S1E18 · Laura Pintur: What's Normal?

Hey guys welcome to the Virtus performance podcast this is week number 18 or episode number 18 today I sat down with Laura Pinter who is an amazing human she is currently running a company called What's Normal which is basically challenging the norms of I guess society and culture and empowering young people to actually stand up and and fight for what they believe in and talk about what they believe in and start a conversation about everything that's going on and rather than just accepting all the all the crap that we're fed and all the I guess

status quo it's actually about talking about why it is what it is and and whether that's actually the way it should be so we talked about a lot of different things we talked about travel we talked about spending time overseas campaigning and yeah all centered around being a better person and making a difference so yeah it was a lot of fun and I hope you get a lot out of it thanks my personal and business goal is to be just a little bit better every day I believe everyone especially normal people have a story to

tell the Virtus podcast exists to help us all find small ways of consistent improvement by discussing the journey and experiences of each of our guests the early morning birds much earlier than I am but I'm such a morning person I love waking up and just like being excited for the day I think every day my life at the moment every day is so different I ever I'm so what do you do with your days I literally I'm like I have no idea just so many 15 hours with the work crazy things and just like so

yeah it's the excitement of what the new day will bring which is a lot of unknowns have you always been a morning person yes no but you ain't Jim which is very strange no yes like I should be a morning person but I'm not leaving I have to be up at 530 every morning yeah we'll get there tell me about your journey very ambiguous question I know but from where stuff and stuff stuff well it's born in Canada eldest of four kids and I grew up in Canada so I was four and then my mom's

Australian so we moved to Australia and then grew up in the morning to Peninsula best place on there pretty pretty great childhood growing up sailed horse road athletics on a Saturday little asset Padua College oval and scouts at the mental eyes a tour at college house and just all those morning to peninsula things and then I went to Flinders College and did high school there and then I pretty much just I just didn't love school definitely wasn't an academic definitely was a creative that just loves sports and said no idea what I wanted to do

and yeah and so then I decided that I wanted to actually study I had no idea what I wanted to study so I actually do a gap year so I worked my butt off for six months of three months after school and then booked a one way to get to New York and I was 18 and got to New York drinking ages 21 was like this isn't no work I just wanted to get out I was like I'm out needed to get out I yeah when just booked one way to get to New York and

then just ended up living in Banff so the Rocky Mountains in Canada amazing and it was just stunning well in the summertime though so but Bamps like mini Australia in Canada and it's just full of Aussie so I literally live today Aussie so not the best experience but pretty much just partied my way around Canada and then I spent in that gap year also a month in Thailand where I spent the first two weeks partying at the full moon party over New Year's in yeah yeah absolutely I look back now and I actually don't know

how I made it out alive like you just like think back at situations here in India but then I spent two weeks actually doing some missions work out in Burma which is now Myanmar and I'd literally gone from one extreme to another and it was just such an eye-opening experience to be taken across the borders from Thailand into Burma while the Civil War was on I literally got snuck across the border with this like Thai with these Thai people and we were visiting internationally displaced people camps and just the horrificness of their situations it just

it almost made my whole life just completely crumble and I just felt like everything I've known has it's just so single-minded yeah so Western culture yeah where it's all about me and it's all about partying especially growing up on the peninsula where it was Fridays on a Saturday and then Saturday was Bay again it was just like you know it's Western culture has this this concept that it's and we don't encourage really a lot of thought around anything else other than the cultural norms and messages from yeah well I think it takes us to get

to like me early to mid 20s when we start actually going holy shit there's a whole million other worlds out there yeah everyone's got different everyone's aware of different things everyone's got different stuff going on and we get kind of allow ourselves to get out of our bubble a little bit yeah some people will never get there yeah but I'm not gonna like personally and talking to you and Tommy and everyone it starts you kind of start to realize where you're going when you get to like 23 24 yeah I think yeah well no that

was it was like a little seed yeah go back to Australia and it just like escalated even more like in my life just you know it was like this little seed that was planted and and I ended up coming back to Australia started a year at marketing at RMIT then I started working for a creative agency and so at the age of 19 I was working for this creative agency running events for Imperial Tobacco Australia multi-million dollar events around Australia big business literally like would run these enormous events for 500 bartenders and just give out

free cigarettes and alcohol and I was my life and would run events like the port see polo and music festivals and things like that and the environment itself was just toxic but it was celebrated everything that I was I literally got served drugs on a silver platter and as a young teenage girl who had no idea who the heck she was that quickly became my norm and I found myself just completely stuck in this what Western culture says is a really glamorous lifestyle yeah but inside it was killing me what do you what do you

mean by stuck I felt like I was on a hamster wheel and because it's so seen as you've made it yeah and it's so seen as successful you one don't know how to stop and you don't want to stop yeah and the thing is is that especially for me this party lifestyle it literally it just kept going like it just fed itself like I would be working 70-hour weeks running these massive events and then partying every night afterwards and then not sleeping and then having to just like fuel myself almost with drugs again and they

were like there was never a point where it was a vicious like it was like wait like when did it stop for me like it was just that and he just doesn't even cross your mind so that's what I yeah that's where I felt I guess trapped it and I think cuz it was just so celebrated and so encouraged and as a 19 year old you're like sure yeah why not yeah pretty easy to fall into that trap yeah and it's kind of I was thinking that movie candy with he played you oh I haven't

