059 | KINTSUGI with Ian Westmoreland, Non-Profit Founder and Podcaster

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Last year, in 2022, a guy rang me, he said, Ian, I've got a name for your project.

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Oh, great, what is it?

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And he said, Kintsugi.

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I said, I've never heard of it, what does it mean?

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And he shared with me, it's a Japanese term, and the legend is there was a Japanese emperor who had some valuable pottery.

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Over time, it chipped, it cracked, it showed the signs of wear and tear.

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And he said to his craftsmen, fix it, make it look brand new.

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And they said, we can't do that.

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But what we can do, we can repair it but highlight the repairs we've done with a precious metal like gold. And now when you look at it, it's far more beautiful, it's far more valuable than what it was before. It's a metaphor for the lived experiences that we have, makes us more valuable, it makes us more resilient, it makes us more able to help the people around us. It helps us reframe the adversity that we've been through to actually see the hidden value in that.

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G'day from Australia.

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I'm Ian Westmoreland, the founder of Mentoring Men and Kintsugi Heroes, and I've been undone with Toby Brooks.

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Hey friend, I am glad you are here.

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This is your first episode.

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I hope you love it.

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I hope you stick around. I hope that you binge listen to these past 58 now 59 Episodes and get inspired by the high achievers who didn't let failure or setback stand in the way of their eventual victory And if you're regular, let me just say thank you Learn a lot about achievement and resilience and grit and this past nearly a year and I couldn't have done it without So honestly from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

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That said, welcome to yet another episode of Becoming Undone, the podcast for those who dare bravely, risk mightily, and grow relentlessly.

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I'm Toby Brooks, a certified athletic trainer, certified strength and conditioning specialist, and a professor of rehabilitation science at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.

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Over the past two decades, I've grown more and more fascinated with what sets high achievers apart and how our failures can frequently be the necessary steps on our path to success.

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Each week on Becoming Undone, I invite new guests to examine how high achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place.

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I'd like to emphasize that this show is entirely separate from my roles at Texas Tech, but it's my attempt to apply what I've learned and what I'm learning and to share with others about the mindsets of high achievers.

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In August 1993, Australian Ian Westmoreland was struck with inspiration.

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On the very day he turned exactly 59 and a half, he was reading a book that talked about what might happen if we had a purpose but didn't yield to it, and the text actually mentioned by 59 and a half years old.

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And in that moment, he knew his life as he knew it, as an IT specialist, was about to change.

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But I'm spoiling all the best parts.

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I hope you'll enjoy this raw, honest, and open conversation with my new friend, two, and perhaps even three-time non-profit charity founder, Ian Westmoreland, in episode 59, Kintsugi.

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This week, our first international guest, family, we've got Ian Westmoreland joining us from Australia.

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Ian, welcome.

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G'day, Toby. Great to be here.

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I'm not sure about the title of High Achiever, but we'll see.

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Maybe a trying Achiever.

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There we go. I am at the end of a long day's work, and you're getting ready to start your day halfway around the globe, but that's the beauty of the Internet and the beauty of this whole medium we call podcasting.

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So I'm really excited to dig into your story and learn a little bit more about your Kintsugi, golden joinery mission. We always start at the beginning. So tell me your story wherever you want to start it. Okay. I'm 69, so it's a long story, but I'll go back as a child growing up and not much self-esteem and self-confidence. In fact, at high school I set a goal for myself if I could just be average, it would be fantastic. I just wanted to be average. I dropped out of high school unqualified and fell into the first job I could get for security. I always looked at trying to make money through other means and did a number of different things.

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So I always had a full-time job but then I was pretty good at sport.

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I started importing squash rackets and tennis rackets and doing other different things to make money.

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I got married.

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We have four kids and our 12th grandchild arrived 12 months ago and I've been married for 40 years.

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So early on in the marriage, we moved straight into what we call in Australia a milk bar or you might call it a general store. So I would open the store in the morning, head off to my full-time job. My wife would run it during the day. I would come home, leave the store open and then do that Saturdays and Sundays. I was working seven days a week as well as all these other activities.

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And we had our first two kids in the milk bar, not literally in the milk bar.

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But gradually I worked my way into better paid positions.

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The job that I just saw as being temporary, I saw that I actually identified some of the schools that I had and moved up to progressively up the ranks, particularly in the IT area, and I became a fairly senior IT manager in the utility space, worked in Melbourne, moved in Melbourne, Australia, moved over to New Zealand for a couple of years, then came to Sydney, Australia.

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We went from struggling to have enough money to put food on the table to actually being comfortable, not wealthy but comfortable.

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And then in 2013, I started to increasingly think there's more to life than just making money and delivering software changes.

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And on the 10th of September 2013, I got on the train to come to work and I continued to read a book that my youngest daughter had given me.

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And what I read that morning transformed the thinking for the next stage of my life.

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And in May 2014, I quit my high paid job as an IT manager.

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My wife almost tears up when I say I did this.

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And I've been a full-time volunteer for the last nine years.

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And along that journey, there's been a number of things that have happened that have guided, redirected me and shaped where I was heading.

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And one of the first things was I felt led to start mentoring young kids in high schools.

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I did the training course four and I loved it, incredibly fulfilling and I was mentoring at multiple Sydney high schools and then I found out about another mentoring program for primary school kids so I signed up for that as well and then I found out about another mentoring program that supported families so I signed up for that as well and that was great I was doing all this mentoring I was also looking after grandkids and life was fulfilling and then in 2018 I was mentoring a young guy in one of the Sydney high schools and in our talkets, I mostly listen to the Mentee mainly talks, he shared that his father had suicided. His mum was an addict who was in and out of rehab and he was living with his grandparents which he said he hated and then he just turned around and looked me in the eyes and he started crying and he said Ian help me.

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What can you do?

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You're in a school environment.

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Anyway, I debriefed as part of that program, they have a program counsellor and I debriefed with the program counsellor to let her know what the situation is.

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So everything is confidential other than what you share with the counsellor.

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And I looked for advice and she said, Ena, are you okay? And I just started crying myself over this situation. And for a couple of months, I was just flat. I couldn't work out why.

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I didn't tie the two together. I'm not that sharp on the update. And then one Saturday morning it occurred to me, I want to have a mentor just like all these kids I've been mentoring.

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And I should clarify, for most people mentoring means to me it means business mentoring. It's someone with acquired skills and knowledge and experience who guides, directs, advises someone else. But that's not what I'm talking about. I call it life mentoring and it's predominantly listening, it's supporting, it's encouraging.

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The people we're mentoring aren't broken, they don't need fixing, they just need to be validated.

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They need to be, in a softer way, they just need to be shown that they're loved.

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So I looked around then for the nearest organisation that provided life mentoring to men and was surprised and incredibly disappointed to find there was nothing suitable.

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As a demographic, men struggle more than most other demographics.

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You know, the timing of these interviews and the way they seem to come around when I need them most is just amazing to me.

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This week in my behavioral health class, my students and I discussed a number of factors that serve as barriers to treatment for mental and behavioral health issues.

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The stigma associated with mental health care, for men especially, may not be what it once was but it is still alive and well.

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As of this day, the number one song on iTunes is To Be a Man by Canadian singer-rapper Dax featuring Darius Rucker, formerly of Hootie and the Blowfish fame.

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If you haven't heard it, do yourself a favor and give it a listen right now.

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I'll wait for you.

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Just be sure you come back.

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Told you, it's powerful, right?

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This also happens to line right up with what I'm learning in one of the classes that I'm taking.

