S3E56 · Sam Crawford: Monkey Movement

Alrighty boys and girls, here I am. Welcome back to the Virtus podcast. I'm here with a wonderful human. Sammy, welcome. Hello, brother. Thank you for having me. Absolute pleasure. Now we're going to start the podcast a little bit differently to normal. And that the reasoning, the justification for that we'll uncover as we go through the potty. But you want to kick us off? Let's do it, sir. Let's do it. We're going to start with a few breaths. And I think it's nice, you know, when you're listening to a podcast sometimes and maybe you're just listening to it because and you're sort of not really present, you're not really absorbing it.

So all we're going to do, bro, so we're in the right zone as well is drop in with 10 breaths and they are going to be in through the nose, out through the mouth, in for four and out for say six. For those playing at home, breathe too. It's good for you. For sure. Here we go. So we're going to exhale in 54321. Let it go. In through the nose. In and long through the mouth. In through the nose and long through the mouth. In and long. Three more. In and long. Last two. Here we go.

In and long. In and long. All the way in. We're ready to drop in. Let's go. Love that. What a start. It feels good. It's nice to take a moment. So good from you. Just a little plug before we get stuck in Monkey Movement Workshop next week. This will drop on Sunday night. So you've got the whole week to listen to this. Realize that, hey, when you feel when you take a breath, you feel better. Come hang out with good people on Sunday. I'm sure we'll talk more about it. But Sammy, what gets you out of bed in the morning?

What gets me out of bed? My alarm. So much, bro. So much. I mean, I think that I am someone who springs out of bed because I have looked at and do something that fucking lights me up. You know, I mean, I, I get to serve. I get to rock up to work and serve people and allow them and assist them to look into themselves. And, and that's what, that's what gets me up. Spring out of bed. Have you always been the kind of person to spring out of bed? No. No, I haven't. Talk us

through that journey and the shifts that you've gone through as a human to get from the, get to the person that, you know, wants to spring out of bed and is excited to get out of bed every morning. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's a big question. Yeah. It's a beautiful question because I think that's the, that is the journey that a lot of people wants to go on. You know, they say this elusive thing that a lot of people have with like lots of energy. They say it on Instagram. Why is this person getting up and feeling amazing?

And that is the journey. But I'll tell you what, surrounding yourself with people who are on that same journey coming into a place like this. You know, I think gyms are the modern day churches. They really are. And in this pursuit of creating something amazing, it has allowed me to become and try and become great in this pursuit of creating something great has, has led to me. Yeah. Realising, I guess, a greater potential in myself as well. That's cool. What's it, what's it like? Give us a, some maybe cliff notes of your journey over the last 10, 15 years.

What have you been doing? What have you been going through? What are the different evolutions that you feel you've gone through to get to this point now where you're like, I'm becoming who I want to be? Yeah. Like I think the last probably three years this journey of the monkey movement has really assisted me in that. Previous to that, I mean, like travel, realising what's out there, realising that this bubble that we live in, in, in Mornington isn't, you know, the way that the rest of the world do it. I mean, you know, we are

so, so grateful, so lucky to live in a place that we do, but I also think that we are sheltered from what else happens out there in life as well. So yeah, I mean, travel has been a huge thing for me to get some perspective on how lucky we are here. Yeah. I went through a journey of opening up this gym in Mornington, Good Life, which was a cool journey as well. That was more so like a sales and marketing type of role. And by the time that opened, we'd sort of pumped in almost 2000 people.

So that was very much like sales, marketing. But then more so, yeah, this last, I'd say two years, I've really gone on a deeper journey into uncovering who I am at a deeper level, where I want to go, what I want to do and the type of impact that I want to make. What drew you into the fitness world or the, yeah, the fitness world, the gym world? What, what initially drew you into that? Like when you're going through school, did you know that this is what you wanted to do? My dad has always been involved in gyms.

So I guess again, you know, the environment that you're around, you know, almost creates the type of person that you are. So, yeah, yeah, I've been inspired by my old man and yeah, he's gone through his trials and tribulations as well in, in business. And so I ended up working for him when I was straight out of school in a gym and I've loved it ever since. I love the environment. I love the impact that it creates in people's world. Yeah. Yeah. I think I've been reflecting on that a lot last couple of weeks and I think we sometimes take for granted.