seen it yeah I think one of these quotes is when you can stop you don't want to yeah when you want to stop you can't yeah and it's like it's kind of that you're in there and you can't see yeah it's so I guess easy to understand how people get stuck yeah oh absolutely and because it is fun yeah and that's the thing it is fun it's so fun and the problem for me was that I I actually just had no idea who I was and all I all I knew I just all I I

realized now in highlight through the journey that I've kind of gone on in last few years yeah I realized that I all I was was what everyone else wanted me to be so I just kept changing myself to please everyone else around me or I would change myself in regards to the affirmations that people would give me and so I became this like full of life joyful like my crazy person yeah but it was all surface yeah it was all so surface yet in that crazy time did you ever have no I couldn't be alone

I remember coming home from nights out and I just couldn't be alone like I just the the silence and almost like it was so confronting to be by myself that I just I would avoid it at all costs which is why you just end up in that circle of just continually I just would make myself so busy and I would work so so hard yeah also I would just avoid reality really yeah that's pretty crazy how did you transition out of that so when I turned 21 so I've been partying and living this high life

for a few years and my parents had moved to England yeah so I went on this journey quit my job working for this agency I said I'm 21 I need to go travel Europe so I booked a ticket to England and my sister and I who was 18 at the time pretty much just traveled around Europe for six months and we just partied our way around and exactly the same kind of lifestyle yep everywhere we went to just all drugs and boys and just the whole shebang really and it's all I knew it's all I

knew so it was fun and it was it was mighty mighty fun but again no flippin clue who I was yeah and so when what happened for my journey was that so my family was that you or me I find so my story I grew up in a Christian home so faith was always a big part of a childhood you grew up with Christian values but growing up as a teenager I saw Christianity as a set of rules and I saw as things you can do any can't do and I saw that people were doing

things and I was like oh then that nothing's happening with them they look like they're having much more fun than the Christians I know and so I literally was like I don't want to borrow it so that's why I went off and did my own thing and then I went off and did all these things and I wasn't shot down by lightning or anything like that so I was like what's the whole big deal about yeah so I stepped away from my faith for so many years so then found myself in England had partied my

way around for six months and mom and dad were like oh you should go check out this church and I was like oh I really don't want to the last thing I need is like a whole bunch of like fake Christians who just think their life's perfect and eventually I went and it was it just shocked me when I walked into this beautiful beautiful Cathedral building in Brighton in England that it was just full of young people who were just normal so normal and we're just real and vulnerable and I felt a sense of community

and belonging there and I started going and I started being connected in with the kids group and the youth group and I just saw that they were all helping their community so so much and they had this the perspective of life that they they actually had purpose more than just partying and making money they actually had a purpose and they were actually doing something good for the people around them and they were showing love and it just it struck something in me and so then I continued to go on my path of success and wanted

to work on my dream job in London as a PR in a PR agency and yeah I managed to get that so I a month later started working for a massive PR agency in the heart of London Leicester Square and a month later I was dying my soul was dying again it was just this tunnel vision of what's that word when it's just so ego no um is it egocentric now what's the word where it's all about yourself like it one of everything's about yeah you know you know the world and so something I think

that I think seeing two different narratives to me at that stage I had this church community of people actually helping those around it was polar opposites and I realized that one of them was actually just bringing more harm to me than good and it wasn't encouraging me to be the best version of myself so I quit that job found a move to London my parents moved back to Australia I found myself living in England by myself found an apartment and then the church randomly offered me a job and so told my friends in Australia that

I was working for a charity couldn't bring myself to tell them I was working for a church and so then for me that's where that journey started it was this journey of encouraging me to figure out my purpose in life and my faith and for me it was a year of being broken of just absolutely allowing myself to feel again I bottled up my emotions my whole entire life that all of a sudden I was I was encouraged to actually feel something and I was told that I had purpose other than just for who I

was and what I was doing and things like that yeah that's super cool did you I guess finding having a year of you yeah term being broken yeah what was it like going through that time painful as a heck yeah all of a sudden I I and so for me I can only explain it as like the presence of like like something like you've actually feel it and it's to me it's God you know it's like this immense overwhelming sense of love that no matter what I've done in the past I'm still so loved and

there was no shame attached to it and so that kind of word of broken was that only only God's love could really bring me back into that place of like full fulfillment and I think that it's painful as all heck because our world and our culture doesn't allow pain yeah we're not we're taught to we're taught to fix it yeah just like fix it good it like just turn it yeah and totally mask it yeah and we're actually not told to go deep and dig deep and actually deal with our issues and deal with our

insecurities and deal with those last hurts and past things that that have created us to continually put up walls yeah well you're stuck not allowing ourselves to feel feelings yeah tell me like we tell each other and we tell people not to tell people how they're feeling oh yeah because we say wait yeah exactly it's getting better but yeah it is Oh feel your feelings and if you're sad be sad if you're angry be angry that's something that we certainly push a lot yeah amazing if you like if you it all gets pent up eventually

