S2E12 · Community & Accountability

And I think the important part of a community is for it to be robust and fluid and almost like a living organism. We want a community to, like we don't just want to be like happy-go-lucky, everyone agrees with everyone, everyone finds like a happy medium and it's just, you know, there's fluffy little clouds and we talk about the same thing all the time. Like we want to be able to challenge each other, we want to be able to throw out disconfirming information. We want to be able to give feedback, as long as it's not negative feedback on the podcast of course.

These things are so important for us to be able to do it. But the important part of a community is that it moves everyone as a whole towards the direction they want to head. But at the same time, each individual is kind of on their own journey moving towards the direction they want to head. And in this moment, I swear, we are infinite. Mr Simon Cooper, welcome to episode number, well, if it's the way you do it, episode number three of The Burt's Podcast, episode seven, community and accountability, welcome. Sure. I'm completely sure, I've never been surer.

It's wonderful to see you. We've both got a beer, both ready to go. Every minute of every day on Zoom, I'm done, I'm done with it. Yeah. Well, maybe. Still got a little bit longer. Lucky we have a community of people to share the love with, like, I don't have to just look at you, there's also other people that we get to touch base with. Speaking of community, please review the podcast if you have been enjoying it. Get around it. We've had a couple of reviews this week and it's felt really good. It's validated our need for that validation, said validation, and it's brilliant.

So if you are enjoying the podcast, stop what you're doing, the best thing about audio is it keeps playing. So just scroll down and click the "write a review" button, give us five stars, not interested in anything less, and say some nice words. That would be great. It helps us get the word out and helps people hear good things, which hopefully is what we're doing. Yeah. Feedback is the currency that we trade in, so only if it's good feedback, of course. I have no interest in negative feedback. Let's get stuck into this. Tell me how you view community and why we decided to talk about that.

So we're talking about community. We spoke about this briefly on the mental health episode, episode six, but community is, to me community is when a group of people with a shared interest or goal or objective come together and cultivate a culture of belonging. Going back to the early days when we were in tribes and we were worried about getting eaten by sabre-toothed tigers, community was the way we talked. These are the real early days. Humans have been around 200,000 years. Have they? Well, that was pretty cool. It is cool. Yeah. The cognitive revolution started about 70,000 years ago.

Good. I've been doing research lately, so carry on. Yeah. Well, move back to the topic at hand. Yeah. Back, communities were the way that we survived, right? Yes. Band of people, band of, not even people, even animals, animals form communities as well. You're going with this. You are shook. I just interrupted your wife. You did shake me. You just got off the rails. Just let me have a sip of my delicious Blue Room Brewing beer. I got a bit of MP Brewery, a bit of more artisanal. I just like the word artisanal. So yes, communities, a group of people, we've come together to do good things.

It's very Oxford Dictionary of you. Yeah. It's a way that we come together to achieve a mutual thing, regardless of what that thing is. We see it in sport, we see it in the arts, we see it in health. Regardless of what the objective is, regardless of what the pursuit is, community is one of the ways that we can kind of be sure that we'll achieve that thing. Yes. And it's something that we've- Can we do it? We don't need community, though. Inherently we don't absolutely need it. With this place we're at in human history now, community isn't a necessity.

And I think the important thing to understand is that that is, and I'll get around to why I think it is a necessity in a second, but it's almost gone away from community the way we're living over the last maybe 10, 20, 30 years. I've only been around for 28, so I can only speak for that particular period of time. But it's not imperative to have a community to live at the moment, but I think it is imperative to your ability to thrive, to be a part of a community. Because we've spoken about it multiple times, we're in a BC epidemic at the moment, we're in a viral pandemic, but we also are in a loneliness epidemic as well.

And I think that desire for community and desire for connection, and today being R U OK Day is a perfect example of how important it is to have a circle of people who you can lean on and help and look out for. You know, there's no Save Two Tigers anymore, unfortunately, because we killed them all. But there's other threats to our health and wellbeing that community has the capacity to fix. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think inherently we want to be part of communities, like we want to be around other people. And that is reflected in the good things that we can do and how we feel when we are a part of a communal thing.

Yeah, I think back to some of the teams I've been involved in from a football perspective. Even running, which is an individual sport, but having a group of people that we get together with three or four times a week and train with and the things that some of the football teams have been a part of, we're able to do on a football field, because we were a community effectively, a tribe, a team, whatever word you want to use. And now it's kind of spread to people in place and the families that make up, the Virtus family and our extended community.

And I know it was because we talk about interests and belonging and common themes, but there are four types of community, which I thought was fascinating. There's interest driven, that people just share the same interests. So the boys are footy, we like footy. So we hang out together. Action driven. So people that are trying to bring about change, and I've kind of looked at that and think these aren't necessarily the people that like each other, they're like the people that have a common goal and good, because like loving the people you are in a community with isn't imperative to having a strong, robust community.

Of course, love conquers all, and I am a facilitator of love, a believer. And again, there's things like love and happiness aren't imperative for us to keep moving forward as a species, but I think they're important for us to enjoy what we're doing. So there's action, which I thought was fascinating. There's place, which is just geographically located close to each other, which I think I feel, I really feel that now that I'm living in Warrington or Mount Martha, sorry to all you Warrington plebs, but the, you know, live growing up in Carribbean's and moving to Pier Stale and going to Frankston High School, I never really felt like the place, I was in a place with community.