Yeah. And I think being gym people for lack of a better word, you kind of like, you just, you, you see it on the ground level for what it is. People coming in doing a thing to make themselves better and like just doing the thing is enough some days and other days you've got to push, push, you've got to push a little bit harder and other days you've got to just like, just be there and just show up. And I think we probably underestimate how beneficial just having a space is like that. Like some people have footy clubs and some people have workspaces that push that self edification, that growth.

But a lot of people don't. And I think that, you know, we find it with talking through new members. Sometimes they're just like, I've just been bouncing around to all these different places and I just need, I just want to find somewhere where I want to be. And like one of our goals is to be like the last step when you've health and fitness journey is like, it's not the last step, but it's the last step in searching for a place that allows you to grow and adapt. What do you think it is about the gym environment that fosters that growth?

You know what? It's interesting because I believe it's different for everyone. But from what I've seen, I've been working in gym since I was 18. I'm now 27. And it's about the people. I mean, again, who you surround yourself with, you become. And so, for example, if you're surrounding yourself with people who drink and do drugs, then you'll probably do that. If you're surrounding yourself with people who are continually pushing to be better, to feel better, then naturally that's who you become too. So I think that's, that's the value in a space like this. That's the value in, in gyms, but it's the value in community.

Community is number one. 100%. All the surveys we've done about what, what do you like about us? What, what are we, what are we good at? Tell us how good we are. It's about the people. Yeah. And I think that's, it's not like it's a realization you probably come to when you're maybe mid to late twenties and your, your friendship groups from school that maybe you spend time with because it was easy and convenient. You tend to get to that stage of life where you're, you know, maybe 20, 21, 22, and you start to have to figure out who you are and what's important to you and what you value.

And then, you know, you tend to have a few of the friends that you latch onto because they value the same things and they believe in the same things. And for some people it's, you know, drinking VB's and going down to the pub and, and, you know, putting a bit of cash behind the horses and other people it's training, other people it's getting up early and going for a, going for a nice chilly ocean dip. Some people are doing your breath work, on deadlifts around, you know, playing football. It doesn't necessarily matter what the thing is.

But I think as you start to get a little bit older and your friendship circles get smaller because of necessity, because you're out working a job and, you know, maybe starting a family or these kind of things, you start to realize that how important community is and how important support is and how important building a system or a framework around you where you have people to lean on and connect with and grow with. It's so important and I guess gyms are luck, for me, I say lucky but, you know, they are what they are because of the people that inhabit them.

But gyms are, allow people to connect with and grow with people of like-minded, like-minded values because it's a space where you go to get better. It doesn't mean you're not, you know, not wonderful for who you are but it also means that we live on that tightrope of both being grateful for who you are and what you're capable of doing but then having the desire to be into more. 100%. We need that. We need something to strive towards and sometimes that, you know, is a challenge and, again, I think we sometimes lose perspective on how hard it is for people to come into a space like this, maybe for the first time.

Yeah, well that's exactly it. The barrier to entry and you spend a lot of time in the sales and marketing side of a gym so you spend majority of your time going how do we lower this barrier to entry, how do we, you know, whether it be a free trial or whether it be a walkthrough or whatever, how do we allow people to get in the space and that's what we find. It's like when we give people a tour they're like, you know, and I look at this space and look at everything that's wrong with

it but it's nice to have new eyes in here and say, and have them say, oh this place is awesome, this is really cool, like I love this setup. It's a nice little reminder of like being grateful for what you do have and not just looking at all the flaws of it. For sure and I mean, you know, I know you said before that you're spending a bit of cash on a new fit and some new flooring but I mean it doesn't, as much as that's gonna be amazing. It's a want rather than a need. For sure, for sure and it's continually, again, that's you trying to push the limits and push the barriers on.

Yeah, trying to live life in different ways. Yeah, yeah but I mean it is more than just a gym, it's a space that does allow people to dive into who they are, to dive into who they can become as well. You know when you're having a shit day you can go to the gym whether it be Good Life or Anytime or Virtus, it doesn't matter, you know, you can go and see people that are gonna put a smile on your face, you're gonna work hard, you're gonna get, you know, you're gonna do good things that the future version of you will thank you for.