something's gonna break it's a volcano otherwise and I would have moments of that of just like I don't know what I'm feeling because it was just so explosive yeah and it's because yeah we bottle it up so so often and we don't encourage actually for us to go on that journey of I guess self-discovery we'll get to all the stuff you're doing yes really short bit of advice for people that are struggling to let it out and struggling to deal with all these things yeah someone who's been through it yeah someone that's helping other people

go through yeah what would you what advice would you them I think for me the biggest thing was allowing myself and giving myself permission to be alone like not and not alone in the sense of like by myself forever but actually being okay to take myself for a walk in nature and just reflect and actually give ourselves permission to feel what it is that we are feeling inside and be responsive to that so as you said if it's anger feel anger if it's sadness feel sadness because it's the only way we're actually gonna get through

to the other side is if we actually experience those feelings and those feelings aren't bad feeling no they're just they're just like they're emotions we're humans and that's what we have but I think like to have that nice and I hate the term balance but I'll use it anyway but to have that balance we need to feel angry we need to feel sad we need to feel distress yeah because that allows us to feel happy and to have you seen the movie inside out yeah oh my god so that like I was at the end

of it yeah happy this and sadness need to work together because otherwise and it's that difference between joy and happiness happiness is instantaneous and fleeting joy actually is lasting but in order to get joy we actually need to go through pain and suffering and emotions and so you know I yeah I think I think couple weeks ago one of the boys I was talking to we spoke about that if you you don't understand what cold is until you've had hot yeah and vice versa and then you end up somewhere in the middle a lot of

the time but I think emotions are kind of exactly the same if we've been to one end you understand the other yeah there's always you know it's not there's there's always a hope there's always light at the end of the tunnel there is always something you're gonna get through it like you know it's never the end of the road how did that end that you kind of finding yourself end up still on it I don't think you're ever you don't ever find yourself fully I think you you almost you once you embark on it there's

no stopping I guess yeah it's a journey that is exciting because and I think you know God like for me God is a mystery it's a complete mystery it's everywhere like God has created everything and so it is this great mystery there's this beautiful quote by AW Tozer who is this beautiful theologian and it says to have found God and still pursue him is the soul's paradox of love that's cool so it's just it's this paradox it's kind of like we don't ever actually stop but there's something inside of us that allows us to keep

going to chase after and search after that deeper purpose I think that's really cool and like I'm someone that doesn't have faith yeah I guess structured way or but it was really interesting talking to Tommy and hearing the way you talk about it because like all it is is you guys finding this feeling that you want to chase continually chase to make yourself better and to make the world better yeah and it's knowing I think for me the biggest transformation was knowing my identity that my identity was that I have been created for a purpose

and that I am loved by God for me there's that purpose to to love and to be loved we don't realize that and I think so much of our brokenness in our culture comes from the fact that people don't know that they're loved but once I once I've realized that actually the creator of the universe loves me I then can give holy to those people around me and be like hey I'm a mess and I have no idea what's going on and I you know I feel all these emotions and things but they're still like

but I'm loved and there's and I'm saying that everyone's kind of guessing to a point yeah and you've always got that to come back to you always got that I'm loved to come back to and peace yeah that's good yeah what happened next so ended up in England spent a year and a half there loved it found the most incredible community mentors as well mentors really helped me older people ask me questions that no one else would ask me challenging me getting me thinking about different things and just you know mentors I think are just

fantastic and so then I thought I wanted to spend the rest of my life in England so I came back in March of 2015 to extend my visa what I thought was a two-week trip turned and quickly a two-month trip because the very first week I was back I met a lady called Melinda tankard-roost and she speaks out on the issues of pornography to young people yeah and my mom dragged me along to this talk and was like oh you'll love it it's all about empowering women and body image and all stuff and I was

like oh it sounds like it's all gonna be like women are beautiful sparkles princesses and I was like you don't wanna borrow it went along complete opposite for me it opened up my eyes to this whole issue that we're living in such a pornified culture so as a young person growing up in the party scene and everything like that I felt that I had to be a certain somebody I had to look a certain way and I had to perform a certain way as well and I had to just kind of do whatever boys asked

me to do because that was just normal and I didn't want to be like the prude or anything like that and what Melinda did is she opened up my eyes to this whole issue of what I guess pornography is doing to the minds of young people that when they're growing up watching such I guess hardcore pornography from such a young age before they've even had that first kiss yeah they then just think that's normal and then girls also equally are just thinking that that's normal as well and so I was on was like oh my

goodness epiphany it's not me it's actually a culture that's encouraging me to hate myself and so two days later I decided I needed to do something about it and that this was an issue that's affected me in more ways that I knew and it's affecting my younger sisters and it's affecting my younger brother and it's affecting everyone I was just like this isn't you know this isn't just a whoa is me this is like massive and so one of the images she showed in her presentation was a picture from Zoo Weekly magazine and it had

a woman cut in half and it asked the viewers to rate which half you like and why and it just completely objectified women and I was like but that was what I felt deep down inside my whole life as a teenager that I was purely just my body and so I decided to run a campaign to get Zoo Weekly out of Coles or Moorwest and it wasn't just the pictures it also gave advice to young boys that said you've got to pick the loosest skankiest one of the lot that you're drinking separated from the flock

