S4E09 · Josh Reid Jones

Alrighty, beautiful people. Welcome back to the Virtus performance podcast. They say never meet your heroes, but here he is sitting right next to me. - Virty and Flirty, mate. - Josh, mate. Welcome to the pod. - Thanks for having me. - It's a pleasure to have you. - Glad to be here. What a space. - It's a good part of the world. - You've got an absolutely cracking space here. I mean, the vibe and the setup is, yeah, it's like a bit of a sort of dream space. You know? I'm raps for you, mate. - Well, you are welcome here anytime.

And, yeah, it is a dream space. It's essentially like, it's one of those, like, care for what you wish for because you might get it. Now I've got it, and I'm like, "I don't want anything else." - That's right. - Which is a nice place to be. - Unbelievable. - Yeah. We had a little chat before, and one of the things you said, people and place, is like, "This place is built on that." So there's definitely some overlap, I think, in our values and what's important to us. - 100%. 100%. - But first question for you.

What gets you out of bed in the morning? - Well, after I've gotten up several times in the night to go to the bathroom, which is a new thing that's happening in the last few years. - That's what happens when you almost hit 40. - The anxiety around the to-do list is mostly what gets me up. I reckon I've made that comment before. I go to bed with stuff that has to happen the next day, and I wake up thinking, "Righto. Time to get stuck into the list." You know, that's usually what does it. - Your list is a little different to Mo'so.

- Very, yeah. - Like, you're clearly making the world a better place. How do you go about doing that? - Well, mate, I try to make the world a better place. I mean, you know, it's varying levels of success, you know, as it is with anything. But most of my time is running the Just Be Nice project. That's what I've been doing for 12 or 13 years now. And it's largely centered on tackling, I guess, barriers to opportunity for people. So trying to ensure everyone has this sort of equality of opportunity and the support and resources that they need to sort of grow into, you know, opportunities.

And to tackle that sort of lofty, I suppose, aim, it takes many forms and requires many hats from trying to make sure that the environment's looked after and that there's good places for people to live and the planet won't explode all the way down to, like, just trying to help people understand why having a job is important and getting them enrolled in that process. So, yeah, there's a lot of moving parts and my weeks don't ever really look the same task-wise, which is probably why the list gets me out of bed every morning. - Yeah,

how do you connect with both the, like, big lofty, make sure the planet doesn't explode, make sure the world is a better place to be in with the one-to-one personal, like, how can I help you conversation? - I reckon a lot of it is about trying to sort of tell the truth and be honest with yourself, be honest with people, be honest in the work that you're doing. And so that means, like, being aware that, I mean, environmental challenges, for instance, they're multifaceted and they're big and they'll take a long time to resolve. So let's

not pretend that it's going to happen in a week and let's lock ourselves in for potentially it not being done in my lifetime, getting where we want to get. And it's the same with this sort of equality of opportunity. It's being able to be honest about when faced with an individual or a community or an issue, what's actually the issue, what are the inputs, what are the factors, what can we deal with now, what do the timelines look like, and how do we bring people along and tell the truth along the way? And so I think that underpins most of it because you've got to put things into context constantly.

And that context helps you understand, like, what the next thing is. You know, you want to be here, you've got to take little steps, you want to bring people with you, you've got to meet them where they are and bring them along. And, you know, it's going to change based on what's happening. The elections in the States have changed a lot of things and will change a lot of things over the next couple of years. We've got an election here coming up that has the potential to change, you know, what's available and what's not. So, you know, it'll take a long time, but you play the hand you're being given and you sort of just walk it forward from there.

- Yeah, do you find yourself having to almost like talk yourself into both mindsets? Because they're very different in terms of the looking long term and then going, "Well, how can I help now?" - Yeah, for sure. There's a thing when you're trying to, I guess, do good work or important work, if you consider it good and important, which I do, to... - I don't think there'd be many people that wouldn't. - Well, yeah, but you don't want to get sucked into the stuff that just feels good. - Yeah. If it feels good, you're more likely to keep showing up and doing it though, right?

- Yeah, but so, like, if it was me, like, on my own, you know, if we broke it right back down to the stuff I like to do, you know, I'd just be kicking footy with the kids in the park, you know what I mean? Like, it's not bad work, but, like, my role is not, you know, is to push for bigger and better for those same kids. But it's easy to do easier stuff, less demanding, less multidimensional, and find yourself... They call it, like, a mission creep for a lot of organisations that do this

kind of stuff, where you get positive feedback, or it's a little bit easier, and all of a sudden, you start with these lofty goals, and you start, and you end up, like, doing something that's, like, an easy version of it. - Yes. Yeah. - And so there is a discipline in reorienting yourself away from that. - How do you measure that impact that you're making? - Well, one of the things is you've got to be able to measure progress, I think. In the space of social impact, a lot of people measure attempts. That's how it's measured.

Like, we attempted to do this, we spent this much money, we did this sort of thing. The gold standard of good social impact that I teach people, when we're teaching people about impact literacy, we're doing workshops, or we're teaching individuals, the gold standard is across, like, four domains. So a five-star, 100%, 10 out of 10 impact is it's comprehensive, so the job's finished. And we can talk about defining the job after. It's comprehensive, it's inclusive, it's long-term, and it's high output for low input, which is kind of like an efficiency dividend, a measure of, like, you know, it's not strictly just economy, but it's just making sure that you're not doing high input for low output.

- Yeah, yeah, we need to know we're moving the needle. - Yeah, do stuff you're good at, do things that are efficient, do things that are effective. And if you're doing all of those things, then you're on your way to getting a really good impact. What happens is when you measure across that is you realise that no one person, no one place is going to deliver all of those things. You might do some things really well, you know, so they're all factors. And so sometimes it's looking around what's happening and saying, "Well, what else needs to happen for this to be comprehensive, for instance?

How do we broaden the availability of this support so that it's more inclusive? How do we find a way to make this thing that works well in the short term longer term?" You know, and that can be funding, it can be people, it can be engagement. But the other thing on the sort of demand side is, do people trust? Do they trust you? And what does that look like? Because you can have all these wonderful answers and you'd find this in the gym, you'd be like, "I know what to do." But if you don't believe me or if you don't trust me, if you're not comfortable enough to lean into this stuff, bang your head against the wall.

