From Burnout to Balance: Managing OCD and Pivoting Careers to Help Others - Interview with Simon Rinne of Mindful Men

In this episode, I speak with Simon Rinne of Mindful Men who is an experienced lived experience therapist and shares his journey with OCD, burnout, and therapy. 

The topics covered include:

[00:04:10] "Debunking OCD misconceptions and personal experiences"
[00:20:02] "Combating OCD with ERP and mindfulness practices"
[00:25:39] "Mindfulness, Gratitude, and Values: Finding Joy Again"
[00:35:33] "From High KPIs to Burnout: My Story"
[00:47:17] "From Social Science to Mental Health Entrepreneur"
[00:59:43] "Mindfulness Therapy Goes Outdoors: An Inside Look"
[01:06:57] "Mindful Men's Simon shares his transformative story"

Check out Simon at https://mindful-men.com.au/

Transcript

Joel Kleber: 0:00

Welcome to the live experience podcast. I'm your host, Joel Kleber. And a live expense podcast is about sharing everyday people's stories of lived experience on a large range of mental health topics. And today's episode is with Simon who's from Mindful men and mindful men, is a business and it's also a podcast as well. But it's a counseling business with a difference. And Simon's got a really, really good story and I'll let him talk about it in the in the interview, it was really good to just sit back and listen to Simon. He's a fantastic speaker, I highly recommend checking out his podcast. But the thing you can probably expect from this episode, he talks about having burnout and it's really relatable to a lot of people have been changing into his purpose, which was counseling and social work. And he'll talk more about that but, but he himself has a large struggle with depression anxiety, mainly, in this episode, we talked about obsessive compulsive disorder, which I think a lot of people just generally make fun of, for dismissal. That's, that's nothing. But as you'll hear in the episode, it's not nothing. It's very, very serious. And it affects a lot of people and something that probably a lot of people don't promote about themselves that often, which is why it needs a lot of awareness around a bit. Simon explains it does a fantastic job and you will learn more about him. Please go to the show notes and check out mindful dash men.com That you if you do want some support, if you're a bloke, you want to speak to someone he'd be a fantastic person to do with. So check it out. And hope you enjoyed the episode. So Simon, thanks for joining me today and experience podcasts and you're the podcast host. And you also have a bit of a community around the mindful men podcast I've sent you clips come up on my feet a bit. And you do a regular podcast as well, where you you do interviews similar to this summer, we're going to talk a bit about yourself and introduce your lived experience in mental with mental illness and mental health.

Simon Rinne: 1:43

Yeah, Joe, thanks so much for having me really excited to be here and share my lived experience. And I love what you're doing and sharing the lived experiences of people with mental health issues. And I love on your page, how you say you want to open up discussions other than depression and anxiety because these are the ones that often get the most airtime. And by all means I've got those experiences. But I've also live with obsessive compulsive disorder since I was eight years old. And in 2020, I experienced burnout as well. So I can talk about a range of different experiences both from a consumer of the mental health system, but then also now as a lived experience therapist as well. But to take that, take a step back, I live on a sunny coast in Queensland, got a young family, two little ones, and my wife. We're not from Queensland. So I'm originally from Adelaide grew up in the northern suburbs of Adelaide and 80s. And 90s was just I guess, is where my mental health story starts. In an environment that is, like most guys around Australia, it was around a time where boys didn't show emotion boys learn how to suck it up and to be a man was to bottle everything up and push on. And for me that resulted in 20 over 20 years of me's and suffering and silence with particularly obsessive compulsive disorder, but then also the depression and anxiety that came with it as well. So yeah, and these days, I'm a I'm a therapist, as I said, working specifically with men because I, I guess through my own lived experience, I knew how hard it was to to open up and talk about mental health issues. And so when I opened up my therapy business last year, I really wanted to, to support men in this in their journeys in opening up. Because there's not many services that are dedicated to men outside of services that are around family and domestic violence. Also perpetrators of crime as well. And so I really wanted to, you know, provide a positive space for guys to come in and open up and talk about what's going on. You know, because there's, there's lots for for kids, there's lots of for women, for moms, not so much for dads and guys. So that's where I kind of step into that niche.

Joel Kleber: 3:53

Great. Thanks for that. So I didn't want to just ask you quickly about the OCD because I've had another guest on Brad McCune, who mentioned he has OCD and people think it's a light thing. So maybe you want to talk about how serious it can be and just how debilitating it can affect someone's life. Yeah,