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Satisfaction with career is different from mood, and mood are relatively hard to change, but emotions can wax and wane throughout our day and even moment by moment.

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But as Ian points out, men are frequently taught either explicitly or implicitly to keep our feelings to ourselves, that only the weak show emotions, and only the incompetent ask for help.

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He recognized this need in his community, and he went to work creating a resource to connect men and career mentors.

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And the response was incredible.

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We struggle around our shame, our confusion around masculinity, around a whole bunch of stuff and how could there not be an organization that supported men?

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So it motivated me, I wrote a proposal to establish what was going to become Mentoring Men.

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And as I mentioned, there was a lot of steps along the way.

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And I won't go into detail of all of these, but one of them, within two or three weeks of me writing that proposal, I got an invitation from our local federal MP, government minister, to come along to a community meeting where he was partnering with an organisation called Lifeline.

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Lifeline in Australia are a crisis support service.

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People who have suicide ideation, for example, would ring the Lifeline number and they'd get through to someone.

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I'd been running a men's breakfast at my place on a regular basis.

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We'd just have a bunch of guys.

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Seventy people would turn up at my house for breakfast and I'd have a couple of speakers.

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Anyway, I got an invitation to the title of the President of the Men's Breakfast to go along to this event.

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And the event was all about Lifeline had produced a suicide prevention program and the federal MP got up to share the story of his father's suicide over 20 years previous.

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And what he wanted to do was promote every organisation with easy electorate have a representative from that organisation do this suicide prevention course as a way of reducing suicide. But the impact of his story on me and I don't know why I actually took a manila folder with my proposal for mentoring men I don't know why I did that but as soon as he finished speaking I quickly walked up to him, he saw me coming, and I said, his name is Julian Leeser, amazing guy.

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I said, Julian, where was the support that could have helped prevent your father from getting to the point of suicide?

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And he got it straight away, he said, Ian, come and talk to me.

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And I met him in his office, he provided a lot of constructive comment, he agreed to sign on as an ambassador, and that was it.

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I was gonna do everything within my power to make this happen.

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And you'll pick up, I'm incredibly determined, maybe unskilled, maybe unqualified, but once I started gonna do something, I'd do everything.

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And that was it.

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So it started.

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And after a slow start, we put our own money in to seed the program.

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It's boomed.

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It's now Australia-wide, thousands of men have engaged.

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It's a free program where we train up volunteer men like me through our own mentor training course which focuses on listening.

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We have to detrain men from trying to fix every situation they become aware of to actually just listen and we train on that.

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We also train them on suicide prevention and then we carefully match them to a man, or we call him a bloke in Australia, who may be going through life challenges like job loss, relationship breakdown, loneliness, isolation, whatever.

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I think back to me as a high school kid, I would love to have had a mentor that would have made such a difference and would have helped avoid a whole bunch of uncertainty and low self-esteem that I had.

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Yeah, I think that's a great place for me to jump back in because it's such a phenomenal story and certainly a much needed program. We've certainly seen this in light of post-COVID and the financial fallout and the job losses and there's just so many things that have worked against everyone, but men in particular.

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I know as the head of my household, I carry the provision for my family near and dear to my heart.

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My identity is tied to my job, and if I were to lose, that would really undermine my self-perception.

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And I certainly understand that angle of it, but I really want to get to the genesis of this, because as I went and did a little bit of research before the show on you and on this ministry, this service, this nonprofit, it really speaks to needs within yourself.

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And you mentioned yourself in high school.

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So what would you say your identity was back then, Ian, as the young, full of hopes and dreams, up-and-comer?

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What would you have linked your identity to then?

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I wasn't sure who I really was.

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I, maybe if I share a bit of a story, my father would take me and my two brothers and some of my father's mates and their sons and we would go camping in Gippsland, it's an area in Victoria in Australia.

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And it was all about guns.

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It was shoot animals and I remember one of my dad's mates, he had a.303, a very powerful rifle and he would lie on his back and he would try and shoot these wedge-tailed eagles out of the sky.

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And there was always a justification for it, but I hated it.

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I know guns are a big thing in America, but I hated guns.

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The group of them would go out spotlighting of a night time spotlight, and you go into the car, you've got these powerful lights and all that.

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But as a 10-year-old, I didn't want to go, so I stayed back at the tent on my own, questioning my manhood.

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So there's things like that you start to question.

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Now I'm totally comfortable with who I am.

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I've grown to actually almost like, I've grown to respect who I am as a person.

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But back then, it's interesting, I was really good at sport.

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In fact, I'm going to brag here for a second, but to make a point.

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So I won a gold medal in the World Masters Tennis when I played in Sydney a while ago.

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But I compensated my lack of confidence by wanting to beat people all the time.

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People would like me if I was able to win.

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And I played the highest grade squash.

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And it was like people then took an interest in me, but it was a facade.

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I took an interest in me because I was good at tennis, not because I was a great bloke.

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And I saw that as a means of doing that.

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So I really didn't know who I was.

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And it's only been as this journey, particularly the last nine years, I've learned more about life, about me over the last nine years than any other stage of my life?

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It's a great question.

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I'd never thought of that before, but yeah, I'd lacked identity.

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I wanted to be someone else.

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I guess I want to be them, because then I'll be- In reading your bio, it jumped out to me, August, 1993.

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That was the month after I graduated from high school.

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And so that had significance for me, but this idea got planted then that you had a purpose bigger than what you were doing.

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But it took a lot of years and some wearing down before you were willing to succumb to that urge, that pull toward.

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Lots of times in this show, we talk about how big changes sometimes are pushes away and other times they're pulls toward.

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So you're in a career, you've got a job, you're providing, that's holding you tight, and maybe keeping you from a bigger purpose.

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What was it in that moment that made you realize that this was an idea you needed to help birth, but you weren't quite ready to surrender to it, I guess you could say?

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Yeah.

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I guess, first off, most of my working life, there was a focus on making money.

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I talk about the 10th of September 2013. That was a key date that led me to leave all that and start the Mentoring Men. It's amazing when you're passionate and you start to progress down, to me it's clearly a worthwhile cause. Most people know men who are struggling. So many people got on board with Mentoring Men, particularly as volunteers, and then later on we got funding.

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It went from me putting in seed money, my wife and I putting in seed money, to there's over a million dollars in revenue and it's rapidly growing.

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And I stepped aside from all the operational stuff.

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And that freed up some time and I thought back to what you just raised then Toby about this idea in the 1990s.

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I mentioned the low self-esteem.

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One of the things that gave me a lift was reading books, biographies, autobiographies, the Nelson Mandela type stories.

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And look at the adversity they had.

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If they had that, and I thought how good would it be to get people to share overcoming adversity stories to help the eons of the world.

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And I didn't have the confidence, I didn't have the time or the money, but in August 1993 I sent a letter to three community leaders in Australia to let them know about this idea and hoping they would do something.

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One of them, a famous entrepreneur in Australia called Dick Smith, took the time to send me back a handwritten note and it said, Ian, this is a great idea.

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And then he added, you do it.

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So I kept the load.

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I kept it.

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And when I stepped aside from all the operational side of mentoring men, I thought, same thing again.

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I'm going to do this.

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I'm actually going to, I'll do my best.

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By now I've got a network.

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I've got people who I guess have seen my passion, they've seen what I do.

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And many of them came on board.

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And last year in 2022, a guy rang me, he said, Ian, I've got a name for your project.

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I said, oh, great, what is it?

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And he said, Kintsugi.

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I said, I've never heard of it.

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What does it mean?