So how do I then do this thing at the beginning or during the process that helps maintain and build trust with the people we're trying to work with or the communities, whether that's in giving them help or encouraging them to help, and that's different in different ways. So you sort of, it's not as objective like how you measure trust, but it's something you've got to be mindful of along the way as well. So, yeah, there's a whole bunch of ways that you measure progress. But generally for us, the outcome that we're working towards is that people are housed and they're employed and they have good mental and physical health outcomes.

And in communities, when we're working with more than one person, the barriers to those things are like removed or lowered or they're supported into those outcomes. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's, isn't it such a fascinating thing to sit there and feel the need to champion housing and basic human needs? Like, does it, I can imagine, like we had lunch before and you were chatting around the thanklessness of it. And so, first of all, thank you for doing what you do and being the most articulate man on Instagram. The algorithm needs to pick that up more.

But what's it like as an individual who probably feel like you're pushing shit uphill sometimes? Yeah, you're definitely pushing shit uphill. It's funny because it's like weird cultural challenges I think that we have as Australians and we have in Australia as a country that we have at various times in life. And, you know, to tackle challenges like this, it's weird because like we'd had a chat, you know, sometimes I'm just sitting with someone who is in a really bad way for any number of reasons. And we're just talking about stuff and, you know, we're starting the process of working on getting help for them.

And that's one element of what needs to happen. And the other element is like understanding sort of broad, like macroeconomic, international, political sort of movements and everything in between. So from the absolutely massive macro influences to what's happening in this person's life directly and what has happened to affect where they're at now. You actually have to take on so much information and know so much all the time that I get why people don't want to do it. People want this kind of the path of least resistance. I understand that. What that's done, though, is it's created an environment where people's impact literacy, their ability to understand, recognise, participate in or create good social impact is severely diminished.

And so they're flying blind a lot. But they're flying blind while they think they know what they're doing. And that is the challenge, I think, a lot of the time. It's just like, how do we teach people to do this better and to understand it can be done better? And to include in their advocacy and their ideas of good social impact, all of these things that are ultimately fairly basic and fairly fundamental human things. And not just for Australians, but how do we then get them to advocate for that for people in other countries and all that sort of stuff.

And you like learning anything. It takes time. I can say maths is really important. You still have to teach your maths from prep to year 12 before you get some kind of grasp on it. Yes. Yeah. And you've been doing it a long time. So like, what's the like, do you have almost like a framework you use to spread what you're trying to spread? In terms of, you know, be helpful, but then also find ways to help other people be helpful? Yeah, we've got heaps. There's lots of bits. Again, sort of like maths, you know? I mean, ultimately, if you can do a good job of helping people, you can do a bad job of helping people.

It means sometimes we've got to say that people are doing a bad job of helping people. But it means you can do better. So you can learn. And if you're doing a good job, you can probably do better. So to work it out and to teach people how to look after each other better and how to participate in social impact. Yeah, that's something that we've got a whole range of frameworks that cover all kinds of different, I guess, applications and questions and things like that. And I teach people that. I do workshops with people. We teach our partners how to do that when they work with us.

But it takes time because it's a bit of learning, it's a bit of practice, it's a bit of learning, it's a bit of observing. And so again, it takes time, even though we do have great frameworks for doing it, it still takes time for people to understand. Yeah, I think you've mentioned before that awareness is the lowest rung of this. What are the aspects of our society that you feel as though... I would like to think that everyone wants to help, right? Everyone wants to contribute, everyone wants to make the world a better place, but a lot of people don't.

And a lot of people don't contribute and don't lean into giving up their time, resources, whatever it is. So what is it about current state of things that maybe frustrates you the most or you feel is always the most resistant to that help that we'd like to think that everyone wants to give? Well, in Australia, and in the Western Hemisphere, there's probably too much focus on the individual, which makes it very difficult. The idea that people are self-made, for instance. No one's self-made, it doesn't exist. But if you go through life constantly taking credit for

everything that's happened or your own things, and you're incapable of seeing the ways in which your environment and the people around you have sort of bored you along, then you're not good at giving help. Frankly, that's the thing. So one exercise that I encourage people to do, and it's incredibly difficult, and actually, even when I tell you now, people won't be able to do it. It actually requires some guidance in the process, too, but it's to tell the story of your life where you take no credit for any of the good things that have happened or any of the successes that you've had.

And you've got to go through and lay off everything to the environment and the opportunities you've been given and the luck and all of these things. And people struggle because they've never considered it. If you can't do that, then you're not going to be very good at helping people. That's one thing. So there's a lack of awareness there of the opportunities that are around people, and we don't teach people that very well. And it's different to a gratitude journal as well. It's not the same thing. Again, gratitude journals are a little bit self-absorbed sometimes. And how's the world serving me and what do I like?

So it's a bit different to that. The other thing is that I've maybe met a couple of people who legitimately don't give a shit about anybody, like actively don't care. They're not great people. Some of them are pretty serious criminals. And potentially I can't diagnose anyone, like a psychopath or whatever, the sociopath. But most people care about someone, whether it's just their partner or their kids or whatever. And I think the secondary thing that we struggle with here is that people's aspirations for themselves and for the people they care about are wildly different for their aspirations for everybody else.

And that gap is where we see a lot of inequality and really divergent expectations about what help and what support looks like. And so, for instance, you know, you for your own family want really great medical care and all these sorts of things, and perhaps you're affluent and you've got that. But then you actively vote against policies that would include more people in that. Private schooling is another great example. I want my kid to have this great education, but then to segregate them from other kids. And obviously they'll point to me, the five year old whose fault it is that they can't read, that they don't know what's going on.

And so if you could align your aspiration or just even broaden your circle of people that you care about beyond a very small number and have the same aspiration for them. If my kid has a problem with addiction, I want all of these kinds of supports. So if that kid over here is miles away from me with a completely different context, needs support with addiction, I want them to have that as well. At the very least, you hope that they don't get in the way of those things and at best they become an active part of trying to get it for people.

But we don't have that here, I don't think. People don't have those sort of expanded, aligned expectations for everybody. Yeah, which like, you know, you look at a lot of Eastern cultures complete opposite. So it's community first, it's the collective, it's different. I always really, there's a quote by Nicholas Nassim Taleb that's centered around like at a national level, I'm a Republican, but at a community personal family level, I'm a communist. And like that kind of, I read it years ago, whenever I read whichever one of his books, but I remember thinking like, holy fuck, everyone's circle of influence is directly tied to like what they're capable of influencing.