yeah so giving young boys advice you just got to get a girl drunk and she's all yours and so when one in three girls are sexually assaulted in our culture at the moment we like we have to look at the cultural drivers behind that so I started this campaign not doing anything like this ever in my life and overnight it gained like 20,000 signatures and then over the course of a month and a half it gained 40,000 signatures I was doing global media I was all of a sudden the speaker for pornography and the harms

of it and I just was like what the heck is going on during that month and a half I got death threats rape threats like I had to go to the detective like full-on stuff so you know when you stand up against an issue like this you're not going to make friends all the time there was a lot of people that didn't agree with as soon as you challenge any norm exactly you're gonna get backlash yeah totally and we're not given the and it just shows how ingrained people are to just this and how damaging

it actually is when anyway so when so my visa got rejected three times in those two months I was determined but it finally got to a point I was like all right God if you want me to straight I'm gonna stay so Cole's decided to take their magazine off the shelves and in tow the entire magazine shut down so from one campaign to shutting down a whole magazine I was like what the heck is going on but shows the power of I guess following your passion and following something that you're just like this little fire

inside of me was just like there's an injustice happening and it needs change yeah and so yeah yeah yeah yeah not be able to make it take action yeah make that thing happen what you do first talk to people found people who agreed with my values and agreed with why I wanted to do it and then got a team of people to do it so collective shouted anti campaigning organization headed it up with me and I then just started the petition online on change.org I mean I wouldn't consider myself an activist type thing I just

I think sometimes activism can be quite fleeting and not actually create sustainable change but for me for whatever reason it was a tool that I was given and it's launched me off into doing what I'm doing now yeah absolutely and so just I had a lot of backlash but to stay strong in what you believe and actually be like no this is hard but and I'm not gonna make friends so like people pleasing we just that has to go out the window quite quickly but just to continually remind yourself why your why always come back

to your why yes got it on your table yeah and so for me the victory really laid not only in the fact that the magazine was shut down forever great win but for me is the conversation that got started yeah so I then got to speak in schools all around the country hearing stories of young girls who are like being tied up and whipped and all these other things in during sex because their boyfriend or whatever has seen it and these girls are just experiencing that as the norm and boys coming up to us in

tears being like I'm addicted to pornography and I don't know and I don't know want to stop and the problem is is that young kids don't actually have to be actively looking for porn porn just finds them you know it's that click through click through it's the everywhere and when average age of first exposure is 11 yes you know it's it's getting worse and worse well yeah we didn't have a knife I don't have an iPhone until yeah I was like 18 19 I think I don't remember but um yeah no deal what the question

was yes yes so I spoke in schools all around the country had crazy stories of young girls and just realizing that this issue was so much more prominent that I even thought yeah I did this for about a year and a half and at the end of October last year I got to a point where I once again found myself in a hamster wheel and I didn't know how to get off yeah all of a sudden I was Laura the porn girl Laura the zoo girl and I was being boxed into that and I hated

it I hated that all of a sudden I was just this is like I just felt really trapped and so well and during that October as well I was also part of the foundation of young Australians and I'd won their program for young social pioneers so many words but and one $10,000 to go towards my program called what's normal which I get to in a second but during this month of October last year I I lost who I was again I lost the the ability to I lost my why I just felt like I was

on this hamster wheel and I didn't know how to get off and I needed to stop and so after winning $10,000 the whole world wanted me to just keep going keep going run run run run go go go go go yeah and I needed to stop so I took six months off that's awesome you're able to make that decision yes hardest decision I'm such a doer no exactly and I like our culture doesn't allow for that we say that we have to go go go go go and it's all an uphill thing yeah but sometimes

we need to rest to recharge our battery like unless like we like you can't drive a car unless you refuel you know you need to reach unless you get a service or unless you burn out and the engine is just gonna go like to explode and so for me I had to be strong in who I was to know that I needed to stop so I stopped I learned how to make sourdough bread and I hate you know just didn't I didn't do what everyone wanted me to do and I just and hung out and

just but I had to get back to my wife so I did a lot of self-discovery again I did a lot of meditation I did a lot of just that deep faith things like I had to get down to be like God what is going on what is your purpose for my life what is your plan for my life and I just had to find that peace again had to find that peace so I could follow that peace because without peace we strive and we're always searching for something and we're always searching for something yeah

whereas if you are moving forward in peace then there's a lot of rest in that yeah there is but I guess having that peace allows you to realize it when I have to be moving forward all the time there's nothing wrong with just being yeah being present doing what you're doing yeah and enjoying it and not necessarily needing that bigger house or faster car or absolutely extra 10k in your bank account it's not that yeah the pressure from society to what success is exactly and we all fall into that trap yeah and I think that's

when we're aware that we fall into that trap that's where the first step of allowing us to well what can we do to improve it yeah and I think things like meditation yeah something I struggle with but I'm getting I like moving meditation my things like that size and yoga and things those are the things that allow us to kind of get out of our mind into our body yeah just be absolutely because for you like what do you think the biggest pressures are from society for figures precious it'll be how you look yeah what

