Episode 32: Geoff Wilson (Part Two) — Dream Mapping that Changes the World
In part two of my conversation with Geoff we talked about his Antarctica crossing and explored the concept of Dream Mapping as a way of envisioning a life of adventure and meaning. We also discussed the importance of building dreams that bring justice and contribute towards making this world a more magnificent planet for us all to live in.
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 fervor 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)
To learn more about Geoff Wilson visit his website www.drgeoffwilson.com and you can follow him on Instagram @drgeoffwilson.
Learn more about Justice Matters — https://justicematters.tv
Support the show — https://patreon.com/justicematters
Full Transcript
Geoff Wilson
He gave me a pink balloon and said, Listen, can you say a prayer for her and releases balloon when you get to the South Pole, he had no doubt that I would get to the South Pole. And the difference was that Faisal was there for his own goal. I was there representing women that were plugging into chemo and reading my blog watching video, images coming out of Antarctica. I had seen women with both their breast cut off you know, with a bright and happy attitude, saying listen, be safe. So when those feelings of defeat, quitting, came, I had these multiple images of women that I stood for, in my mind, that made it impossible to quit.
Tim Buxton
Welcome to Justice Matters, the podcast inspiring a world where everyone belongs. I'm your host, Tim Buxton. Welcome back to justice matters. Today we have part two of my interview with Geoff Wilson, an extraordinary individual. If you have not listened to part one, make sure you do that you will hear some incredible stories of the epic adventures that this extreme adventure has taken. He's a vet surgeon, he is a humanitarian who has served in some of the most devastating tragedies around the world. And he shares with us the lessons you've learned on building a dream life building an adventurous life, but not alive, as you'll find in this episode that is centered, centered around our own selfish ambitions but on a life that is centered around having an incredible impact in the world, especially those less fortunate than ourselves living a life where justice and freedom is experienced by those around us. And even just in our own family, but and also to those on the other side of the world where we might experience and see great suffering and pain. You'll learn so much again, from Geoff in this conversation where I was blown away, just by hearing him share and I know you will be too, here is part two of my Geoff Wilson.
Tim Buxton
And I found I honestly I found that hard growing up. Because it was like I graduated high school and I was I was had to figure out what I wanted to be for the rest of my life. And then I went you know went to uni for that. And I ended up dropping out of uni. And I guess charted my own unorthodox path through life. But I think for so many of us we've we've kind of we get trapped thinking that we just have to have it all. You got it all figured out. And the pressures are just don't kind of lead us into that life of an adventure that life of discovering what crazy, audacious goal I would actually want to achieve that maybe I'm that is going I know I don't have the ability to achieve I know right now here where I am. Is seems impossible. And it's not this Walt Disney fairy fairy tale kind of dream? I don't feel like we're talking about here we're talking about No, what is it deep down innately that makes you come alive? And why wouldn't you not set that as your North Star? And why wouldn't you figure out a path and expect setbacks, expect the threat that you're going to come up with a back injury, that you almost could have destroyed your back while you're training for a foil, you know, adventure? Like why wouldn't you expect that that's going to come your way
Geoff Wilson
Unless you know if you're going to stick your head up out of the trench, you're going to get shot out and so I think stepping, stepping in your dream is essential and I think the unfortunate thing with the Australian story, at least since probably the 50s is that we've taught young people to work as little as possible. The dole panned out has been a big feature of you know, people look at the you know, five surfers living in a house doing very little on the beaches wireles Nirvana that's that's my dream. That's been a lie that has walked people down. a horrible ride where they wake up in their early 40s going wow, I've got nothing to show for this. I've I've been self orientated. Putting chemicals into my body that are unhealthy. I've, you know, sacrifice my youth for waves or climbing or whatever. passion that is, but I've been left with nothing. Whereas, you know, a little bit of understanding that hardship is good for you mixed in with an understanding that you, you can't get so focused, that it puts you out of balance. And I look at it, you know, in the long balls ball, if you're leaning all towards work, it just goes off track, if you're leaning all towards play, it goes off track. So it's this incredible balance between work and play. But if you can do something that you're passionate about your work feels like play. Yeah. That makes us very straight rhumbline we're family and friends and communities Central and making a difference in the world. It's central. And I think then I honestly, I don't find many people with massive mental health issues, then have that bowling ball kind of aligned up. And it doesn't mean that the people that look like they've got it all together and not working in the background to keep themselves sane. But I do think we're seeing a massive epidemic of anxiety, depression, because of these balling bowls are completely skewed. And there's a loss of dream and vision. So if I have a young person working for me, who is