00:00:01
Speaker 1: She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.
00:00:09
Speaker 2: I'm tiff. This is role with the punches and we're turning life's hardest hits into wins. Nobody wants to go to court, and don't. My friends are test Art Family Lawyers. Know that they offer all forms of alternative dispute resolution. Their team of Melbourne family lawyers have extensive experience in all areas of family law to facto and same sex couples, custody and children, family violence and intervention orders, property settlements and financial agreements. Test Art is in your corner, so reach out to Mark and the team at www dot test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au. Michaelbusk, what a treat? This is what an unexpected treat. Here you are just out of nowhere turning up. You've been out. I don't know where you've been. Where have you been?
00:01:03
Speaker 1: I disappeared up me own't asked for a while. I reckon, but I don't know. I've been been around, but we haven't spoken for a while, so who knows what might happen to here.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: It's made for a tough year because it is. We're almost the tail end of September and I reckon. I've only had two pods with you this year, and you were quite a regular last year and then you just disappeared. Actually, you had a lot of impact on my life late last year and then you just disappeared.
00:01:34
Speaker 3: Wow. Wait, is that kind of your dog's barking?
00:01:36
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:01:39
Speaker 3: I thought it was my dogs, but they're not.
00:01:40
Speaker 2: But it was upset too, Luna's upset too. Did he go tell him? Tell him for me?
00:01:47
Speaker 3: Oh jesus, I don't know where did he go?
00:01:50
Speaker 1: He disappeared, Like even for myself. I haven't done a podcast since I was just sending a potty to a group today, Can you be too human in the workplace? And that was record a long time ago. But my last podcast I did of my own would have been August September last year. Then I think I did one with you later in the year that came out and I think I was heading off to Shri Lanka at the time. That was November, so yeah, well we it's like, yeah, I just disappeared.
00:02:22
Speaker 2: How has life changed? Has life changed? Have you changed changed? I know, where's the surfing dude?
00:02:30
Speaker 3: Oh no?
00:02:31
Speaker 1: I nearly buzz cut about a week and a half ago, and the guy said, they may not be ready for that yet, but just worked your way to it. So it'll be interesting when I go into the room and we get people to judge me.
00:02:46
Speaker 3: With the difference in the look.
00:02:47
Speaker 1: So yeah, it'll be I think people, I don't want to look corporate, so I thought it'd go really short, and then they'll think you're a bit of a fucking psycho again, like they did when I had my buzz cut before. They used to to me, you know, what part of the defense force were you in? And then member hair was long. It's like, where do you go surfing? Isn't it really funny that it's sort of the same person in some respects, but just different on the outside, and all of a sudden people look at you in a very different way.
00:03:16
Speaker 2: How big of impact does that have on how you interact, how you feel yourself interacting because you bounce off the energy of the people's like, people make an assumption and have a perception of you, and then you step in, you start interacting and you ride off the energy of people. Does that change for.
00:03:36
Speaker 1: You with the change of appearance. Yeah, Oh, it's not really. It's just that when they walk into the room, they sort of look at me a bit funny because there was sort of a bit clean cut Mark before COVID and then and then they would see me in the room and they I wasn't all that quick on updating my shots on LinkedIn or on my website. So if you go there now, out to my website, you'll be like, who the fuck is Tiff talking to It sounds like him, but it doesn't look like him because on there, I'm right fall into that the hair was the hair was running beautifully at that point in time, flowing. But no, look, I sort of had this view that I keep saying to people that when you're on a witness protection scheme, you've got to continue to change your appearance just in case. So and I have a bit of a laugh about that. But now, look, I don't think it's I don't think it changes much about the energy. You know, you've seen the photo from twenty fourteen, when I first started doing the work, when I was very corporate. But I don't know, I still turn up as Mark. I just like that there are different answers now that come out to the judgment questions because you know, I'm starting to look more like a fifty eight year old blow who is receding in the hairline somewhat.
00:05:08
Speaker 2: If this year had a theme to it, what's this year's theme?
00:05:11
Speaker 3: Burnout?
00:05:13
Speaker 2: No tell us about that.
00:05:17
Speaker 1: So we were talking late last year, and I remember I listened to that potty when we were in the bus driving around Sri Lanka and it was a bit like I'm feeling a bit naked at the moment. I feel a bit jaded. And then I did nothing about it. So what we do, as you know, in the work, I do adaptive challenges. You can either deny or ignore them.
00:05:41
Speaker 3: I did both, and I reckon.
00:05:46
Speaker 1: I finished working about late November, and I remember being on a bit of a It was a bit like, you know, it's a bit like being on tour at that stage.
00:05:59
Speaker 3: I think. I think there was a very very very.
00:06:03
Speaker 1: Very full year of travel and delivery and all that sort of stuff, which I still enjoyed, but I noticed a cup little things creeping in around habits and I reckon those last ten days and I can sort of see it from what was it.
00:06:23
Speaker 3: It was the second last in the last week in November.
00:06:25
Speaker 1: So I remember I had a we tried to fit in starting a new client and fitting it in so I reckon. I woke up on one morning in the Hunter Valley, I work up the next morning in Brisbane. I work up the next morning in Mackay, and I woke up the following morning in Townsville and the towns will run was going to be out of working days. I think it was nine days of facilitation out of ten working days to kick a probe off. And I remember getting to the end of it and jumping on a plane back to Melbourne on the Friday to then fly out to stri Lanka on the Saturday. And that was the time that I should have I thought, think I did take notice a bit of it. I decided not to go back to work till about February, and then I think I was a bit like I can't be fucked as in not so much of the work, but it was like the big thing for me. I'm pretty ocd with with my my yard and my garden and like Saturdays, it's not a big garden. I can get get it done pretty quick. But I reckon for about six weeks. I was like, elgat and do that, and then I wouldn't go out and do it. And then I was like, I'm going to go out and do some cardio, and then I didn't go and do cardio. And I remember because I have a holistic coach, Lauren Miller up in the Hunter Valley.
00:07:53
Speaker 3: He's very good.
00:07:55
Speaker 1: I hadn't spoken to Hersin's about September either, and I just a message and I said, we need to have a chat because fucking something right there. And so I sort of walked her through it, and I told her the things I just told you and your listeners and she goes, you burn out, mate, I'm like, okay. So so we've been working through that now for the best part of four months, four or five months, and and so there's been little things and you know, I didn't I didn't understand it too much. But she said, you know, you're a Dreamal was a fucked That's one of the reasons why you're not doing much cardio at the moment, because you just you just don't feel like it. You can go and do it, but you you know, you'll be forcing yourself. And I kept up with my strength stuff, which I think was important. But yeah, I just felt a bit bit yuck, and you know, and I'm working my way out of it in a very deliberate way. It's not like, you know, some people said, just just get into it, and for me, it's like I'm still in the room doing the things that the workload is nowhere near what it was. Very deliberately cut that workload back and a lot of work, a lot less traveling, a lot more work being done here, virtually, a lot of wonder one coaching, and some virtual programs in my him made the Human Manager Academy, the online piece. But that's been really good because there are some days when I just can't be fucked. So, yeah, that's where'd I've paid. I'm navigating my way through it with a longer term plan to say that regardless of whether you think you've whether you think you're cured, and I don't think I'll ever be cured, that you're not going back to doing what you're doing in twenty twenty four. So and that's been tough too, because we've made a decision to say, you know what, we're not looking to grow this business anymore. If anything, we're looking to scale it back for the next four years until you know whether it's some form of retirement at six mid early sixties.