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And he shared with me, it's a Japanese term and the legend is there was a Japanese Emperor who had some valuable pottery not like my $2 coffee cup but over time it chipped it cracked it showed the signs of wear and tear and he said to his craftsman fix it make it look brand new and they said we can't do that but what we can do we can repair it but highlight the repairs we've done with a precious metal like gold.

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And now when you look at it, it's far more beautiful.

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It's far more valuable than what it was before.

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Now, to connect back with what I said earlier and to shed a little more light on how this idea is impacting me even right now, I'll say this.

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I'm 100% Generation X.

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My dad was a heavy equipment mechanic in a coal mine, a man's man, and I grew up on a farm.

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In my era, men didn't talk about their feelings, and they sure as heck didn't cry.

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And when we failed, we didn't admit to it. We just tried to move on.

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We wanted to protect that carefully crafted image.

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And if we had to, we'd brush a little touch-up paint on that fragile mask that we used to tell the world that we were strong, self-sufficient and confident.

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But then not too long ago it became popular for people not just men but people to stop doing that. As Ian will allude to later on in this interview, author Brené Brown made it cool to be vulnerable.

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So I tried. I let my guard down a little bit.

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I wrote some raw and honest truths as I saw them in a book project and I shared it a little bit on social media.

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I shared about my struggles in my teaching too, especially in my behavioral health class in the hopes that I might inspire or empower a stigmatized student to do the same and to be okay with not being okay.

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At the height of the lockdown, I let my guard down and I actually scheduled a therapy appointment with a counselor.

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Even right now, at this very moment, as I'm recording this, I'm reluctant to say these things.

00:22:52.039 --> 00:23:00.200
My course evaluations that semester had more than one comment about how students thought I was oversharing and that I should stick to the book material.

00:23:00.200 --> 00:23:07.640
The chat-based telemedicine counseling sessions, all two of them before I quit, were absolutely awful.

00:23:07.640 --> 00:23:14.960
My soul felt like a dirty aquarium that had all the junk at the bottom that had settled, but now had all been stirred up.

00:23:14.960 --> 00:23:44.000
This was what mental health was. I was content to remain diseased It didn't hurt as much. I Thought a lot about that season of my life in the months and in years that have passed since I've experimented with trying to be more open and honest in class but I can tell I still haven't struck that balance between hard content and Sharing my story in a meaningful and helpful way. I fear that I've made my students uncomfortable, and I haven't had a therapy session since.

00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:55.000
But Ian's metaphor of the broken parts not only being fixable, but tangible signs of beauty and healing is powerful.

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.000
I don't feel more valuable most days in the way Ian describes.

00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:02.000
Truth be told, I just feel broken.

00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:09.920
broken, but maybe I need to do more work so I can become a Kintsugi hero myself, because it's sure working for Ian and his community.

00:24:09.920 --> 00:24:26.559
So it's a metaphor, Toby you're nodding, you've got it, it's a metaphor for the Tobys and the Ians and the lived experiences that we have, that it makes us more valuable, it makes us more resilient, it makes us more able to help the people around us.

00:24:26.559 --> 00:24:32.319
The objective of Kintsugi Heroes is to provide hope and inspiration to people experiencing challenges.

00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:42.200
I've now added to that, it helps us reframe diversity that we've been through to actually see the hidden value in that.

00:24:42.200 --> 00:24:43.200
It's amazing.

00:24:43.200 --> 00:24:46.559
There's people, I'm so glad I went through that hell.

00:24:46.559 --> 00:25:21.079
I read a story of a woman who was in the Twin Towers on 9-11. She was an up-and-coming corporate high-flyer and the story was appalling, death and destruction, but it changed the direction of her life and she says, I'm so glad I went through that experience. That is mind-boggling to me. I'm going through cancer recovery at the moment and I'm going to capture stories around this. I see the value that I can help with other people.

00:25:21.079 --> 00:25:25.920
The mental attitude going through a lot of serious diseases is really important.

00:25:25.920 --> 00:25:31.279
If we can help lift someone's attitude to this, a more positive attitude, fantastic.

00:25:31.279 --> 00:25:32.279
Absolutely.

00:25:32.279 --> 00:25:35.960
Yeah, as you're talking, a couple of things pop into my mind.

00:25:35.960 --> 00:25:41.160
I'm thinking here in the States, we have the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, which has a huge crack in it.

00:25:41.160 --> 00:25:43.319
It's the only bell I know about.

00:25:43.319 --> 00:25:46.160
And I know about it because it failed.

00:25:46.160 --> 00:25:47.400
Or the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

00:25:47.400 --> 00:25:56.279
I don't know how many other towers there are in the world, but in Italy, you can go see a tower whose engineers didn't compact the soil properly.

00:25:56.279 --> 00:25:59.099
And as a result, the tower is leaning.

00:25:59.099 --> 00:26:05.680
So many times that adversity, that failure, in the moment it hurts, it breaks us, whether physically, mentally, whatever.

00:26:05.680 --> 00:26:33.200
But I love the visual of making it more beautiful because it's been broken, not in spite of its brokenness, but because of its brokenness. And that is just a beautiful metaphor for, that's what this show is all about, becoming undone in the midst of, of whether it's chronic disease or failure at work or family problems, whatever, I can feel like I'm coming apart.

00:26:33.200 --> 00:26:39.319
But then in retrospect, hopefully it's doing something within me that leads me to a bigger purpose.

00:26:39.319 --> 00:26:50.099
And so I'm really impressed and I appreciate the fact that it might've taken some time for you to surrender to this inkling, but you eventually did.

00:26:50.099 --> 00:26:51.259
So let's go back to that.

00:26:51.259 --> 00:26:56.019
So you're in a career, you're making good money and you're providing for your family.

00:26:56.019 --> 00:27:02.859
What you mentioned the book, but I got to think that there's more to the story than just you read a book.

00:27:02.859 --> 00:27:07.180
What eventually led to you surrendering to this idea?

00:27:07.180 --> 00:27:15.960
What made you realize that you weren't going to spend another day without pursuing this bigger purpose.

00:27:15.960 --> 00:27:18.599
I guess it was the power of what I read that day.

00:27:18.599 --> 00:27:21.240
I get asked a lot, what did you read, Ian?

00:27:21.240 --> 00:27:27.880
I want to preface this by saying everything to do with mentoring men and Kintsugi heroes is secular.

00:27:27.880 --> 00:27:36.519
I don't care what background or beliefs or cultures or gender diversity, disabilities, none of those things matter to me.

00:27:36.519 --> 00:27:43.079
For me, I'm Christian and the book I read that day, got it here, is Sun Stand Still.

00:27:43.079 --> 00:27:45.200
It's a book by American pastor Steve Furtick.

00:27:45.200 --> 00:27:48.799
To be honest, I've only read the book once.

00:27:48.799 --> 00:27:53.960
And on the 10th of September, I've been querying, I guess, my purpose in life.

00:27:53.960 --> 00:27:57.920
What I read that day, these are the words that I read.

00:27:57.920 --> 00:28:01.960
Basically questioned the meaning of life for us.

00:28:01.960 --> 00:28:04.119
So I'm ticking these things off.

00:28:04.119 --> 00:28:08.079
We feel like we're doing our part as long as we live a decent life.

00:28:08.079 --> 00:28:10.160
I just gave myself a tick there.

00:28:10.160 --> 00:28:12.359
I got into a bit of trouble as a kid.

00:28:12.359 --> 00:28:14.160
Stay out of trouble, tick.

00:28:14.160 --> 00:28:16.079
Pay taxes, tick.