Back on the people realize, like, you know, it's essentially like a privilege check, right? Like what, like the birth lottery, the, you know, the, the privileges we've been given. And we're, you know, we're sitting in a beautiful part of the world in an affluent country in a, you know, in a, you know, relatively affluent aspect of a part of that country. What are the frame or what are the questions that you would ask or you would the guiding questions you would go through to help someone become more aware of, of what they've been given? Yeah, because they were just lucky enough to land in the place where they are.

And if they're listening to this, they're probably, you know, ticking eight of 10 boxes already. Yeah. So I mean, I'll give you I'll give you a little example from my own life so that you can, I guess, hear how it goes. They, you know, I was born in Australia, very lucky, you know, to a family, and nothing to do with me, you know, this is a great, a great exercise, say, well, that had nothing to do with me. There's like a withdrawal, you know, so I was born, I was massive, huge head, huge baby, healthy baby, wasn't sick, didn't really get sick, very lucky.

My brother and sister both had different challenges when they were younger, nothing like crazy serious, but you know, like asthma and ear infections and coughs and I didn't really have any of that stuff. I was very lucky, very healthy baby, big, in a house with books, nothing to do with me, with parents that, you know, gave a shit about reading and stuff like that. Now we were poor, but if I'm telling the version of me doing okay, I'm gonna leave some of the like, woe is me bits out, you know, I grew up quick. So I was the oldest and then I was physically big, nothing to do with me, but useful.

And then I started school young, just by virtue of the, you know, the 80s and my age and being able to do stuff and talking a lot. And so when we lived in this particular house in this particular suburb, and at the time then, as we got a bit older, I'm in school, I'm big, I am, you know, I'm capable kid, you know, nothing really to do with me, just luck of the draw, just a normal nothing school. But we live a couple of blocks from the footy ground and my mum having to drive my

brother and sister around, three kids, one mum, very difficult to get everyone to all their activities, but I'm big so I can walk to the footy ground, because it's a couple of blocks away. So I can walk to the footy ground, lucky that it's there, I play footy, I go okay, because I'm big, you know, I had that advantage when you're younger, which is, you know, gives you a nice little sort of boost. I love contact, I've always loved all that kind of stuff. The dad's there will drive me around, the people will pick me up and take me to games, the coaches were, you know, were wrapped, I have some success playing footy, it all feels really good.

And all this stuff is nice. And as a result of that, I end up like playing, you know, senior footy and doing those things, it's where I get my first job for playing footy, and then I, you know, make a little bit of money playing footy and all this kind of stuff. And all of those things were like, by virtue of the fact that I could walk to the ground that I'd grown up quick enough that it was like a safe enough suburb as well that, you know, I'd had all these sort of like little things had nothing to do with me and I got there.

Yeah, the other version is, I went to training, I gave a shit, I did heaps of extras, I love running, I train really hard, I busted my ass, I put my hand up to go to footy and walk myself to footy. The opportunity that presented to me and the impact it had on my life, I mean, sliding doors moments a million times, who knows what would happen, but I probably would have been a bit of a ratbag, more of a ratbag than I was. And that footy club's not there anymore. So the Josh growing up there now can't walk to footy.

And so if that's not there, what fills the gap? There's less around, there's less opportunity. And so if I meet that kid now, look around and say, well, where can we get you involved in a community with some positive male role models, burn off a bit of steam, you know, have some success, feel good, be part of a team, learn some leadership skills, you know, captaining some of these sides, get clipped over the years when you're being a dickhead, all these things that are really important for teenage boys and for young young young men. That's not there.

And if I'd have just said it's just because of me, I find that young Josh in that house now and I go, well, you need to do more, find a thing, do work it out, run harder, do some more stuff. And that's unfair, you know, that's unfair because that's part of the story. But that's not the reason that, you know, that I've got to do all those things. Yeah, so the balance between like, because it because there's an aspect of self responsibility and ownership over your situation, like not your fault, but your responsibility to do something right.

But there's also the environmental factors of, you know, if young Josh was was growing up in Central Australia in a remote community where, you know, maybe there's a football level, maybe there's no, you know, the role models aren't there and the school's very different. And everything's different, right? It's a whole different ballgame. How do, how do you in your role, how do you balance between those two things? Because they're both important. Yeah, I think it's, it's one of the things is you want to, you want to create opportunities for people to live into, not just expectations for them to live up to.

And we missed that a lot. People, people have these expectations for others that don't take into account environmental factors a lot of the time. If you fundamentally believe that people lean into stuff that they feel like they've got some agency in and that they enjoy, and then it's not really an issue, then to stress too much about it, but to understand that, like, we've just got to build that trust in good things happening, right? And, and have more opportunities. So, I mean, I played footy, but I also I also danced. And, you know, you did, I played basketball, and I did little athletics.

And so there's lots of these little things. You find all these things. Great. And the more you've got to try out, the more likely you are to find a thing. Yeah, you know, and so how do we have more more of that for people? And then where people are a bit gun shy or a little bit hesitant? It's then saying, well, what is that? Is it because you're, you're late to grow, and you're going to steamrolled at footy? Maybe this isn't for you? Yeah. You know, and how do we find something where you feel good at?

Because, you know, getting a good run on it early, you're feeling good about something, you're likely to stay in. Yeah, a three foot five, maybe basketball is not the sport for you. Let's find the thing that is. And then helping people have the tools to, to then lean into it, which is a little bit of like, you know, helping people work through the tough times where they can't be asked and so that they realise like sticking with something is worth it. Yeah. But also, like, making sure that it's enjoyable and doing those things and, and making sure that they've they're having good experiences, largely or supportive experiences.

And the fundamental lesson that I've always tried to teach kids, and I've been working with at risk kids since I was a kid myself, is that effort equals improvement. If you can learn that fundamental lesson, and you can apply it to lots of other stuff. To find the thing that kids want to put effort into, you usually have to find something they enjoy. And so it used to be the case when I used to run boxing programs for like at risk kids, they come in thinking they're gonna learn how to beat each other. No worries. It's fine.