Yeah. And I think that's a, like happiness isn't an absence of problems, it's being able to look at your problems and go here's how I'm gonna overcome them and we do that by showing up, by doing the thing and by connecting with people who are on a similar path. I think I tend to find talking to such a big chunk of our community that the people who aren't necessarily, and happiness is an interesting term that we can maybe dive into if you want but that like level of contentment or level of like feeling of progress

and success happens when you are actively dissatisfied with where you're at and like I said before you wanna be grateful and appreciative of where you're at but there needs to be that level of dissatisfaction. I think it's like the human condition is if we have that level of dissatisfaction then it kind of allows us something to work towards and something to grow towards and rather than it being like, you know, I'm miserable because I don't have a purpose, it just gives you a direction, it gives you something to show up for. And for me that's

almost like, you know, the meaning of life or the, you get to decide what's important to you, you get to decide what you value and where you want to head and then all you've got to do is find ideally a place and people who can help you do that. Love that bro. Love that. I mean I love what you use there as in you get to create it because you do and I mean sometimes it is easy to get stuck in other people's expectations and almost this like rat race that a lot of people are in and I get in it sometimes as well, you know.

I mean we need more members because we need to be able to pay these bills or whatever and then you're like, we need more members. Like ideally we build a community and we add good quality humans to a already magnificent community that then make us grow and help us become a better space and they get a space where they can grow and, you know, the revenue or the capitalistic rat race side of things, that'll come if you do the right thing or if you do the things the right way for the right reasons. But yeah

it's a hard thing to get stuck, to get unstuck from, you know, there's an intangible amount of macroeconomic factors that drive why we do what we do or at least surface level why we do what we do but when we really tap into like, why do you rock up and go to work? Why do you show up? Why do you show up for your sessions in the morning? You know, why do you want to lead people through breath and cold exposure and things like that? And when we allow ourselves the time and space to actually break that down, never has anything to do with the cash.

Never. Never. You know, it enables you to do things like that but it kind of, you've got to start with the end in mind, like why am I actually doing this? Because if the world did that, it would be a better place, right? And again that's probably more macro large scale and we probably don't need to get into the government and all that sort of stuff but I mean if you do look at that then a lot of these larger corporations who do need to push for a lot of money and everything, if they did start with a purpose and they started with why, I think the world would be a better place.

And I think that's the frustrating thing is most of those companies did start with that. They started with the why and the what and maybe the founder had this utopian view and then you end up, you know, becoming a big corporation that's publicly listed that needs growth and you know, our system, last thing I want to do is fucking bitch about a system for 45 minutes but like our system is built on exponential growth and the desire and need for exponential growth and I think there gets to a point where, you know, corporations or entities

within themselves that are all made up that when we start to value those things more than the person and the community and the connection that we're able to build, like the housing crisis is a perfect example of money over people, it creates a world that's more difficult to live in and I think there's no, there's no surprise that like what like large chunks of our society and our communities are struggling with mental health and physical health and all of these different things and I think that if we can kind of go, alright, that's great, there's not a lot I can do with that on a macro level.

What I can do is I can lean into my community, I can lean into my circle and my locus of control becomes what I can immediately touch and for those people around that are struggling with the I can't do anything about it, then that's okay, you just do what you can for you, you make your world a better place first and show up to the gym and do your cold exposure and do your breath work and spend time meditating and connect with good people and then that has a flow on effect that builds into your

community and then grows from there and I think if, like I said before, if everyone did that, the world would be a better place and ultimately that's what we're here for. That is the purpose, right, like when you look at the macro scale of it, it does come down to well, you're right, I can't change that and I can't change all these big things and I don't want to but what I can control is what's happening within my own mind and what I love, what I love about this space especially like to answer your question

before, it is about the ripple effect that it creates, so say someone listening to this is in a space that they're not, they're not feeling themselves and they're not feeling, maybe they haven't felt themselves for a little while, that can then turn into your worldview. Things are then why is this happening to me, they sort of fall into this victim mindset and I've been there before as well but I mean the ripple effect that's created through spaces like this and through people actually doing some work on themselves to better themselves, it's crazy the impact that

that has because say you've got 200 people who train here, those 200 people go back into their families, into their work and they feel great that day. Say they've been coming for two years, say they've been coming for five years, they are completely different person too if they hadn't been doing that. Same with breath work, with meditation, these are all just little tools that people can use to better themselves because if when we can start with ourself, it ripples out into our worlds, our families, our partners, our children and we create this better world. You

just keep tipping into making your world a better place, a little bit day after day like I love the idea of compound interest just like if you put 10 bucks in bank account every day for the rest of the year, then quick mass can be like three and a half K but if you invest that, it's eventually going to keep growing and exponentially on top of it. Same goes for you looking after yourself in the gym, you're looking after yourself with some breath work, with some journaling, with some meditation, with good food, with good connection and you end up like you said, essentially a completely different or more evolved version of yourself.