Unknown: 4:10

absolutely. We'd love to because, as you said OCD is something that often people joke about, they or they misunderstand. It's interesting. I've found some some businesses recently, I was just Googling OCD businesses out of curiosity, and came up with one around cleaning and one around building houses. And and I thought to myself, that this just, you know, goes to that notion that, you know, OCD claims. For example. Not everybody who lives with obsessive compulsive disorder has an obsession around the house being tidy. For example, I've got two kids and when you come through my house, it usually looks like a tornado hit it. And that's okay for me like that doesn't bother me in the slightest. There's another misconception that you know, OCD is around washing your hands constantly. And to some for some people that's that's true that there is an obsession that result. And compulsions that I say that revolve around cleanliness and of washing hands. And it's not because they just like to have clean hand, it's because they have an overwhelming fear of germs. And so there's the three misconceptions around cleanliness and washing hands that like most people go to. And then I remember in, in my public service career, before I became a therapist, it even extended to if you're looking at watching a PowerPoint presentation, and somebody had left a full stop at the end of a sentence and say, Oh, as someone in the crowd will say, Oh, my OCD is killing me because this person's forgot to put the sentence there or, or they've, they've misspelled a word, and they forgot to do the spellcheck. And like, this is not OCD for someone who lives with OCD. This is just poor attention to detail. So to take it back, right back to eight years old. I was in the schoolyard. And my OCD started with another child saying to me and other students saying to me, Simon, if you don't use your voice, for more than a minute, you're going to lose your voice forever. And what this did was it created an intrusive thought. So this is the Oh, and OCD is the obsession is the obsessive thought. And I couldn't get this out of my head, that I was gonna lose my voice if I didn't use it for more than a minute. And so that circles and circles and circles around, and this is what happens for someone with OCD, these thoughts, they just they don't disappear until you do a compulsion or a compulsive act. So this is the see and OCD. And so my compulsion was to hum. So I'd get to maybe, if I've noticed that I hadn't been talking or using my voice for a minute, I would go like this. And I'd do it so quietly, and nobody ever said to me, Simon, stop humming. So I think I did it well enough to mask it from everybody else. And then it becomes a disorder, where it's there's two aspects to it, that it's debilitating, that it takes a lot of light out of your energy and your day and so forth. But it's also that you're doing this for over an hour a day. So I was doing this for over an hour a day for two years. Every time I got a chance, I would be humming to myself ever so quietly, and then it morphed as as the as the years went on. So this was around eight years old. And then around 13 or 14, Mum and Dad separated, you know, they had a business that wasn't going great and money issues, and mum decided to leave. And so me and my little brother left with my mom. And you know, we're in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. It's a pretty rough areas and low socio economic area. You know, there's no wealth in that area whatsoever, a lot of Housing Commission and so forth. And so now we're all part of a single mum family. And I suddenly became this notion of being the man in the house. And that was a bit that was a thing in the 80s and 90s. I remember, all my friends would you know, their dad that he's the man of the house, or they're on TV, there was like these notions of who's the man in the house. And so I put it on myself to become this man of the house. And so this is where OCD really ramped up for me. And I would spend 234 hours sometimes every single night, locking the house up. So I had this overwhelming obsessive thought or obsession, that if I didn't lock the house up in a certain way that someone was going to break in and steal our staff, or they're going to break in, they're going to kidnap us, or murder us or something like that. So I'm really, you know, far fetched and catastrophic. So I would go around and I would touch windows, I would shut doors, I would jiggle things I would make sure the curtains are pulled in a certain way. I'd even extend to checking that all the appliances were off like the oven was off the stove was off the the iron was off because I also had an obsessive thought around the house burning down while we're sleeping. And I do this loop around the house in a very specific way. So I start off at a certain door and go around in a loop even outside to the outside gates and we're talking the middle of winter sometimes and it was just terrific. And then I'd get to bed and my brain would say somebody really check that window. Did you really check that door or when you check that door and you walked away somehow it just popped open. And I thought I'd go again and it was a never ending cycle and this is why it took 234 hours because I'd go to bed get back up again go to bed and just walk around the house every night in silence. And you know, adding to that was also leaving the house so if I was the one to leave the house maybe to catch a bus to school or whatever. I would have to do the routine again because then when I was away I didn't want someone to break in while we were away. And then to have to walk into the house and someone be there. When I got home when my mom got home on my little brother. And even you know, also extending to going to school and my bag and having my wallet phone or didn't even have a phone back then it was wallet and key Am I books and making sure they had all those things and I would be constantly checking my wallet and keys were in my bag, the fear of if I lost my wallet, then someone's got my identity and my address, because it's kind of like a ID card and not, for example, all the very little money that I had. Or if I got the keys, they then they'd also have the means to get in the house. And so I'd be constantly checking the bag, or I would open up the bag to where my wallet and keys were always check that it's there, close it, put it back on my back. And then I'd take it off and do it all again. Because in the notion of checking it, then my brain was saying, Simon, in the notion of checking, maybe your wallet fell out, and you don't realize it. So if you ever saw me walking, you'd always see me looking back on the ground and checking where I've been walking and all this type of stuff. But again, nobody ever noticed it. Nobody, I think I did it so well on a mask that so well that nobody knew I was doing this. And this extended into my professional career as well as a public servant, you know, had 15 years in the public service. And simple, simple things such as writing and email and sending an email, I would write the email, check it out, and oh, 1020 times before I sent it, you know, is it worded correctly? Is it perfect? Is it to the right people. And then when I click sand, I would have this obsessive thought that when I'm it miraculously changed the words. And so then it became full of profanities. And it went to the wrong person. And I'm going to get a whole bunch of trouble and all this type of stuff. And then I saw I checked the set box, and I read it again. And then I make sure like I even would blink hard. And go did I really read that properly. And then we extend to things like Christmas break, and Christmas parties. And so far for work or social functions. And you know, I for a long time I drank and I still do drink today, but not as much as I used to. And I would be the drunk at the party that would kind of be lively. And everyone be like, Oh, Simon, you're different. When you've had a few drinks, you're a bit more open and all this type of stuff. And I there was a reason for that is when I drank it, it just made my brain slow down, because it's always going a million miles an hour. But it also just made me feel normal as well and happier. And so I became that life of the party type drunk. And but then I would spend the next two to three days obsessively thinking about the event worrying that maybe I've said something wrong, or I've done something that's going to offend someone, or maybe the boss is going to pull me into the office on Monday because there's been a complaint about my behavior. And so think about it so off so much that it will make me sick and make me anxious, but it would also reality would become distorted. And so I would obsessively think obsessively think and this was the compulsion as well. So then, this gets into that when we do behaviors, it's not necessarily a physical thing, it can be a mental thing to that reality became distorted. And I didn't know the the difference between what actually happened on the night. And what was thought of that might have happened through my obsessive thinking. And so through all of these things that my OCD made me do, and it doesn't make you do it, because if you don't do it gives the anxiety just gets so much that you can't function is a develop this high level of perfectionism. And a lot of people that OCD have this perfectionist tendencies. And so everything would have to be just right. So like, you know, I would have to when I hum to myself, the noise that my voice would make, would have to be just the right pitch for me to be okay, yet my voice is there. And so that's why I would do multiple homes to get the right pitch. And then when I check their house that I would have to touch doors and hear a certain clicks or thuds or whatever, until things were just right. Or the, you know, the curtains were draped just right. And you know, even to the email that has to be perfect email or whatever report I write has to be just right, because not because I was like, you know, really big on grammar and all that. And it's actually helped me develop really good writing skills. But it had to be just right, because of all the obsessive thoughts that would come if it wasn't just right and perfect. And you know, there's a whole range of other things as well like, but they're the ones are the main ones that have evolved over time. And the annoying and tricky thing about ICD is that it plays on your ethics and your values and your morals and it makes you think that you're the worst person in the world. When you really not and a lot of like 99.9% of the time, the obsessive thoughts never happened or, you know, use me saying that someone's going to break into their house. I don't think it's ever happened. It's happened maybe once in my whole life and that's because we were actually away for a couple of weeks there my mom and my brother and I will or why. And it was just an opportune time for a thief to jump into our house and break things. But it wasn't anything to do with my obsessive checking in compulsive checking and all that type of stuff. And so yeah, I turned 28 That's when I finally said enough was enough. And I went into the doctor. Think I've got mental health issues. And that's where I learned through a referral to a psychologist that, you know, depression. Yes, anxiety, yes. Been using alcohol to numb everything. Yes. But oh, yes. I mean, you've got this thing called obsessive compulsive disorder. And this was 11 years ago now. And from then I've been on a bit of a journey of discovering of what that actually is, because I didn't know what that was, and trying to find the right treatment and processes that work for me so that I can manage it as an ongoing thing.