really struggling with purpose, all often sit him down and go, Okay, tell me, let's build a dream map. And I call it the cloud nine dream map, where we have three columns, and it's personal, what's your personal dream, you know, you want to be the world's number one ukulele player, that only applies to you. It's a selfish dream. And, you know, build three dreams in that column. So an easy win a moderately difficult win and an impossible dream, like I want to be our I want to win the voice, whatever it is, you know, I want to be the world's best weightlifter or what, you know, something audacious in that personal column. And then a family column, which is, you know, what is your partner look like? What do your kids look like? Where is my wife look like my husband, you know, partner, whatever. What is that look like one year, three year, five years, and, you know, short term when, medium when an impossible goal, impossible goal for me would be, I want to live this adventurous life and an 80 be in a rocking chair on the deck with Sarah, with happy family behind me. And, you know, everyone feeling like I gave them time, that would be my audacious goal on my family line. And then the last column is work or business where, you know, you've got the three, three parts of that bowling ball, personal family business and slash work. What is my business look like now? Three years, five years? And what's the audacious target? You know, for me with my vetlife group of practices, it was 20 hospitals operating at a healthy profitability with happy teams, providing world class standard of care, that's my audacious, we're, well 12. Now the original goal, audacious goal was 10 hospitals, and we pass that in four years. Wow. So you, then you reset these goals. But I think a lot of humans just don't have this concept of dream mapping. It's, it's something that is, it's an art that's been lost. And if you look at it, a child of say, nine and below, they imagine stuff all of the time, imagine themselves being a warrior, or a cowboy or a ballerina, or astronauts, we lose that ability over time, the dream map is is teaching you to get your imagination going again, right and build these very distinct goals. And I would encourage anyone building a dream map off that nine square platform, even if you're a terrible artist to to just mindmap a little drawing attached to it because your brain remembers imagesway better than it does words. So by drawing these images, you'll start to really build out what the dream looks like. And what I've found over multiple journeys is that if I build the endpoint, very clearly in my mind, it's much more likely to come to pass so for the Sahara journey, I meditated for months on the four guys involved safely getting across 2500 kilometers of land mined desert through six West African countries, you know, with Al Queada of bandits behaving tourists in that same month. All of that I imagine this image of the last sand dune and I've never been to this point, but I saw it on the map. It was the Senegal River with some dunes coming down into the river. I was standing in my mind on the last and June looking north. towards Europe basically. And there were four tracks over these tangy red colored dunes. And they look like mountains of Tang, remember that orange Yeah, drink we used to have on either. You know, in my mind, that's what it looked like mountains of Tang with these four tracks and then the four of us saying they were the helmets off back to the Senegal River. And in my mind, the river was black. It wasn't like a blue or brown. It was black. Six months later, we've been through this brutal 42 day journey. 13 men, nine of them during the journey had emotional and physical breakdowns. We had one guy very nearly killed by a kite accident. We had Al Queda bandits follow us in landrovers. with machine guns, we had 700 kilometers of landmines sand, which is where most of the breakdowns occurred because it was so stressful traveling through the landmine areas. But then we were standing on this red colored dune it was the bazaars red orange sand I've ever seen like Tang, just laying your vision and behind the boat waiting to take us across this black wow River. It was as black as the river sticks. You know, in Hades it was the weirdest black color and somehow looking northwards with these four tracks over the last couple of genes, so it was way too accurate for it to be high. This this dream map is like a portal into the future. Now it's quite bizarre on my first Antarctic journey. The endpoint was a place called Hercules inlet, which there's no more desolate, lonely place on planet Earth. It's basically from the South Pole 1300 kilometers towards the coast. And this is long inlet. And it's the shortest way to get from Nepal to the coast because the inlet comes in with sea ice quite a long way in. In my mind at this point in time, I had no pedigrees and polar explorers. So for me to be imagining an endpoint after a brutal journey like that. My imagination had me beating the record for the fastest coast to coast crossing. I didn't specify how much by but I saw myself coming down a gradient towards the sea. And then on my left were two mountains that look like for one of a better description, a pair of breasts, basically the sort of snow covered domes on the left hand side of the inlet. And once again, I'd never been there. I'd never seen what blue ice looks like I blue ice is glacial ice coming off, too high gradient first notice to stick at it. So the whole thing in my mind was very specific, these breaths like mountains, an inlet of ocean ice, and me finishing having broken the record. Anyway, it's probably 18 months later. And I've been through the most brutal journey I run out of food. I very nearly broken the record for the fastest pole to coast. Five days, 20 hours, the record was five days flat. I didn't even know that but I had no food. So I had to travel.