But now I kind of go, okay, well, some of my best mates live within a stone's throw, you know, 20 minute walk and we congregate at the same places and I think that's so important now. Like my weird goal is to have like my 20 best mates all moving to Mount Martha, like some are in different countries at the moment, some are in different parts of the state. I just want how can I get these idiots to all just follow me and move here. - Be my neighbours. - Be my neighbours, like, I don't know,

that whole, like the commune hippie idea kind of freaks me out a little bit, but the idea of having a community of people who are centred around a place, and Virtus we get to see that, we get to see that at common folk, we get to see that at Blue Room Brewing when you get off the ground and get out of the garage, which, you know, is probably post-COVID, I would imagine. But the place thing, I don't know, it seems, it was almost because it was easy when, you know, a thousand years ago or whatever,

it's just the people you're around, like a lot of people would only spend their lives within a 10K radius maybe, I don't know, except for the Romans that marched everywhere, but I'm getting off track. - In regard to the geographic thing, it's cool to see that, and this is driven by these other factors, but people who will travel outside of their geographical boundaries in order to become a part of another community, and that might be driven by interest or practice or any other drivers that encourage people to, or attract people to that community, that group of people.

- Oh, definitely, and everyone's got their own drivers, and everyone's kind of got their own values that they kind of determine which communities they want to be a part of, and some people, like, they might have a, oh, no, someone can't hear. That's probably even better. That's like a better podcast if someone can't hear. I don't know how to share your audio. - I can hear you fine. - It's 'cause I'm sharing on Facebook. Anyway. - Play on. - Sorry, Grace, probably a good thing if you can't hear your brother. - Yeah, I don't know if I can fix it.

Just talk amongst yourselves, then, if you're sitting at home. Well, if you're watching on Facebook, this is your nudge to jump on the live link, and someone will let you in. You can listen properly. How about that? - Yes, values, so people with the same values will be able to almost be attracted to communities. Something we've spoken about before is we want Virtus to be a place that has high gravity. It attracts people in, and it attracts good people. - That's a cool way to describe it. - Yeah, we are a neutron star and we're sucking people into our orbit, that's all we want.

And this is the thing. Virtus gets better the more the good people get sucked into the orbit, and then everyone's winning. And I think it's fascinating that we can have people like, we look at our member base, for example, or the core group of Virtus family members, and a lot of them are within the 10-15k radius, but we've got people from Geelong and Echuca and bloody whoop-whoops, and they still want to come and hang out with us. - In the current pandemic, this is a great example where we have members interstate now who are still being a part of our community, albeit in a virtual digital way, but they still resonate with the same values.

They still get around the people in the Facebook groups and on the platforms that we use. So it's cool that our community is now kind of growing in a geographical way, and technology allows us to do this. It enables that kind of expansion. - Yeah, exactly. And the last one is practice. People are in the same professional activities, I guess, which is kind of like the sporting example or the professional example, which is cool. And these are just circumstances that we find ourselves in and allow us to connect with different people. And I think the important part of a community is for it to be robust and fluid and almost like a living organism.

We want a community to, we don't just want to be like happy-go-lucky, everyone agrees with everyone, everyone finds like a happy medium and it's just, there's fluffy little clouds and we talk about the same thing all the time. We want to be able to challenge each other. We want to be able to throw out disconfirming information. We want to be able to give feedback as long as it's not negative feedback on the podcast, of course. These things are so important for us to be able to do it. But the important part of a community is

that it moves everyone as a whole towards the direction they want to head, but at the same time, each individual is kind of on their own journey moving towards the direction they want to head. And we've used the analogy of a boat before or a bus, like we want to make sure that everyone's on the bus. Everyone who wants to be on the bus is on the bus and that the bus is full of fuel and heading in the right direction and that we're paying attention to the road signs and we know where we're going and everyone's in the seats that they want to be in.

We've used that from a team perspective, but it's the same thing from a community. Just a bigger, bloody bus sign. You're right. This is where it kind of ties into the culture conversation and how every single person adds their little bit of flavor to the overall culture. And if we're all kind of contributing towards the same thing, then the culture, as more people are added, as more flavors are added, then it's going to start to taste differently. It's going to look differently and feel a bit different, but if it's still underpinned by these values or these interests, all those drivers that you mentioned, then it's still moving in the same direction.

We're still moving in the direction that everyone wants to go in. So yeah, I think that it's important to know, to understand by direction, we don't necessarily always mean more or better or anything like that. The direction can be depth as well as breadth. We can be learning more about specific things, but not necessarily moving anywhere. So I think there's progress without necessarily moving, is what I'm trying to say. Let me end the Facebook video, because people are jumping in now. So put context as well. This is a special podcast episode where we're having members of the community jump in and join us.

So we're just going to keep riffing on this for another few minutes, and then if anyone has any questions, stick it in the chat and we'll open up your mic and you can become a star. Who's going to be the star? Really looking forward to Lu's contribution. I think it's going to be the best, but what I wanted to talk about was communities being fluid and living organisms, but the number, the size of the group is limited. And that's the, I think, understanding community. We are effectively a global community now because we're so connected that we've been impacted on our connection a little bit lately and our ability to travel and connect with different parts of the world.

But to know that we could potentially have people from other side of the world jump on this and join this conversation shows that we're pretty connected in the scheme of things. But there's a understanding that we've got to go, okay, well, what's the number of people that my community can hold? What's the capacity? And you know, there's 20 odd thousand people living in Mornington, maybe. That's a complete guess. I have no fucking idea. But Virtus as a gym, like our community is a couple of hundred people strong. And we can't really hold more than that in the current way we are.

I think it's important to go, okay, well, how do I look at communities differently if they're different sizes? There's a lot of conversation at the moment around international with everything happening with corona, around national how like nations are handling things. And you kind of talk off the bat like, oh, this is how Germany is doing it, this is how Sweden is doing it. But then you when you really think about it, it's like Australia, we've got each state's doing a different thing. So we we've almost been brought into that conversation around how does state handle it?

And how does local handle it? And then how do our circles or our family circles handle it? There's a number called Dunbar's number, which basically, I think it's research from the 70s. Maybe can't remember the his first name, let's go with Richard Dunbar, sounds sounds right. Richard Dunbar is our mate. And he did some research around how many people we can actually have meaningful relationships with before we start forgetting people and draw and that drops off and that numbers around 50 once I think it was 135 to 150 is around a number. Maybe it's increased now because we have tools like Facebook and things like that.