Joel Kleber: 15:45

How would someone manage it? Because it's something that as you said, people don't get a lot of don't tell anyone for a long, long time, but another guest on Brad Kuhn. And it was the same thing for him so. And I asked him still stupidly, I said, Well, how do you how do you solve it? Or how do you do it? And he basically said, he can't stop us manage it. So how do you how do you manage it? Or what are the strategies that you provided in the early days to help with it?

Unknown: 16:11

Yeah, absolutely. And I love how Brad said that it was, you know, he took a long time as well, because OCD is often referred to as a silent condition. And so from the first day of symptom to the first day of treatment that can that's generally around 15 to 17 years, depending on which literature reads So, and I was 20 years, I was over the average in keeping it silent. And it's because like, you know, 80s, and 90s. And in the 90s, we didn't talk about mental health, we didn't know I didn't have the words for it, a little bit about depression that was starting to appear. But no, definitely not OCD or anything like that. And so the first time I went to a psychologist, it was all around cognitive behavioral therapy. And even though had these OCD, like they weren't, I don't think they were targeting that they were targeting more than depression. So we're doing things like the thought journals and, and like most people, I, you know, going to therapy, the first time I walked in, hoping that they would just maybe wave a magic wand, and I wouldn't be cured. And I'd walk out, I wouldn't have to go back again. But it didn't happen. And so I kind of dropped in and out of therapy for quite a number of years and tried different medications, which, you know, I don't think they were really targeting the OCD. They were targeting the depression, anxiety, etc. And OCD to some extent has been classified as an anxiety condition. But now I'm learning that it's more probably a ver neurodiverse condition as well, just because the way the brain thinks and an OCD brain is very different to someone with anxiety. And so for the I think, over 10 years, jumping in and out of therapy, more targeting the depression, but it wasn't until I burned out in 2020. And I started an Instagram page for mindful man just trying to share my story as part of my recovery process. And through Instagram of all places, like I've never been a big social media person, but through Instagram, I started connecting with people and and I noticed all these OCD pages, theme pages come up, and I'm like, Oh, God, I didn't really know that there were other people with OCD, I felt like I was the only person in the world who lived with OCD. Because we don't talk about I mean, even in Australia, there's no association for OCD or non for profit for OCD. There are overseas but not for Australia. And so I started like checking out their pages. And I noticed everyone was talking about this thing called ERP, which is exposure response prevention. And I'm like, Oh, what's this? And they're saying, that's the gold standard for treatment for OCD. And I'm like, Ah, okay. And I kind of park that for a little bit. But then as you know, during stressful times, and particularly burnout was quite a stressful thing. That was a chronic stress issue. My OCD ramped up again, and I note and I noticed this over my life that when I'm stressed, when I'm anxious, when I'm not in a good space, my OCD is a lot worse and when I'm calm, and everything's going well. And so I thought I might look up ERP, can I find a therapist in Australia, and a couple things came up on the Sunshine, sunshine coast, there's not a huge amount of providers up here that do OCD specific treatment. And but I did find one, and I got a mental health care plan. Again, I've been I've had a few over the years and, and when I went off to this, this therapy, which I found out comes under the cook do the cognitive behavioral therapy umbrella. But what CBT does, it tries to just changed, you know, identifies the unhelpful thoughts and behaviors and kind of change that whereas ERP, specifically tries to focus on preventing the compulsion, the compulsive Act or the compulsion. And so, an example would be that I've got one with my car. And so when I parked my car, I have to make sure that it's in park and the hand breaks up. I would often get out the car and Walk away, but then walk back to the car because I would be worried that the car would roll down a hill and kill people, swathes of people. This is the image that comes into my mind straightaway. And so we'd go out to the, to the car park actually. And I think I could do this because it was a flat car park. And I always have that disclaimer. But even if even when the car was on a flat surface, me actually not putting the handbrake on. And walking away was a huge trigger. And so we'd do that we'd go outside, and we'd take the handbrake off, and we'd walk only 10 meters away from the car. But we also wouldn't look at the car because that's part of the compulsion, as well as looking at the car. And we would sit there with our backs turned and count to 10. And so we then we watch the anxiety rise and rise and rise, and then we come to a point where it wasn't rising anymore. And then we can go on, I've reached the peak of the anxiety. And now I'm starting to come down again. And then we turn around and go, Oh, the car still there. And so this is a great example of ERP, the tricky thing with well, there's another another one we did was around virtual reality. And so we put the head the because I you know, there's a lot of social social anxiety that I have. And I do certain things when I'm on public transport, for example. The problem with virtual reality for me is that it felt like a video game. So I've grown up playing video games, I kind of knew that it wasn't reality. And so it wasn't triggering me. And so that was interesting thing, because for other people, that's a great way to trigger their OCD. But for me, I was I was trained through my misspent youth and playing video games, I knew I wasn't real and so. But the tricky thing for me it was that a lot of my OCD stuff happens at nighttime where there's the psychologists couldn't be, they couldn't, you know, they weren't gonna come to my house at 10 or 11 o'clock at night and watch me do my thing. And so what we started to do was, was changed the way that I did certain things at home. So I mentioned before that when I checked the house, I check it in a specific order. So it might be a 12345. So what we started to do was just changed the order up, try to change the way my brain thinks about locking up the house. Because it knows I have to do things 12345. But what happens if I'd started with five and went down to one, or what happens if I went, you know, 13254, and just really messed up the routine, and I'd be zigzagging around the house and doing that. But then also, it could get to the stage where I go, What happens if I don't do number three. And I these are hugely triggering for me to not do it in specific routines, because those routines weren't just right. And so this is this is all part of preventing the response that my brain is training me to do and has been training me for for 30 plus years. And it was really useful. And you know, it coupled with medication as well, and all that other stuff. But I find what's really worked for you know, that's been really good. But what's really also worked for me well is mindfulness. And you know, I have got the Michael Mann platform, and mindfulness came through my burnout and trying to experience joy and being in the moment. But I find it's also really good for OCD, because it helps us be in the moment. And grounding ourselves and not be fixated on these obsessive thoughts that go round and round around actually helps us disconnect from them. And just be present in the mind, which is really good. Because I've got two young kids now. And often I'd be on a different planet. And my kids will be saying, Dad, dad, dad, or my wife will be saying, Simon, are you paying attention. And I wouldn't be I'd be on a different planet because of my obsessive thoughts be going around in circles. So mindfulness helps me ground myself in the moment be present. And also accept, you know, thoughts as they are and try to treat them like anybody else would an intrusive thought. So it comes into your body, except that it's come in and just let it go and not get stuck in a loop about why am I thinking this? What's going on? What should I do to alleviate this stress? But so yeah, ERP definitely. And I find mindfulness Yeah, particularly helpful.