Tim Buxton
Oh my goodness,
Geoff Wilson
Ate my last meal. And then as a man, you're alone. And alone. I'm on a GPS marker that tells me all over the ocean, if I drill down or get into salt water, so I'm off the content have gone far enough. And it's just a white out. So it's completely different to my mind view and always confused. Like, this is confusing to me. This doesn't match what I built in my faith eye. I've never seen this before. Anyway, it was a three day storm. I didn't didn't get picked up for three days. And it was whited out the whole time so they couldn't get an aircraft to me. So I had a spoon and I was scraping inside of my sled to get protein powder and chocolate powder impregnated into the Kevlar to make a soup to live off. Plenty of water, plenty of fuel, but no, no food and you're burning, you know, six to 9000 calories a day because your body's just like a furnace after a Polar journey. So you're starting to really feel the effects of hunger. And then on the on the third morning, the cloud lifted. And behind me was his blue glacial your slope of blue ice down to the wide ocean ice I was on and in the distance out of the mist came these two breasts like mountains on the left hand side and it completely lined up with my faith I image and I had this just chill As I stood outside and realized that What the clouds covered was this exact match to an image are built in my mind 18 months previous. I, you know, one more faith I image example. That's really fresh because it's from my most recent poll the journey, The Longest Journey, which is an attempt to break the longest solo polar record of 4800 held by Arune Gettys, or Mike Horn at 5100 kilometers. I'd spent seven years trying to get a particular route across Antarctica, sanctioned by the Australian Antarctic division, and met blockade after blockade after blockade. Finally, other war stuff at will, will go through Russian territory, but it's going to mean that all will have to get up and over the highest point on the polar plateau, which is a feature called Dima, I guess, which you imagine is rock, but 13,000 feet highs. So you know, it's a very, very high dome of ice. And it's at the South Pole region. So the air is very thin. So you're operating at an equivalent altitude of about 17,000. wire around the equator, it's the cold is naturally occurring place on planet Earth. So if you get a cold snap, even in the middle of summer, it's going to be cold enough to kill you at minus 70, you're not going to survive,
Tim Buxton
That's Celsius too right
Geoff Wilson
Celsius. So you're not going to survive minus 70. So you have to time it to get over during a warm spell, which would be about minus 50. Everyone needed to know in the polar exploration circles said, Listen, it hasn't been done. Because it's so far from the coast, you couldn't get there. And back in one Antarctic summer, you'll be left behind in the winter and have to do another year of dark and you won't survive the winter in the tent. So it's never been done, it can't be done. There's no wind going up an ice feature all of the wind and Antarctic rolls from high altitude to low altitude. So generally from the domes, A, B and C to the coast. So you're not going to be able to use kite power to get up at you'll be man hauling, you won't have enough oxygen to man haul. You're out of range for Russians aboard aircraft to get to you. So you're going to get so far away from the coast, no one can pick you up, you're not going to be able to get back you'll die. So all of these challenges were there anyway, one by one we worked on logistics and planning and miracle after miracle occurred on the journey. But my faith I image that I worked on was of my boot, a particular booth that I've used. The Salomon mistrials, very warm ski boot comes in two colors a white or bright orange. And in my mind's eye, it was a bright orange boot. Stepping on the highest point of the Antarctic Plateau the top of Dome Agus and because that was the crunch point, if I could get to the top, then I've got wind rolling downhill to get me all the way back home. So it's 2600 kilometers to the top of the dome, and then an equivalent distance to get back. So at this point, I'm imagining for six months, this orange boot, just over and over again, it's my data's gone. Yes, yet that orange bag with my foot in it on top of omegas in blockade after blockade after blockade with logistics and permissions API, the day comes about a month before I leave Salomon send my boot from Italy. And you know, with a sponsored boot, you can ask what color they're going to send so 5050. But as soon as the box arrives, I grabbed a knife and cut it open. And I know that it's going to be an