But our communities can't get too big. Otherwise, we become disconnected. And that's almost the talks about loneliness before that's almost the social media's impact has brought us all together, but it's also separated us in different ways. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I mean, you've touched on a couple of good points that were like, the technology in the way that we currently living has enabled us to be more connected than ever. And yet, almost in the pursuit of being more connected, we've become more disconnected. And like our circle of circle of influence, you kind of touched on that is bigger, but can be bigger, it can be bigger.

But the way that what the the amount of meaningful impact that we can have within our small communities is greater. So we can have genuine connection and genuine relationships with the people who are in our neighborhoods. But I mean, how many people would know every person on this street? Not many, very few, especially now, like, like on this street I grew up in, we kind of knew most I think. But now it's like, well, we'd spoken to a couple of neighbors, and that's it. And it's bizarre, isn't it? And yet you live it is bizarre to me, and especially I'm sorry.

What's weird, I can see into a neighbor's kitchen freaks me out. I'm sitting here doing bicycle curls in my study, and then she's like, but the Yeah, I think the I got I got a quote for you. It's a little heavy, but it kind of makes you got a quote. Yeah, love quotes. I like books. There's like, this is a quote that I don't know why I've always remembered it. But I reckon I heard it like 10 years ago, and it still freaks me out. But it makes you reassess how we look at community and

how we look at groups of people like we look how we look at state and national and it's a Joseph Stalin quote, the great man. He said, he said something on the lines of Jenny like that, Jenny love that one person's one person's the death of one person's a tragedy, the death of a million people is a statistic. And that is for me, like, I find that fascinating in the way we look at people and groups, like we can talk about, yeah, I don't want to talk about the current situation, but like, are people who

don't want us to be locked down, lean on Sweden, and they go, oh, they're not doing that bad, but they've had like 6000 deaths or something like that. Like that's a that's a statistic. But if you line 6000 people in front of you, and they will drop dead, you'd be like, what the fuck's going on? So I think it's important to understand that there's only a certain amount of influence we can have, and we almost need to bring that community thought or community feeling around to the people that we can actually influence. Yeah. And, and there's a lot of potential for that, not just in the, I mean, definitely in the digital realm.

Like the fact that we've got people joining us on this podcast now is a testament to that. But yeah, creating creating environments where people can come in and be a part of something and there's a sense of belonging. We're in pursuit of similar things, coming back to one of those drivers. It's it just kind of amplifies the the results that we're pursuing or chasing. Definitely. And this is where Yeah, that, again, another fucking quote. Sorry. I didn't mean to swear. I told you I'm riled up tonight. Um, but the if you want to go fast, go alone.

If you want to go far, go together, like that's the reason. That's effectively the reason why Virtus exists. Like for there's obviously other reasons, but the real reason Virtus exists is to do cool things with cool people. Yeah. It's a lot more fun when you can do it with other people who you get on with. Right? Yeah. It's kind of like earlier, but the majority of pretty cool. But just that understanding that we're rocking up every day and we're doing meaningful work and we're creating meaningful relationships. That's a Dalio line, but it's spot on. We

all want to cultivate a life that's worth living a life that we love and a life that fuels our puts it off, puts our soul on fire and, and allows us to just live the way we want to live. I think community is imperative to do that. Yep. Yeah. We can use community as a, uh, as a strategy or a tactic to achieve the things that we want to achieve. Uh, and this is where we can like tie in the accountability part of this conversation. Because if you, uh, I think this is James clear who

says this, but if you want to adopt a certain behavior or a desired behavior, then join a group where that behavior is considered not, or that is the default. Um, if I, if you want to be someone who is a, uh, and this is kind of like almost a like status comes into this as well. Like if you want to be perceived as a person who goes to the gym, then you join a gym and you become a part of that community who are all seen as gym goes, um, but like more meaningful than that maybe is actually adopting the behavior and creating a life worth living, um, for yourself by becoming or tapping into community.

Yeah. For me, accountability and this comes into the culture conversation that we haven't touched on too much, but culture is just creating an, uh, an expectation and unspoken expectation of how people are going to behave. Um, it's made up, but money and time and all the good things are made up anyway, so that doesn't matter. Um, all the words that we're speaking, they're made up, but exactly that, that culture is so important for almost like an understanding of the place you want to build. And like we're talking at the moment because we're closed, uh, we're talking about, okay, what kind of organization do we want to build?

What kind of community do we want to build? And the accountability side of it is just, well, everyone agrees on that invisible made up standard or made up expectation, and then we all do our best to hit it and we hold us, hold each other and ourselves accountable to doing that as often as we can. Like we're going to fall down, but we pick each other up and we carry on. Like we've all, the simplest example is that we've all had a gym partner in the past or a coach or a, or someone, I mean, it doesn't have to be gym, it can be meditation or yoga or study homework, studying your homework or whatever it is.

We've all had someone that we've been able to lean on and go, like, I need your help with this. Like, for example, like we're, we're walking a couple of days a week and training together on zoom at the moment. And it's like the days I don't want to do it, you or Geordie go, oh, how good's today, sun's out, let's do it. And there's the accountability that you don't get if you try and go it alone. There's some people that will utilize their own desires more often than others, their own driving factors. Like you look at Jocko Willink posting a photo of his watch every morning.

I guarantee there's some mornings where he's like, I don't want to, I don't want to get out of bed, but go post my watch for Wallace so he knows when to go to bed. Yeah. Even that's part of community though, like he's, it's social accountability. Yeah. That's right. And, and, um, joining the community or joining a group is almost a, you accept a sense of responsibility there to hold other people accountable or to like hold your place in that tribe and when other people in that tribe start to falter or they fall, then it's part of your responsibility to pick them up and to carry them along with you.