00:10:10
Speaker 3: So yeah, lots of lots of reflection.
00:10:14
Speaker 1: I'm doing a piece of work at the moment with Lauren, which is very much about you need to you need to write down.
00:10:23
Speaker 3: She's pretty brutal. She's like, you all.
00:10:25
Speaker 1: Your self worth on most of your self worth has come out of your work, and now that you're not working as much, you're struggling to find where that self works. So I've got to do this activity at the moment, which is self worth in as mark the worker and the partner and the parent and the friend and the dude who likes to do his own thing. So I'm doing that work at the minute, and it's really interesting, Tiff, because she's absolutely right. It's been a struggle to fill in four or five of those columns because I have been so caught up in you know, the dude who goes out and helps other people.
00:11:11
Speaker 2: When you're in the middle of that, in the middle of burnout and you're in the middle of your own life and your own life is your own business, and you're like, there's no escape from lubusque hate Q. So talk us through what it's, what you've learned or what's helpful, like how do you switch off? Because I'm kind of like I'm similar by way of it's hard to it's hard to realize when you're in it, when you're burning yourself out until you're burned out, and then it's hard to maintain perspective. Like it's very easy to go, all right, I'm going to do this, I'm going to have a rest, but then we're not really resting. We're thinking about other stuff all of the time. And I'll have a day off and you know, like, yeah, what's that been like practically.
00:12:02
Speaker 3: Jeez.
00:12:03
Speaker 1: So if I reflect on those last three or four months, the first thing, the first thing I did, which.
00:12:13
Speaker 3: Is really weird.
00:12:16
Speaker 1: Once I had the diagnosis of it, I went back to a few of my clients and said, did you notice anything different in the room?
00:12:21
Speaker 3: And they're like.
00:12:21
Speaker 1: Nah, And I said, so it's basically performance.
00:12:26
Speaker 3: But it was very performative. But I think I've gone past it.
00:12:31
Speaker 1: Although some people did say to me when I told them, they're like, yeah, we were noticing that, and then they're like, we're really sorry we didn't say something, And I go, well, and these weren't people that I was working with. These are actually just friends and acquaintances of mine.
00:12:45
Speaker 2: Ah, just.
00:12:50
Speaker 1: I think they noticed they'd noticed it, like a massive build up of things. One of the things I noticed was we weren't seeing your post much stuff. Usually you know, you're here, you're there, you're everywhere, and you're putting stuff out. And I just in the end, I was like, I can't be fucked doing that. After a day, I'll go on, you know, just fucking lay on the bed and go to sleep and sort of do whatever I was going to do. They have all this bloody shit going on Premier QUARTERSOL, So I think that was part of it. Like for me, I think that it's really funny because it's it's still a bit it's still a bit cloudy that stuff.
00:13:34
Speaker 3: I go, how have I shifted? What's the behavior? The behavior has.
00:13:39
Speaker 1: Been to first of all, stop denying and avoiding it, so just accept it that it is a thing, and then accept that you're the guy that tells people not to get there, so fucking how are you doing. So there was a bit of shame in that, a bit of and I know I've spoken about it to a few people in programs I've been running.
00:14:01
Speaker 3: And they're like Jesus.
00:14:02
Speaker 1: But so I think there was the going from denying, ignoring to them, going, well, this is it. This is what it is, and and I'm happy to share that. I think there's a bit of bit of healing comes with that little things For me, the little behavior changes. This is going to sound weird. Some days I'd be I'd get up and I'll put this black T shirt on because that's sort of my uniform in the room. But I'd still have my pajama pants on and little things Lauren, and then I might have a shina have a share at eleven o'clock or midday or something like that. Lauren was like, get up, do you have a share? Have your showered for upg BTRPT, Go and do little things, little behaviors. Have you showered, get yourself ready for work, go into your office like you're working so but then also have these little rest periods as well. So you know, I look at my calendar compared to last year and I'm like, fucking hell, Like it's Jesus, it's a really quiet year. But it's that's a bity deliberate thing as well. So I'm doing lots of little projects of work this year rather than doing two or three really big ones. Allison's been really cool, like she's on my back a fair a bit, but in the right way, not nagging about it, but just like just you be conscious of getting caught back into the trap.
00:15:24
Speaker 3: I don't know.
00:15:25
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't if I don't think that, I still don't think that. I'm when I say that there's been some micro changes in behavior. There's some habits I put in around a simple meditation off the car mapp every morning, and I actually track myself on that to make sure that like a five to ten minute just start the day with that. Because when I was in when I was right in the middle of burnout, what was massive was my time on social media, as in just fucking doom scrolling and reading the papers. And see, one of the things Larren stopped me from doing is reading the papers because she's like, that's going to make you fucking angry.
00:16:05
Speaker 2: Oh so much bad news. I'm all for that get rid of.
00:16:08
Speaker 3: So I've I think I've had a cutback on that stuff a bit as well. But I don't know.
00:16:15
Speaker 1: I do have a view that I don't think that I'll get cured of burnout. I actually think that it's Lauren had said to me a few times that be careful because you know you're not. You mightn't be feeling it at the moment, but this is pre the diagnosis. But you're not far from it. You're closer to it than you might think you are. And one of the reasons you don't think you are is because you're so frigging busy and being caught up in the identity and that was like a drug, so you know, addicted to.
00:16:49
Speaker 3: Being the guy in the room.
00:16:51
Speaker 1: So I just think, I don't ever think I'm going to be in a situation where I think that's not going to happen to me again. So it's a regulating now, I reckon. And part of regulation is accepting that it's going to be it'll be less work and that, you know, I'm still coming to terms with with that. We were saying, let's have a you know, let's we had our biggest year ever in activity and revenue and all that sort of stuff, and it's like, we're going to have that this year, and that's my little brain's going, We'll hang on, you know, you should go hard again and do that again. But yeah, I don't know, it's a bit it's still foggy for me.
00:17:37
Speaker 3: I reckon.
00:17:39
Speaker 2: Tell me more about you don't think you can cure it?