00:28:16.079 --> 00:28:17.079
Have babies, tick.

00:28:17.079 --> 00:28:18.079
Make a living, tick.

00:28:18.079 --> 00:28:20.880
Buy a boat, I even had a boat, tick.

00:28:20.880 --> 00:28:27.480
And then he said, hit age 59 and a half, collect retirement, die.

00:28:27.480 --> 00:28:30.200
Now, the words all resonated, and then I thought about that.

00:28:30.200 --> 00:28:34.599
I was born on the 10th of March, 1954.

00:28:34.599 --> 00:28:39.279
I was 59 and 1⁄2 to the day that I read it.

00:28:39.279 --> 00:28:42.240
Why would an author say he'd age 59 and 1⁄2?

00:28:42.240 --> 00:28:44.799
In Australia, it'd be 60, 65, whatever.

00:28:44.799 --> 00:28:46.559
It keeps going up.

00:28:46.559 --> 00:29:19.019
And that was the first of a series of things that got me thinking. And then that was, again and again, these other things came along the path that gave me confidence that this is what I'm meant to do. Now reflecting back to the nine years, there's absolutely no doubt I could share a lot of stories, but the lives that have been impacted, the magnet of ever accumulating financial wealth.

00:29:19.019 --> 00:29:22.039
In fact, I talk a lot over the last 12 months.

00:29:22.039 --> 00:29:25.319
I've had this focus on what I call the best life.

00:29:25.319 --> 00:29:29.880
I had this experience in the Greek islands 12 months ago.

00:29:29.880 --> 00:29:36.019
Happy to share that but again, it's another reinforcement and it helps explain why I do what I do.

00:29:36.019 --> 00:29:37.019
That's fantastic.

00:29:37.019 --> 00:29:53.200
I think the biggest fear, the problem, if we're really honest about it, if most people really got blatantly transparent with themselves, we're all in some state of resignation.

00:29:53.200 --> 00:29:58.740
We haven't achieved all of the goals we might have had as a kid, that identity that we attached ourselves to.

00:29:58.740 --> 00:30:05.539
Life has a way of making us resign to a safer place.

00:30:05.539 --> 00:30:16.039
But once you face that fear, there's the reality of, okay, I'm going to chase this big goal, but I still have a mortgage, I still got a family to support.

00:30:16.039 --> 00:30:22.740
That gap between where I'm at and where I want to be is a terrifying gap.

00:30:22.740 --> 00:30:29.220
What would you tell somebody who is faced with a similar?

00:30:29.220 --> 00:30:39.859
I don't know. I love the film The Matrix, and Morpheus talks about it like a splinter in your mind, like this itch that I have to scratch, that I'm here for more than to just pay taxes and die.

00:30:39.859 --> 00:30:46.240
But I'm scared to death that my family is going to go without food or I'm going to lose my home to the bank.

00:30:46.240 --> 00:30:55.440
What do you tell someone who's faced with that reality?

00:30:55.440 --> 00:31:19.519
I guess I've got a couple of thoughts. What I've seen as I've went down particularly the Mentoring Men journey, a lot of people came up and told me their dreams. One guy had a dream to support new dads. In Australia, there's a lot of support for new mums, not much support for dads. A woman goes through a lot of changes physically and all that help prepare for childbirth.

00:31:19.519 --> 00:31:22.640
Men don't go through anything and it impacts.

00:31:22.640 --> 00:31:24.279
But he'd done nothing.

00:31:24.279 --> 00:31:27.720
Another guy shared with me, I want to reduce suicide in this area of Sydney.

00:31:27.720 --> 00:31:30.640
But he'd been thinking about this for years, hadn't done anything.

00:31:30.640 --> 00:31:34.680
Another guy is from an Indian culture and he went through some challenges.

00:31:34.680 --> 00:31:37.200
He said, I want to support new migrants coming to Australia.

00:31:37.200 --> 00:31:41.119
And he'd registered a name but hadn't done anything.

00:31:41.119 --> 00:31:47.039
And interestingly mentoring men provided a vehicle for all those men to be able to progress their dreams.

00:31:47.039 --> 00:31:53.720
So the perception I've got is the vast majority of us struggle to take that move.

00:31:53.720 --> 00:31:57.119
It could be analysis paralysis, it could be the fear or whatever.

00:31:57.119 --> 00:32:03.920
There's a small percentage who the opposite extreme would just rush out without thinking about what they're doing.

00:32:03.920 --> 00:32:07.079
And I like to think I'm in the middle.

00:32:07.079 --> 00:32:10.079
I like ready, fire, aim.

00:32:10.079 --> 00:32:14.799
And I'd suggest to people do things like a business plan or whatever within that.

00:32:14.799 --> 00:32:23.559
But the vast majority, it's interesting, you look at what old people say, young people have dreams, old people have regrets.

00:32:23.559 --> 00:32:31.720
It's being prudent, but to maybe work out where you're at and maybe then come through this analysis paralysis and stuff like that.

00:32:31.720 --> 00:32:32.720
And there could be options.

00:32:32.720 --> 00:32:36.759
As I said, I was able to do both things.

00:32:36.759 --> 00:32:39.319
I was able to start, had a full-time job and do other stuff.

00:32:39.319 --> 00:32:46.720
Toby, if I can, I'd like to share this story that impacted me 12 months ago, because I think it's relevant to this as well.

00:32:46.720 --> 00:32:56.200
So my wife and I are keen bike riders, and we joined this cruise which went around the Greek islands on a pirate ship and we go from Greek island to Greek island.

00:32:56.200 --> 00:33:00.519
There was a number of other bike riders on there, a number from America.

00:33:00.519 --> 00:33:05.720
And we get to an island, they unload all the bikes and this tour guide would take us up.

00:33:05.720 --> 00:33:12.000
And at one point we rode up this hill, I think it was a mountain, many people had e-bikes, I didn't.

00:33:12.000 --> 00:34:02.519
There's that competitive edge coming out again. I'm sorry. Anyway, we ride up and he stops us on this hill and we look out and he said, he starts talking about the island in the distance. He said that island is owned by Anassis and he started telling the Aristotle Anassis story. Now, and he was telling the story in terms of Anassis being successful, hugely successful group. And the story told was that Anasis was born into poverty and then initially made his money on the black market selling tobacco and then he invented packaged cigarettes. Made an absolute fortune and then got into shipping and made even more money and most Americans then know that he married JFK's widow Jackie and but had a string of affairs at the same time.

00:34:02.519 --> 00:34:09.179
And the tour guide finished saying, and that was quoted to have said, people say money can buy love.

00:34:09.179 --> 00:34:10.860
I want to tell you it's not true.

00:34:10.860 --> 00:34:12.179
I'm the richest man in the world.

00:34:12.179 --> 00:34:14.780
I've never found true love.

00:34:14.780 --> 00:34:15.780
And I couldn't help myself.

00:34:15.780 --> 00:34:16.780
I put up my hand.

00:34:16.780 --> 00:34:18.260
I embarrassed my wife a lot.

00:34:18.260 --> 00:34:20.940
I said, I want to clear your definition of success.

00:34:20.940 --> 00:34:27.880
So you're talking about a guy who's invented a product that's killed millions of people and caused untold damage to millions more.

00:34:27.880 --> 00:34:29.159
And they never found true love.

00:34:29.159 --> 00:34:36.880
I would argue that some person who is poor but has loving relationships is far more successful.

00:34:36.880 --> 00:34:39.079
A few of the two people nodded.

00:34:39.079 --> 00:34:46.280
I came back to Australia, I woke up jet lagged and I kept thinking about this success.