When we talk about personal connection and edification and growth, we end up realizing that life is just about going all right, I don't want to be in the same spot I am now in five years like I'm not in the same spot I was five years ago, I want to keep growing and adapting and there's going to be progression and regression in that like it's never going to be linear, there's going to be days where you're like, I read some of my journal articles that I wrote three years ago and I'm like fuck I really

need like why don't I know that now and it's just like a little reminder and like I was talking to Simon about that before we were talking about because we used to do a heap of like leadership stuff, we would read and we'd talk about it and we'd podcast and we'd listen to podcasts and we'd discuss it and we just spend so much time on that and he's like I really want to lean back into some of that stuff and I think that you've got to learn the same lesson multiple times like this is the

crux of being human sometimes is you might go through a period where you're like you meditate a bunch and you're feeling great and then you'd stop, you know life happens and you fall off and someone asks you like oh you've been meditating, I'm like no I haven't and you kind of go well I know I feel better when I do that so maybe I do that and we, I think we maybe miss the forest for the trees a little bit and try and make everything perfect and just realise that if I just do the thing

right now like where is the, what is something that's going to have utility to make me a better person in an hour rather than in five years from now and you do that thing and then you know it becomes a domino effect that knocks over the next one, knocks over the next one and you end up realising that you know it's just we get what is it thousands and thousands of decisions a day, if you make slightly more right decisions than wrong decisions you're probably going to be going okay. Yeah and I told you before

about how you know you guys have been an inspiration for me and I just I remember listening to this podcast a few years back when you guys had first started it and it was just you and Coops diving into some beautiful topics about leadership, about I think it was one about like big rocks. Yeah we did like during COVID we did for our season two we did like a 10 episode series on 10 different topics I think we did like movement, connection, the big rocks, we did yeah leadership, couldn't even tell you. Yeah and so I guarantee you like if you listened back to that you would get so much out of it.

Exactly, exactly so stop what you're doing go back to those 10 episodes and they were in a time where like I reckon it was probably this time 2020 where people were still stuck at home I think we had a little open and then we closed again and we had no idea what was going on we're like what are the things that we think everyone needs right now and that's what we did and I guess the cool thing is now that's there in posterity for us to go when I need a thing it's going to be

there and I can take my advice from me a couple of years ago which is you know like when you remove the ego it's actually it's kind of wonderful that you have that capacity to look that I have the capacity to look back anyway this is not about me let's talk about you let's talk about so we've talked about kind of what's important to you and what drives you and what makes you want to want to do the things you do but what is it that you do from a coaching perspective let's talk about monkey

movement and then what is the next kind of chapter of growth look like for you yeah beautiful what do I do I'm a personal trainer have been a personal trainer I'm a breath work facilitator and yeah I inspire people to become the best version of themselves and as cliche as that is that's what I see and so you know I stand in that very strong like through doing these big rocks through through doing these things day after day you know you see this compound effect that literally changes people's lives so I guess I'm a human

helper I sit down with people I have conversations about what's happening in their world and offer insights offer really practical tools techniques that have drastically changed my life and I know that they change communities lives as well see I've been running a really cool space community called the monkey movement which started a couple of years ago and first and foremost that was a space for training for movement of the body so that was the initial start like the idea was like we want a space of connect people with movement yep yep with movement and then

sort of evolved into mindfulness practices evolved into a few mates gathering down on the beach and yeah ended up with a very beautiful community of people who come together most weekends on the beach throughout summer and you know we had so many people come down initially when we had a lot of people heading down like it was I turned to lucky my business partner and be like what the fuck is going on there's so many people rocking up so that's basically what I do that's awesome anyway must mean what was that feeling like like apart

out of the like just a shock and surprise of maybe maybe pulling more people in and you want like I love this kind of like I love what you guys do and I love movements like that because it's essentially like it has a gravitational pull like you guys have kind of set up but you've started doing a thing that set up this beacon that people have gone I want to be a part of that like what was that like going from couple mates on the beach to this you know sizable workshops and events that you've