00:17:47
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know. I think it's.
00:17:51
Speaker 1: I don't know what sort of what, what sort of analogy metaphor whatever to use. But like for me, like for instance, to me as a as someone who like I get it's it's it's hay fever time, right, so I get our hey fever bad and it's like it's starting up and whether hey fever's a good thing to use or you know. I get irritated by things like dust and I remember cleaning out my woodshed one time and breaking it in fucking hives all over me, and the doctor was like, mate, that stuff's already in you, but it's just it'll distill, tip it over the edge again by you going and doing activity that that really triggers it. And I think that's the same with the with the burnout. I don't I don't get I don't get a sense I'm going to get to a point where I'll go that's not going to happen to me again. I reckon there'll be a level, and the level of the level might be thirty five percent or might be fifty percent. At the moment, I think it's more like eighty. So you know, it wouldn't take a lot for me to go back to that position that I've felt for the last eight months or so. So I guess for me, it's a bit of a whether it's a it could be an excuse as well, but it's.
00:19:00
Speaker 3: A bit of a story of.
00:19:03
Speaker 1: Or a reminder to say, if you think that you're going really well now, don't be confused by that and start running around like a fucking mad man again. Understand that running around like a madman again for the next three months might actually send you back to where you were.
00:19:19
Speaker 2: Is it about do you reckon burnout? It's about doing too much? Or about the neglect the not enough that comes at the cost of that.
00:19:31
Speaker 1: I think it's both. And if I know, and I can easily look back through my habit changes last year. So start of last year, start of the run, let's call the run went from about March through to November like crazy, crazy stuff. And in March, when I was I think I was doing pretty well, I'd work with a guy who was keeping an eye on lifestyle choices around eating and drinking and getting to the gym. And you know, if I think about when I went into Mackay for about three months off and on. I'd got myself a membership at the fitness first up there and was going there every morning at five o'clock, and then I'd pop around to the coffee shop. I have a coffee with these old blocks i'd met, go off and do my work, maybe go for a walk that night.
00:20:25
Speaker 3: Order in.
00:20:26
Speaker 1: I'd had a self contained apartment, order in from the woolies, an order for the week or two weeks whatever I was there and be cooking in my room. So you know, that was happening for about the first four months or so, and then it started to be a bit less of that, and it was a bit easy to go to the local restaurants because there's plenty of them there, and I'd still going to the gym, but.
00:20:49
Speaker 3: Maybe I wouldn't go for that.
00:20:51
Speaker 1: Walk as well, because I felt a bit tight after the program, and I think it was more of a It was this gradual thing, so I think there's a combination of both. It was too much of one thing and too much of one thing, which apparently brought me joy, but it was really fucking filling my ego up.
00:21:10
Speaker 3: Really.
00:21:10
Speaker 1: What that then did was go well, you're getting too much of that, so you're going to have to lose something somewhere. And where I lost it was in the the more, you know, the habits that I created, which which were actually helping me to do the work. So as you know, I remember, I remember the last week in Townsville and I was staying at a place and right beliefs, the place was a fucking basket and robins and you know what I'm like with ice cream and shit like that. So it was like, go across the road, grab yourself a grab yourself a countery somewhere. I have a couple of beers, and on the way back, just sneak into the basket and robins, get yourself a little mini pack, and then gartinate it watching the TV.
00:21:52
Speaker 3: So that's that. That were the changes.
00:21:56
Speaker 1: So to your point, I think what I'm trying to say is I'm gradually I'm gradually easing myself back into the other stuff as well, because the feedback has been because you're.
00:22:11
Speaker 3: An all or one guy, you'll try and go too hard and blow up on the good stuff.
00:22:18
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's really funny because I I liked I Usually I don't mind sitting with ambiguity on a lot of stuff, but sitting with this, going I know to fix this, I know what to do. But then that's not what you've got to do. You've got to sit with you know, if it says if I got like this, if my mind or my body's telling me no, I used to ignore that, but now I'm like, okay.
00:22:45
Speaker 2: No, listening. You made an interesting point before, and I remember talking about it and thinking about it a lot last year, the idea that, and I'm thinking about it because I was doing a bit of before and thinking about exactly this, like the neurochemistry around our final flight state, right, which is for fear, anxiety, and excitement, very similar chemical cocktail. Right, So if you're just getting around excited, you know, And for me, I had a year there where I when I looked back at at this year, I went, yeah, it's been a real tough year but also the most really exciting year where I was just like so many big exciting things happening, and you just go, well, that's your nervous system. Like whether it's good fight or flight, excitement or terror, your nervous system is getting fired constantly, and that's exhausting, right, that's the sympathetic nervous system, and that comes at a cost, and I think we we forget that, and we forget that it's happening when we look at our phones. It's happening when the news plays their shitty undertones of music with their fucking click baity titles and words that catastrophize everything, Like, oh my god, we're so at odds with everything right now. I took Facebook off my phone because I am such a binger of social media. I'm sick of it. Do it on my phone and I feel differently, I feel better not having it.
00:24:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'll be the same as that like it, just to really reduce that time I didn't have. I've been at Facebook for about four years because I just got sick of all the shit going on in the polarization during COVID. So I just, you know, I think, as I understand, my instrument feed into that. But I'm very fucking rarely in there because I just there's just a lot of shit in here, and you know, I'm very much into debate and discourse and all that sort of stuff. But you know, we can see what happens when someone doesn't like someone else's idea. We saw that three or four weeks ago, didn't we mate, So you know you've got to I think you've got to stay away from that stuff, mind you. You know, I'm sort of like, fuck twenty five, let's just get twenty five done. But at the same time, Zoie got married in March, which was amazing. It was really cool, like, you know, every night and then again I say to Allison, this just wish his ear had finished, and she's like, weigh on. Zoe got married. We had a nice little holiday over to the Greek Islands and that was a lot of fun. And and then you know, in nine weeks time, because that's where Zoey and them are today, it's Sooe's baby show. Today, you know, I'll be your grandfather and all things going well in about eight weeks time. It's like, there's lots of joy still in here. But the thing that I've worked out is when you are so fucking caught up in your worth as Mark Labus dot com and not as much as Mark Lebusk, the dad and the partner and you know, the soon to be grandfather, is that you don't there's no joy coming from that yet. Yeah, So yeah, it's it's but if you guys still feel a level of flatness, I still you know, I've been in the room in the last four weeks. I've been I've done two hms. You came into the room for them, Like it's really nice to be back in there doing that stuff and seeing what happens in the room and you know, provoking teams and that. But what I am noticing is how fucking stuffed I am after doing it. Like if I thought to myself, I had to do nine days out of ten like I did in November last year, right now, I just say, I know I can't. I can't do it. After the last one in Melbourne a few weeks back, we went out to play golf the next day and Alison's like, you are right, and I go, nah, I said, I'm swinging about I'm swinging about a third of the speed and pair I usually do. And we walked off after six holes and she goes, you look pale, and I'm like, I just feel really fucking drained. And I think that's part of the that this recovery piece I talked about before is, you know, will I get back to whatever that thing was I hope when I get back to whatever it is, it's like, it's with the realization that self worth, of all those other roles that I play, is actually somewhere closer to level to the self worth that I've been driving for eleven years out of being the dude.