orange boot, because that that would completely derail me. If it's a wife who seems crazy that you're not important, but this is how much stock I have in these faith images. If it was a whiteboard, I'm probably not going because there's something not right with my prep. So I opened the box with this, like my heart is doing about 200 beats a minute. And only I would be privy to how momentous this moment was for me, after seven years of planning for it all to come down to the color of a boot. But that's how much stock I lay in this incredible tool that we've given the faith eye image. It's a supernatural portal into the future and if that boot is the wrong color, then I'm not ready to go. Wow. So it's got this packing material and that little stuff I know I'm always scared to separate Like take a swimmer strike through it. And I just see a hint of orange come through and grab this boot. And it's like I've got the Olympic torch. I pull it out. I'm yelling and screaming because it's aligned with my faith I'm in. And in my soul, I know that that means that I'm going to make it to the top of diamond Agathe despite the hardship between that point, yeah, and getting there and it was the most brutal journey. And I've done brutal journey. So I know hardship, but I never expected it to be as tough as it was. And I broke down more and had multiple episodes of tears and multiple episodes where I felt like I was done. And that was the end of my adventuring. And I wouldn't make it home. But literally six months to the day. You know, from when I started that faith, I image I watched my left boot, step one to the highest point Wow, of Dome Argus, I think it was 41 days from the point that I started the journey. And no humans ever made that journey. No human zero, stood on that point, solo and supported. And, you know, 70% of the ice I cross in that journey had never had human for donor. So it was a powerful moment. And another example of how powerful this dream mapping is. Yeah. And yet most of our young people don't get taught it. They don't understand the power of it. And you know, it doesn't have to be a Dome Argus your work on column one, the easy wins.
Tim Buxton
Yeah. Because they almost give you the confidence to go to the next stretch
Geoff Wilson
Well those easy wins are amazing because you yourself a dream that's an easy win, build a faith I'm attached to it, step into that and go wow, that matches so closely and what my imagination built six months ago. let's stretch a bit harder for the next one. And then that process builders home momentum and other things happen around you in you know, a dream maker is is a person with momentum. They're like a boat on airplane. If you meet a dream maker, they are getting stuff done. Yeah. And that creates self its own sense of unbelief in the people around you. Okay? If this dream maker says he or she is going to do something, it's going to happen. I want to get on board, I want to help them I want to slipstream with them. So, It's a super powerful process and something that I think, you know, absolutely needs to be shared. And I think in the context of your audience, it's about how do we use that energy to harness projects that create justice in the world? Yeah. How do we how do we encourage our people to go, Okay, if you have a dream, I know my daughter, Jade is probably our most strong proponent for justice, you know, she's worked with a 21 is a real heart for ending female slavery, and human trafficking. For her, she has seen this process, in action through adventure. And I know she applies it in her life, she she dreams and, and builds an image of her as a lawyer, being involved, you know, with the United Nations in Policymaking in in really making a difference in the background, to change outcomes for people. So it's not just about selfish ambition, you know, sure, essentially, a guy walking across Antarctica for 58 days, losing time with family, friends and community. Essentially, that's a selfish endeavor. But if I can use that, to educate young people about the process that gets you in a position where a father of three, in his last year of his 40s, you know, when your body should be not healing, as well and not able to call punishment, can train on the beaches of the Gold Coast and go and smash. Scandinavian records have held for a long time. That just doesn't make sense without something supernatural going on on the background. So, you know, obviously, there's a massive faith element, prayer, healing words and knowledge, all of that stuff. But aside from that, there's a very secular component of just self belief, and this incredible portal, into the future that we can create, through our own faith eye image.