Like I know why you're here. And I know you think you're tough. but nothing is more humbling than actually trying to do that stuff and realizing you're not that tough this is bloody hard work but that you start to get better and then once that's happened a few times one you've got a little bit of skin in the game so if we want to sort of help you behave a bit better we can we've got something that we can you know use to like encourage you or discourage you yeah but also like when you're struggling

at maths i'll be like man you could throw a left hook either let's let's do what we did there you know and you know how hard it was to get good and you know you're still not that good but you're good enough and and so the lesson isn't just punching or whatever it's it's effort equals improvement and then you can apply that to all different things and as a fundamental lesson i think that's really important and that's why you take responsibility to find a thing they can put the effort into so they learn that if

it equals improvement and then you start applying it to different stuff yeah it's almost a skill set that the earlier you learn it that you know okay if i do a thing i don't necessarily have to be good at it straight away sure it's easier if i am and the you know being bigger to play in footy it's like you know there's the stats around being born earlier in the year you're better off you're better at sport because you're a couple of months ahead of everyone in terms of growth and things like that and you

get better more opportunities and you're more likely to succeed down the track because you've got that kind of snowball momentum that you've built over the years it's almost like the earlier we can teach that or you can learn that or you can be in environments where that's the norm show up try hard figure out where you need to improve try harder yeah repeat then that kind of creates the agency of like the more agency you feel that you have over your life the more optimistic you're going to be the more likely you're going to be

to want to make a change or want to go do the hard things whereas if you don't feel like you have any control over what what's going on of course you you know throw in the towel like my wife works at a lower socioeconomic school where you know she grew up around there and it's it's so interesting to hear the stories of the kids and how heartbreaking it is of the way some of them will show up to school and um you know want to be sent home because you know that's what they know they

what they know that if i fuck up i'll be sent home and i won't have to be here whereas like you know reflect on that story with my own kids it's like like they're very they're very fortunate to be yeah in this environment but they're only in this environment because i was fortunate enough to be you know born to parents who gave a shit yeah i said before who lived in a you know a healthy part of the world that you know we were going to be okay and i think that the older i get

the more i feel the more i feel like i'm understanding how fortunate i am to be in this position like how like everything i have is because of my parents and everything that they had is because of theirs and there's this like almost like realization that it's all complete luck yeah like all like all of it like we want to think we work hard and like there's an aspect of work but you know you're only able to work hard because of the things yeah um which you know like you said before election this week i

feel as though the more you realize that i mean i'm i'm hanging like which way northwest on the on the political compass i feel like every year i'm just getting further and further because you're realizing how lucky you have to be to give a shit about what most most of us give a shit about yeah in terms of yeah how buying houses and and having jobs and running businesses and stuff like it's from a place of privilege before almost anything else yeah wild this is this weird thing about me to talk about you know working

in a school for instance and you know i can go to places and talk about i tell a story about you know any number of hundreds of kids or whatever heartbreaking stories five five six seven years old right and i tell stories i could i could tell the stories yeah people get upset they want you know people cry you know there's and it terrible terrible circumstances terrible things have happened and at that time people uh you know feel a sort of emotional connection to it yeah those five year olds become 16 year olds yeah and

those 16 year olds become 18 and 20 year olds and people like well all right well can you just sort your life out and get a job what are you doing and there are things that people have been through that i don't know how they get out of bed every day to be honest i i'm i'm so proud of some of the people that work with for just still being here yeah and the idea that then they just need to sort it out and do something um when the things that they've been through and the

the examples in their life of like trying stuff and just getting squished just having their their their souls crushed in a way the the the breaches of trust you know that have happened from people that were supposed to look after them or environments that they just happen to be in they have taught them again and again that they're not enough they're not good enough that even if you try a bit it's not going to work out that you're useless and then we demand that they then go and get on with it without taking care of

any of that yeah and certainly not taking care of it taking care of it with the commensurate effort that 15 years of getting trodden into the ground will do yeah i mean for me that's like that's part of this aspiration aligned aspirations thing it's like if you ignore all of that if you ignore that that five or six year old becomes a 20 year old yeah then you're missing the point completely and if you only care when they're five then like are you gonna are you gonna hang in there for the next 15 years yeah

like not many people are up for that commitment so which is fine as individuals it's a big commitment but as systems we can we can build supportive systems and we can build understanding and and slack into those systems to help people because yeah if you grow up well supported and they're less people are less anxious they can endure difficulties more um they're not worried all the time but i grew up stressed stressed i don't know another way yeah and the worries that i had that that the way they affect me now as an adult i

only am i'm still learning the ways in which i don't process stuff like people other people and i've had friends and partners for instance who've had incredibly supportive families or whatever and different circumstances and the way they see the world the way they approach things it's crazy different yes and i see that in my work and i see it in my relationships and with people that i know and all those sorts of things like the difference is is astounding you know yeah so there is a good way to do these things and there's a less

good way and there's objectively a fucking awful way and we've got to hold space for all of these sort of ways to find to help people find their place and find that agency the lack of patience from people who've had every advantage is really frustrating sometimes yeah because even people who are like oh i can point to five bad things i could myself included i could point to some bad things but if i just do that i'm not pointing at the good things and make this but the good things have made all the difference even

if there aren't heaps of it yeah there's been enough yeah and i'm so fortunate i just want that for everybody else at least you know this flight loves us at the moment um and then there's almost that like like because you want to be able to um greg physio you met before he's he talks about building a bank of good memories essentially you just like like like like you know life is sucky like it's hard life is struggling but if we can build a bank of good memories you've always got something to come back to

or something to fall back on or or whatever and you can say that from a point of privilege to be like yeah i've got all these good memories back on where a lot of people that five-year-old that who's now a 16 year old you know we've got to really pull back the layers to find a good memory or two it's a it's a great point that relates to something we talked about earlier about like okay well how do we get people to help better and one of the things is that like all help is not

created equal in this space and there are different kinds of help right this is not a comprehensive list but like an example of three kinds that i think is instructive here because this matters of how we engage with people who need that support or our aspirations for that support so when you're trying to get something done you want to do something you want to get an outcome let's say you want to run a marathon if you are going to run a marathon there's only one way to do that you have to run the 42.2k that's