Joel Kleber: 24:07

Thanks for that detail. And it's great that you spoke at such length about it, but there's something that I think yeah, you're right. Some people think it's a joke. You know, I remember seeing it for the first time in the movies because it gets to Jack Nicholson. And the sort of wasn't shown as a joke, then it was shown as this is a serious thing, but I can really, I'm sure a lot of people listening might be thinking about themselves, Oh, geez, maybe I might do this because there's there are certain things that I know when I was younger, I actually used to do a little bit of this stuff as well. And I don't know what happened to me, but um, I've got out of it. I don't do much of what I used to do. I always had a thing with number four. So I was always doing things four times but if for whatever reason, so um, but yeah, it thanks for that detail is really really insightful. And you said something on his pickup then on real quickly was about trying to experience joy and being the moment now I think that's a really powerful thing that you said that you're able to recognize in yourself. Because I, I'm not speaking about other people, I'm sort of am. But I think a lot of people do we do struggle with that is being in the moment. And you can when you're talking to someone, sometimes you can say they're in a nother place or whatever. Or if they're supposed to be at their family or whatever they're thinking about something completely different, whether it be work or whatever it is. So don't elaborate on that. What you just said, then I'm going to about the mindfulness part and actually explain it because people like you that said, mindfulness and go mindfulness. What is that a bit woowoo actually explain about what mindfulness is to you, and how that's been able to make you live in the moment more and enjoy and have more enjoyment in life, because that's a really powerful thing to talk about.

Unknown: 25:39

Yeah, I mean, I was first introduced to mindfulness through burnout. So when I've burned out in anyone, I'm sure I could do another episode on burnout if you want. But burnout is is saps the joy from you, you feel like everything is just so. So bad in the world is cynical, you've fed up, and I burnt out, I literally hit a wall. And I'd spent five months off of work recovering. And I was just a couch potato. And even that watching TV, I had no joy. Even the kids were jumping around me I had no joy I just lost in the moment. And it wasn't just the burnout, though it was it was the mental health. It was living with OCD, depression, anxiety, all these things ramp up as well. And I just struggled to have joy in my life. And so through through mindfulness, my first introduction to that was gratitude and doing doing a gratitude journal. And I started with that. And like most people, like you said to I thought, Oh, this is a bit, this is a bit girly. Look, this is a bit woowoo. This is a bit hippie. This is not real. I'm a guy, I shouldn't be doing this type of stuff. It doesn't make sense. And same same goes to yoga and pilates. And I'm going to put the three in, because I did do all three of them. And I love now yoga and pilates. But those reasons those stigmas that we essentially put on them as guys, I stopped doing the gratitude journal, because I also found it a bit boring. So, you know, I was told I picked three things you're grateful for every day. And it started off well, oh, yeah, I've got this, you know, the house, the family, the job and all this type of so even though the job burnt me out, I still had a job was good pain and all that type of stuff. But then after three, four days, I'm just regurgitating the same three things. And I'm just like, this is not working. So I since I've been there, I even had a gratitude journal that I went and bought. And yeah, and I've been that, like, what a waste of time. But then, so I left that for about 12 months. And then I fell in another pit. And I was I was really down. And so I'm like, Okay, back to psychology, this. I know now that when I'm down, I've got to get and talk to someone. And this time though, the different psychologist who really specializes in mindfulness, we flip the flip the discourse on it, and he goes, Okay, you've done the three things every day, most people don't like that. What we're going to do is separate your day into our day chunks on a piece of paper. And I want you to write down all the boring things or that you think is boring, just just everything that you do. So it could be six to seven, having a podcast interview could be seven to eight, getting the kids ready for school, eight to nine, getting myself to work, nine to 10, having a coffee with someone at a mall, you know, through morning tea, and just go through the whole day listing all these things that you do. And from there, those lists the lists that you've now created, pick the three things that you enjoy doing. And so for it could be the podcast episode that I recorded, or it could be that coffee with that person at work, and we had a really good conversation. Or it could be, it could even be the five minute conversation Hey, with my son after school, he tells me he told me a joke. You know, they're the things that I'm grateful for. And I'm like, You know what, like, all of a sudden, I'm not regurgitating the same three things, because no two days are really the same. And I'm finding the things that are also starting to bring me joy. So like, I'm a big coffee, you know, coffee man in this house. And so you know, really discovering the different types of coffee, like if we changed up the coffee, this gives me joy and or, you know, being able to spend half an hour on a guitar, and just playing a guitar for half an hour, which I don't do as much as I used to. But every time I do it, I feel good afterwards. Or, you know, going outside, my son started playing soccer. So we would go out the backyard and we kick the ball around and just having some fun with that. And so these little things that we often overlook, because we're on autopilot in life, we just take it for granted. These are things through mindfulness and being present in that moment. And you know, recording my day like that was really good. And then so I took also had to take a mindfulness a step further. So when I was recovering from burnout, I was trying to start moving again because I'd stopped exercising had his mysterious back pain that I couldn't quite pinpoint. And then what that work, what I worked out was After all the scans and the specialist said that they couldn't figure out what it was, was actually a response to my mental state. So once I started to recover from the burnout, my back pain disappeared, and I was able to start walking again. So something very basic. And what I would do is I would walk around the local park here, we've got a little bit of a lake where and I would brush my hands across the trees as I walk past them. Or I would stop for a moment and watch the trees swaying in the wind, or watch the clouds go past if there's a windy day. And I really started to use my five senses, you know, might be grabbing some leaves and crunching them in my hand and smell the smell the smell that comes from that. And what I was finding is just using these five senses, I was able to, to, you know, be present on the walk, because I hated going for a walk. And being on autopilot and not realizing that I was on the walk, I was thinking about all the other things, but I really loved when I was able to come back to the walk, and just be present on that walk. And so I've now taken that five senses thing. And I've got a program that I do through Sigmar, for men called mindfulness on the move where I take my clients and we do exactly that we go and brush hands on trees, and we'd go to the beach and put our feet in the water. And we just really sit there and go, Okay, what are we feeling right now, that's not thinking about anything else. It's just think about where our feet are, and what we're doing right now. So these all these little things was really cool. But then as I was finishing my social work degree at that time, so I was studying part time as a master's degree. And I was doing a practice, you know, we have to do 500 hours of practical work at a business. So that was really cool learning about private practice and therapy in a business. And through there, I was also introduced to Dr. Ross Harris, who does a lot of work in the acceptance of Commitment Therapy space, that act. And this is a mindfulness based practice. And so what I was now learning was not so much as a client, which I still use as a client, myself, but then also as a therapist, how can you apply that to the therapy practice. And so I discovered here that our mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy that's around gratitude, and being present in the moment, there's also breathing exercises that you can use to overcome things like anxiety. But then there's also this other cool thing, which I had never thought about was values. And it was around identifying what your values are, then using those four to six key core values that we identify out of on a 40 or 50. And using them as campuses every day, and it's going okay, how am I going to live by my values today? So if my value is respect, how am I going to route to show respect to other people, but also almost command respect from other people as well. And we do that in committed ways in intentional ways. And then if we're not living by our values, how's that making us feel so often when we're triggered for example, by with anger, it's sometimes it's someone who's who's triggering against one of our values. So if we're, if our values respect and we're not getting respected, and we get triggered by that, we can use our values to reflect on that and go in this is why I'm feeling like this possibly is because I'm not being respected in this moment. So it's, it's all these types of things. And then so I look at it as a big thing as and going, Okay, well, mindfulness has all these tools, but then it's also okay reflecting on you know, on life, on my journey or on the journey to my clients, and acknowledging that because if they, you know, our stories tell amazing things about us about our resilience, our strengths, our weaknesses, as well. And it's around accepting that into our lives. It's around then using that to go Am I showing up as the person that I want to be? Am I on autopilot? And can I come off of autopilot? Can I live more authentically, but then also wants the goals for the future? How can I now you know, take all this knowledge I have about myself and use it to drive change in my life and live that life that I've always wanted to live and not the life that I've been living because I've been on autopilot