Tim Buxton
Wow, Geoff man, I want to do a session of my dream making mapmaking with you. It sounds like that would that kind of mentoring that you provide young people could could go mainstream and really have a huge impact. I'm sure. One of the things you pointed out there was that element of being able to marry what you do with a sense of not just a selfish ambition, but how can I make How can I make this? How can I make it impact on those around me and you have actually tied a lot of your adventures to whether it be raising support finances for, you know, some kind of fundraising ambition or with other other goals in mind. How important has that component been for you? Or can you give an example of what that's been like?
Geoff Wilson
Well, I have a really a bit of a rant with Dick Smith over this years ago, because he always felt that adventuring in charity should be very separate. There's no there's no reason why an adventurer should tag a charity that's diluting the purity of pure adventure. And it's, it's, you know, I think it has been done in the past where people go, Ah, I need support. Let's just pick a charity with no passion involved, to make us look good. And I understand where Dick was coming from my reply to him and said Dick, that's because he probably found offensive at the time. But I didn't really give two hoots that's because you've never use your body as the vehicle you've never needed superhuman endurance to get through to your goal you've hopped in a helicopter or a hot air balloon you floated or flying. You haven't had to dig into the very soul of humanity to pull that you know human endurance out to get this on him it was thought it was impossible physically so so if you're if you're just doing it for yourself and on my first Antarctic journey, a French explorer Faisel Hannesh was camped three kilometers from me We were both racing to be the third human to cross coast to pole the coast. Only two other men had ever done at Bourgeux Rousland and a fella called Runa Gettys. So by there was wanting to race across so we were in the same aircraft. And in that aircraft, bearing in mind, I'm wearing bright pink. I've got a sled that's made in the shape of female breast because I'm doing it for breast cancer charity, it's bright pink, so I look like a comedy act. I sell a lot of my gear secondhand. I borrowed begged some to get the expedition together five sellers sponsored by Bitcoin at the time. bitcoins, a new thing, knowing what Bitcoin was at the time, but they seem to have some cash because he had the best French down his jacket look beautiful, sled look beautiful, skis look beautiful. I had serious gear envy. I didn't realize that during the the flight the eight hours from Cape Town to land on the edge of the ice sheet, a betting syndicate had been made up and there were 10 guys working at a resort called White Desert, just like a high end tourism destination for very wealthy people that fly the jet down there and spend time looking at penguins. Anyway, nine of them bet that the Frenchman would cross the one guy that bet the the Aussie Red Cross had a girl like over his closest friend dying of breast cancer in Cape Town hospital. And he gave me a pink balloon and said, Listen, can you say a prayer for her and release his balloon when you get to the South Pole, he had no doubt that I would get to the South Pole. And the difference was that fossa was there for his own goal. I was there representing women that were plugging into chemo, and reading my blog, watching video, images coming out of Antarctica, I had seen women with both their breast cut off, you know, with a bright and happy attitude, saying listen, be safe. So when those feelings of defeat and quitting came, I had these multiple images of women that I stood for, in my mind, that made it impossible to quit. And within three days of the start of that journey, the most vicious storm in 50 years to hidden Antarctic coastline, built in the Antarctic ocean. And I got an email from my weather guy in Belgium, saying, Jeff, there's a big storm on the way. How good is your storm survival skills. And at that point, I'd never really been tested. I've been through some storms in New Zealand in the high country, one killer storm in the Arctic. So my repertoire of storm survival was not there, not bad. And we'd had a sandstone cario cameraman in his tent across the Sahara. So I've been through some weather events. But I you know, I had no inkling of what a cold Antarctic storm would feel like. So anyway, the next morning, I get an email from him again saying listen, this has been upgraded. It's going to rip planes out of their tethering. It's going to roll demand balls at the at the Russian base three kilometers away. I’m sorry, 30 kilometers away. You are going to have to have your wits about you to survive this storm. I just before I gagging waiting for the storm. He sent an email saying I have serious concerns about your ability to survive the storm. So I had two emails sort of stating that this storm could kill us by and I was in contact with fire cell three kilometers away. just comparing what we were doing to prep for it and we both died. God tensing built walls on the upwind side and just prepped and over the next four days the storm went from 1000 screaming alleycats to 57 four sevens parked up into the tent. Oh my gosh. Winds of over 200 kilometers an hour wind chill down to minus 47