it right so my my help in that space i can perhaps prepare some things that will help you on your journey i can be there with a drink for you on the way i can perhaps encourage you to prepare well and bring you the right advice in that in that space and maybe help you find the time yeah and when you're doing it and give you the drinks or i can cheer you on and say mate i believe in you you got this great and at the moment where your belief is flagging can be really

useful and you go thanks mate i was struggling at 35ks and i saw you yeah and i puffed the chest out and i ran past because i didn't want to let anyone down yeah great okay great awesome and you got through it great so that kind of like cheering on help to do something you can only do on your own it's a useful kind of help yeah another kind of thing you might be trying to do is like move a massive couch now my cheering's not going to help you know and i can say hey

it's helping i can bring you a glass of water i can bring you a drink and say here you go mate and you go you go thanks pal but i've got a i've got a four-seater couch here i'm trying to move down the stairs i need you to get on the other side of the couch and move it with me and so in that instance these other kinds of help are not helpful yeah and i like that so i need you on the other side of the couch to help me with that yeah the third

kind of help is like something's wrong say with your your appendix now you need help with that you can't do it you need a third party to participate in helping that yeah and it needs to be a highly skilled third party hopefully to take that appendix out let's say now you need a surgery cool if i do the surgery not helpful i don't know what i'm doing right so i'm diving into something i don't know how to do because i know you need it yeah i know you need it i've got a gist that you

need it yeah i'm gonna do it i'm gonna bugger it up so first of all stupid kind of help yeah i probably won't finish it so i'm doing a half surgery and at that point where people are going because a lot of people say things like isn't some help better than no help and i go it fucking depends yeah because half a surgery is not better than no surgery most of the time so that's a great point when you're trying to work out whether the help's useful right is cheering you on when you got the

couch useful not really not really and am i strong enough to help i am so i'll do it if i'm not maybe i need to find someone else whatever yeah it's chewing you on when you're doing a marathon helpful it is a bit helpful but ultimately you still need to do the whole thing yourself and so it's just supporting you to do a thing you need to do half a surgery or a surgery where i don't know what i'm doing not more helpful than not doing stuff and how often do we see people dive into

stuff they don't know how to do half do the job and then the next time you need a surgery yeah the next time you need a surgery what are the chances you lean into it yeah what are the chances you trust that you can you can get it done it's zero the last time i tried this idiot cut me open left me open somehow i survived but i'm not going back again yeah now yeah now you have this like anti-surgeon stance that that's right yeah well then someone else who knows you know better yeah goes

you're an idiot go get your ankle fixed like what are you talking about you're like man i'm not going for surgery yeah and if we don't if we don't talk about these things then yeah okay so there's this kid been through this awful situation someone's gone and told him get a gratitude journal and you can be whatever you want to be or you can be an entrepreneur and this kid doesn't have any of the backing any of the understanding none of that stuff going on they they fall over no one's here to help them and

they're worse than they were before yeah because it was the wrong kind of help yeah and of course there's other kinds of help but like as a thing it's like are you cheering them on are you helping lift the couch are you doing half a surgery like what's going on here yeah and to pay attention to that stuff is to improve the capacity to help and improve the kind of help that people are getting yeah yeah is there a like a framework a couple times but is there like a framework you've like followed to go

or what kind of help does this person need yeah yeah for sure it depends so we've got i mean there's a bit of a triage that happens which would be different for each person and different for each community if someone is you know really suffering from some mental health challenges or even physical health challenges then you go to hospital or something you know you try and take care of the physical health stuff first the mental health stuff a lot of it will take time to to deal with there's very few um like large-scale mental health

issues that you can deal with like very quickly um but you so you need to begin the process of working on that and then like housing is another one it's hard to like get people into work if they don't have housing so you want to take care of that and then for work stuff you know it's how do we get you up to speed to get into work and then can we get you a job before we worry about the career can we just get you understanding like what's going on there can we you know

ease you into work so you're doing one or two days a week if you've never worked before and all this kind of stuff yeah and it's for each person there are a number of different barriers and it's addressing the most significant barriers first all the time and engaging all the available resources around people to help them move through the process of like where they are to where they would like to be so it's almost like essentially hierarchy of needs starting at the bottom going do we have this if not this is where we are if

we do we and it's kind of shifting yeah through that like obviously it's more um multifaceted than that but is that almost the the way you would approach it yeah there's a bit of that um i think in the current setup particularly our non-profits for instance is that like you've bombarded with like hey this is the thing this is the thing and first of all people like in in all of these social impact spaces mostly people just use like higher level words so they say mental health yeah i speak constantly you know all the time

on things like mental health but if i say hey sometimes um you know people suffer from bad mental health you know audience 100 people or a thousand people whatever this guy over here is thinking about the time he was sad that his girlfriend left him yeah sky up the back thinking about his cousin who's got his paranoid schizophrenic um drug and alcohol issues homeless been you know a thing in the family for 25 years this person over here is thinking about their anxiety that they're generalized anxiety disorder they take medication for this person over here

is thinking about the time that they struggled with an eating disorder they're all nodding so i'm at the front going you know mental health and everyone's going yeah but they're not the same they're not even close completely different person over here's feeling isolated because we've got no mates yeah but we can get away with it saying we're supporting mental health well first of all it's it's it's pointless really it's a it's a it as a as a broad thing it doesn't mean anything in particular and it's different things to each person so you've got to

get to that if you want to start like dealing with it yeah but then we're all compete like there's a lot of competition in the space yeah for people's attention and their dollars and so the simpler and quicker it is and the more vague the more people can imprint what they think on it and the more they just go oh yeah okay i get it and i like this guy so i'm going to i'm going to get involved but if you were going to try and let's say this this wasn't here this this beautiful space

wasn't here just an empty block and you said i want to build this the way you do it if it was the way people approach say charitable work is you'd go who's the best charity who's the best tradesman yeah and you'd go oh we've got a guy come in and he's from i believe everyone should have a roof over their head and it's the chippy um i've got the oh we believe everyone should have access to running water guy that's the plumber and then a mate of a mate who knows a guy who says oh

did you know that 20 000 people a year die from dirt floors and he's a flooring guy and i'll chat to him too yeah they make their pictures to you the carpenter guy goes we believe everyone should have a roof over the head it's important yeah yeah that makes sense plumber guy goes imagine if you couldn't poop in the toilet or have a shower or get clean water makes sense his brochure it's disgusting you go yep and the flooring guy gives him gives you his stats and says well we do flooring because i went to