you do yeah like hey looks just huge like we're completely anti-body image in like everything that we do is promote is to promote how you feel and how you perform amazing and how you move and all these things rather than hey look yeah but there's no mirrors I did notice that that's amazing I love that you know hundreds of people coming through the week and we've got yeah one or two mirrors that are in the bathroom and that's it so yeah that that's intentional that's not an accident and I think that the promotion of things

like you know from my industry's point of view things like a week challenges 12 week challenges super fat diets like lemon detoxes and all these crazy things where people go well how can I get instant gratification right now about the way I feel it just perpetuates the culture of well if I do this quick fix then I'll get where I want to get to and that's the thing that people fall down because well if you want to achieve something no matter what it is I don't care what it is it takes time and it takes

effort and it takes little steps over a long long period of time we've been trying to work on a way to the problem with all that stuff the lemon detox the 12 week 8 week challenges the get fit fast kind of things they're all extremely easy to market and we've been trying to work on a way to market like a five-year challenge or a two-year challenge or something that's like well maybe you want to look at where you are in two years or five years yeah but culture doesn't like that no because we are an

instantaneous society exactly and that's why we struggle how do we fix that how do I know I've started going like the complete officer way and just like throwing like things out with 25 year olds bull do you wanna be able to get up until it when you're 20 or when you when you're 80 dudes like do you want to be able to play with your grandkids when you're like but we just don't think like that like my girlfriend my client yeah and I've told a bunch of this I haven't told a lot of this is

for them to be able to deadlift when they're 100 it's a really simple goal but if you can pick a barbell with some weights up off the floor when you're 100 I've done my job so great yeah that comes from a long period of education yeah and growth and improvement yeah you're right we live in a culture where yeah it doesn't those kind of things sustainable in the culture and it's what do we do about it yeah I think that's something that you're doing well I think so you though but it's living it out and

I think all we can do and all that we have is our story yeah and so we all we can do is live by the convictions that we have in our hearts and hope that hope and a tactic around a tactic but hope that the way we live actually offers another narrative to those around us yeah and I know what you do in your gym offers that other narrative it offers a countercultural narrative to what other gyms are offering and your business is booming because of it because we generally want it and like all our

coaches live it as well so it's not just you guys should do this but we're gonna go and do it I just get shredded in yeah things like that so yeah it's we get in there and it's a slow process it is but it's great yeah and then you see you like it it's the famous model with six and they throw out some shitty information I know about a scrappy diet yeah it's like yeah it feels like you're pushing shit up here I'm exactly the same because I know so I've deleted Instagram this week I

deleted Instagram because of the thief of comparison and it is did you okay you love your quotes I love it we could just we could just do a quote battle and just like yeah and it is what is driving so much mental health in young girls and boys and body image issues and all those things and so when you have these role models in their lives which are these insta famous fitness models it's setting up unrealistic expectations for what we're meant to look like and we're not and we're completely objectifying people and girls don't know

where to look and they have no idea there is no good role models exactly they there's good role models out there absolutely finding them and understanding well yeah I want to feel my body and be strong and yeah do all these things rather than hey if I don't eat for three days I'm gonna get skinnier and lose weight and it's finding the ways to I guess measure it and chase it and how we actually perpetuate that to the board community and I think I get frustrated at the yeah someone with heaps of followers posting something

shitty or something like that but why do you think they have loads of followers because sex sells yeah and it's yeah it's simple it's why they why do your hands what's why does sex so was there basic human instinct instinct to want to reproduce to want to eat have some have shelter and like those basic human needs are the things that have now lizard brain yeah ticks off first yeah so I think that's the in it like basic problem nature that's why it's so big but it's because of the this quantify culture and look like

the time we're living in people that's they go to that because it's available yeah and it's easy and I think it's the access yeah it's the access and I think it just takes one person at a time to start pushing it the other way and like you might be fighting it yeah but yeah but in that time you the one person you affect one day my will affect ten more exactly yeah like how do you change world one person at a time like it's a really simple one but it's something that we live by and

it's yeah if we can if we can make our community better yeah people that are here better than absolutely yeah that's changing the world that's making a little bit even if we're not making on a giant scale like no yeah because it's actually real change and there's depth to it and I think that's what I love about you guys is that it's not just surface level it's not just like how do we boom this really quickly and scale this it's actual genuine change you're changing culture around you create something that changes culture today but also

changes culture in 20 30 40 50 years when I'm no longer part of it or no longer doing this yeah something that's still gonna push that positive culture yeah tell me about what's normal so finally finished my six months of bread making of sourdough bread making and so I ended up winning Victorian young achiever of the year this year thanks and that was completely by surprise and for me I was so ready to throw it all in I was just like this is too big and I can't do this and what that award did was

give me the confidence and the encouragement to be like no this world needs this conversation so what's normal is a youth run movement that empowers young people to be intentional about what they will accept as normal good intentionality yes and so what we've been doing at the moment is speaking in schools and keeping it local for two years I traveled Australia giving one hour seminars all around Australia you drop a bombshell and you leave and it frustrated me because there was no real change and yes you might have like sparked the brains of two people

in the audience of like yes I'm not gonna you know I'm gonna do something differently but you know really progress real change takes time like you said and so for us at what's normal we are very intentional again about creating cultural change in a place so we've decided to keep it localized and what we want to do is be able to give young people the tools to one think critically about the messages that they get from pornography from social media all of those things unpack the tricky topics that no one else is talking about like