Tim Buxton
I can't even imagine what that this your body is hearing and feeling and sensing and how that does not translate to complete terror on
Tim Buxton
it, you're fighting panic the whole time would be, you're absolutely mortified thinking I'm three kilometers in to this, sorry, 30 kilometers into this journey. I'm three kilometers from a French explorer, we're both going to die here. He's going to look like a serious contained, I'm going to look like a comedy act, connected to a set of bright pink breaths. And then I rang both my mentor so a beautiful girl, Maddie McNair, who did a lot of my training. She was the first woman to get to the North Pole. The fastest female as well using sled dogs, when the ice used to be thickener. And then Eric Phillips, who's always been a mentor of mine down in Launceston. He was Prince Harry's guide. And I rang both of them. And they both agreed I'd done everything I could. But Eric's final comments were Listen, if the, if the tent breaches, meaning, you know, it'll handle about 80 knots, but above that the fabric is going to tear, you're not going to be able to communicate, you'll find that the snow will get forced in your jacket openings, and your body will melt it, it'll degrade your thermal properties. And you'll die of hypothermia over about a four hour period. And he'd seen this happen before. So he knew what was coming in. So the next phone call was to Sarah and ice, she could barely hear me over the screen with a when I said, Sarah, this storm is about a third of the way through the cycle. And already it's it's up around 4050 knots. There's serious concerns as to whether I'll survive this storm. So I just need to know that I love you. And I'll do my absolute best, but it might not be enough. And there was a silence for a while. And then she came back. Like the liner she is and said, You know day to day after all you've put us through training in Japan, New Zealand, the Arctic, all the time away from family don't even contemplate death. If you You just need to get that out of your mind and work hard, get your boots back on. Get outside, build that wall and make sure you get through the storm. And it was kind of a slap that I needed to just increase my work intensity. And so for the next 36 hours the storm just kept building building building to a point where I couldn't get a stove on and I couldn't melt water.
Tim Buxton
For days, Oh my god.
Geoff Wilson
Yeah, it was brutal. Imagine your heads in a white bucket with a seven for seven engine Park 10 feet away, the flapping in the camera starts to send you insane
Tim Buxton
You're not getting any sleep
Geoff Wilson
No sleep. And you're literally dozing in your down seat and then you're out digging blocks rebuilding the wall and every time you go out. You're just amazed at how little of the wall is left because it's getting sandblasted by particles of ice moving at 200 kilometers an hour. You guide the storm taped at about 7879 knots, which is about the breaking point of the fabric. And I can see the fabric was just hanging by thread. And then amazingly, the storm passed. And the morning that it broke. I could see blue sky for the first time. And everything was buried. It took me about three hours to to dig the tent out dig the sleds out. But within about six hours of the storm finishing I was moving again. three kilometers away. Faisel was shell shocked as me but he just couldn't move. He stayed dug in for the whole of that day and then started digging himself out the next day. By that point I was about 40 kilometers further inland. The next day I made another 40. So I was about 100 kilometers inland when another storm brood fire cell and only move probably 10 kilometers from his position and he got hit by the second storm. And it was nearly as brutal as the first. So by the time he came out of that second storm, he was mentally done in, he was gone. He never recovered. 17 days later, he was airlifted off Antarctica and went home and 53 days later, the Aussie from the beaches was at Hercules inlet. So you know, the kind of story there is really just to say that if you're doing an endeavor or challenge, and it's tagged at something you believe in Yeah, you know, a cause that you're passionate about. It is rocket fuel to your endeavor, it will it will just change your trajectory. So, to step into something just because you want a big house and a fancy car that's not going to be enough
Tim Buxton
We know We know, there's plenty of stories of people that get all of those things. I know people that are therapists to Grammy Award winners, and the day after they've won the Grammy Award, they call him and say, I'm never been more depressed in my life. Like, I thought, I thought this was it, you know, and again, that's achieving your goal. But I think there's something more than just what you're achieving, I think that element of why is so important
Geoff Wilson
So important.