this place and it's important and you go okay we've got about one and a half million bucks to build this joint i'm going to give it all to the plumber because they're the best one right the plumber comes does all the plumbing yeah for one and a half million bucks yeah you're a clever guy you come in and you look and you go uh it doesn't look like it's done you know but yeah on every way that they currently measure like impact yeah gotcha they still get five stars yeah they might have good volunteers they

did everything they said they were going to do you know but the job isn't done so then you go i think i think it needs a roof because you're a clever guy yeah it's way more than that but you're going on what you know the limited information you know needs a roof well the charities are constantly looking for more money too and ways to keep going and you go i've got a pretty good and so the plumbers go we can do a roof yeah and you go well i've got a good relationship with them we'll

get them to do the roof so now they'll act out a scope they get one guy in who kind of knows what he's doing but everyone else is still a plumber it'll take longer it'll be shit quality than if someone had done it and you'll put a roof on now we're two years in we're three million dollars in it still is unusable yeah and then you'll go look we've tried this for ages it's impossible to get this kind of stuff done no one can do it's too complicated too complicated um but it's been great working

with everyone we've been able to talk about the great stuff we've been doing all the money that we've spent awareness plays being great but we haven't actually made any impact on to the next thing no one builds like that so you get that done you get a builder in who manages everybody when they need to be in in the right order make sure they have the right resources until the job is done we do the outcomes done at jbn that's what we do yeah we do the builder job now i'm a chippy by trade yeah

and i think chippy's make the best builders because you're on site the whole time you've got a good idea of what's going on generally speaking good chippies are good project managers and good builders not always but generally yeah but you can be a builder without having a trade yeah and you can also be a different trade sometimes when you're building you've got to roll your sleeves up and just fill some gaps with some shit that happens you've got to just make stuff happen but at the end of the day a hugely complicated job with 150

stories tens of thousands of line items getting done a day hundreds of tradesmen and trades coming through all the time no one thinks that's too complicated to achieve yeah but when i talk about working with individuals and communities to take care of four or five different domains people go geez that sounds complicated yeah and it only sounds complicated because we've got people saying it's simple all you gotta do is do this only do this only do this yeah so so the noise like you know we're talking before about like the do no harm idea is

like so the noise a lot of the time does more harm than good and put and puts us back in terms of making an impact and changing the systemic issues that that interrupts people's capacity to live the best lives they can yeah for sure i mean some of it just doesn't even make sense on paper i think like if i if i was if i'd had a headache and i had paracetamol and it fixed me and then i decided to become an advocate for paracetamol and i said everyone needs it you know if they're sick

i could i could find two or three people to say that was ace yeah who had headaches but the cancer guys yeah it's rightfully inadequate and so these single cause single intervention organizations are easy they're easy to communicate stuff yeah but it's it's over indexed single interventions and so people don't understand like how that that coordinating all the kinds of help yeah is necessary because they don't recognize the way their own lives have had all their assistance coordinated either by you know on purpose or just by accident yeah that we end up in this weird

spot where it gets difficult to to encourage people to understand that this how it works because there's a few extra layers of complexity yeah you've got to pay a little bit more attention or you've got to hand over your own understanding to someone who does know how to you know sort of deliver this broad suite of assistance and manage it and then the in a in a construction sense the carpenters and the plumbers aren't actually competing but in a non-profit sense they are constantly everyone wants their their thing to be championed yeah everything else yeah

so like that's why we can build complex stuff in terms of construction but we really struggle to get these multi-dimensional like impacts for for communities can you see a utopian view of the future where where the things are ranked based like ranked is maybe the wrong word but things are valued based on the overarching impact they have like we know that you know housing will solve a bunch of you know second third fourth order consequences down line we know that housing will solve a whole heap of these issues mental health problems and and belonging issues

and and safety issues and things like that is there a utopian view of the future where you see everyone getting the shit together i don't think it's too utopian i don't think everyone's like i don't i don't think everyone's going to end up all the same with all the same stuff yeah people are different they want different things you know yeah my the way i sort of see it is like just put it into a gym context that we're both very familiar with when crossfit came out i said we've got rules we're going to define

fitness we're going to find what good looks like we're going to divide apart a bunch of ways to get there a bunch of domains and how to improve in all these different ways people weren't doing that before it didn't look like that yeah we're going to add a little bit of community in there we're going to do all these things and at the beginning there was this sort of like vision of crossfit that gave individual communities agency but came from like a pretty rigid set of rules at the top as well yeah but then what

we saw after that was we had this and it did what it did but now there's like free weight racks in every commercial gym everywhere now they're not doing crossfit but they're closer to they're doing better than they were before yes and and in general people's understanding of what good looks like has changed and their belief in what the outcomes could be has changed and yeah people it's the whole industry changed i think largely for the better yeah um as a result of the impact of like having this kind of like all right here we're

pretty rigid about what we think is really good and we'll hold people to a high standard what i hope with jbn is that we can build a community of people in places and doing these things where okay our standards are pretty high and we're trying to get this really great outcome across all these domains yeah but what i'd like to see is that everyone else gets a bit better moves a bit closer even if you're going to do your own shit that you don't do the useless stuff yeah it doesn't work and we just start

to make sure that like some of these things are everywhere even if you're still just a big commercial whatever is do you think is there's an element of so would it be that majority of not majority but a chunk of those big guys are is it ignorance that they think they're doing the right thing when they're really not making an impact or is it like you know in their their maliciously intentionally not doing the right thing but masquerading as that they are like obviously it would depend on the organization but overall do you feel as

though it's more one or the other i think there's a lot less malicious intent i think there's a lot more ignorance i think there's occasional malicious intent for sure i think there's a lot of mission creep i think that's just yeah you know people just finding the easy path and the things that get attention we value different things in this sort of current economy and society now that make it difficult um you know but i don't think i believe fundamentally people are good and that they want to look after people how many people and what

people yeah okay i think we can expand that for a lot of people but i think fundamentally i believe in you know that people want to look after each other and do a good job i also think they want to do it easily and that makes it difficult and so much like with fitness if someone's selling a cheap and easy quick thing people will drift to it i get it i totally get it and i get that that you can look for positive moments in that and find the way that like well we look at