porn like sexting like all those things and then offer them the stats about it all like so what does science say about this what other kids say about this actually go well here's what yeah the research is saying exactly and there's so much research to back this up and yeah I'm not gonna go into all of those two things and everything but then what we do is we say actually you have the power to change the culture around you know it does it it we talk about being taking them from being a consumer of culture

to a creator of culture and we want to be able to see a generation of young people to actually stand up to the cultural norms around them and say no you know what we deserve better yeah we want to do something better I want to change that and you're doing that like that's what I love about you guys it's like you're doing that you decided you know what the other gyms this is not good enough yeah exactly I'm gonna create my own and it's gonna be better and it's gonna be more beneficial to the community

around me and it's gonna leave a legacy yeah and that's the thing and what are the what are the ages you guys are trying to hit so at the moment our favorite age is your age yeah I just think that they're at this formative stage of their life where they're really kind of figuring out what is like their norms I went into school the other day and I spoke to you right girls and this is just shocked me I was speaking to 50 year eight girls they were 12 year old girls and I asked who

here gets asked to send nudes 80% of those girls put up their hands without even blinking an eyelid so for them that's just the norm it's like 12 year old girls and so so then what we talk we unpack like okay so if you do want to say no how do you say no and these girls just don't have permission from Western culture to say no and so we find your rates are the best but I mean this is affecting yeah sorry many people but for me it's like engage a conversation that is my thing

I just want to start this conversation I want to get people thinking differently about the world around them yeah like mindset in terms of thinking critically and being able to unpack yes and you just don't have I think I would have the ability to at all no probably not until like yeah maybe I still struggle yeah but it's yeah I think that's really cool that you're able to get in and actually talk to the girls yeah see it's not just a hey I think this is an issue it's yeah this is being repeated back to

me over and over again how do you think how well do you think the kids your rights do it actually knowing who they are and actually figuring that out themselves oh they have no idea yeah they have no idea and we don't like I think Western culture lacks a rite of passage program our rite of passages for so a rite of passage program is beautiful in the way that it actually allows this journey of self-discovery our rite of passage program is go to the bay on a Friday night and get absolutely wasted yeah it was

was go to school go to school get a bit like you know like ah that is our rite of passage for boys footy footy and getting drunk you know it's like that's it it doesn't go any deeper whereas you look at other cultures like the African culture and things like that and there's this whole rite of passage program which involves a battle it involves solitude it involves contemplation all these things that encourage that self-discovery journey and awareness and so we don't have that so that's a whole nother aspect of I think something I'm very passionate

about what would you put in our rite of passage if you if you could write a rite of passage yes or every young person yeah those things that I said so I think solitude and contemplation are massive and they're the two things that have affected me so much as I said you know we don't encourage either of those things but there is so much value and beauty in the art of contemplation and solitude because it's confronting yes but as we said it's like those things that actually allow us to get to the core yeah yeah

I think confrontation and is good to a point because it allows us to challenge yeah and when we challenge people to talk and discuss and like I said yeah conversation confrontation or contemplation both both great but I'm in second place yeah but confrontations good as well because I was actually having that conversation before yeah I think confrontations incredibly yeah absolutely but it's almost like we don't sit by ourselves but we don't actually have any real conversations with anyone uh-huh and that's yeah it's so surface level yeah exactly this podcast is one of the first thing

I realized after the first or second one was war get to sit there and have a problem yeah it's so good an hour and a half with no real like there's no agenda and yes hey let's talk and let's learn yeah this um so the Jewish culture they were incredible rite of passage program for boys but part of so Western culture it's all about answers all of our tests are all about the answers we all want to know we all want to be right we want to know yeah the Jewish culture are all about questions

and so it's all about they actually get tested on the questions that they asked and I don't think ask our Western culture we ask enough questions we don't ask why we just get spoon fed and we're lazy yeah and so we actually just take on what everyone else thinks and accept it and just walk past it one of the examples we deal with all the time is because we get we have an internship program so we get a lot of students in that a little bit older but they're all like 18 to 25 we get

a couple of older ones which is awesome because that allows us to get kind of here's a both ends of the spectrum but you're in year 11 year 12 and you talk to you cruise counselors like what do you want to do cycle I don't even know who I am yeah yeah so yeah like like I did yeah there you go hey I like sport hey go do it a bachelor of exercise sports on something like that or go to a teaching degree or something and all the school systems yeah exactly a couple of teachers

yeah which will be really interesting but I think it's like school systems perpetuates that culture yeah I guess magnifies the culture to a point because it's well we're sitting in a classroom and just listening for eight hours a day and not actually taking anything in or learning or and it's all defined by what you do yeah and not who you are as a person yeah we don't in it's your ability just to regurgitate information exactly and not actually well yeah well this is what I want to do this is who I want to be what

are your passions like what are the things like what are the things that give you joy not knowing what your passions are but you're not gonna learn what your passions are while sitting in a classroom listening yeah so I think it's I was sitting in a desk job to pay for your mortgage yeah like I think so there's another quote here we go quote battle um the place that God calls you to so the place that you were created for is the place where your deep joy meets the world's deep hunger and I think that