Joel Kleber: 34:10

now level that advice has taught me some notes then I love the thing which you said about the values and having your own set of values. I don't think people need to know what the values are I'll take the time and it's a great way to look at it because you're right if someone says something that's against like let's say respected you said it's a great example. Yeah, it's just being able to identify to label it and what your values are definitely really helping a lot of advice at the five senses things interesting thing is I actually was reading an article the other day about that and basically taste and touch and and how it can really drastically affect your mood and so really, really good example You said that you do if your clients are just taking them into the to the beach or when you go for your own walk. It's really good, fantastic stuff you'll sign in. I'm just gonna talk real quickly if you can before. I think it harder seven. But is it do you a bit BB gun by seven? Okay, well whatever I could, because I'm what I just talked about burnout. So burnout, as you have alluded to a couple of times before, something is very real. And I think, post COVID I'm in Melbourne, Victoria. So it's sort of a slowly seeing, I think, the post COVID mental health effects now, especially in young kids in young kids down here, but in just in general, I think it's still a very weird time in Melbourne, Victoria, with what's going on at the moment. So maybe just talk about your story of burnout, and how you made a transition to what you're doing now?

Unknown: 35:33

Yeah, absolutely. Burnout is something you know, I work in a public service and in an environment that was high KPIs, so key performance indicators. And there was a lot of turnover of staff a lot of turnover a process. And, you know, and I look back on my time at the agencies, I work at the National Disability Insurance Agency, so I'm gonna name it, I've named it before. So like, there's no no lie where I worked. And it was an amazing job. Like, I met so many people living with disability, telling their amazing stories like this, you know, like what we've been doing, and overcoming adversity. And, and I was fortunate to be the, one of the, what they used to call it, they call them a planner, where it's sit down and hear these stories and go, Okay, what does what's the disability supports you need. And I was fortunate, you know, to press approval on the funding, you know, that was a fantastic, it was such a great feeling of progress, approve, and go, hopefully, this money can make a difference to this person's life and this family's life and goes because often families that would come in the trap, the challenge with the agency and the scheme was, and still is, is that it was high KPIs. So you know, you do one piece of work, and then the next, next, the next job would be there ready to go and ready to press a proof. And this was awesome, you know, you can do that for a while. And I think the first 12 months, we did it really well as as an agency, or particularly up here on the Sunshine Coast, we did it really well. But then after 1212 months of doing that over and over and over again, like it's like a conveyor belt of work, people started to burn out and I didn't realize that they were burning out like I was still doing okay, like, my perfection, I was hitting that bar of perfectionism that I'd had for a long time, I'd been in the public service for a long time. So I'd experienced similar environments and other agencies. And I was doing okay. And then gradually over time, I just started to feel tired. And I started to feel like I wasn't keeping up as as well as I used to. And I started getting more cynical and started just just feeling terrible and starting to be terrible around other people, particularly my wife, for example. And what I discovered was, you know, it actually didn't rediscover it, like other people were going off on leave. And I thought, taking a lot of holidays, what's going on here, but I never really asked, it wasn't really my business and so forth. And then I started to hear this word burnout a few times, and I'm like, What's burnout to have really heard that before? And this was only a couple years ago now. And then I learned, oh, maybe it's just like, I heard it's a workplace stress thing. And maybe they just, maybe they just can't be bothered. You know, they like it's a cop out thing. I kind of I think I've initially thought of it as a cop out thing I've never heard of, I've never experienced that. What is it? And that was until I experienced it myself. And so it got to a point where it got to a point where I was being meetings with clients, and I wouldn't be present, I would get 10 minutes into the conversation. And I'd be leading that 10 minutes, I was saying something for 10 minutes, but then realizing I have no idea what I've just been talking about for 10 minutes. And I don't know what even what part of the conversation we're up to. And so that that was a big red flag for me. And it happened a few times, I'm like, okay, something's not quite right here. And then my workloads were blowing out time, you know, I wasn't as quick as I used to be. I was always a bit slower than a lot of other people. And I think that's the perfectionism coming through in what I do. Whenever I write case notes, I'm a war and peace kind of guy. I'm not the four dot points kind of guy. And so it always took me a lot longer to do some work. And then you start comparing it to the people next to you, and then a high KPI environment. Comparison culture really is bad because some person might have 10 easy things to do. And then they'd be like, oh, yeah, you're a champion. You're doing amazing work. And then I've got a really hard thing to do. And I barely get through one and they're like Osama Why have you only done one instead of this person's done? 10. And it was a thing, comparison culture was the thing. And after a couple years, I think it's about two years we'd hit COVID So we were in lockdown as well. Up here in Queensland, I think it was the first lockdown that everyone was in. And I noticed you know, the gym had closed and I was trying to run around the block and that's my own mental health story as well. The OCD depression anxiety was still there. I was studying Masters of Social Work part time I'm working full time we're all at home, it was just chaos like everyone experienced. And it got to a point where I was having a meeting with my boss and, and we're gonna talk about my caseload because it was blowing out and I just something inside of me just bubbled up. And I think the lid burst, and I just started crying. And I've never done that before in the workplace or anything like that. Nobody in the workplace knew I live with OCD, depression, anxiety. And so this was the first time