Definitely. Yeah. And I think that's, that's what we're trying to build at Virtus and I'm looking very much looking forward to we get, when we get to the point of more, uh, or being back in the gym where, cause everyone's kind of struggling with different, for different reasons at the moment with motivation and accountability and things like that. And for some people that drive to the gym to switch off after work was the thing that allowed them to do the thing. And everyone's had to adapt to that, but I'm always looking forward to that being normal again where everyone can have a space to do, to do the thing.

And you know, yes, we're passionate about the athletic development and the strength and conditioning and the, and the quality of life game that we're playing by teaching people how to get jacked, ripped and shredded and jump further and lift more and all that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, all it is, is just a space for people to come and be and chase what they want to be. Yep. The environment just sets the stage for us to come together. Oh, I like that. Yeah. So we're apart now so we can be together later, that's what you're saying.

Pretty much. Should we open up some questions? Yeah, let's um, yeah, let's do it. So with this, we've got a group of our superstar community members. Stick your, stick your questions in the chat box, and then we'll invite you to come off mute. We've had a couple of questions submitted offline, which maybe we'll touch on one of those first and then we'll circle back around. Yeah, well, the first one, which is from Jazz, was how do you build a community, which I think all you've, and like, I'm sure everyone's got a different conversation around this. So while the chat box gets filled with questions, let's answer that.

But how you build a community is just find a reason for people to get together and create the space for people to do it, and that's it. An example is for the first four years, or the first four or five years of Virtus, we're in the fifth year now, we've ran the birthday bash, a fundraiser every year, and we always have an awesome turnout, and we always raise a bucketload of cash, and we do it for an amazing reason, but the, we do it for an amazing reason, but everyone contributes, whether they know Ry or

not, and you know, the, I think the important, the thing I learned from that, sorry, I lost my words a little bit there, what I learned from that is that everyone wants to help, everyone just needs a medium, some people just need a medium to be able to do that. And I think a community's exactly the same, where everyone wants to be a part of a community. Anyone who doesn't want to be a part of a community, call me and I won't have a conversation, 'cause you're weird, freaks me out. But everyone wants to be a part of something, I think.

The community building is just around creating a space for people to join or to be a part of it. Something that resonates with them, like Virtus.net is very athletic development based, but the community and the excellence in the education and the performance side of things kind of, we figured it out as we went. - That's a cool example of how, like the organization as a, the organization is a living organism and it's evolved and it's adapted as the people inside of it has changed and the broader community has changed and we've kind of shifted how we approach health and wellbeing and how we change our products or services to meet those needs, to meet the needs of the community.

- Definitely. Yeah, and I think the important part of community is once you're a part of one, you are just as responsible as the pseudo leaders, because I think everyone's a leader once you're part of a community. You're just as responsible for that culture and the, almost the progress of that community. And it's a surefire way to take yourself further forward than you think you could if you take ownership over the development of a place or a group of people. Yeah, like let's use a football example because everyone kind of understands that if you join a football team, you go, I'm going to be a leader of this football team.

I'm going to contribute. I'm going to help the players that are maybe not quite as good as me. I'm going to help them develop and I'm going to learn off the older guys and I'm going to do whatever I need to do. That person's going to get better, but the whole team and the whole organism as a whole gets better. And that's the best part of community, one of the best parts. Yeah. I love that. Love that a lot. Good question from Mitchell. Yeah. So Mitch has sent through a question or two. Mitch will jump off mute and tell everyone.

Show us your face. Lucky it's an audio podcast for most people. There he is. Yeah. Looking a bit hairy currently. Nothing wrong with that. We'll start with one, we can't make, well, let's do too many things at once, make him implode. Correct. If you could teach the entire world one concept, what would it be? Can I have two? Nope. You can have one concept and I'll have one concept. You can - kindness is magic is what I want to say, but what I'm going to say instead, so kindness magic is my second one. My first one is probably you are completely responsible for everything that you have and will be.

No one's there to do the work for you. You are completely responsible. Just ownership conversation, the responsibility conversation, the self-leadership conversation, the same one that we have with most of our members is most people, you're not a special case, you're not an outlier, you're - you've just got to do the work and figure out a way to get where you want to get to. That's mine. Yeah. Work, Joclyn. Thanks. So the thing that came to mind for me was also around personal responsibility, which I think is also very - it's directly related to what we're going through at the moment with the pandemic, but I'm going to do something different.

For me, it would be around - and I guess it's kind of related, but it would be around pursuing your best self and like the world deserves to see you at your best and you making concessions to that by pursuing something that you're not truly passionate about or that doesn't light you up is a disservice to yourself and to your community. I think if everyone pursued the one thing that they're most passionate about, then they'd get really good at it. They would learn transferable skills that you can take into other areas of your life. You build more meaningful and deeper relationships.

You just become a more capable human, which then you can take into your communities to make them better places. Good. Yeah. Something like that. I like that. Mitch, throw us your second one. Oh, yeah. While you're here. Why are people resistant to doing things? We know our healthy, but crave things that are detrimental to us because we're pleasure monkeys because we are ruled by our hormones and we like ice cream and it feels good. And if it feels good, we're going to do it. That's it. Sugar's a drug basically. Yes. We are so, do you

know that before the 17th century, like we had no sugar in our diets and then it went up to like over the course of like a year, it went up to like 29 pounds on average in Europe. So we found it and we thought this is elite. Let's keep sucking this shit up. But we're just instant gratification. That's it. Most people can't see the forest for the trees and they choose to make the decision on what they want now rather than what we'll pay them back tenfold down the track. I think it was Stanford experiment or Oxford or one of those big universities.