Tim Buxton
You know, you can build the biggest house and and all that if your why is, I want to be a place of hospitality for people. And I want to use this to be such a place where people come and get rest and find healing and whatever that could be. That's gonna have a profoundly different experience and end goal than the person who just does it for because I just want to, I want to win and everyone else to lose kind of mentality,
Geoff Wilson
If you get on my Instagram its @DrGeoffWilson with G, you'll see a link to Coco in one of my posts or Coco McQuilty, I think is his tag button, humbled guy by just this incredible gratitude for being alive. When you look at his x rays with the amount of hardware in his body and 34 procedures later, you think this guy should be angry, you should be miserable. But he chooses to give and to be kind and to be grateful. And he's an honor to know, you know, an incredible guy.
Tim Buxton
We just had a sweet lady Rowena Matiski stay with us and she lost. She was a teacher here on the Gold Coast and is now up the Sunshine Coast and she lost her leg. And she's had, I think over 50 operations, simply by just twisting her ankle and 50 operations later, you know, I don't know if it was a decade ago or longer it she has... and the latest and some of the most grueling operations she's had in the last six months. And it was an Iraqi refugee that has was the leading prosthetic that you know came to Australia by boat that is put her has put her prosthetic leg you know on his the invented this this incredible gram back in bet she is the most generous and kind person she stayed with us and brought gifts for our children and has so much joy and yet she lives with agony and and physical pain every single day. And and it is, it is people like that, that. For me. They're they're like that. Yeah, they're the reference points for what true life is and what true courage is. And for what it means to be human. I think they they epitomize to me what the human spirit truly is all about.
Geoff Wilson
What it really is what makes us human in that, you know, if we were just animals and carbon and dust, then kindness makes no sense whatsoever, because it's, it's actually anti survival, like survival would be everything for me hoard it, keep it but we see that that approach leads to anxiety, depression, despair. So this is incredible proof right in front of us that we are supernatural. Yeah. And that kindness makes sense. And it's the way we're wired. And we've all been in situations, whether it's at school or at work, where there's an absence of kindness. And it's a horrible atmosphere. No human likes it, you know, it's a doggy dog, Lord of the Flies, is involved environment, and it's not a fun place to be, you know, this whole cultures that are built on a lack of kindness like the Nazi party or a way you just looking at images, you can feel the lack of kind and it's, you know, an absent probably the only place I have ever been in my life where I felt that complete void or a vacuum of all kindness or goodness, or godliness was in a wealthy part of bonda Archie where the buildings were big enough that they trapped a lot of people during the quake. So people who just didn't escape, the coming flood, the wave coming through, so the volume of dead was two It's hard to believe, you know, three people deep stacked on top of each other, you couldn't walk through a building, anywhere in that part of the city without popping the booth through a rib cage and getting human, you know, fluids in the clothing. And it was just kind of maniac a laughter in my head, which I felt was absolutely the complete, void or vacuum of kindness, or goodness or godliness. And it's a place I never want to go back to. If we can fight for justice for all people, for all colors, all nations, you know, that is the place that we want to be operating in with is an abundance of kindness and goodness and godliness. That's an exciting world to live in. It's a world where we see the colors and the adventure, as opposed to the world where it's all about material gain and stepping on the shoulders of those next year to mine, the ladder and
Tim Buxton
yeah, is the other person a means to my end in and I think, I think we're seeing more than ever a realization that there's overtly obvious ways we see that happening, but there's whole systems in our society that have built upon, you know, we think of slavery as just a something in the past, you know, where, you know, but it is our fashion industry, our industries in by and large, the way we create and produce and consume, has actually and political systems they are embedded in them is the systems of injustice of systems of oppression. That, I think, thankfully, it's been a difficult couple of years but with, with, with the different you know, awakenings in our own culture, our own past and our own history and our own, you know, the things that have just happened, you know, in the last couple years, there's been a rise of hang on these systems of oppression have to come down if we are to build is great, a better a better future.
Geoff Wilson
Those conversations are happening and but I know people are like, some days, I feel like this way, you're, you're so overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem, right? That you almost are immobilized and we did a journey where the root charity was an incredible charity called the she home in Cambodia. We were they were I think it was a Sahara journey, I had three girls photos on the stem of my guide baggie. And there were three girls that had been freed from human trafficking at a very young age eight or nine years old of age. And then rehabilitated through the she home taught skills that they meant that they could go and prosper. But they their logo or their tagline was for the one. So don't don't give up. Yeah, me alone. Many of the problem. Yeah, just affect the one. So yeah, if you can just be kind and gracious with one person in your day. Then you've made you don't have to fix the whole global slavery issue.