these very happy paracetamol guys will not worry about how long do i have to do this for forever oh this dude says i can do it in eight weeks i'm gonna do that and you know and how can i do something i can and great example about announcing stuff like there's a there's this like announcement culture thing where like i want to tell everyone what i've done for jbn i actually very rarely very rarely talk about individual people we work with and whatever because i don't like first of all you're getting people in their worst

moments a lot of the time i don't think that's fair i wouldn't have wanted to be or plastered everywhere on it i don't think it's necessary but you can do things that you can announce quite easily events running you know do a thing for a charity have a day whatever what you can't announce i can't be like get on the internet be like guys today lockie hit me up he needed 50 bucks he was struggling i'm a good man i gave him 50 bucks what a fucking legend i am you know it was people like

dude that's gross yeah what are you doing like just be a good friend and shut up and so because of this focus on like stuff you can announce i think people forget that like actually you can just show up for the people around you yeah and that does matter like heaps way more everyone does that the world's a better place so much better yeah and a lot of people miss the stuff that's around them to do something else or you know i tell people it's like it's not easier to help 10 000 people than it

is to help one like and if you help one person until they're like fully better like they're that comprehensive outcome you're going to realize how many moving parts how long it takes how many backward steps will happen on that journey yeah um and for someone with a gym who's seen people go through that process in physical sense you know they take 10 steps forward three back they drop off they have a month on the piss they come back they're back here again whether it's you or whether it's a client yeah and so your expectations are

different and you understand like we're just in this for the long haul oh this is this is this is life right like yeah good days bad days good weeks and it's like as like for us it's we got better every day plus on the wall and it's not like it's not about being perfect it's just about like doing the best you can yeah showing up you know if you're showing up at 20 and you're sitting on the bike for five minutes doing some stretches you know giving yourself a massage then getting home and that's all

you've got today brilliant we've ticked a box and then it's just showing up ticking boxes and ideally moving forward in a way and this is the thing i find with progress is like essentially what we do is we sell progress we sell but we're a people business masquerading as a gym business where people just want connection yes progress is nice and but progress can be just showing your face to the people around you one day it can be you know it can be sending it on a session it can be hitting a pb or it

can just be like you know i didn't go to the gym say i went for a walk and like for us it's about meeting people where they're at to ensure that they get what they need yeah like we run we run our gym very different to how most gyms run in terms of you know people will come in and they're like i'm feeling like shit today everything changes in terms of what the expectations are for the session someone comes in they're feeling brilliant awesome like let's let's run through a brick wall but we we have

400 different versions of that based on how people are feeling what their sleep's been like you know what their stress is outside of you are what's going on with work how the kids slept last night and i think that we all everyone has their reasons for showing up the way they show up if we can support them to make sure that you know there's progress made in some way shape or form we're winning i imagine you'd feel the same with what you're doing every day where some days you'd be like fuck it's such a like

we said said thankless before but you might be like no progress was made today but we laid some foundations so the progress can be made tomorrow yeah and and the continuity matters yes it matters so much in all of these things just that that connection to to each other and to doing things and the reliability of of one another because you don't know you don't know how people have been treated for for a backwards step um and some people give a veneer of not caring but like they're really heavily affected if you if you bust

their nuts too much about it then they it plays to the very worst parts of their inner psyche that put them off and you know vulnerability is is not just talking about the saddest shit that's happened to you vulnerability is also like saying i want to get this goal publicly it's showing up when you can't be the very best you can be because you're tired or whatever it's it's making an effort when you you know on behalf of someone else because you can't be bothered like that's vulnerability because you're putting your own like you know

peace or you know energy a little bit of risk there you know and and you're making an extra effort and we discount a lot of those kinds of vulnerability when we talk about it but those are all we know that vulnerability is useful for connection because like those are the things it's like everyone falls apart in a wad and you know like that we're all a little bit closer for having been through this together yes and that little pat on the back when i couldn't be bothered like at the time i'm not even recognizing it

as as being massive but it's it's adding to this capacity to make a difference and i always say like it's not about finding the trick that all the all the all the intervention or one thing that's going to change your life forever it's about being the kind of person who's shown up enough and done enough that something i do say help with contribute might be the thing that makes a huge difference and it's highly unlikely that if i do the thing that changes your life you'll even recognize it at the time yeah because when you're

at the bottom or when you're in the middle of something you don't know that it's only much later on you look back and go actually that made the difference yes are you the kind of person that people when you do a thing for this person that they go yeah all right i'm listening i trust you i believe you that makes a difference there's no just words that make it that'll do it there's no just one thing that'll do it yeah and that's why it's so important with things like coaching or you know footy clubs or

schools a lot of times people will be like they'll tell a story and this relates to um taking credit for all your own stuff but people tell a story and say oh i was really struggling and loki was like man you've got this i know you're going through a tough breakup i know works really hard you keep rocking up we're super proud of you it's fucking awesome your progress is ace i know you're you're operating at 60 percent but mate the fact you're here every day we love you we're glad you're here and and i'll

go that time he told me that in in in may 2025 it changed my life i didn't realize until may 2026 it's also not the only time he said that yeah and and i'll tell that story and people will be like what you're going to do is tell people that yeah but actually what you got to do is be lucky who's here every day for five years seeing him every day for five years so that the one time that you say it when he needs it that's the time it lands yeah it's not the words

it's the fact you're here all the time and that's the hard bit and that's the bit people miss a lot when they're talking about like how do we create these good communities and look after yeah i imagine that's almost like that's part like your job is that caregiver to be there day in day out and like our job as coaches is very similar in that way it's to create a safe space where people want to be comfortable enough to want to be themselves and want to be give exactly what they did too on that day

yeah and i think that you know the sharing a post because it's you know are you okay day or or you know putting 20 bucks into a thing that you know you see on instagram it's like the yeah i'm helping but then you kind of just revert back to what you're doing whereas the caregiver archetype or whatever it is where you're constantly there creating space for people to lean on you when they need or or think i think that's the thing that makes the world a better place ultimately because it's the you know doesn't matter

whether it's now six months 12 months you know that person's gonna be there and everyone i would like to think that everyone has those people in their lives if you don't like you know promise you there are communities around you that would have people like that that you can be a part of in some way shape or form like yeah like i find it you know the coffee shop we went to before like like that's kind of my third home yeah outside of here and and and home um you do treat it like it's your