And it was, they did a study on impulse and they gave a bunch of kids the option of having one marshmallow now or two marshmallows if they waited five minutes. And the majority of them weren't able to wait, but the ones that did wait down the track, like five, ten years down the track, they were shown to be more successful because they were more likely to delay instant gratification for a bigger payoff down the end. Yeah. So I think that's it. If I jump on sports bet, which happens very rarely, I'll add 15 legs to

a multi rather than going six that I think will win, I go 15 and I usually get 12, but I don't win any of them. So it's the lizard brain inside of me, the instant gratification part of me going, that's not going to work. Well, that's what I want, but it never ends up that way. Yeah. And things are hard. Good things are hard, which ties back into what you said, but do you have an answer to that Mitch? No, that's fair. It's a river question because it's, if you could, like, if there's one thing

you could change about the human psyche would be that, um, you know, like looking at the, the last couple of hundred years, the richer got richer and the poorer got poorer. Like if more people were able to express what they wanted and, and what, and mostly work for they wanted, but kind of channel their energy into the right ways rather than the shitty foods and the Netflix videos and whatever, I imagine the world we live in, could that be a pretty cool, brilliant question from Lou too. Yeah. Lou, jump off, jump off mute, fill us in.

Alrighty. My question is, I know the topic is community, however, do you think accountability always needs to be with other people? Like people might help you get started in the first place, however, ultimately you're the only constant in your life and kind of along with that, if your accountability buddy is feeling the same low motivation as you the same day, are you still going to go out, get out of bed in early in the morning if they've said, nah, I'm not doing it today? I can find someone fun. You answer it first Simon, because I don't want to steal your answer.

No, no, I, great question. And the answer is, I think, no, it doesn't have to rely on other people. I've got, I've got a sticker on my laptop from the book going right by Logan, go brick that says motivation can mobilize us, but it rarely sustains us. And so I think the thing about the thing about accountability is it's tied to motivation because it's almost like the system of accountability that we create is what we fall back to when motivation is low. So if we don't use accountability as a system, then we need to fall back to another system, which we can.

So if we install a system of discipline, which is doing the work when we don't want to do it or creating a habit from that, then that kind of takes the place of it. And often like the momentum conversation rolls into this as well, because once we start building momentum and we start, we get a streak or we find other ways to motivate ourselves, then accountability is just an extra push or we almost, we can flip it and we can use the accountability the other way. And we can look at ourselves as being the motivator rather than the motivatee.

Does that make sense? I think I just made up a word, but gone with it. Makes sense. Yeah. We spoke about that before. So spot on, I definitely agree for once with what Simon said. I think it's definitely both. We at times need community, but at times our community needs us and our friend needs us or whatever. I like looking at it as depending on which part of your life, and this is a little bit more of a helicopter view of your life, it's not like a really microbial, it's a little bit more macro. Depending

on which part of your life you're in kind of determines whether you're more likely to give momentum or need someone else to give momentum to you. So an example of that is like the adolescent stage of like 15 to 25, where you're trying to figure out how the world works, like you kind of need the framework of strong people around you that have done it before, like whether it be sport or business or professional world, whatever, you almost need that framework of people to lean on to help you when you're not motivated. I hate using that word, but when you're not driven to do the thing.

And then there's like the maybe 25 to 40 where you're kind of consolidating, you're figuring it out, and then you're doing a bunch of stuff by yourself, you're collaborating and doing all those kind of things. And then there's like the 40 to 60 or 70 or 80 or whatever it is, where you're more the mentor and you're helping, and obviously these are all very interrelated and very fluid, but where you're like a mentor and you're taking people under your wing and you're helping rather than worry about your own life as much. That's kind of how I look at it, but at the end of the day, we die alone.

We live alone. We live alone. We don't live alone. We're born alone. So yeah, you're on your own, but in saying that, everyone's here to help you and support you along the way. You just find a community of cool people to help you do that. I mean that in the best way possible. Yeah, if you want a couple of resources or books on behaviour change or motivation, Drive by Daniel Pink is a go-to, and Switch by the Heath brothers is awesome around behaviour change and he talks about rational versus irrational things going on inside our heads that stop us from doing behaviour.

That's good. Yeah. All right. Next one. Do you have some tips for people, actually no, what am I reading it for? I don't know. Grace. Get the better twin on. Hello. Just let her read it out. Hey team. Hello. So, my question is, do you have some top tips for people that are trying to move away from an unhealthy sort of community and find like a supportive tribe? Good question. Do you want me to go first? You can go first. Just pull the bandaid off. I don't know. I kind of look at it and go,

okay, well, the questions you've kind of got to ask yourself in that situation is, okay, where am I now, where do I want to be or where do I want to get to? Are my current circles - because we're never involved in just one community, there's many - if we use our 5K radius at the moment, we all overlap. But is my current circle helping me get where I want to get to? If the answer is yes, could it be helping me more? Is it kind of a follow-up question? And then how? And then figuring that out.

If it's a no, then it's like, okay, well, which circles do I need to be a part of to move to the direction I want to get to? I worked a job that I loved for a long time that I don't work anymore because I moved on to different things. But I look back and go, that was some of the best years of my life. It was so much fun. But if I stayed there forever, it would have driven me crazy. I couldn't have done it. So there had to be that eventual tipping point where I went, it's time to leave because this isn't serving me anymore.

And you can say the same thing about relationships, maybe. You can say the same thing about friendships. There's some that will last forever, but most won't. And that's okay. Most good things need to come to an end at some point. Like I've only got 150 mils of this beer left and then I don't know what to do afterwards. Existential crisis. Exactly. That's kind of the way I look at it. Where are you now? Where do you want to be? What's going to get you there? And you don't have to get there the quickest, but you want it to be fun.

You want it to be happy. So that's kind of the way I look at it. Yeah. My answer is similar. I think that's Simon. No, because you're correct. Because I would answer very, very similarly. The one thing that maybe I'll expand on is that, yeah, it's a series of questions that you need to ask yourself and in the understanding or knowledge that as you evolve as a person, as you change and you shift your direction and move away or yeah, you move in a different direction, then your tribe or community may not follow with you. And like Locke said, that's okay.

