your lack of intestinal sort of fortitude and resilience development. So just talking him through steps to try and improve that teach that. But alongside me was a phenomenal human. Coco McQuilty, who is one of our most decorated medics from the Afghan conflict. And he, I think he's had 34 operations to kind of correct the damage to his body from getting thrown from an armored personnel carrier by an ID thrown 30 meters and suffered horrific injuries like broken femur broken, cracked, cracked skull, bleeding on the brain. And he calls that the best day of his life. Well, because his whole attitude shifted, and he was in flown to Germany, on one side of him was a big Afro American soldier who'd blown his left foot off. And on the other side was his mate, who'd blown his right foot off, they both stood on the same ID and blown he, you know, blown their feet. Wow. And now we're so happy to be alive. So happy to be going home to their family. So happy the war was over for them. And joking that they had a deal with Nike where they could get one set of shoes and split it between them. That he shifted, you know, his attitude. He had the halogen type shift. Yeah, where suddenly he he was feeling sorry for himself and grumpy and angry. And it's been a journey for him, he isn't sure about it. But he has this incredible ability now, to travel the country, creating attitude shift for people in hardship, because he, his whole character, in becoming the man he is and the husband that he is, came from, what he calls the best day of his life when he got blown up by an ID. So to someone like that it really shifts your mindset towards challenge. And I think if you accept that challenge is good for you. And hardship is good for you. You become a very dangerous person. Yeah. Your your whole ability to become a weapon or tool in any challenge radically shifts. Because as soon as you step into the fray, you're smiling and going, Is that all you've got? Yes. You know, come at me, I'm ready for you. Yes. And I would, I would call that the lion killer attitude, you know, based off you know that that want to run out the line, not run from the line, and any predator in your life, whether it be cancer, marriage, breakdown, a kid off the rails, that predator doesn't want you to run it. It wants you to curl in a ball on a ball. And there is a time for that as we talked about where she has curled in a ball into a lot of supporters left her because I thought she was done. She's far from done with the healing process. And now she's entering a line killer phase, which is hardship is good for me. I don't think she'll ever call that the best day of her life, but it'll be a shaping day of her life. And I think getting this concept across to people through adventure, through Coco stepping on an ID. You can have we do it. It's getting the Australian public and the wider public. Yes, I mean, I you've lived in developing nations. I've lived in developing nations. I don't feel in those countries. They have Such an issue with it is hardship is expected.
Tim Buxton
It's a part of everyday life. Exactly.
Geoff Wilson
It's expected. And it's, you know, if you have an easy day, that's a surprise. So characters, not a shortage. I think the softness of the Western lifestyle has meant that our challenge challenges a lot of people are lost. They have no focus dreams, no way. And their character is diminishing, not improving. So we have to fight that through, you know, at this understanding that if you're not dreaming, you're dying. And really far at that point, your attitude that built our country, you know, they're lying, killer.
Tim Buxton
Work is good. It's like, I think there's also this sense that even work is, is a negative thing. And it's all about, it is all about play luck, but the two actually are good. They're both required and needed. When you work you're creating, you're building, you're, you're putting in the energy and effort to make, you know, my vision for all work should be it should be about making this world a better place in one way or another giving whatever natural gifts and resources you have put that into focused energy and work.
Geoff Wilson
And you're a shining example of that, in that you've dedicated a large part of your life to doing that. I do know a lot of people might feel, oh, I'm not as fortunate as Tim, I can't, I can't do that, because I'm a plumber or, but it's about understanding that your core skill set doesn't mean that you can't No, make the world a better place. 100% Yes, use that. Use that in whichever way and the really sad stat I saw the other day is 72% of Australian adults do not enjoy what they do for a living. And that's a shame. That's huge. That's a real shame. Because it means you or I are in that 28% that get up every day and love what we do. But that's taking discipline and time and and slowly pushing this days where I'm doing my fifth anal gland squeeze on a Rottweiler, and it's not fun. No, I love every job has, you know, jobs that you can't stand, but it's stuff you get to wade through to get to the good stuff. But if you're, you know, just someone listening who's like, oh, man, I'm one of the 72% I hate what I do, then it's not about jumping out into something fun, it's about creating a dream, starting to train up link up skill. So you can move out of what you're doing that you don't like, into something that you absolutely are passionate about. And you're always going to be more effective, and more lethal. If you're passionate about what you're doing exactly. If you if you hate cleaning toilets for a living, you're probably not going to clean them. Well. You know, you just got to get my wife and move on. But if you hate cleaning toilets, and you're not creating, you know, going to night school and learning how to build fighter jets, or whatever it is that you want to do that's exciting and fun. You've really only got yourself to blame, you have to be moving in training and stretching. And we talked about earlier, the stretches where it's add. So if you're one of that 72% that consider your work, work and dull and boring and horrible, then you need to move progressively to get out of that because it's not good. It's not good for the human condition to continually being in something that drains you or you hate it or you find it horrendously stressful because it's outside your skill set. I think you know, if we could encourage people to to move into their skill set and into their passion area, find a much happier workplace for everyone around them, but also healthier families.