00:27:18
Speaker 2: You know when you it's so rewarding to give and do the things that you do, so rewarding. To give people the opportunity to change, to make changes in the work you do is so rewarding. But it and it fills your cup in a way, it fills your cup, but also under the surface, it's in our subconscious mind. It's it's conditional. That's not unconditional. That's not unconditional relationship that exists for you. So yes, you get all of this great sense of I'm helping people, I'm of value, I'm worth something, but it's because of doing, it's not because of who you are. And there's a part of our brain that go that's in there going yeah, but yeah, and we don't hear it until we've exhausted. You know, there's been times different times in my life where I've where I've been felt exhausted and been like, oh, there's no one in my life feel really lonely, disconnected. Look on my phone. I'm like, if you've had you've literally interacted with twenty people today, like just messages or clients or do you know the back and forth. But I feel like I've been, Oh, I feel like totally isolated. And it's that it's that sense of yeah, there's you're giving all of the time.
00:28:35
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, and that's you know, when you when you're doing that for nine days out of ten and people are like, well, that gets your fucking job, mate, and it sort of is and what it is, But that's just that's it's lovely that you're giving and all that stuff, but you're going to fill your tank back up. And I think that's part of the challenges. My tank was fucking was empty and I was I think I was pushing the fucking card to the petrol station by the end of last year.
00:29:03
Speaker 3: Let me tell you.
00:29:04
Speaker 1: It's been interesting though, because we're like, we're we're doing this thing. Allison came across this thing called how to build Nepik retirement. This lady, I forget her name now I think I've got it here. It is by the late name Beck Wilson and she's been doing it, and there's this book and then she sent me the she sent me the thing to fill out, which is quite extensive. And so I've been doing a lot of work now on looking at that, and there's a big piece in there around you know purpose. I don't think I think retirement for me will be an interesting thing in itself. I think it will be as long as I'm cognitively okay. It might be that I'm doing fifteen percent of what I'm doing today because I still want to be doing that in some way. But it then starts to get you look at, well, how do you take that into other areas? And the big things that came up for me were and you'll relate to this because you name me well enough, talking at schools to kids about leadership. This is like pro bono. This isn't this is me going back into the community. It's like talking to blokes about talking about shit, and you know, maybe doing a bit of pro bono mentoring for people who won't get that sort of stuff. So I'm also thinking now about I don't necessarily have to fucking monetize this stuff, because there's a bit of the identity that comes with what goes into the bank balance as well. There's no doubt about that. So I think it's been a bit of a fucking perfect storm, to be quite honest. It's like heading towards whatever retirement means, you burnt yourself out. I think the market has slowed a bit too, so and one of the things for us is something we very rarely got. We started getting a bit and we get a few knockbacks last earlier this year, and so it's a bit like fuck. So I think there was And I also said this to Allison. I actually think it's just like it's a point in time where you go, this had to happen to you, mate, So.
00:31:05
Speaker 2: A part of you that can't reckon. There's a part of you that recognized your biggest year ever and a part of you that felt that it had to beat that, but you realized you were so bloody exhausted you didn't want to and there was a push pull there.
00:31:21
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I was conflicted by that in a big way because what I knew to myself, like my corporate brain sort of disappeared now, but every now and again it pops out and goes, well, you better be three percent more than this this next year. But I actually don't think that's an issue now. But you know that, I think that was part of the perfect storm, Like are you going to be happy Mark that you might do sixty percent of what you did last year because that's what you want to do now? Or how often is that little cognitive thing going to come in and go, well, mate, you know that's not enough and you're not gonna be able to do this. And that's not the case. But there was definitely a conflict there in that, and you double that down on four or five decent proposals we put in that we didn't win, and then I'm sitting there now going, thank fuck, we didn't win them.
00:32:15
Speaker 2: Sometimes the world looks after us like that.
00:32:18
Speaker 1: Well I think it, well, it does. But you know again, I'm fifty eight and I keep saying this too. This is a this is a six month i'll call it that now, we call it nearly a twelve month period from when I ignored it to them, when I like five months to accept it. That's twelve months in like fifty eight years. So I also look at things on a timeline and go, this is a very short period of time, but because of what I've done to myself at Elkosi feels like a fucking eternity. Like you said before, like you get to yourself to that point where you're like like fuck, like everything's everything's fucking bad news, things in your bad news filing cabinet in your head, and then your little un invited guests turn up every day going where you fucking lost another job or you're not going to get this. Oh you're burning out, clapping its hands going, fucking told you, mate. And then on top of that, you're the bloke who tells everyone not to do that. I'm conscious of you're tying.
00:33:21
Speaker 2: I know it's killing me. Oh We've only got a couple of minutes, and I'm so sad because this. I don't want to stop this conversation. Now finally go.
00:33:29
Speaker 1: We can keep we can keep it going. We'll just keep it going. Next time you see me, I might have a like a proper buzz cut, so you might have to tell people that it's a continuation.
00:33:39
Speaker 2: Continuation doesn't look quite the same boat, but it is his.
00:33:42
Speaker 1: Hairs falling out because of his because he's fucking burnt out.
00:33:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I want to pick Yeah, I want to pick it up again. I want to talk more about it. What's for now? What are you doing right now?
00:33:54
Speaker 1: Right? I'm going to get off here now and the choice I had, I'm going to see now. I'm going to see Oasis in November. I'm actually bought tickets to go twice, and I'm going to pick up one of my guitars off the wall like I did a bit earlier today and just poorly play some of their songs. But and see this is some of the quickly. These are things I weren't doing for five months. Those guitars didn't move off the wall.
00:34:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so yeah.
00:34:20
Speaker 1: Maybe we can pick up and talk about what are the little science people should be looking for if they did what I didn't and denied and ignored it. But mate, it is so good to chat. You go and do your harp sing.
00:34:32
Speaker 2: Good to see your face mate next week, to miss You've got no idea. I just wanted to badge you all the time. I'm like, I'm just going to leave him alone, obviously having some time, but it's been killing me. So thank you. Thanks for dropping in on a bloody whim today when I gave you a nudge and let's talk pleasure. Go well, big love Bye B. She said, it's now never.
00:35:03
Speaker 3: I got fighting in my.
00:35:05
Speaker 1: Blood, Gotta to your body coast, Got a true little cat, Gotta te modocst. Got it,
Speaker 1: She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.