That's just like a part of life. The next part is finding another tribe to become a part of. And that is a maybe a bit more of like a self-reflection around what's important to you, what do I value? What are my interests? Where do I want to go? And then maybe having an element of courage or bravery to put yourself out there and expose yourself to different environments and different groups of people to find that new community. Anyone else lose, Simon? Oh no. How good is that? The internet just kicks him off when he's talking too much shit.

It's a dream. The internet. That was some of my best work. It's actually great. Like the Telstra gods have said, you know what? He's talking too much shit. Let's cut him off for a second. It's the benevolent universe. It's the benevolent universe. Like I don't know what you heard, but if you want to talk more about it, then just come to me and we'll jump on a call or we'll talk about it. Good. Charlotte, say your thing. Hi guys. What's up? Hello. Hi. I didn't have a question, but when Lachie was talking before about communities, I thought they have Virtus itself as a community.

It's created branches of smaller communities, obviously within the larger one. How does it make you feel like knowing the success of that and knowing you've made a comfortable and safe environment for people to go off and meet their own people within Virtus and create their own little groups? It feels good. I was going to write another question, which was you obviously have people coming and going all the time. Is it hard saying goodbye to people you know you want in your community, but they'll be better off wherever they're going? Well, that's wrong because they won't, they'll be better off with us.

But it's tough moving them to the dead to me list. Like it always hurts, having like a mini funeral for each person when they leave. That does not surprise me the least. That's so good. That's almost the hardest part of being a part of a place like Virtus is people moving on. Like I said before, most good things come to an end. It's 120 mil, but don't be sad that it's over, be happy that it happened, which is an emotional quote. Let me think about it. I just made it up probably. No, I don't know. I don't know who said it.

Someone find it, quote it for me. But I think, yeah, that's the hardest part. I am very proud of the community that we've created and the robust fluid organism that we've created. It's really hard seeing people leave, but I hope for most of them. It's just, you know, catch you later, not goodbye. Like I've got this utopian view of what I want Virtus to be and it's like 150 to 200 people and then we just close the doors and don't let anyone else in and we just all level up together forever. And don't let anyone else out.

No, no one's let out. You're trapped with us. You're in. Why not of us? Why not of us? And that's kind of how I look at it and it's never going to be that. But I think if we can make everyone feel welcome, help everyone, give everyone what they need when they're a part of it, then hopefully we can spread our mission, which is just make the world a better place. And how we do that will depend on the person and to the level will depend on what they need. Some people, it's crazy, some people come for a week or two and do a few sessions and get what they need that week.

Some people will, you know, some people have been around since we opened. So I think there's always the element of going, oh, I wish everyone would stay. But there's also the element of just being proud of what we have, that it's always changing and hopefully it'll keep getting better. That's kind of the reason why like religions and things and capitalism are so important in our life is because there's always that promise that it will be better. So removing the cultiness from it, I want to look at vertices going, okay, well, I want the next iteration to be better than the last and the next one after that.

And better also means different. There's always going to be changes, but if we're evolving and we're staying true to our values and we've got people coming in who resonate with what we do and who are getting from where they are to where they want to be, then we're doing our job. If it was looking more permanent, that'd be great. So just don't leave anyone. People move. Yeah. Stop leaving. Sorry for talking so long. You've nailed it. I'm not sorry. Molly. What's your question? There she is. Hi. My question is, what's your advice on working towards becoming a laid-up artist?

What's your advice? Do you want to go Simon before I talk for the next 15 minutes, this is going to be really simple and really quick. But a leader is just someone who, who knows what the standard is and holds that standard. They're someone who, who demonstrates the behavior like the, not the normal, let's call it the normalized behavior in that community. They understand what it is. They know what the values of that community are and they display behaviors that are aligned with that. Like I said before that everyone in the community is a leader and I believe that as well.

I think it's just aligning yourself with what's important to that community and doing those things I don't really need to talk now that's what I'm, it's I do it like I genuinely believe and it's, it's not lip service. I genuinely believe everyone is a leader and everyone has the capacity to be a leader. You don't have to hold a position to be a leader or you have to do is lead and you lead first by practicing a high level of self responsibility, of self leadership, of doing the things that you said you would do. Again,

another quote, I'm sorry, but be lenient with others and strict with yourself is a, one of my favorite quotes because we can't, we're not responsible for anyone else. We're not responsible, I can't be responsible for Coop showing up to work tomorrow. I can only be responsible for me doing it. I can create a space where he wants to show up to work tomorrow, hopefully, but then different type of leaders come into it so I can be a little bit more authoritarian if he's been a piece of shit or I can be a little bit more autocratic and create the space for him to come into.

So, you know, there's many different types of leaders and you've got to figure out what type of leader I want to be, but leadership begins with you and it begins with you holding yourself to your own standards and acknowledging when you're wrong and knowing that you're going to make mistakes and facing up to them and being able to adapt and learn. I've made so many mistakes with Virtus that if I was to start again, I would, I'd still make the same mistakes because I'm not that smart, but I make them all quicker. But I've made so many mistakes with Virtus and I go, why did I do that?

But I think leadership is doing the best you can with what you have and then learning from your mistakes. And what I want to impart on you guys as members of our community and leaders in our community is that you're all responsible for Virtus getting better, as much as I am, as much as Coop is, as much as Mitch is. Yeah, as a little sidebar, Greg, one of the leaders in our community, has a new podcast called Counter Poison, the antidote to fake news. I'll show you the soundtrack off my heart so I can sing it.

But he, him and his two guys are doing it with Justin, a three episode podcast on leadership where they talked about their three favourite leaders. And it's going to take a couple of hours of your life, but it's brilliant. I really enjoyed the conversation. So leadership is a choice and it's also a, it's also an honour to be a leader. Sorry, I wasn't as succinct as Simon. Succinct just as good. And it, this might have to be our last question. I want a question from Em and Jenny before we get off. And Tess. Okay, if someone struggles with being in a community, how do we help them get involved?