a mental health story was coming out for me in the workplace. And they're like, what's wrong? Simon, I'm like, and I was at home. So I was disconnected, you know, we're doing this via zoom, or not even that well on the phone. And I'm like, I don't know, like, I think I'm burnt out. And I just said the word I didn't really know what it was. And so went to the doctor, my GP. And I love this doctor, because I've got two doctors, I've got a GP that we the family uses, doesn't really get into the mental health space. He's great. He's great to talk to about mental health, but this other doctor was a specific mental health, you know, his interest was mental health. And I said to him, like, these are the things that I'm feeling. And he said, Simon, this is burnout. And what I liked about him, he said, I've been here before I've been burnt out. So what you're saying I understand. And I'm like, Oh, really? And then so we explored what burnout was, is that prolonged chronic stress that doesn't get alleviated? That saps your joy that's, you know, makes you cynical, that makes you like, you know, always questioning what's the point of everything, you know, it's not just a workplace thing. It seeps into everything, you know, study family life, social circles everywhere. It's not just a workplace thing. And so he said, I have two weeks off. So I've had two weeks off and went back to work. And that didn't help. And it just crumbled again, and then literally said, Have you got any any sick leave? And I was fortunate, because I had worked in a public service for 15 years. I'm like, Yeah, I've got six months sick leave, he's like, would you want to say six months, I'm like, probably not. I'll take three months. And he's like, I was gonna say, three months as well. So I took three months off and telling work, I'm not gonna be back for three months. That was a big thing. And, and so that's through that process, I went and saw a mental health social worker, because studying social works, I wanted, I've never seen a social worker before, I'd always seen psychologists and counselors or psychiatrists. And I thought, I'm gonna try Mental Health Social Worker, because I, I understood the language. And I love social work and what we're talking about. But the great thing about the social worker that I went and saw is that he had worked in the public service. So she worked in a similar agency to what I was working in. And she'd experienced burnout too. So I was hitting two big green ticks there, because I could go in there and say it as it was, and they would just understand what I was talking about. And this is what I valued. Now, today, as a therapist, as a lived experience therapist, when guys come to me with depression, anxiety, burnout, no one's come to me with OCD yet, but I'm hoping one day they do, I will get it. I mean, I won't get in their shoes, because it's their story. They everyone has their own story and their own path they walked on, but I can get it when I say this is how I'm feeling. I totally get I can get it. When I say of you, I use alcohol to numb the pain, because that's what I've done for most of my life. And so through that, that process of return of recovery, I started doing things like The Walking thing that I was talking about before. One of the creative things I started doing was I've got a MacBook Air. And there's a program on Apple GarageBand. And I've never been a DJ, always, you know, you you had these dreams of doing something musical as a young person. But they found that on this program, I had these loops, so I was able to loop music together. And pretend I was a DJ for two hours, every couple of days or once a week. And what I found was a that that helped me just focus on one thing and not 500 things. But it also had this creative outlet, which gave me joy, which is really cool. And then I thought, well what can I do with it once I finished putting these loops together and I'm like, I'm gonna start a YouTube channel and start putting the music up there. Because what I found was found was when I was studying the music that I was listening to was just music, they had no words, it was just instrumental music, which I helped found helped me focus as well. And so that's all listening. Yeah, and so I put it up on YouTube. And you know, I think I'm the only person has ever listened to him. But it just felt like this great sense of accomplishment and like all of a sudden, I was finding joy again, I was accomplishing things again. And it just felt great. And so when I went back to work, it was a graduated returns. I went back to work like one or two days a week and then it got to five days and then we started graduating my workload as well getting me in backup to full time equivalent. And it just it coincided with a gap in study which was which was helpful because I had a gap in my semesters, I was able just to go back to work I was able to recover, go back to work and do that. But it was a long process. And what I discovered through that is, is all those people that were on leave, they weren't on leave for holidays are on leave for burnout. Because when I came back and I actually shared my burnout story coming back into the workplace, I felt it was necessary because of the environment it was. And thankfully, my manager said, Yeah, I'd love we'd love to hear this burnout story. And other people would come to me says, Yes, I'm and I've been burnt out too, or I'm approaching burnout, what should I do? And I say, I'll go see your doctor, you need to you need to get on top of this. Because, for me, it was three months off of work. And I know a lot of the people in the agency that are in the office that I had didn't have that leave, because they were brand new to the to the APS, you know, when we all started in 2018. And so yeah, I was just fortunate I had the leave available and and had the support from my managers at the time, whereas 12 months earlier, if that happened 12 months, or even maybe six months earlier, I don't think I would have had that same support. Because we were talking pre COVID, then, and the discussions were just suck it up and get on with your work. Because once COVID here, and one of the good things about COVID is we started looking at mental health a lot closer, and particularly when we became more remote workers, you know, managers were checking in How are you coping at the moment? And I think it just coincided as one of the best things about Cobra was these increases in discussions around mental health. And if I burnt out 12 months early, I don't know if this if I'd have the same story of recovering and going back to work, it probably might have led to me quitting that job. And I don't know what I'd be doing now, I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now as a therapist, because my path would have been different.