third time you walk through that joint like yeah it was good seriously i spent that spend that much time there over the years but it's like i know there are people there that if i'm having a horrendous day i can like yeah lean on and and you know connect with and you know get a feeling of normal normalcy and i would like to think that this place is like that for um a lot of people and like to be honest your instagram is like that for me where i'm like the world's going mad and i

see you just like talking sense like yeah around like just simple things that i think everyone should believe in like what yeah i guess here's a question like question for you is what is it that keeps you showing up in that way because you know all the reading you do all of the the work that you do in all of your different um different avenues that you that you walk down how do you keep showing up and like giving a shit essentially yeah i mean i think since forever i don't remember a time when i

wasn't what i wasn't the question that sort of drove me was like why don't people get the help that they need when they need it for as long as they need it regardless of how they come to need help and i've always just wanted to tackle that and take responsibility for for the answers in all the ways you know in the in and i've always thought like if you want to have a big impact you'll be really good at stuff you've got to know more when people talk about emotional burden to do things that's what

they're talking about they're talking about like if you don't agree with me the emotional burden is me working out how to reach you it's not me getting upset that you don't agree with me that's not the burden the burden is walking away and going okay he doesn't like these things he doesn't like that so for instance on you know in the in the work when i'm speaking when i'm writing when i'm doing those things i'm trying to i'm trying to demonstrate a kind of communication that i'd like to see more of yeah in my private

life we take these off we turn the cameras off i go these fucking people like i get annoyed like anybody else i i love combat sports i love hitting people i have always loved full noise contact i'm not someone who's like a bleeding heart oh my god everywhere yeah in that's not the deal it's not like i'm an angel who never gets frustrated i get shitty but i think it's important that you you swallow it you don't get sucked into the algorithmic like um pull towards just being hyperbolic so that you get attention just screaming

and yelling because people like it more divisiveness just bridges that gap it just doesn't do it and if your job is like trying to bring people together and change minds you're trying to find those soft edges whereas people semi agree with you where they don't this people don't agree with me this i've got mates that don't agree with stuff and we still can be mates because i love them and i believe they're good people and we disagree on some stuff and that's okay and so i want to take responsibility for like elevating in the way

that i think is elevation i'm not saying i'm elevating it all the time but trying to elevate some of those things to to demonstrate what i think we should do more of now it means sometimes like feedback i get all the time from you should make a shorter video i'm like if i could get it out quicker if i could get this out quicker i would and i have been and i relentlessly try to work to do that but some stuff needs a few more minutes yeah you know it just needs a bit more time

this is the context and almost like the the care that needs to be taken to to understand the issue properly that most people are just like dude if i can't swipe in you know swipe past it in 15 seconds and get the gist of it you know i mean and you know i would like to think that people will get the gist of most of what you say pretty quickly yeah yeah but i mean the other thing is it's a body of there's a body of work that exists now as well and i and one

of the one of the great things about instagram and this is you know i've seen people in in the time of that you know i've been doing things you can't backdate stuff you can go back a decade i'm still going about the same stuff yeah you know and whereas i know people have been through four or five multi-level marketing schemes in that time five or six different gym training schemes in that time you know like everyone's they're promoting different things they've been across to the repair lift they're now they're in high rocks yeah i've been

a i've been a bodybuilder i said that's unhealthy just love yourself i've done this i've you know i've been a pro meat pro vegan i've done all these things and so there's there's an element for me of just saying look it's holding myself accountable to that to to um you know continue to try i'd like to do more but it's fucking hard to find the time as well and and also like because of the because of the i don't know the the idea that i want to do a good job of it i don't i've

never had to delete anything yeah because i thought about it i haven't reacted straight away so i haven't gone back and had to delete anything and to me that's important but i also see that there are people just like bang bang bang they don't care they say whatever there's no revision mirror and sometimes i envy a bit of that yeah you know but i mean yeah but then it's like the standards you hold yourself to wouldn't allow you to do that so that's right do you uh do your videos go on youtube as well yeah

youtube instagram i've got i just started a sub stack to write more as well which is which is good so you know you can find me on there and yeah um and you know i've made a bit of a commitment to do a bit more of it because you know i think it's i think it's necessary and there's just not quite enough voices that sort of representing the things that i think are really important yeah um whereas there's a lot of there's a lot of it's a i mean it's easy to say no to stuff

and just yell and scream and it's hard to take the time to unpack stuff and there's that there's that theory it's like someone can say something bullshit takes 10 times the effort to undo the bullshit yeah so there's a bit of that but um you know i'm always up for questions and stuff too and and you know if people want to know about things and but that's why jbn again like we try and work with organizations and and stay there for ages so that you can you can you get the time to learn over time

through demonstration through teaching through doing stuff as well um and that's the most effective way but you know along the way as well you know try and try and keep some of this public discussion up as well yeah well thank you for playing the long game oh thank you for thank you for making the world a better place mate you too mate you can't always say this is this is this is these are the hubs that make all the difference and you know if you're the builder you still haven't done everything on the job and

it's my job to just try and keep places like this you know buoyed up going with good tools and and encouragement because honestly it's these places it's it's normal at the at the canteen at the footy club looking after everyone it's the lady who's been teaching aid at a school for 50 years who's looking after people it's the neighbour who like lets the kids come over and give them a feed and do all that sort of stuff it's the footy coach who makes a little bit of an extra effort to like big up a kid

yeah um you know they they are without doubt the most important people in the lives of all of these it doesn't scale you can't replicate them everywhere they're unique to place that's why it's so but they are the difference they are the difference and you cannot understand the importance of having people like yourself in a place like this um you know doing things the way you do them mate this is the doing keeping people doing what they're good at like this yeah it is this exactly that's exactly what i'm trying to get people to do

all the time so mate i tip my cap and uh you know it's i'm wrapped to be here and and also just you know wrapped to wrap to know because you know it's people like you that help me do things like play the long game so i appreciate it i love it mate thank you very much for coming on absolute pleasure um you mentioned before but how can people find out more about um just be nice and all of the other shit you good shit you do uh well if josh reid jones at everything so

josh reid jones and substack and insta and dot com and jbnproject.com and jbnproject on everything as well so yeah pretty easy love it thanks man you're a good man get around it have a good day