first bit of like the place where your deep joy for me I didn't know what gave me joy and I would just do things for the sake of doing things because I thought I had to do things but when you allow yourself to go on a journey to actually figure out what makes you tick as a person and then you pair it with something that the world so desperately needs I think you then hit the sweet spot yeah I think that's really cool and when we do goal setting one of the quick like we asked

that why question yeah so important we prompt it over and over again well what do you want I want to cut why so I can get what I want to get to why do you want to do that no freedom freedom so I can do the things I want to do what do you want yeah and it's so good always eventually gets to a point where it's well I want to make the world a better place or yeah yeah I want to change the way things are done and I think that's that's the amazing thing

about what you're kind of pushing and growing is that ability to question and and see change rather than just and it is what it is yeah which is what we've said yes just yeah yeah that's I think it's maybe because we're in amongst it but it feels like it's growing legs and snowballing yeah with people our age and younger especially who are actually going well why can't we change things yeah why can't we upset the status quo absolutely there's I was at a conference a few weeks ago and one of the talks I went to

was all about cultural creatives and I sat there and I was just like blown away and it's whoever's listening to this Google it and like I think like you should have a read of one of the books it certainly will cultural creatives and it's a movement of people that fit a bunch of categories and there's a movement of like 40 to 50 million people around the world doing it and it's just exactly what you said there is such a movement there is this an undercurrent in our world at the moment of people that are wanting

to see the world to be a better place who are not just gonna put up with a status quo who actually are gonna value their faith and all these other things and they're doing it in a really creative and beautiful way and it was just like oh great this is great it's actually this isn't it just yeah this is actually a beautiful thing with like 40 to 50 million people that's amazing that's really cool what's your what are you guys working on at the moment what's your main project so at the moment we are working

on a video series we decided that one we want to make this message scalable and sustainable and in order to actually have the balanced life that I want to have I can't be on a plane every second day and traveling so we also saw the need to empower people who will be journeying with these kids because we want to say yeah exactly parents teachers youth leaders all these different people who have the relationships with the kids who can speak into their lives so in video series for us is just that go-to option my background in

creative direction and things means that I love film and I just think it's a beautiful way to actually evoke emotion and thoughts and so we're doing a five five times by 15 minute video series of just stories of young people who have seen something wrong in the culture who have been affected by that who have decided you know I actually don't agree with this and I want something better and then who have done something better eg you so this is my proposal to you would like to be on my film series so that's yeah so

at the moment we're getting trying to get funding for that and that's our next project yeah I mean amazing yeah really cool because I think then allows that to start the conversation yeah exactly that's yeah it's a tangible product that can then be distributed all around the world yeah awesome that's really really cool he told me I'm in talks yes yours huh I've got um I like to call them my personal board um in a board in a business you have lots of different people that serve different purposes you have your lawyers your finance people

all those kind of people I've been very selective and very blessed in the people that I've come across and so I have spiritual mentors I like older women that are strong in their faith and have journeyed life and I go to them for a lot of wisdom I also so another word like village like it's a village of people where we don't embrace that village mentality I don't think anymore but when you look at a village it's got the grandmother the mother the aunt and all those other things that give everyone this experience all these

different things yeah so I think mentors for me older women who are strong and have gone before me I have a few incredible business women as well my dad he's an absolute legend and the wisest human and yeah I just I think making use and not being afraid to ask people for help yeah is huge I can't do this alone and it's been because of my tribe of people around me that I am who I am today it allows your your idea to take legs and spread process this is like right and then to be

like Laura that's a stupid idea why are they why are you doing that and be like yeah of course and it's just you know people are there and people want to help and I now mental girls you know it's just like that beautiful cycle of what we receive we get to do is ask because everyone's chuffed to go I think that's the best thing is I can see further than ever before because I stand on the shoulders of giant yes like when you yeah sharing those experiences or hearing about those experience from them you kind

of live them yeah your mentors kind of hindsight is your foresight it allows you to kind of skip a couple of steps absolutely and in Australian culture we have a bit of a problem with pulled tall poppy syndrome oh yeah and so that quote I love because it completely is the opposite of yeah and it's definitely it's definitely Western culture we don't celebrate each other's success is enough because we because we jealousy yes jealousy but we want to be on the same level as people around us oh we want the people who around us feel

the same level so when they kind of jump up to that next level we go hey come bring me with you yeah and we don't like lean down and grab a hand and pull pull each other up like we should which is what we're trying to change yeah so good I've got a bunch of questions for you okay they're super sure but you can give me a good answer if you want this thought of this one something Greg and physio asked me a while ago yeah because of something said before you also lived a pretty

crazy life in certain times yeah now in time if in quiet times of reflection yeah what do you draw your inspiration God yeah like how do you like this is phenomenal like there's just so much creativity and beauty yeah and like it's someone who like the the idea of God kind of I don't like it in the way it's kind of being narrative it's kind of being shown throughout my life but I think it's one of those things that it's just a it's just a word for and this is me trying to unpack it a