Joel Kleber: 46:44

And how did you make the transition to what you're doing now. So I sense a bit that you wanted to work with something that really meant, you know, obviously you doing meaningful work with what you're doing. But in regards to what you're doing now, you want to create something which really gave you a real sense of purpose. So just talking about how you created what you've done, and how you've made the transition into social weapons. I grew up a lot of social workers, my mum was always in cycles. So I've known I've had a lot to do with social workers going up. It's always a lot of respect for social workers. So Mojo spoke about, he made that transition into that

Unknown: 47:17

it was a long time coming. So I remember like, was the end of the 90s, early early noughties, and you get back then it was like, What do you want to do when you finish high school and I'm like, and I had this big book, like this thick around like an inch thick around all the different unicorns. And nobody in my household had. I think my brother had gone to uni, but he never finished uni. So going to uni was a big thing in our household. And in fact, where we lived in the school, I went to we I got bonus points because I was from a disadvantaged area to get into uni. So I had a few extra bonus points to get in. And remember at that time, I'm like, I didn't know what mental health was. We weren't talking about it. But I felt inside of me, I said, so. I said to myself, I want to do something that helps someone like me go through whatever I'm going through. So I picked site, I picked Social Science degree, and it was majoring in psychology. I'm like I'm at the start. I've heard of this term psychology. I don't know what a psychologist does, really. But they might help people process stuff and behaviors. And that's what the little blurb in the book said. And so off. I went and started that. But then in the second year, and I started the first year I got through in the second year, I got to a course that was around statistics, advanced statistics. And I bombed it I just maths for me, I just don't get it. It's like a foreign language. So I ended up changing changing courses to anthropology. And that's how I kind of ended up in the public service. Because at the end of it Google wasn't around at the time was the AOL or Yahoo was that I said, What does someone who has a social science degree do and it just at all, is all these government graduate jobs. And so that's the path that I went on. As I park this idea of working with people like me, because I couldn't finish the degree the psychology degree was too hard. Fast forward to would have been 2015 or so to the 13th. Sorry. And I was I was sick of the public service by that time, like I had lots of cool jobs, but it wasn't lining me up and I wasn't climbing the ladder. And I'm like, you know, I've got to go do some more study. And then I happen to walk into the local university here on the Sunshine Coast. And, and I wish I did this 10 years earlier, but like I spoke to a careers counselor. I said, I want to do some study. I don't really know what to do. My sister in law at the time was doing occupational therapy and like, yeah, that sounds really interesting, by the way, she talks about it. And so we looked at that, but then he's like, Well, what do you want to do? I'm like, Well, I kind of want to help people process stuff. And now I had a name. So I said, I want to help people with mental health. You know, I've always wanted to do this. I had had the terminology now that I'd had the diagnosis. So I 1211 years ago, said, What about social work and or counseling, and we looked at the both options and counselors. I mean, like, I don't want to be stuck to a chair all day, I want to be creative, because creativity is something really important to me. And it's like, I lost it after high school. And he said, our social workers can just do anything like you can work in child protection, you can work in hospitals, you can have your own business, you can work in community development organizations, and I'm like, oh, that sounds really cool. No, two days gonna be the same, because I've been doing the same, same same for the last 10 years in my public service career. And so that's why I picked social work. But then the very first subject I picked was mental health in Australia was like that. I just loved it. It doesn't it enlivened my brain, I'm like, Oh, this is amazing. And then I learned, social workers can do accreditation and become a mental health social worker, I'm like, this is the job I want, I want to be an accredited mental health social worker. And so that's the journey I took. And from there, everything I did all the subjects I did, if I had to do a report, it would be something to do with either mental health or Men's Health and men's well being and trying to encompass all that and learn so much about that as possible. And then it was interesting, when I finished the degree, I was coming close to finishing a degree I, you know, I'd heard of other people having jobs outside of the public service. And I thought, I'd love to do that. So I started on the process of getting the approvals from my managers to say, hey, I want to go make some extra income, but outside of this organization, and because I was only a brand new graduate, like it takes two years, to get your accreditation to be a mental health social worker. And to do that, you have to work in the mental health field, which is really hard to get into without the experience. And so I thought, Oh, I'm gonna start my own business. I'm sick of working for other people. And I want to have my own private practice. And so what I would do is I'll, I'll do Fridays, or Saturdays, and I'm going to have clients and there's those days, and then I will have my normal job Monday to Thursday, which gives me salary, which is, you know, I need to pay the mortgage and all that type of stuff. And they knocked it back. And I said, Well, you know, because I was I was also going to target NDIS participants as well, because there's therapy in that. And so they knocked it back and said, You can't do NDIS, because you work on the NDIS. It's conflict of interest. And I'm like, Ah, okay, I understand that. But it gutted me, because I'm like, how am I going to find private paying clients to, to work with this brand new graduate, and so forth, much easier in the NDIS, but not so easy in private practice as a private paying client. So I kind of sat on it and sat and sat down and tried again, try to tweak the the application a little bit didn't work again. And I fell into a really dark pit of depression. And I'm like, How can I do this, I really want to get out, I want to have my own business, I want to help guys with their mental health. But I can't I'm stuck in this I was tied to a mortgage, and I've got a mortgage to pay off kids in school. You know, I've got a very good salary with good conditions. And it's funny how it came about. Because at the time, and this is all through code, and the towards the end of COVID. We thought, Oh, I'd love to get a new car, like my old Corolla was dying, I needed to get a new car and like I want to get a u. So we put a we put a we took 60 grand out of the mortgage, and I was going to put that to a brand new Hilux, I've always wanted a Hilux, because I had the initials SR and about Canus my initials. Stupid, right, and I want a car. And, and we did them and my wife looked at me like that, if that if you feel like that's going to be good, that'd be good. But we can take the kids away, we can go camping, we could do all the things that people in southeast Queensland do. And we did that. But then we we put one on order. And because of COVID, it was going to be initially six months, then it was nine months and 12 months now I'm hearing 18 to 24 months to get the car delivered from overseas. And after about three or four months, I just got sick of waiting. And I said to my wife, you know, I was in a really bad place at work. And I said, why don't we just take half of that money, buy a secondhand New, and then take the other half. That can be the mortgage payments while I build the business from full, you know, five days a week from from scratch. And usually when I have these ideas, my wife is like, Nah, that's not going to happen. We've got to think logically about this. I'm going to do the gradual thing. And she's like, No, what, you know what, let's do it. And so we did, we went down to breezy, I got a second hand you, Toyota Hilux with SR on the back, and then I've put my four men stickers all over it. But then I remember calling up work and it was really scary because I never resigned from that career. I mean, I'd moved agencies, which is pretty allowable in their public service, but to say that I'm leaving the public service. Thanks for everything, and thanks for my mental health journey as well. Yeah, that was a big contributor to it. I'm gonna go live this passion that I've always had, since I was a teenager, and I'm gonna move into that space. And so created a website, create the business name and the trading name and, and just open up the doors to Google's gonna put in Google ads and all this type of stuff and interesting like everyone's, like Simon says so much needed. But then the phone didn't ring and I'm like, What have I done like, and I was struggling with it. And then, you know, got a few business coaches on board and started started networking and through the network started getting the referrals. And then yeah, now we're in a really good space that you know, that probably about 60% capacity now, I'd opened in August last year, but 60% capacity now, and doing some great things and now starting to look at doing some group work as well. So it's been a bit of a journey, and I put the cast are in there because we often we live in a in a consumer as well, where we all want the big shiny things, we want to keep up with the people next door or whatever. And by me flipping that and going, You know what, I don't need the new one, I can have the old one. And then I can actually use this money for my real purpose. And since leaving my old job, I've just been totally different that depression is gone. Stress is still there, because now I'm a small business owner. And it's you know, and I'm worried that burnout might come and go and anxiety comes and, and has been a few times where I've been teetering on the edge. And then someone I got to recognize I got to step back. Don't be so perfect, perfect with everything, try to read that perfectionist out on me and go easy on myself as well. I'm a New to business. And in discovering all these business things, I'm making mistakes, but I'm learning from them at the same time. But what really lights me up as we're working with the guys that I work with, and and seeing them open our eyes to mindfulness and or just talk for the first time. And I often say, Oh, we walk into sessions, and I say just give me your baggage. If that's all we do, just give me your baggage, and I'll keep your baggage. And you can just walk away through and it's just an amazing thing. It's great thing to do. And I'm so glad I'm doing it. And we're about what August this year will be one year. And then I've got another 12 months and then I become an accredited Mental Health Social Worker.