Tim Buxton
In one day, your daughter might one day as a lawyer, she might be the one that will be like a William Wilberforce or by but, but it starts by, you're right. It starts by what do I have in my hands? What can I do today?
Geoff Wilson
That's not overwhelming. No, all of us can be kind to one person during our day, and then, you know, it becomes a habit. Yeah, comes away that you live and
Tim Buxton
We can choose where we where we shop, or what clothes we buy. I mean, if that's just one small step that you'd like next time I buy myself a pair of jeans, I'm actually going to look up the 2020 ethical fashion guide that the Baptist world aide puts out, and I'm going to look at the companies and I'm going to be like, you know what, I'll do this and it, it might not change the whole system of it. Where you're voting with your feet, you're actually saying, you know what, there's a congruency at least in the powers that I have. Yeah, you that now that I know now that I'm aware and I've chosen to end You can't do that with absolutely every single thing you do but so the you know you can't like get lost in just you know feeling guilty about of all but
Geoff Wilson
If you have a daughter like Jade, she will remind me Yeah, Dad, you need to recycle your plastics and be careful where your Levi's are coming from. So you need these have a lot to pike here on occasion to especially in our generation. Yes, we we didn't think about it. Yeah, it will, oblivious to what was going on in sweatshops. To join or or Indonesia or Philippines and creating, you know, if we can create change through simple purchases. That's huge. Yeah, that's the first step. You know, we need people like you to who are flagpoles reminding us that we need to do more. Not only you for that in that you have dedicated your life to being a flagpole, and a rallying cry for more being done. And it's phenomenal. But it's a wonderful way to live.
Tim Buxton
Yeah. And we all need, we all bring our unique part piece to that puzzle, we are all got tools in our hand to make this world a more beautiful place a better place for us all the plumber can, not just with what he does, and he doesn't have to provide plumbing, we took a team of plumbers to the Philippines and build latrines. Now we've done that you can do that. But by the way you do your plumbing work, and treat your customers. And the way you treat your apprentice and how you do what you do is also just as important as what you do in creating a more beautiful world. And so we're not, we're not off the hook, none of us are off the hook. But we all have a part a beautiful contribution to play. So whether it's a podcast or adventure across the polar extremes, or whatever it is that you're passionate about being a lawyer, like your daughter, an artist, like Banksy, I don't know, he could, yeah, there's a financial, you know, that there's there's cryptocurrencies out there designed to empower African, the African continent, you know, to get into the financial system, so that have economic empowerment. I mean, whatever it is, that is part of justice making,
Geoff Wilson
It's just doing something, I mean, we can also get into this whole, it's very similar to the pressure that the material world put on us for years to provide to do to, to store up wealth, you know, we can get into this pressure that am I doing enough? It's a similar kind of pressure, but I think as long as you're doing something, yeah, I find it's weird. I, I, I, this pressure comes at night, you know, when I wake up, you've got that off, I think I do, it pays to in the morning. If I, if I don't kick my toe I can kind of hobble in, have a pee and then get back to bed and be asleep in seconds. But if I kick my toe, it's like all the lights and bindings coming on guy bump, bump, bump, bump, bump and your brains firing up. You're like, No, no, you're awake. And it's in those moments where I I judge myself and go, am I doing enough? for humanity? Am I making a difference? And, you know, to get back to sleep, I have to convince myself that what I'm doing is significant. Wow, you know, to get back to sleep, I have to review my day and go Okay, who who was I kind to? And who did I affect? and encourage and inspire today? So the days where I've been able to share with young people and get them to dream and vision again, I'd sleepeezee Sure. The days where, you know, it's all been about me and, and latte sipping. I difficult like I lie there awake. So this is internal pressure, which I have to manage, just like any other internal expectation to try and lead a life of significance. But I know that as you know, if you're on your deathbed, you're not going to review your material possessions in your mind now in review your family, your friends, your community, and did I make the world a better place with the years that I had? So I think you know, the discussion that you're talking you through justice matters is a hard discussion. Yeah, but it's a necessary one. And good things come through hard things.