00:34:46.280 --> 00:35:04.440
I came up with a, I think in pictures, I came up with this single page PowerPoint slide and on the right hand side I've got my best life and I've defined it as where I use my skills and experience to positively impact the world around me.

00:35:04.440 --> 00:35:07.000
It's where I get genuine contentment and fulfilment.

00:35:07.000 --> 00:35:10.079
That's my definition, maybe that resonates with the listeners.

00:35:10.079 --> 00:35:21.800
Over on the left hand side I've got being born and then this meandering line that goes from here towards the best life but then loses track.

00:35:21.800 --> 00:35:30.280
There's a word map above it and the word map talks about the things that impact us in life.

00:35:30.280 --> 00:35:31.280
Relationships break down.

00:35:31.280 --> 00:35:32.440
We get sick.

00:35:32.440 --> 00:35:33.880
We get abused.

00:35:33.880 --> 00:35:35.239
We go through mental illness.

00:35:35.239 --> 00:35:36.840
We lose our job.

00:35:36.840 --> 00:36:03.679
All these sorts of things and to be honest we get sucked into this materialistic wealth accumulation thing to the bigger house, the bigger boat, the bigger car and I say to people, I do presentations of this, I put this together just for my benefit but please for 10 seconds take a step back from where you are at the moment and think of it what would your best life look like?

00:36:03.679 --> 00:36:06.159
And this comes back to your question Toby, what is your best life?

00:36:06.159 --> 00:36:17.199
You're moving towards it and I put that Mark Twain quote, I love Mark Twain quotes down the bottom, the two most important days in your life are the day you're born and then the day you work out why.

00:36:17.199 --> 00:36:53.139
And that's if I can get that message and so I don't know if I answered your question Toby for the people who are thinking about that I'm not saying chuck your job in and go and live in a commune. No I think that's very practical advice I read a quote earlier this week that talked about the untold damage that following our heart has wrought on families and on society and the heart is fickle and it changes its mind fairly easily, whereas a purpose is deeper seated.

00:36:53.139 --> 00:37:02.139
And if I know that I've been placed on this earth with an assignment, Speaker Les Brown talks about the ghosts around our bed.

00:37:02.139 --> 00:37:18.739
And he talks about how when we're on our deathbed and we have these assignments, whether it's that book we were supposed to write or whether it was that ministry we were supposed to start or whether it was that whatever, that assignment that was given to us and only us, but we didn't do anything with it.

00:37:18.739 --> 00:37:24.460
Like you were talking about these men who had goals and they hadn't taken a first step toward them.

00:37:24.460 --> 00:37:41.519
Man, I can't think of anything sadder than to know that there was a purpose imbued within me that I ignored or I neglected, or I chose to keep myself busy with things that weren't that purpose.

00:37:41.519 --> 00:37:46.639
One of my good friends, Neil Kennedy says, if it doesn't fuel your purpose, it's a distraction.

00:37:46.639 --> 00:37:47.920
It's as simple as that.

00:37:47.920 --> 00:37:54.739
Toby, can I just share, this has been an amazing journey, but clearly there's been challenges.

00:37:54.739 --> 00:38:05.960
And just on that, one of my daughters, one of my vocal daughters, she said to me, once, dad, you care more about these men than you care about your own family.

00:38:05.960 --> 00:38:09.280
That's a kick in the guts.

00:38:09.280 --> 00:38:10.280
That's hard.

00:38:10.280 --> 00:38:19.239
But coming back to what you said, she's not seeing things that I'm seeing and I've got the big, the purposes you talked about there.

00:38:19.239 --> 00:38:24.400
Now I've got a great relationship and in fact her husband then came on the board of Mentoring Men.

00:38:24.400 --> 00:38:30.000
So it's, but it's, it's tough stuff along the way but you've always got to have an answer.

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:37.719
These people that you were talking about before, you've got to be able to answer why, when things get harder, when things get tough.

00:38:37.719 --> 00:38:40.960
And if you haven't got a good why, then you're in trouble.

00:38:40.960 --> 00:38:48.119
But I, yeah, so I just, I didn't want to give the impression this has just been a breeze, because it hasn't been a breeze.

00:38:48.119 --> 00:38:49.119
Sure.

00:38:49.119 --> 00:38:58.039
Right. Now, I think anytime we are facing down our purpose, there are going to be days that certainly make us question that and we have to really answer for ourselves, is this really what I'm after?

00:38:58.039 --> 00:39:25.800
So, let's talk a little bit about more recently. I've focused and drilled down pretty deep on the genesis of this and you've shared some stories along the way, but at this stage of these, actually, help correct me, I keep wanting to call them ministries, but you say they're secular, you refer to these just as non-profits.

00:39:25.800 --> 00:39:39.000
They're both non-profits or charities, but I feel my purpose is just to give back to the community, to help with connection through story.

00:39:39.000 --> 00:39:43.000
There's a similarity between both not-for-profits in terms of what their mission is.

00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:45.000
So I guess my question is better asked.

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:52.000
When you were standing on the edge of the possibility of launching these charities, what did success look like in your eyes?

00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:59.119
I'd seen the power of mentoring.

00:39:59.119 --> 00:40:02.920
I'd seen the impact it had.

00:40:02.920 --> 00:40:08.599
And I knew what it would have meant to me to have that in my life.

00:40:08.599 --> 00:40:15.920
So to me the success was that through mentoring men there's going to be a whole bunch of guys and the community around them.

00:40:15.920 --> 00:40:28.400
Because you help men become better men, then everyone's a winner.

00:40:28.400 --> 00:40:29.559
Everyone's a winner.

00:40:29.559 --> 00:40:41.039
So that was what I saw, that there was a gap, there was a hole in the mentoring landscape and this was going to fill that hole and that these men were going to be in a better position.

00:40:41.039 --> 00:40:47.320
I had some big dreams about how initially how big it was going to get and it was a struggle at the start.

00:40:47.320 --> 00:40:51.960
One of the biggest struggles, I had no issues, men wanting to sign up to become mentors.

00:40:51.960 --> 00:40:53.300
No problems at all.

00:40:53.300 --> 00:40:54.639
It gives them fulfilment.

00:40:54.639 --> 00:41:02.079
But getting blokes to sign up to be mentored, because there's the shame.

00:41:02.079 --> 00:41:10.840
They break a bone, I'll go to the doctor, but I'm feeling sad or lonely or depressed or anxious, I'm not going to tell anyone that.

00:41:10.840 --> 00:41:16.519
But once through a number of different means, that started happening.

00:41:16.519 --> 00:41:21.320
And I guess it then grew, it's grown much bigger.

00:41:21.320 --> 00:41:22.800
It got its own momentum.

00:41:22.800 --> 00:41:25.440
Men were recommending other men.

00:41:25.440 --> 00:41:28.239
Organisations then started wanting to get involved.

00:41:28.239 --> 00:41:30.139
We run a mentor training course.

00:41:30.139 --> 00:41:34.219
We ran one of them in Arabic to Iraqi refugees.

00:41:34.219 --> 00:41:41.440
And it's just, there's so many different areas out there, we've got an incredibly strong Australian Indigenous community.

00:41:41.440 --> 00:41:45.599
Because, you know, there's a whole lot of social justice issues still haven't been addressed there.

00:41:45.599 --> 00:42:03.699
Yeah, so standing at the start, I guess, I wasn't sure where it was going to go, but it's gone where I want to go. But I still had to have an open mind to, as things were learned and that to redirect where required.