Do you mean a, they struggle being in a group environment as in being around other people? I think this is where we can leverage things like technology. As I say that as my internet probably shuts down. But I think everyone, everyone in the community has different personalities. Everyone brings something different to the table. Not everyone is going to be as extroverted as Lachlan and be up and about all the time and be around people all the time. So I think the first part of this is creating a community where everyone has a sense of belonging and everyone feels accepted for who they are.

Then it's a matter of how do we connect with these people in a way that resonates with them meaningfully, whether they love to be a part of the group and they will, they're attracted to being around people all the time or whether they need a bit more space and they communicate a little bit differently. So that's almost like an understanding of everyone in that community around how that person communicates, what their personality is and what they resonate with. It's coming back to the values of the tribe, like in a community where everyone feels a sense of belonging then hopefully everyone will want to be involved regardless of how they interact.

Yeah. I have a three part answer and each one comes from a different angle and it's going to be 30 seconds per answer I promise, the cultural answer is you need to create a place that values belonging and values vulnerability and courage and being able to, it gives people space to be able to lean in and be themselves in a maybe foreign environment. From the person that's already a part of the environment, it's almost like remembering what it was like when you were new to that environment or new to a different environment that you weren't necessarily comfortable with.

The thing I love about our community is when we got a new member and you don't even have to say anything and Charlotte comes up to him and starts having a chat and gets to know them and makes them feel welcome. It's just a buddy system in a different way. And the third thing is from the person who's bringing themselves into that environment and there's a reason why you're there. It's might be because you want to achieve something or you've heard good things or whatever it may be, but you're going to feel scared and excited.

What we forget to realize is that we're not our feelings or we're not how we think about those feelings and being scared and being excited are the different sides of the same coin. And we work with them very differently, scared being a negative reaction and excitement being a positive reaction, where in reality we react exactly the same way. We have a sympathetic response to both things. It's just the way we think about them determines our response. We can do a... Mum jumped out of a plane a few years ago and she was shitting bricks for the four hours beforehand.

It was hilarious. She took that adrenaline and took it from pure fear, like pure fear, to excitement in the space of jumping out of the plane. And she's like, "Oh, I'll do that again. That was awesome." But this is the... Once we do the thing, we realize that there was nothing to be scared about. Most of the time, sometimes parachutes don't work or whatever, but I think the fear and excitement is the same thing is what I'm trying to say. And all we have to do is train up here to be able to react to those things or respond to those things the right way.

And you end up in a much better place than you would have been at the start. Yep. Yep. It's just a perception of fear. Yeah. M, good question. Read it to us. And Geordie's on. Give us a question after M. Type it in the chat box. Okay. As someone who didn't have a community to belong to or a true sense of belonging growing up, do you believe it's possible to find a community to belong to now as an adult? You are the backbone of Virtus, so yeah, probably. She muted herself. I assume she's laughing at my completely spot on statement.

Yeah, of course it is. It's the four things we said before, interest, action, place, or practice. And this is almost a self-discovery aspect of figuring out what sets your soul on fire and saying, "I love this. This is what I resonate with," and finding other people that resonate with it. And you might be looking for a while, but you'll find it, no doubt. And I would like to think you've found it in us. I have, 100 percent. Yeah, you have to say that now, so what do you think, Simon? Yeah. Yeah, you've nailed it, I think.

I think that regardless of our experiences in the past, there is someone out there who has a similar interest or a similar purpose or values to you. The difficult part maybe is in finding them. And Seth Godin has a book called Tribes, and he talks about how there are more and more niche communities popping up because of this kind of cultural sense of moving away from the norm or the center of the bell curve. Everyone wants to be on the fringes. So all of a sudden, alternative is cool. Well, the bell curve is flattening, let's say.

So if you wanted to go online and find a community for people who wanted to collect gum nuts, then 20 years ago, you couldn't have done that, regardless of whether there was an online thing or not. You could, you ought to be so into that. Godin loves a good gum nut. But you can go online and you can find someone on the internet who collects gum nuts and also arranges them in order of size, exactly the way that you do. Did you like that? It's a great analogy. Regardless of what your weird and wonderful interests are, there's someone out there who shares that same thing.

I'm sure of it. So then it's just a matter of finding them. And we have the internet for that. The geographical boundaries. The great connector. Yeah. The geographical boundaries are becoming more and more non-existent. So yeah, I think that's my answer to that. Nations are all made up anyway. So this has just been a conversation about constructs. Yeah, good answer. It is derelict. So, Geordie, I'm going to hijack before you go online. The gum nuts. The gum nuts. The club would be called the gum nuts. There's a new question. I'm going to hijack and answer to that question too.

Yeah Mitch. Go. I don't think there's a different way of looking at it. It's not necessarily something you have to find. It's something that you can create at the same time and add to as you go. From personal experience, I was the same, didn't really have a community that I belonged to when I was younger, I was on the outside. And over time, rather than trying to find one and fit into it, the same cycle just keeps going on. Adding people to my community as I go ended up creating a community in itself. So I guess it kind of comes full circle.

So it's not necessarily about having to find something that you fit into. It's creating something that you can help other people fit into at the same time. Love that. That's brilliant. Thanks, Mitch. All right, Jen, what are you all for us? Have you ever had to ask someone to leave the Virtus community because their values were not aligned with those at the gym? And on the flip side, how often does it, or how long does it take for you to decide if someone will be a contributing member to the Virtus community? Good question. Yes, it usually happens on itself.

People usually get the gist pretty quickly. Maybe 12, 18 months ago, we implemented the onboarding process that you've been through. And that's an ever evolving process. But the reason why we added the three sessions and they're almost hurdles is because it almost qualifies people before they become a part of the community. And we mean that in the best possible way, the people that are willing to not just jump straight into a class and learn a little bit more about themselves and chat about their goals and chat about where they're at and go through the process that we set around screening and around goal setting and around movement quality.