little bit yeah it's just a word I guess the energy it goes off all the yeah I'll give you a book I'm working on I'll give you a good book tonight reading yeah this yeah I think for me again we have our Western cultural norms of what God is and all of those things and I think reading different perspectives of who God was was really helpful for me yeah and I read an incredible book by a Franciscan monk Richard raw called falling upward highly recommend it to anybody because it talks a lot about what we've

talked about today all right it's brilliant and for me God is in everything and is everything and also is residing in me with this just yeah so I need to work with a different term rather than God I'm working on it yeah what is the first thing you think of when you when you hear the word God man in the sky yeah and that's what I think that's the thing old beard man in the sky with yeah like all right what about Jesus son of man in the sky yeah and Holy Spirit yeah and I

think that like for me that spirituality is yeah really important so but I think I just need to get my brain around I need different terminology than God and Jesus and things like that because like I said I love like and we're talking about it before I love walking outside and looking at the Sun yeah smiling and taking a big deep breath just makes you feel at peace yeah and it's one of those things that like I try and do it every day yeah and that's like for me that's spirituality that's allowing myself to kind

of be peaceful and be present yeah things like that so yeah maybe it's a terminology thing we'll get it yeah it's all right and it's all discovery it's all asking why exactly yeah exactly what are you grateful for Oh life and love yeah family they're just grateful for so much I think in the in my low moments and I've had those recently of just like feeling overwhelmed and it's I've got a I I remind myself and I kind of take a posture of gratitude and I have to really push myself to get into that posture

and it's being thankful that actually I think it really defeats those comparisons and those self-pity thoughts and those things that just bring you down yeah and so yeah I am thankful for so so much it's probably a different answer than you would have given in your times in the corporate world yeah but what is success to you finding your joy good I love some places if you could give teenage you one piece of advice one so this is the thing and this is like yes I wish I knew what I know now then but I

also wouldn't be who I am today unless I did and someone once told me that those fires in our your life that you try and hide so desperately yeah later on in life if you will allow it will be used as beacons of hope for other people around you and I just see that working itself out now like those things like my past history with partying and drugs and boys and all these things I wanted to hide I was like oh but now it's exactly what I talk about I get to share my story and

if it if it encourages one young girl to not feel the pressure that she has to send that nude picture to the boy that she actually doesn't want to you know then that's awesome or if one boy is like you know what just because culture says I have to be this type of masculine macho person actually I want to be who I want to be you know like oh yeah I my advice would be you know just tell them that God loves me what's the last book you read start to finish oh I have just

finished I literally have like five so I hated reading like in high school never read a book always watch the movies of all but recently as I've embraced this journey of self-discovery and faith I've just can't stop reading I love it and I'm on five books I'm reading five books at the moment the last one I fully read what was it I can't remember but what you learn from it so falling upward the book by Richard raw yeah talks about this concept of life that we always think we're on an upward trajectory but actually we

actually begin to find ourselves when we start to fall down yeah that's probably fair that's cool if you could have a built billboard top of the Monash freeway what would it say what would you put on it well you're loved I know but I think truth speak something into ourselves in our hearts yeah and then you've got it like people actually have to speak it yeah except accept it yeah otherwise it just bounces off and so there's actually this study science study and there's there was two canisters of water taken from the exact same like

one canister of water was speaking words spoken words of the love over it and really positive things and then the next canister was spoken words of hatred and really bad things yeah when put under a microscope like a few weeks like after this like every day they were being taught to these water particles the particles of the water with the words of truth and love and everything were actually beautiful like crystallized like when put under a really intense microscope but the ones of hatred were actually dead I need to see that study my scientific bias

I know no way I know it's legit like legit prove it Google it I know it was at a conference I went to and I just took I was like what you're joking so I just think there is a pattern it's this pattern when I want to read the the chances for scientific for improvement on the future studies for that one let's just get more than one and let's say let's be impartial with the middle one but I think there might be more studies on it maybe I think there's a lot of hours Google it

do you have any morning rituals I have a cup of tea I love tea and I have start my morning in prayer and like meditation center myself for the day and yeah just pray good watch the sunrise a couple of favorites for yes you don't even like mornings and as soon as I get out of bed and get moving on fun yeah yeah a couple of favorites favorite movie my mind destroys blank every time I asked and I'm like and then I panic all I can think of is inside out because that's just what we

talked about favorite recording artist I am see again I hate these questions I was listening to chance rapper on the way here because I like play on favorite resource for new information literally anything you need to know you you just Google it favorite hobby favorite hobby oh I love running I also watercolor watercolor there you go that's that's different yeah that's a different answer I allowed myself I gave myself to just do something for the sake of nothing else other than just like just attempting to be creative yeah I like that it's different yeah done

I'll create you a quote yeah favorite quote oh I've already made name two of them yeah to have found God and still pursue him it's the soul's paradox of love good last question you mean if you could be remembered in one sentence what would it be legacy okay it would be that I challenged the norm and was able to other people and other Larry narrative based on truth and love cool very good what is normal I don't think there is anything how can people find what's normal and find your stuff and get in touch yeah

so the website is what's normal co and our Instagram is what's normal underscore and you can just contact us on there so we yeah we're looking for young people to get involved and we just want to we want to share stories of young people who have felt affected by an issue and have done something different or want to do something different get in contact love your work anymore you're amazing