00:42:03.699 --> 00:42:07.840
Kintsugi Heroes, again, it's been a struggle.

00:42:07.840 --> 00:42:09.719
It would put a lot more money into this.

00:42:09.719 --> 00:42:10.719
I don't care about it.

00:42:10.719 --> 00:42:11.719
My wife cares.

00:42:11.719 --> 00:42:12.719
I don't care about the money.

00:42:12.719 --> 00:42:14.920
But I thought, because I don't have the skills.

00:42:14.920 --> 00:42:19.480
I'm paying someone to do the editing and the hosting and do the books.

00:42:19.480 --> 00:42:21.079
And there's a lot of content in this space.

00:42:21.079 --> 00:42:23.960
There's a lot of people doing this stuff.

00:42:23.960 --> 00:42:45.199
But I would love to, my dream with this, because I have seen the power of storytelling, we have talked about it, but how good would it be if in every community centre or library or all around the world, once a week in a facilitated environment, a group of people get together and share stories.

00:42:45.199 --> 00:42:47.760
Someone shares their story while other people listen.

00:42:47.760 --> 00:43:18.760
We go back to the, as it was in the village or our ancestors or in the indigenous communities around Yarny but we're becoming more and more isolated. We have cases people have been dead literally dead in a house and then no one's reported for six months or 12 months but the environment I grew up with we get out eggs from Mrs. down the road and we never had a phone, but three houses down, Mrs. Ryan would take phone calls and come up and tell us there's a phone.

00:43:18.760 --> 00:43:22.000
Let's get closer back to that community, back to that connection.

00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:24.599
And I'm hoping Kitsiki Heroes will be a vehicle to do that.

00:43:24.599 --> 00:43:27.440
Yeah, and I certainly see a connection between the two.

00:43:27.440 --> 00:43:40.599
I know they're two separate charities, but the stigma surrounding mental health in men and being vulnerable, being willing to share non-physical ailments, whether that's depression, anxiety.

00:43:40.599 --> 00:43:42.800
I've struggled with that myself.

00:43:42.800 --> 00:43:43.960
Been massively resentful.

00:43:43.960 --> 00:43:47.400
My wife is a counselor and she's tried to convince me to go to counseling.

00:43:47.400 --> 00:43:56.000
And whether communicated explicitly or not, real men don't cry, real men don't need mentors, real men don't need therapists.

00:43:56.000 --> 00:43:58.780
And now I have a show about this.

00:43:58.780 --> 00:44:21.719
If I can't walk the walk that I'm talking, I know that there are other people out there who are unwilling to submit to that kind of vulnerability. And so recognizing that about men and then also seeing the beauty of how brokenness can actually make us more complete, not less. It's just so powerful.

00:44:21.719 --> 00:44:28.000
And I thank you for the work you're doing. And it's not just necessary where you are, I will tell you that.

00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:57.119
I think this lie around what a man is, and this macho, Indiana Jones, James Bond, Clint Eastwood sort of thing, and there may be some people that that is what they want to be, that's okay, but I get asked a lot around this confusion around masculinity, and the position I've come to, I'd rather not define what a man is, I'd rather define what a real man isn't.

00:44:57.119 --> 00:45:02.480
A real man doesn't go and beat up women or kids.

00:45:02.480 --> 00:45:04.480
My grandkids paint my toenails.

00:45:04.480 --> 00:45:05.480
Fantastic.

00:45:05.480 --> 00:45:11.519
I cry more at movies than I used to and that's okay.

00:45:11.519 --> 00:45:14.119
You saw me on the tennis court.

00:45:14.119 --> 00:45:57.440
But that's okay and I think forcing someone to comply with some sort of ridiculous artificially made cookie cutter image of a man it's just so damaging and it leads to this shame thing. I cover so well by Brené Brown in a video around shame. There's a superpower in vulnerability and once one person shares it through, you've already Toby shared a bit of yours, I've shared a bit of mine and that will encourage other people, hey, Toby, they've done that. How good would it be if the corporate world from the top, the management started showing their vulnerability, be contagious all of a sudden. People, the facades would come down.

00:45:57.440 --> 00:46:04.159
Suffering thrives in isolation and by keeping our struggles to ourself, we almost ensure that we're going to suffer.

00:46:04.159 --> 00:46:07.719
And we almost ensure that there won't be relief for it.

00:46:07.719 --> 00:46:11.800
And so having spaces, it doesn't have to be all the world.

00:46:11.800 --> 00:46:17.760
I'm not going to jump on Facebook and share all the bad thoughts I had today, but I need someone that I can trust.

00:46:17.760 --> 00:46:52.920
And that's why your mentoring men is so, you need someone in your life that you can share those struggles with because that's when we realize, you know what? This is not just me. I'm not in isolation and There's healing. There's definitely solace in knowing that I'm not alone in this and and this is a human response not a failure response So that leads me to a question. I asked fairly often It's been said that the mountaintops don't teach us nearly as much as the valleys in life and that we can learn more through failure.

00:46:52.920 --> 00:46:54.599
We've alluded to this already.

00:46:54.599 --> 00:46:58.119
We can learn more through failure than we can through success.

00:46:58.119 --> 00:47:08.639
What would you say has been your biggest failure or setback in life and what do you think it taught you that success wouldn't have?

00:47:08.639 --> 00:47:17.840
I guess my biggest failure, you brought this up earlier on when you asked me that question about my identity.

00:47:17.840 --> 00:47:30.480
My biggest failure was just doubting my worth to the point where I didn't want to be me, I wanted to be someone else.

00:47:30.480 --> 00:47:34.119
I never thought of that.

00:47:34.119 --> 00:48:07.000
That was the biggest failure. I just think I'm almost not worthy. Who would want me? I don't know where that came from. I don't know why I was like that. Maybe I need to go and see a counsellor to work that through. But that was my biggest failure. Underestimating my value, underestimating my potential. I guess hiding the empathy. I now realize I have a lot of empathy, which could be really good, could be not good sometimes.

00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:16.639
Okay. What do you think that taught you that brash arrogance or confidence wouldn't have?

00:48:16.639 --> 00:48:30.679
What it's meant is that I relate so many other people like I was, and that lived experience of being like that.

00:48:30.679 --> 00:48:45.000
I'll share a story about three months ago, a young guy that I mentored in 2015 contacted the mentoring organisation and he asked if he could get in contact with me.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:48.079
And they rang me and I said absolutely.

00:48:48.079 --> 00:49:09.960
And we caught up for a coffee and my recollection, because I mentored a lot of kids, my recollection was we talked about sport. He used to wag, we call it wag in school, he'd take a lot of days off and but as the mentoring started he would turn up on the mentoring days and wag the other days and he came from a broken family.

00:49:09.960 --> 00:49:51.960
Virtually every young guy they mentored came from a broken family. That was it. And then when he caught up for coffee he said, Ian, I just want to tell you the impact having you there had on my life. And he shared some stuff that was just gut-wrenching stuff. I'd get emotional thinking about it. And he actually He then went out to the mentoring organisation and he's produced this incredible promotional video about his experience and the mentoring organisation is using that to encourage more mentors into the program.

00:49:51.960 --> 00:50:04.000
Meeting guys like that who in a way had similar experiences to what I had and lacked the confidence and lacked the purpose and all that sort of stuff, just by being there, not with brilliant comments.

00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:07.000
I learnt so much from these young guys.

00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:12.000
Another guy I mentored said to me once, he said, I see the school counsellor.

00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:13.000
I said, yeah.

00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:17.000
He said, I'd rather talk to you than the school counsellor.