been able to run hmm it was amazing yeah I mean it was interesting to just be aware and observe like the correlation between my investment in myself my investment in my growth and then yeah how that correlated with that gravitational pull um but honestly like sort of just enjoyed it um yeah like there was probably that's what it's all about like yeah like we talked before a lot about growth and wanting to level up and stuff but I think a big part like there's a big part of me that's just aheadness like that just wants

to enjoy things and and yeah and find pleasure in in day to day and I think that's you've got to find that balance between like you don't want to be miserable like leveling up but be miserable you want to have enjoyment and love for what you do level it leveling up can be so fun I think it sometimes it's hard but when you become the person that you set out to become well that's a it's a cool feeling yeah but yeah I mean it was really cool some of the biggest things that I learned was

just like how to make people feel super safe and and yeah I enjoy that journey like I enjoy chatting with people about life and having deep convos um so all in all just like yeah such a beautiful experience to grow something and turn it into yeah just a beautiful safe space that's wonderful what's the what's the growth I guess from like like personal training you're very much like one-on-one like you can just small groups as well but you're very much like just one-on-one conversations what was the shift like going from talking to one and obviously

you still do that talking to one person but to kind of having a group of you know 20 30 40 50 people in front of you all you know listening to your direction of what to do and how to breathe and what was that shift like you know what I actually haven't reflected on that too much but it was quite a natural shift because we sort of yet did go from say 10 to 20 and then it sort of slowly grew up to like 150 people were coming down so probably the first time that I

spoke in front of a lot of people like I was a very shy kid at school whenever I had to do like those English presentations or whatever go bright red and so I always had like this nervousness about me but slowly after that progression like I stepped into a different version of myself where I could stand up there and could public speak like I was always so afraid of public speaking but I think doing a yeah doing that journey of going diving deeper into myself finding out again coming back to that purpose like I would

just stand up there and think about the impact that it would have yeah so it was never about me it was about well how how can I impact someone today how can I impact these people and start their weekend off and when you're when you're authentically living your values and living what's true to you it's kind of there's no you still you still obviously there'd be moments where you're a bit nervous and you'll be worried like what if I say the wrong thing or whatever but because it's all coming from a place of love and

a place of this is who I am this is what I'm doing and I'm I should be here I belong here yeah I imagine that it would be significantly easier than if you were you know talking to a bunch of people about something you didn't believe in yeah that didn't that you hadn't gone through the journey yourself yeah so you had that I would love the the idea of like you can't give what you haven't got you can't share what you haven't experienced and you experiencing that growth and progression for yourself allowed you to then

go I I've learned a thing or I've learned lots of different things that helped me that helped me grow and I can help you guys grow for sure yeah I mean you know there's plenty of times where I fucked up but you realize how little it matters yeah yeah it doesn't matter and I think like I would be aware of like how people respond as well and so I would just start by saying when I was hey guys I'm pretty nervous up here today yeah and then but it would just like sort of ease a

little bit after that after acknowledging it so yeah it's cool to reflect on that actually thanks for the question what are the key like actions or things that you've realized that people can do that you know maybe the little things that make the biggest difference over the over that kind of period of your growth and development get the reps in just reps repetition when you know where you want to go it's like again it sort of comes back to surrounding yourself with the right people or saying who's been there before how can I how can

I get to that level yeah and then just reaching out like life short so yeah like if you go up and ask someone like even I've asked you to come up here for a coffee one day yeah we've had a couple of awesome chats I mean last time I was here probably spoke for about an hour yeah and we were like oh we should have recorded that so yeah I mean surrounding yourself with people who who can lift you up who can elevate you and when you know that something is good for you exploring that