The people that are willing to do that are almost, they just tick all the boxes for the people that we want to be a part of our community. And we intentionally charge for that when a lot of gyms do it as a way to get people in. The people that go around to the gyms to do the free trials aren't the people for us. They're not the people that are going to resonate with Virtus long term. So I've had conversations with people that haven't been good fits. There's been people who were good fit for a period of time and then things changed and they're not a good fit anymore, like we were talking about before around, I guess, impermanence.

But most people who aren't a good fit don't get to that stage of being into the community. Great question. Yeah, I think it was almost like a sign of our maturity as an organisation or as a community that we were able to start being a little bit more, not selective, I don't think that's the right word, but being almost like screening people before they come in. And because we were really, because of that maturity, we're really clear on our values, really clear on what's important to us and what is important to the people who we want to be a part of this tribe.

And we want to be inclusive, but we don't want that to be at the detriment of the culture and the community. Yeah, we don't want one rotten apple to spoil the cart. Oh, do you know why rotten apples spoil the cart, Simon, as a bit of a sidebar? I do not. Because rotten fruit produces ethylene, which speeds up the ageing process of other pieces of fruit and therefore more ethylene, more fruit, more rotten and the cart is spoiled. So you're welcome. Science. Really good question. It's hard, but it just happens organically most of the time. Idiots.

Fuck off. Geordie, you're the last one, you got a question for us? And Tess, you haven't got out of it yet. Show your faces. Show your faces or I'll pull him up here. There he is. Unmute yourself, peanut. Hello. There's a really big footy game on, so I've been a bit distracted, sorry. Do you want to talk about the benevolent universe? Well, I've been trying to think of questions, but I've been stuck between how easy it is to think of yourself only as individual and separate from everything, because that's a pretty big part of community, but then thinking about what place agenda has in community.

Sometimes they can meet if I am going, I need something, of course that's going to drive me to seek community, but I think community is no agenda. And then all I could think about was gun nuts, since you mentioned that. Mitch just said he could marry your thinking pose. So anyone who's currently listening to this on audio, you're missing out on a delicious Jordan pensive, engaged posture, which is, it's very enjoyable, now it's gone off the rails. Agenda is incredibly important because people join a community for something, it's a transition, it's a trading of value.

Like any communities are trading of value, right, like if I want to go to common folk, then I am giving value with my money, with my currency, and I am receiving value back in the forms of community and in the forms of delicious, hot bean mixed beverage that makes me happy on the inside because like certain wirings in my brains get switched on when I have caffeine, and any community is exactly the same, it's just that some communities are transactional in the way, it's like you're never going to create a community at a Starbucks, for example, but you can create community because it's transactional, so you go in, you have your coffee, and you get out.

I assume there's probably an outlier of a Starbucks somewhere in the world that has a community of people, but it would freak me out if I was hanging out at a Starbucks every day. But somewhere like common folk or somewhere like Virtus, which are fairly similar, they are transactional in value in the fact that they give, both sides kind of feel like they're winning all the time, and that's how I feel when I go into common folk. I buy more coffees, but I get a place where I feel, where I'm happy and I'm surrounded by people that I love, and I like to think that people feel the same way about Virtus.

But it's always going to be a gender base. Like we want to, there is no such thing, what are we talking about last week in the podcast Coop? Mental health? No, there's no such thing as doing, as selfless acts. Oh yes, yes, yes, we're around selfishness. There was a quote, I think, come on, you're the quote guy. I can't remember. Peter Singer said it, but I can't remember what it was. Anyway. This thing is philanthropy. It wasn't philanthropy. Anyway. Doesn't matter. I think, I'm not sure. I think all communities have goals or objectives or purposes, whether like if it's back in the olden times, it's just survival.

That's like a purpose. Whether now it's common folk who is in pursuit of wonderful coffee and good vibes, whether it's Virtus and we're in pursuit of being rich and shredded, we're all in pursuit of something. It's how we connect together in pursuit of those things. And yeah, there's always a transaction. There's a transaction. There's no one, there's no such thing as true altruism. Everyone's there for a reason, but that's okay. I think we need to be okay with that. Yeah. I think the wonderful thing about community is that you go for selfish reasons to satisfy your own need or a desire, but then you stay because you become a part of that community.

You become invested in the thing that everyone's pursuing. You create meaningful relationships with those around you and you end up wanting to support them in whatever their pursuit is. I think that's a sign of a healthy thriving community where it becomes less about what you want and more about the tribe and how you can contribute and support them. Such a socialist. Good. I love it. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Final question of the evening. It's not a question because I'm just going to say Bernie is my favourite Koopa and we're going to carry on with our lives.

Thank you to everyone for contributing. This was a fun, robust discussion. I would love to do this all night, but can we do it all night? I've still got to go eat dinner. Do you want to have any more questions? Jazz actually asked a second question, which was biggest challenge for Virtus since being established. Probably the last six months of owning a small business in a global pandemic, Jasmine, what do you bloody reckon? Good chat. Or starting. That was probably pretty hard. Our starting was so easy. Oh, there's no way there's no way in the world.

It's so easy because you have a fucking clue what you're doing. So you just wing it, throw shit at a wall and some of it sticks and then you go from there. The hardest part is doubting yourself every day because you have no idea what you're doing. But apparently a bunch of people like our community, so some of it's working so good from you all. Thanks everyone. I appreciate you all tuning in. If you are listening to this post in person live recording, then leave us a review. You're cowards. I don't think you're a coward.

But feel free to send us questions, send us questions if you've got them and we will potentially answer them on next week's podcast, which is, oh, this is my favourite, Simon Cooper's topic. We're talking about change. So tune in. Could we say that change is the only constant? We could, but you'll have to wait till next week to find out. Thanks everyone. Appreciate you all. Cheers. You stop, stop recording. There is one more thing. It's been emotional.