00:50:17.000 --> 00:50:21.000
And I thought, wow, that's interesting.

00:50:21.000 --> 00:50:22.000
I talk way too much.

00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:28.960
Why do you rather talk to me than the counsellor. He said, the counsellor sees me because that's his job.

00:50:28.960 --> 00:50:40.239
That's what he's paid to do. I know you're a volunteer and you're here because you care about me. We just need to get back to this, really, this community, this love.

00:50:40.239 --> 00:50:51.840
I think it's amazing. As you're talking, I'm picturing climbing walls with the handhold attachments that are affixed to it. You go to a recreation center, there are these climbing walls.

00:50:51.840 --> 00:51:03.679
And in my life, everything I've ever done, I'm competitive. I've tried to be perfect, whether that's sport, whether that's work, whatever. Strive for perfection. I want to be the best.

00:51:03.679 --> 00:51:07.840
But in a lot of ways, perfection is a slippery wall with no handholds on it.

00:51:07.840 --> 00:51:14.000
How can someone relate? How could I relate to someone who's perfect?

00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:29.300
I am imperfect and and insanely so in some respects, but our faults and our failures are a connection point where someone can grab a hold and connect with us and they realize that I'm not alone in this.

00:51:29.300 --> 00:51:34.800
If you struggled with identity or you struggled with self-worth, that's what I'm going through.

00:51:34.800 --> 00:51:35.699
What works for you?

00:51:35.699 --> 00:51:39.760
And it's it sparks the conversation.

00:51:39.760 --> 00:51:44.760
And so just within my mind, I'm struggling for the word for it.

00:51:44.760 --> 00:51:45.760
It's a fallacy.

00:51:45.760 --> 00:51:53.599
I'm striving for perfection, but if I ever attained it, it would make me that much less useful to society.

00:51:53.599 --> 00:51:55.599
Yeah.

00:51:55.599 --> 00:51:59.599
And there's people that we perceive as almost being perfect.

00:51:59.599 --> 00:52:10.440
And I don't know how widely known this is, but I know that Bruce Springsteen and The Rock, who are two giants of the screen and have it all together.

00:52:10.440 --> 00:52:15.400
I actually went to Bruce Springsteen's concert in Australia last year, or the year before.

00:52:15.400 --> 00:52:20.760
But they've got serious internal struggles.

00:52:20.760 --> 00:52:30.280
And I just see tremendous strength in that ability, when they're sharing their stories, the impact that would have, the positive impact.

00:52:30.280 --> 00:52:34.239
And I think we should try to do the best we can, but I don't think perfection exists.

00:52:34.239 --> 00:52:35.239
I don't think so.

00:52:35.239 --> 00:52:36.239
Yeah.

00:52:36.239 --> 00:52:38.119
No, I think better is the goal.

00:52:38.119 --> 00:52:42.280
I've arrived at that conclusion that I'm not striving to be perfect.

00:52:42.280 --> 00:52:44.559
I'm striving to be a little better every day.

00:52:44.559 --> 00:52:53.000
And if I can chase that every day and incrementally I get a little bit better, there's grace in that and knowing that I don't have to be perfect, but hopefully I can improve.

00:52:53.000 --> 00:52:58.000
Putting a business perspective on that as well, and this maybe comes back to your question.

00:52:58.000 --> 00:53:09.000
So people who want to get out and try something new, if there's this attitude around, oh, it's got to be perfect, it won't happen, or what I found, okay, I launched Mentoring Men.

00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:48.679
I need to set up a company. I need a constitution. I've got no idea with this sort of stuff and if I waited till I had all that stuff perfect to me you just Give it your best shot and then you can always fix it and refine it later on and people will come on board and so if there was a prerequisite that everything's got to be perfect before you actually Take a step out in faith that I suggest that's not a good way to go. Mm-hmm So, what advice would you give a child who wanted to pursue what you've managed to do with your life?

00:53:48.679 --> 00:53:51.760
Number one, get a mentor.

00:53:51.760 --> 00:54:06.760
Get someone that you can be open with, vulnerable with, that you trust, that will keep it confidential, has got your interests, to someone that you can share what you're honestly feeling and thinking.

00:54:06.760 --> 00:54:09.000
And yeah, that would have been amazing for me.

00:54:09.000 --> 00:54:12.400
And I guess that's the number one thing.

00:54:12.400 --> 00:54:15.559
In Australia, this is habit, telling you, oh, you can be whatever you want to be.

00:54:15.559 --> 00:54:18.599
And I struggle with that because it's not true.

00:54:18.599 --> 00:54:24.000
I suspect that someone with Down syndrome can't be Prime Minister of Australia.

00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:30.639
But the vast majority of people underestimate what they can do.

00:54:30.639 --> 00:54:36.920
The far bigger issue is we put, like me, we put these limits on what we're able to do.

00:54:36.920 --> 00:54:43.800
And so I would encourage them around dreaming big dreams.

00:54:43.800 --> 00:54:48.679
And maybe, you said young people, but maybe around that best life concept.

00:54:48.679 --> 00:54:56.679
Start to think around purpose, what do I want to achieve in my life.

00:54:56.679 --> 00:54:57.679
Yeah.

00:54:57.679 --> 00:54:59.840
Kintsugi, I love the visual there.

00:54:59.840 --> 00:55:08.320
Another Japanese concept is that of kaizen, and the kaizen philosophy is that those incremental improvements and slowly better.

00:55:08.320 --> 00:55:09.960
I think you're absolutely right.

00:55:09.960 --> 00:55:20.440
There's a fine line between having a dream that's completely unattainable and setting a realistic goal and then just working doggedly and relentlessly to get there.

00:55:20.440 --> 00:55:33.800
And that's for me as an educator, I'm a college professor, and that's a hard conversation to have if I think a student doesn't really have the ability to be successful in an area that they choose.

00:55:33.800 --> 00:55:40.239
And I hate those conversations when they've not performed academically.

00:55:40.239 --> 00:55:41.360
And I struggle with that.

00:55:41.360 --> 00:55:43.199
What can I tell them in that moment?

00:55:43.199 --> 00:55:44.519
Because those are seminal moments.

00:55:44.519 --> 00:55:50.920
They will look back on their life and they will remember that conversation because it changes the trajectory, the direction they went.

00:55:50.920 --> 00:55:56.440
Doesn't have to always mean failure, but for that season, it's not what they would have chosen.

00:55:56.440 --> 00:55:59.280
That resonates so much with me.

00:55:59.280 --> 00:56:03.159
One of the mentoring mentors contacted me and he said would I talk to his mentee.

00:56:03.159 --> 00:56:11.960
His mentee said he was going to do this thing and the mentor thought that's ridiculous, you haven't got the ability to do that.

00:56:11.960 --> 00:56:17.519
He asked for my advice and whether I talk to this mentee.

00:56:17.519 --> 00:56:59.760
My first reaction was the professor reaction, that's nuts, why would he think that he could... and I went for a few minutes telling him why I agreed with him and it's a silly idea that this guy was doing and then I stopped and I thought, I'm sorry, forget everything I just said, forget everything, I was wrong and then went down a different track. I'm with you, it's so hard what to do, you want to lift people up and all that sort of stuff. Interestingly, nothing was said to the mentee, and ultimately he came to his own conclusion that he couldn't do what he was going to do.

00:56:59.760 --> 00:57:02.280
It's just a really tough question, and I'm a people pleaser.

00:57:02.280 --> 00:57:04.239
I feel for you in that position.

00:57:04.239 --> 00:57:10.480
You want the best for this person, but you're not sure what to say or whether to say it.