I mean I'm very curious about becoming better so you know I try lots of things how does that feel yeah it doesn't feel too good I'm not keen on that yeah fuck it off yeah or if there's something that's powerful and that I can see a shift like again the the world that we are in right now there's so much external force that can drag us away from ourselves there's so much everything's at the touch of a button and and we become so comfortable so probably a better answer to your question is like getting out

of that comfort zone pushing yourself in into that uncomfortable state and that's where the growth is I like that I like you take it back to like training and it's just stimulus response like you yeah you've trial different stimuluses and see how you respond and if you like the way you respond keep doing that yeah keep keep increasing the volume or intensity of that stimulus and it just goes from there like I love that we can find those parallels between like physiology and and our psychology and our capacity for us to grow both physically and

mentally like I think that's that's what I love so much about what you guys do is that you started out as movement and you realized how beneficial and how powerful the the the breath work and the connection and the the inner understanding and awareness building essentially can be this thing bro this thing in here your mind I mean yeah when I first started training people you know it was all about the body and then I would notice that people would get unmotivated they would have no energy they would not have a great relationship with their

food or a relationship with their body and so then it's like well you know if you're training five days a week you should be jacked right and you should be feeling great but yeah it's the complete opposite I think we forget like we're a brain in the body not a you know not a not a body with a brain like yeah like a cool like thought experiment is like if you if you were to have a if you were to take your brain out of your body and put it in someone else you're not having

a brain it's not a brain transplant it's a body transplant you're getting a new body and I like that just that thought process is like it kind of it flips most of our assumptions and ideals on our head because you kind of go feel my arms I can yeah I can I can I can touch it I can sense it I can feel the movement but really it's all just you know signals coming from up here I think if you realize that you understand it helps you understand that maybe this is the thing I need

to take care of first that you know the what are the things that make me feel better or make me more capable of problem-solving or thinking or dealing with complex complex issues and all of it comes back to your brain yeah like you can yeah you can do whatever kind of deadlift you on doesn't fucking matter but if you understand that brain drives everything else rather than everything else driving that I think you realize that all right well the big rocks I need to focus on is mental health first and foremost and obviously it's a

it's a back and forth conversation because movement helps your mental health and all these kind of things but I think that journey you've been on over the last few years has been that you know kind of the brain comes first and movement comes second yeah yeah I mean it's probably a good thing to explore first point I'll say to that is that's a Black Mirror episode right there holy shit yeah you should sell that um secondly yeah I mean I'm not sure which comes first like I think whichever one you're not focusing on is probably

the one you need to shift to yeah yeah for sure I mean I think back to when I was really struggling and you know sometimes sometimes you just don't feel like you can get up and move um yeah so yeah I guess that yeah you're right it is whichever one you're not focusing on but first and foremost third pillar of social and and connection to that and I think they're like there's a biopsychosocial model it says the three the three pillars to you know living well on that point like living well there's so much capacity

and potential like the mind is a really powerful thing and so when when you do go you know on a journey to like moving your body yes everyone should do it nutrition like there's so much benefit in really looking into that so much benefit in in having a practice for your morning like something just to have time with yourself and so yeah maybe I guess for a bit of value for everyone like I'm at a point right now that I've just been exploring all this stuff as I said before like exploring what works and really

curious about it and so the difference between maybe a couple of years ago when you know I had experienced quite deep anxiety and panic attacks those type of things like that a lot of people experience now um you know there's there is just there's a different way to feel so it is going through like what works for me and and exploring that more continuing to get the reps in and yeah and just keep showing up what is the the next what is your next evolution look like yeah brother it's um it's exciting but yeah I

mentioned before that there's been a it's been a big week it's been a big week I have got you at a heavy time so yeah feel free to talk through it however you would like yeah I mean it's um it's emotional um yeah I've decided to step into a new version of myself I've decided to let go an identity and step away from the monkey movement it's huge it is bro and obviously you're still in it right so like articulating how you feel is probably a difficult thing to do right now but how is that

because obviously it was a just there was it would have been a process of decision making that you went through and then making the decision and having the conversations what was surrendering to that decision like poor because because a lot of you know so many people don't have the courage to make those changes or the they don't have the belief in themselves that everything's going to be okay like you've built this thing that you've been doing for the last few years that to step to then step out of it is a it's a whole new

like who am I piece which which is pretty exciting but also scary as fuck yeah it's both at the same time it's super exciting but there's there was a lot of fear around the around the decision and it has been a process too I mean you know I probably a part of me was attached to the identity that came with running a business you know you put all of yourself into it and so I went on a process I invested in a process I mean a big part of my growth has been investing in myself

spending a lot of money on on myself so that was a I mean at the start of the year I sort of had like a feeling and so just started to explore that because like it's a big life decision leaving a business or starting a business change is hard just no matter what part of life we're trying to change yeah so really explored the explored the decision explored my identity explored who I was and then explored what's possible as well and so there was a big question of like what did I have to let go