00:00:09
Speaker 2: I'm tiff. This is role with the punches and we're turning life's hardest hits into wins. Nobody wants to go to court, and don't. My friends are test Art Family Lawyers. Know that they offer all forms of alternative dispute resolution. Their team of Melbourne family lawyers have extensive experience in all areas of family law to facto and same sex couples, custody and children, family violence and intervention orders, property settlements and financial agreements. Test Art is in your corner, so reach out to Mark and the team at www dot test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au. Michaelbusk, what a treat? This is what an unexpected treat. Here you are just out of nowhere turning up. You've been out. I don't know where you've been. Where have you been?
00:01:03
Speaker 1: I disappeared up me own't asked for a while. I reckon, but I don't know. I've been been around, but we haven't spoken for a while, so who knows what might happen to here.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: It's made for a tough year because it is. We're almost the tail end of September and I reckon. I've only had two pods with you this year, and you were quite a regular last year and then you just disappeared. Actually, you had a lot of impact on my life late last year and then you just disappeared.
00:01:34
Speaker 3: Wow. Wait, is that kind of your dog's barking?
00:01:36
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:01:39
Speaker 3: I thought it was my dogs, but they're not.
00:01:40
Speaker 2: But it was upset too, Luna's upset too. Did he go tell him? Tell him for me?
00:01:47
Speaker 3: Oh jesus, I don't know where did he go?
00:01:50
Speaker 1: He disappeared, Like even for myself. I haven't done a podcast since I was just sending a potty to a group today, Can you be too human in the workplace? And that was record a long time ago. But my last podcast I did of my own would have been August September last year. Then I think I did one with you later in the year that came out and I think I was heading off to Shri Lanka at the time. That was November, so yeah, well we it's like, yeah, I just disappeared.
00:02:22
Speaker 2: How has life changed? Has life changed? Have you changed changed? I know, where's the surfing dude?
00:02:30
Speaker 3: Oh no?
00:02:31
Speaker 1: I nearly buzz cut about a week and a half ago, and the guy said, they may not be ready for that yet, but just worked your way to it. So it'll be interesting when I go into the room and we get people to judge me.
00:02:46
Speaker 3: With the difference in the look.
00:02:47
Speaker 1: So yeah, it'll be I think people, I don't want to look corporate, so I thought it'd go really short, and then they'll think you're a bit of a fucking psycho again, like they did when I had my buzz cut before. They used to to me, you know, what part of the defense force were you in? And then member hair was long. It's like, where do you go surfing? Isn't it really funny that it's sort of the same person in some respects, but just different on the outside, and all of a sudden people look at you in a very different way.
00:03:16
Speaker 2: How big of impact does that have on how you interact, how you feel yourself interacting because you bounce off the energy of the people's like, people make an assumption and have a perception of you, and then you step in, you start interacting and you ride off the energy of people. Does that change for.
00:03:36
Speaker 1: You with the change of appearance. Yeah, Oh, it's not really. It's just that when they walk into the room, they sort of look at me a bit funny because there was sort of a bit clean cut Mark before COVID and then and then they would see me in the room and they I wasn't all that quick on updating my shots on LinkedIn or on my website. So if you go there now, out to my website, you'll be like, who the fuck is Tiff talking to It sounds like him, but it doesn't look like him because on there, I'm right fall into that the hair was the hair was running beautifully at that point in time, flowing. But no, look, I sort of had this view that I keep saying to people that when you're on a witness protection scheme, you've got to continue to change your appearance just in case. So and I have a bit of a laugh about that. But now, look, I don't think it's I don't think it changes much about the energy. You know, you've seen the photo from twenty fourteen, when I first started doing the work, when I was very corporate. But I don't know, I still turn up as Mark. I just like that there are different answers now that come out to the judgment questions because you know, I'm starting to look more like a fifty eight year old blow who is receding in the hairline somewhat.
00:05:08
Speaker 2: If this year had a theme to it, what's this year's theme?
00:05:11
Speaker 3: Burnout?
00:05:13
Speaker 2: No tell us about that.
00:05:17
Speaker 1: So we were talking late last year, and I remember I listened to that potty when we were in the bus driving around Sri Lanka and it was a bit like I'm feeling a bit naked at the moment. I feel a bit jaded. And then I did nothing about it. So what we do, as you know, in the work, I do adaptive challenges. You can either deny or ignore them.
00:05:41
Speaker 3: I did both, and I reckon.
00:05:46
Speaker 1: I finished working about late November, and I remember being on a bit of a It was a bit like, you know, it's a bit like being on tour at that stage.
00:05:59
Speaker 3: I think. I think there was a very very very.
00:06:03
Speaker 1: Very full year of travel and delivery and all that sort of stuff, which I still enjoyed, but I noticed a cup little things creeping in around habits and I reckon those last ten days and I can sort of see it from what was it.
00:06:23
Speaker 3: It was the second last in the last week in November.
00:06:25
Speaker 1: So I remember I had a we tried to fit in starting a new client and fitting it in so I reckon. I woke up on one morning in the Hunter Valley, I work up the next morning in Brisbane. I work up the next morning in Mackay, and I woke up the following morning in Townsville and the towns will run was going to be out of working days. I think it was nine days of facilitation out of ten working days to kick a probe off. And I remember getting to the end of it and jumping on a plane back to Melbourne on the Friday to then fly out to stri Lanka on the Saturday. And that was the time that I should have I thought, think I did take notice a bit of it. I decided not to go back to work till about February, and then I think I was a bit like I can't be fucked as in not so much of the work, but it was like the big thing for me. I'm pretty ocd with with my my yard and my garden and like Saturdays, it's not a big garden. I can get get it done pretty quick. But I reckon for about six weeks. I was like, elgat and do that, and then I wouldn't go out and do it. And then I was like, I'm going to go out and do some cardio, and then I didn't go and do cardio. And I remember because I have a holistic coach, Lauren Miller up in the Hunter Valley.
00:07:53
Speaker 3: He's very good.
00:07:55
Speaker 1: I hadn't spoken to Hersin's about September either, and I just a message and I said, we need to have a chat because fucking something right there. And so I sort of walked her through it, and I told her the things I just told you and your listeners and she goes, you burn out, mate, I'm like, okay. So so we've been working through that now for the best part of four months, four or five months, and and so there's been little things and you know, I didn't I didn't understand it too much. But she said, you know, you're a Dreamal was a fucked That's one of the reasons why you're not doing much cardio at the moment, because you just you just don't feel like it. You can go and do it, but you you know, you'll be forcing yourself. And I kept up with my strength stuff, which I think was important. But yeah, I just felt a bit bit yuck, and you know, and I'm working my way out of it in a very deliberate way. It's not like, you know, some people said, just just get into it, and for me, it's like I'm still in the room doing the things that the workload is nowhere near what it was. Very deliberately cut that workload back and a lot of work, a lot less traveling, a lot more work being done here, virtually, a lot of wonder one coaching, and some virtual programs in my him made the Human Manager Academy, the online piece. But that's been really good because there are some days when I just can't be fucked. So, yeah, that's where'd I've paid. I'm navigating my way through it with a longer term plan to say that regardless of whether you think you've whether you think you're cured, and I don't think I'll ever be cured, that you're not going back to doing what you're doing in twenty twenty four. So and that's been tough too, because we've made a decision to say, you know what, we're not looking to grow this business anymore. If anything, we're looking to scale it back for the next four years until you know whether it's some form of retirement at six mid early sixties.