00:57:10.480 --> 00:57:15.380
The point of this show is recognizing that sometimes we have to fall apart before we fall into place.

00:57:15.380 --> 00:57:24.420
And so being undone is different than actually having a goal or a role or an assignment that's not yet finished.

00:57:24.420 --> 00:57:27.380
So what for Ian is left undone?

00:57:27.380 --> 00:57:28.719
So I'm conflicted here.

00:57:28.719 --> 00:57:32.579
I told my wife that the Kintsugi Heroes would be my last passion project.

00:57:32.579 --> 00:57:39.340
And I might've lied now.

00:57:39.340 --> 00:57:45.039
We have a major issue over here with domestic violence.

00:57:45.039 --> 00:57:46.739
It costs the Australian economy.

00:57:46.739 --> 00:57:53.460
So clearly there's a moral, there's a loss of life, there's a whole bunch of really important things.

00:57:53.460 --> 00:57:59.039
Economically, it costs an estimated $25 billion.

00:57:59.039 --> 00:58:03.639
And there's a traditional approach around the symptoms.

00:58:03.639 --> 00:58:10.239
Can I – so another learning experience I had, mentoring men took me down the drug path.

00:58:10.239 --> 00:58:15.239
I've never taken illicit drug in my life but I went out and spoke to people who were taking drugs.

00:58:15.239 --> 00:58:25.880
I spoke to a mentor who used to take drugs and he said this thing to me, Ian, if you want to reduce illicit drug usage, stop sexual abuse.

00:58:25.880 --> 00:59:08.400
Now it took me five seconds to understand what he was saying and when I got it, it totally transformed my thinking. The old Ian was this judgemental, they're making this decision to do this, that's their choice. But when you consider that there's some horrendous event often in the past and the drugs is just numbing, it takes the focus away from the symptom to actually to look at the cause. Now in Australia the primary focus around domestic violence and it's mostly men with women, we need more shelters, we need this sort of stuff. What I want to do is prevent it.

00:59:08.400 --> 00:59:39.400
We're still going to need all that stuff but let's look at trying to address the issues and we touched on some of these things before around masculinity and intergenerational stuff and all that sort of stuff. So there is this idea that's just– it's probably too early for me to even share that, but I feel there is a way that we can disrupt the thinking and actually we can get people who are thinking or committing to self-enroll and pay to go into a behavior change course.

00:59:39.400 --> 00:59:46.699
So it's gonna peeve my wife, but if what I'm saying is right, how good would that be?

00:59:46.699 --> 00:59:49.739
No doubt, you've got work left to do.

00:59:49.739 --> 00:59:51.380
How can listeners connect with you?

00:59:51.380 --> 00:59:56.559
What are ways they can get involved or at least follow you in order to stay connected with your work?

00:59:56.559 --> 02:00:04.680
I would love for people to reach out to me.

02:00:04.680 --> 02:00:05.880
Email's probably the best.

02:00:05.880 --> 02:00:10.880
My email address is ian.kinsugiheroes.com.au.

02:00:10.880 --> 02:00:15.880
That's K-I-N-T-S-U-G-I-H-E-R-O-E-S.

02:00:15.880 --> 02:00:28.319
If people wanna look at Mentoring Men, so it's officially only available in Australia, although I'm mentoring, like, a young guy in Johannesburg in South Africa at the moment, so it's, but they can find out more about that.

02:00:28.319 --> 02:00:35.960
It's mentoringmen.org.au or it's kintsugiheroes.com.au.

02:00:35.960 --> 02:00:43.199
So we're always looking for more things, more stories and hopefully to get some financial support.

02:00:43.199 --> 02:00:48.239
My goal with Kintsugi Heroes is to lose the least amount of money possible.

02:00:48.239 --> 02:00:50.000
Non-profit does not mean non-revenue, right?

02:00:50.000 --> 02:00:51.000
No, no.

02:00:51.000 --> 02:00:55.199
We need to bring it as the, hopefully as the take up of the engagement.

02:00:55.199 --> 02:00:57.800
We're seeing some encouraging trends around that.

02:00:57.800 --> 02:00:58.800
Yeah.

02:00:58.800 --> 02:01:00.960
Ian, it's been a fantastic conversation.

02:01:00.960 --> 02:01:04.600
You're welcome back any time and if I can help in any way, you're more than welcome to find me, my friend.

02:01:04.600 --> 02:01:06.520
Toby, this has been brilliant.

02:01:06.520 --> 02:01:08.600
You do such a good job of this.

02:01:08.600 --> 02:01:10.600
To be honest, I came in feeling a bit shattered.

02:01:10.600 --> 02:01:16.340
It's been like a really full on and I had my latest cancer treatment yesterday.

02:01:16.340 --> 02:01:25.260
But I just was wondering how I go and maybe it's gone terrible, but from my point of view, you're just such a natural at doing this.

02:01:25.260 --> 02:01:26.260
Please keep doing it.

02:01:26.260 --> 02:01:28.699
I appreciate that sincerely.

02:01:28.699 --> 02:01:43.520
This is definitely a passion project of mine and I think we're kindred spirits in that there's so much power in story and there is strength in vulnerability and hearing other people share their struggles helps inspire me to overcome mine. So I thank you for sharing.

02:01:43.520 --> 02:01:53.199
G'day from Australia. I'm Ian Westmoreland, the founder of Mentoring Men and Kentucky Heroes, and I've been undone with Toby Brooks. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you.

02:01:53.199 --> 02:02:03.439
I'm thankful to Ian for giving of his time and sharing his journey and I hope you found as much encouragement from this episode as I did.

02:02:03.439 --> 02:02:27.600
For more info be sure to check it out on the web. Simply go to undonepodcast.com backslash ep59 to see the notes, links, and images related to today's guest, Ian Westmoreland. If you're listening, I have a question for you that I want to hear your answer to. Ian felt a tug and a purpose on his life way back in 1993.

02:02:27.600 --> 02:02:31.520
But it took him nine years to finally launch Mentoring Men.

02:02:31.520 --> 02:03:02.560
So my question for you is what big dreams are floating around in that mind of yours? What's Undone? How can this community help you spring into action? Go to the Undone Podcast Facebook or Instagram pages where you'll see posts with artwork from this episode along with this question and weigh in and share so that we can encourage one another.

02:03:02.560 --> 02:03:18.319
Coming up I've got pro baseball athletic trainer Phil Milan and entrepreneur Nick Hutchison.

02:03:18.319 --> 02:03:25.880
One of these days I need to put together a new word to the third and editorialize a bit on some of the things I've been learning these past few months.

02:03:25.880 --> 02:03:27.119
So stay tuned.

02:03:27.119 --> 02:03:31.800
This and more coming up on Becoming Undone.

02:03:31.800 --> 02:03:35.800
Becoming Undone is a NitroHype Creative Production written and produced by me, Toby Brooks.

02:03:35.800 --> 02:03:44.800
If you or someone you know has a story of resilience and victory to share for Becoming Undone, please contact me at undonepodcast.com.

02:03:44.800 --> 02:03:48.600
Follow the show on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn at Becoming Undone Pod.

02:03:48.600 --> 02:03:52.439
Follow me at TobyJBrooks on X, Instagram, and TikTok.

02:03:52.439 --> 02:04:00.640
Listen, subscribe, and leave me a review at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.

02:04:00.640 --> 02:04:03.119
Thank you for listening and for all your support.

02:04:03.119 --> 02:04:06.000
Till next time everybody, keep getting better.

02:04:06.000 --> 02:04:08.000
You