of in order to become this new version of myself or or realize that potential that I have so yeah it's it is a lot to let go of because what I love what I do I love the people who I do it with but there's just a being able to listen to those voices in in your mind and listening to the right ones as well yeah well that's it and I think for what you do it would have been disingenuous to to that if you didn't listen and if you didn't explore and if you didn't

decide to to make the decision that you thought was right yeah so kudos to that that's huge thank you brother I think you should like like just just take a moment to like be proud about having of making that decision I think is like I said before a lot of people don't or a lot of people don't follow through with it like we one of the things I love about our job is that we get to talk to people about what they're doing what their life what you know what's going on in their life what's

most important to them what do they want to achieve and you know like I couldn't count the number of conversations I've had that you know there were tears and big revelations to I can't be doing my job anymore or I can't be doing this or I can't be doing that I need to do this or I should be doing this and it all it takes is like one decision to change your life don't go out there doing anything rash but take a moment to be like what do I want my life to look like you

know what is what is true to my values that I hold right now because values don't necessarily completely change but they do evolve and then shift and you know what's incredibly important to you now is probably you know slightly different to what was three or four years ago but you have the you have the understanding that no matter what you decide you're gonna be okay I think that must be a nice place to sit in hmm it is bro yeah my body is sort of just like ease a bit as you were talking then yeah

I forget what you said but you're about to go on a little bit of travel to find yourself a terrible fucking term but to to create space to figure out what's next for sure yeah I mean you know whatever I do next is going to be an evolution of what I've learned and the man I've become which I'm really proud of and so I've had this trip booked in for a little while now four or five months ago we we booked a ticket so heading over to Mexico and I suppose just yeah for six weeks

like I'll be able to be in a space that I can create a really beautiful foundation for whatever's next I mean life it's so quick it's um it moves at such a rate especially you know in in Melbourne in Mornington things are things are quick there's this expectation to be at a certain place at a certain time and yeah I mean as I said before like travels been a big part of that perspective shift for me so I mean I'm so looking forward to having that time and space to create I love getting in that

creative space I remember when I was creating the monkey movement like that was sort of a six month sort of process so I'm really excited to be in that space next coming from this yeah place of abundance and and not survival yeah yeah yeah I'm excited to see you thrive when you get back and hopefully enjoy some of that space and six weeks away in Mexico probably make you realize that like a nice little reminder that time is very relative yeah obviously it'll go quick but there'll be days where you're just sitting in your thoughts

and ruminating in that in that thought soup and I think that's that's almost the most exciting part for you because you get to go and just think and be and it doesn't necessarily matter what you decide to do is yeah you know because it'll align with your values and you'll get to continue to become someone that makes the world a better place which that's what we're here for right that's it brother yeah thank you give us a before we finish up give us a quick little pump up slash info packet on the uh the seminar

or the workshop where you'll be running next week at vertice okay this workshop will change your life it will change your life I mean you know breath work for me has been such a big part in me creating space within my mind um becoming in control of my nervous system um being able to shift and control my state in an instant I mean throughout this podcast I've I mean I love jumping on a podcast so it's not too out of my comfort zone but you know you're still putting it out there to the world right

so I've been just having a little bit of attention on my breath and just slowing down um so I mean yeah we'll dive into the science behind it the real practical sense around like why breath work is so potent and and probably like why it swept across the globe at the moment I mean you know it's I don't believe it's a fad it sort of came into this fruition really quickly um after Wim Hof and everything and that's who I sort of found yeah initially um and then you know has sort of gotten really big

with movements and communities as well but the I mean I just give so much respect to it so when I provide a workshop like I said like as much as I enjoy doing it I know that there will be someone there that it changes their fucking life this is awesome um so we're here for yeah yeah so yeah we'll dive into the the science around it um we'll give them a bit of an experience um very much a dipping of the toe in um but 30 minutes of really slow conscious breathing um and in that

just give people some some tools and some techniques to take away implement into their life and start to start to really practice it and know the benefit that that it can have perfect so get along take the time for yourself and uh future you'll thank you for it mate the present me thanks you for this thank you as always let's uh I'm excited to see what's next appreciate you appreciate your guidance appreciate the man that you are and I love you good stuff love you too brother have a good day