00:10:10
Speaker 3: So yeah, lots of lots of reflection.
00:10:14
Speaker 1: I'm doing a piece of work at the moment with Lauren, which is very much about you need to you need to write down.
00:10:23
Speaker 3: She's pretty brutal. She's like, you all.
00:10:25
Speaker 1: Your self worth on most of your self worth has come out of your work, and now that you're not working as much, you're struggling to find where that self works. So I've got to do this activity at the moment, which is self worth in as mark the worker and the partner and the parent and the friend and the dude who likes to do his own thing. So I'm doing that work at the minute, and it's really interesting, Tiff, because she's absolutely right. It's been a struggle to fill in four or five of those columns because I have been so caught up in you know, the dude who goes out and helps other people.
00:11:11
Speaker 2: When you're in the middle of that, in the middle of burnout and you're in the middle of your own life and your own life is your own business, and you're like, there's no escape from lubusque hate Q. So talk us through what it's, what you've learned or what's helpful, like how do you switch off? Because I'm kind of like I'm similar by way of it's hard to it's hard to realize when you're in it, when you're burning yourself out until you're burned out, and then it's hard to maintain perspective. Like it's very easy to go, all right, I'm going to do this, I'm going to have a rest, but then we're not really resting. We're thinking about other stuff all of the time. And I'll have a day off and you know, like, yeah, what's that been like practically.
00:12:02
Speaker 3: Jeez.
00:12:03
Speaker 1: So if I reflect on those last three or four months, the first thing, the first thing I did, which.
00:12:13
Speaker 3: Is really weird.
00:12:16
Speaker 1: Once I had the diagnosis of it, I went back to a few of my clients and said, did you notice anything different in the room?
00:12:21
Speaker 3: And they're like.
00:12:21
Speaker 1: Nah, And I said, so it's basically performance.
00:12:26
Speaker 3: But it was very performative. But I think I've gone past it.
00:12:31
Speaker 1: Although some people did say to me when I told them, they're like, yeah, we were noticing that, and then they're like, we're really sorry we didn't say something, And I go, well, and these weren't people that I was working with. These are actually just friends and acquaintances of mine.
00:12:45
Speaker 2: Ah, just.
00:12:50
Speaker 1: I think they noticed they'd noticed it, like a massive build up of things. One of the things I noticed was we weren't seeing your post much stuff. Usually you know, you're here, you're there, you're everywhere, and you're putting stuff out. And I just in the end, I was like, I can't be fucked doing that. After a day, I'll go on, you know, just fucking lay on the bed and go to sleep and sort of do whatever I was going to do. They have all this bloody shit going on Premier QUARTERSOL, So I think that was part of it. Like for me, I think that it's really funny because it's it's still a bit it's still a bit cloudy that stuff.
00:13:34
Speaker 3: I go, how have I shifted? What's the behavior? The behavior has.
00:13:39
Speaker 1: Been to first of all, stop denying and avoiding it, so just accept it that it is a thing, and then accept that you're the guy that tells people not to get there, so fucking how are you doing. So there was a bit of shame in that, a bit of and I know I've spoken about it to a few people in programs I've been running.
00:14:01
Speaker 3: And they're like Jesus.
00:14:02
Speaker 1: But so I think there was the going from denying, ignoring to them, going, well, this is it. This is what it is, and and I'm happy to share that. I think there's a bit of bit of healing comes with that little things For me, the little behavior changes. This is going to sound weird. Some days I'd be I'd get up and I'll put this black T shirt on because that's sort of my uniform in the room. But I'd still have my pajama pants on and little things Lauren, and then I might have a shina have a share at eleven o'clock or midday or something like that. Lauren was like, get up, do you have a share? Have your showered for upg BTRPT, Go and do little things, little behaviors. Have you showered, get yourself ready for work, go into your office like you're working so but then also have these little rest periods as well. So you know, I look at my calendar compared to last year and I'm like, fucking hell, Like it's Jesus, it's a really quiet year. But it's that's a bity deliberate thing as well. So I'm doing lots of little projects of work this year rather than doing two or three really big ones. Allison's been really cool, like she's on my back a fair a bit, but in the right way, not nagging about it, but just like just you be conscious of getting caught back into the trap.
00:15:24
Speaker 3: I don't know.
00:15:25
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't if I don't think that, I still don't think that. I'm when I say that there's been some micro changes in behavior. There's some habits I put in around a simple meditation off the car mapp every morning, and I actually track myself on that to make sure that like a five to ten minute just start the day with that. Because when I was in when I was right in the middle of burnout, what was massive was my time on social media, as in just fucking doom scrolling and reading the papers. And see, one of the things Larren stopped me from doing is reading the papers because she's like, that's going to make you fucking angry.
00:16:05
Speaker 2: Oh so much bad news. I'm all for that get rid of.
00:16:08
Speaker 3: So I've I think I've had a cutback on that stuff a bit as well. But I don't know.
00:16:15
Speaker 1: I do have a view that I don't think that I'll get cured of burnout. I actually think that it's Lauren had said to me a few times that be careful because you know you're not. You mightn't be feeling it at the moment, but this is pre the diagnosis. But you're not far from it. You're closer to it than you might think you are. And one of the reasons you don't think you are is because you're so frigging busy and being caught up in the identity and that was like a drug, so you know, addicted to.
00:16:49
Speaker 3: Being the guy in the room.
00:16:51
Speaker 1: So I just think, I don't ever think I'm going to be in a situation where I think that's not going to happen to me again. So it's a regulating now, I reckon. And part of regulation is accepting that it's going to be it'll be less work and that, you know, I'm still coming to terms with with that. We were saying, let's have a you know, let's we had our biggest year ever in activity and revenue and all that sort of stuff, and it's like, we're going to have that this year, and that's my little brain's going, We'll hang on, you know, you should go hard again and do that again. But yeah, I don't know, it's a bit it's still foggy for me.
00:17:37
Speaker 3: I reckon.
00:17:39
Speaker 2: Tell me more about you don't think you can cure it?
00:17:47
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know. I think it's.
00:17:51
Speaker 1: I don't know what sort of what, what sort of analogy metaphor whatever to use. But like for me, like for instance, to me as a as someone who like I get it's it's it's hay fever time, right, so I get our hey fever bad and it's like it's starting up and whether hey fever's a good thing to use or you know. I get irritated by things like dust and I remember cleaning out my woodshed one time and breaking it in fucking hives all over me, and the doctor was like, mate, that stuff's already in you, but it's just it'll distill, tip it over the edge again by you going and doing activity that that really triggers it. And I think that's the same with the with the burnout. I don't I don't get I don't get a sense I'm going to get to a point where I'll go that's not going to happen to me again. I reckon there'll be a level, and the level of the level might be thirty five percent or might be fifty percent. At the moment, I think it's more like eighty. So you know, it wouldn't take a lot for me to go back to that position that I've felt for the last eight months or so. So I guess for me, it's a bit of a whether it's a it could be an excuse as well, but it's.
00:19:00
Speaker 3: A bit of a story of.
00:19:03
Speaker 1: Or a reminder to say, if you think that you're going really well now, don't be confused by that and start running around like a fucking mad man again. Understand that running around like a madman again for the next three months might actually send you back to where you were.
00:19:19
Speaker 2: Is it about do you reckon burnout? It's about doing too much? Or about the neglect the not enough that comes at the cost of that.
00:19:31
Speaker 1: I think it's both. And if I know, and I can easily look back through my habit changes last year. So start of last year, start of the run, let's call the run went from about March through to November like crazy, crazy stuff. And in March, when I was I think I was doing pretty well, I'd work with a guy who was keeping an eye on lifestyle choices around eating and drinking and getting to the gym. And you know, if I think about when I went into Mackay for about three months off and on. I'd got myself a membership at the fitness first up there and was going there every morning at five o'clock, and then I'd pop around to the coffee shop. I have a coffee with these old blocks i'd met, go off and do my work, maybe go for a walk that night.
00:20:25
Speaker 3: Order in.
00:20:26
Speaker 1: I'd had a self contained apartment, order in from the woolies, an order for the week or two weeks whatever I was there and be cooking in my room. So you know, that was happening for about the first four months or so, and then it started to be a bit less of that, and it was a bit easy to go to the local restaurants because there's plenty of them there, and I'd still going to the gym, but.
00:20:49
Speaker 3: Maybe I wouldn't go for that.
00:20:51
Speaker 1: Walk as well, because I felt a bit tight after the program, and I think it was more of a It was this gradual thing, so I think there's a combination of both. It was too much of one thing and too much of one thing, which apparently brought me joy, but it was really fucking filling my ego up.
00:21:10
Speaker 3: Really.
00:21:10
Speaker 1: What that then did was go well, you're getting too much of that, so you're going to have to lose something somewhere. And where I lost it was in the the more, you know, the habits that I created, which which were actually helping me to do the work. So as you know, I remember, I remember the last week in Townsville and I was staying at a place and right beliefs, the place was a fucking basket and robins and you know what I'm like with ice cream and shit like that. So it was like, go across the road, grab yourself a grab yourself a countery somewhere. I have a couple of beers, and on the way back, just sneak into the basket and robins, get yourself a little mini pack, and then gartinate it watching the TV.
00:21:52
Speaker 3: So that's that. That were the changes.
00:21:56
Speaker 1: So to your point, I think what I'm trying to say is I'm gradually I'm gradually easing myself back into the other stuff as well, because the feedback has been because you're.
00:22:11
Speaker 3: An all or one guy, you'll try and go too hard and blow up on the good stuff.
00:22:18
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's really funny because I I liked I Usually I don't mind sitting with ambiguity on a lot of stuff, but sitting with this, going I know to fix this, I know what to do. But then that's not what you've got to do. You've got to sit with you know, if it says if I got like this, if my mind or my body's telling me no, I used to ignore that, but now I'm like, okay.
00:22:45
Speaker 2: No, listening. You made an interesting point before, and I remember talking about it and thinking about it a lot last year, the idea that, and I'm thinking about it because I was doing a bit of before and thinking about exactly this, like the neurochemistry around our final flight state, right, which is for fear, anxiety, and excitement, very similar chemical cocktail. Right, So if you're just getting around excited, you know, And for me, I had a year there where I when I looked back at at this year, I went, yeah, it's been a real tough year but also the most really exciting year where I was just like so many big exciting things happening, and you just go, well, that's your nervous system. Like whether it's good fight or flight, excitement or terror, your nervous system is getting fired constantly, and that's exhausting, right, that's the sympathetic nervous system, and that comes at a cost, and I think we we forget that, and we forget that it's happening when we look at our phones. It's happening when the news plays their shitty undertones of music with their fucking click baity titles and words that catastrophize everything, Like, oh my god, we're so at odds with everything right now. I took Facebook off my phone because I am such a binger of social media. I'm sick of it. Do it on my phone and I feel differently, I feel better not having it.
00:24:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'll be the same as that like it, just to really reduce that time I didn't have. I've been at Facebook for about four years because I just got sick of all the shit going on in the polarization during COVID. So I just, you know, I think, as I understand, my instrument feed into that. But I'm very fucking rarely in there because I just there's just a lot of shit in here, and you know, I'm very much into debate and discourse and all that sort of stuff. But you know, we can see what happens when someone doesn't like someone else's idea. We saw that three or four weeks ago, didn't we mate, So you know you've got to I think you've got to stay away from that stuff, mind you. You know, I'm sort of like, fuck twenty five, let's just get twenty five done. But at the same time, Zoie got married in March, which was amazing. It was really cool, like, you know, every night and then again I say to Allison, this just wish his ear had finished, and she's like, weigh on. Zoe got married. We had a nice little holiday over to the Greek Islands and that was a lot of fun. And and then you know, in nine weeks time, because that's where Zoey and them are today, it's Sooe's baby show. Today, you know, I'll be your grandfather and all things going well in about eight weeks time. It's like, there's lots of joy still in here. But the thing that I've worked out is when you are so fucking caught up in your worth as Mark Labus dot com and not as much as Mark Lebusk, the dad and the partner and you know, the soon to be grandfather, is that you don't there's no joy coming from that yet. Yeah, So yeah, it's it's but if you guys still feel a level of flatness, I still you know, I've been in the room in the last four weeks. I've been I've done two hms. You came into the room for them, Like it's really nice to be back in there doing that stuff and seeing what happens in the room and you know, provoking teams and that. But what I am noticing is how fucking stuffed I am after doing it. Like if I thought to myself, I had to do nine days out of ten like I did in November last year, right now, I just say, I know I can't. I can't do it. After the last one in Melbourne a few weeks back, we went out to play golf the next day and Alison's like, you are right, and I go, nah, I said, I'm swinging about I'm swinging about a third of the speed and pair I usually do. And we walked off after six holes and she goes, you look pale, and I'm like, I just feel really fucking drained. And I think that's part of the that this recovery piece I talked about before is, you know, will I get back to whatever that thing was I hope when I get back to whatever it is, it's like, it's with the realization that self worth, of all those other roles that I play, is actually somewhere closer to level to the self worth that I've been driving for eleven years out of being the dude.
00:27:18
Speaker 2: You know when you it's so rewarding to give and do the things that you do, so rewarding. To give people the opportunity to change, to make changes in the work you do is so rewarding. But it and it fills your cup in a way, it fills your cup, but also under the surface, it's in our subconscious mind. It's it's conditional. That's not unconditional. That's not unconditional relationship that exists for you. So yes, you get all of this great sense of I'm helping people, I'm of value, I'm worth something, but it's because of doing, it's not because of who you are. And there's a part of our brain that go that's in there going yeah, but yeah, and we don't hear it until we've exhausted. You know, there's been times different times in my life where I've where I've been felt exhausted and been like, oh, there's no one in my life feel really lonely, disconnected. Look on my phone. I'm like, if you've had you've literally interacted with twenty people today, like just messages or clients or do you know the back and forth. But I feel like I've been, Oh, I feel like totally isolated. And it's that it's that sense of yeah, there's you're giving all of the time.
00:28:35
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, and that's you know, when you when you're doing that for nine days out of ten and people are like, well, that gets your fucking job, mate, and it sort of is and what it is, But that's just that's it's lovely that you're giving and all that stuff, but you're going to fill your tank back up. And I think that's part of the challenges. My tank was fucking was empty and I was I think I was pushing the fucking card to the petrol station by the end of last year.
00:29:03
Speaker 3: Let me tell you.
00:29:04
Speaker 1: It's been interesting though, because we're like, we're we're doing this thing. Allison came across this thing called how to build Nepik retirement. This lady, I forget her name now I think I've got it here. It is by the late name Beck Wilson and she's been doing it, and there's this book and then she sent me the she sent me the thing to fill out, which is quite extensive. And so I've been doing a lot of work now on looking at that, and there's a big piece in there around you know purpose. I don't think I think retirement for me will be an interesting thing in itself. I think it will be as long as I'm cognitively okay. It might be that I'm doing fifteen percent of what I'm doing today because I still want to be doing that in some way. But it then starts to get you look at, well, how do you take that into other areas? And the big things that came up for me were and you'll relate to this because you name me well enough, talking at schools to kids about leadership. This is like pro bono. This isn't this is me going back into the community. It's like talking to blokes about talking about shit, and you know, maybe doing a bit of pro bono mentoring for people who won't get that sort of stuff. So I'm also thinking now about I don't necessarily have to fucking monetize this stuff, because there's a bit of the identity that comes with what goes into the bank balance as well. There's no doubt about that. So I think it's been a bit of a fucking perfect storm, to be quite honest. It's like heading towards whatever retirement means, you burnt yourself out. I think the market has slowed a bit too, so and one of the things for us is something we very rarely got. We started getting a bit and we get a few knockbacks last earlier this year, and so it's a bit like fuck. So I think there was And I also said this to Allison. I actually think it's just like it's a point in time where you go, this had to happen to you, mate, So.
00:31:05
Speaker 2: A part of you that can't reckon. There's a part of you that recognized your biggest year ever and a part of you that felt that it had to beat that, but you realized you were so bloody exhausted you didn't want to and there was a push pull there.
00:31:21
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I was conflicted by that in a big way because what I knew to myself, like my corporate brain sort of disappeared now, but every now and again it pops out and goes, well, you better be three percent more than this this next year. But I actually don't think that's an issue now. But you know that, I think that was part of the perfect storm, Like are you going to be happy Mark that you might do sixty percent of what you did last year because that's what you want to do now? Or how often is that little cognitive thing going to come in and go, well, mate, you know that's not enough and you're not gonna be able to do this. And that's not the case. But there was definitely a conflict there in that, and you double that down on four or five decent proposals we put in that we didn't win, and then I'm sitting there now going, thank fuck, we didn't win them.
00:32:15
Speaker 2: Sometimes the world looks after us like that.
00:32:18
Speaker 1: Well I think it, well, it does. But you know again, I'm fifty eight and I keep saying this too. This is a this is a six month i'll call it that now, we call it nearly a twelve month period from when I ignored it to them, when I like five months to accept it. That's twelve months in like fifty eight years. So I also look at things on a timeline and go, this is a very short period of time, but because of what I've done to myself at Elkosi feels like a fucking eternity. Like you said before, like you get to yourself to that point where you're like like fuck, like everything's everything's fucking bad news, things in your bad news filing cabinet in your head, and then your little un invited guests turn up every day going where you fucking lost another job or you're not going to get this. Oh you're burning out, clapping its hands going, fucking told you, mate. And then on top of that, you're the bloke who tells everyone not to do that. I'm conscious of you're tying.
00:33:21
Speaker 2: I know it's killing me. Oh We've only got a couple of minutes, and I'm so sad because this. I don't want to stop this conversation. Now finally go.
00:33:29
Speaker 1: We can keep we can keep it going. We'll just keep it going. Next time you see me, I might have a like a proper buzz cut, so you might have to tell people that it's a continuation.
00:33:39
Speaker 2: Continuation doesn't look quite the same boat, but it is his.
00:33:42
Speaker 1: Hairs falling out because of his because he's fucking burnt out.
00:33:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I want to pick Yeah, I want to pick it up again. I want to talk more about it. What's for now? What are you doing right now?
00:33:54
Speaker 1: Right? I'm going to get off here now and the choice I had, I'm going to see now. I'm going to see Oasis in November. I'm actually bought tickets to go twice, and I'm going to pick up one of my guitars off the wall like I did a bit earlier today and just poorly play some of their songs. But and see this is some of the quickly. These are things I weren't doing for five months. Those guitars didn't move off the wall.
00:34:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so yeah.
00:34:20
Speaker 1: Maybe we can pick up and talk about what are the little science people should be looking for if they did what I didn't and denied and ignored it. But mate, it is so good to chat. You go and do your harp sing.
00:34:32
Speaker 2: Good to see your face mate next week, to miss You've got no idea. I just wanted to badge you all the time. I'm like, I'm just going to leave him alone, obviously having some time, but it's been killing me. So thank you. Thanks for dropping in on a bloody whim today when I gave you a nudge and let's talk pleasure. Go well, big love Bye B. She said, it's now never.
00:35:03
Speaker 3: I got fighting in my.
00:35:05
Speaker 1: Blood, Gotta to your body coast, Got a true little cat, Gotta te modocst. Got it,