Joel Kleber: 57:14

That's fantastic. Yeah, it's amazing achievement. Look, I work with a lot of businesses in my Pebble people I work with a lot of software for the cheapest group such as bonus cleaning. And we have 120 new franchisees come in every three to four weeks and similar to you, they're leaving 20 years or they've been retrenched or it's the same thing. They're all the anxieties and the same worry about but they're coming into something whereas you've your own thing from scratch, which is completely different and a lot harder. So you nearly a year in the business. So have you maybe you want to talk about your business, what do you offer in it? What's your point of difference? Because I think everyone generally has got an idea of what a psychologist does. With regards to what you're you're doing? How's it different? And is it something where government funding is available? Can people go to a minimal how to get a mental health planning come to you? Or how does it all work? Or yeah, so

Unknown: 58:05

mindful man. So it's just me at the moment, I have this dream of versions of me driving around in Hilux as across Australia, doing what I do, but basically, it's, it's it's therapy, it's like going to a counselor, or a psychologist or another mental health social worker. And we focus on mindfulness based practice. So we talked about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy before, that's a bulk of what I do. It's all around mindfulness around values identification, sitting with anxiety, but also there's a few other tools and tips that I do as well. But I don't do it necessarily in a clinic. So I do have a clinic space. Some people like coming into a clinic, but I actually get out and about in community and I say to guys, let's go to the beach, or come to your house, I drive all across the Sunshine Coast. And we do what I call experiential therapy, which is that walking in brushing your hands on the leaves, and it's getting our feet in the water, there was one guy that loved playing basketball. So we'd go down and shoot hoops, and we'd have a chat. And what it looks like on the outside is just two guys talking. But I'm bringing in all these therapeutic tools in the background and you know, asking the right questions from a therapy perspective. There's another guy that likes video games is another guy that likes to go and get kebabs. And so that's what we do. We just do these everyday things. But I'm bringing in therapy and in the sides and the back and around the place. And so that's why it's a little bit different because if you go to a psychologist and counselor, majority of them, 99% of them would sit in a clinic that do six sessions a day, you know,

Joel Kleber: 59:35

very sterile it's you know, you're sitting there Yeah, it's very trendy, almost feels really transactional, obviously like that have to be there. You know, it's sort of

Unknown: 59:43

absolutely listen, there's a guy that I walk his dog with, or we go same guy, he he's a bit of a smoker, so and he lives in a in a residential kind of situation with his NDIS so we just drive down to the local coals and get him a pack of cigarettes. But it's only outing for the week, which is. And that seems like, oh, that's more of a support worker thing. But it's it. But I'm doing the therapy as we're driving to the, to the coals. And while we're waiting for the cigarettes or whatever we're bringing all these like tools and mindfulness tools and tricks, and so forth. I do do telehealth and telephone Australia wide. So I've got clients Australia wide that I see a little bit harder to do the experiential stuff, but we can still work around that as well. So I do the values, I've got the, you know, a pack of cards, these values cards here that I go through, and I can just move the camera down if we're doing it via video. And we can go through or I can describe the cards to people over the phone, if they prefer the phone. I've got a few guys that they're like are now I'm just a phone kind of guy. That's cool. So it is varied and but it's all mindfulness. It's all around debunking the thing. And, and I bring in a lot of lived experience. So the sessions aren't about me and my experience. But when someone says to me, Simon, do you know what it's like to feel depressed? Oh, yeah, this is and then I'll give them some examples? Or do you know what it's like to struggle with parenting? Yeah, I'm a parent, I'm a dad to like, I don't hide away from my true authentic self, because I did that for so long in the public service. And so yeah, it is, it is different in the sense that it's outdoors a lot is that people's homes, it's on the road. And it's a bit more just like guys talking as opposed to a very clinical sterile type environment. That's how I do it, in terms of how people can fund it. So because I'm not accredited mental health social worker, I don't accept the mental health care plans or mental health treatment plan referrals, because I'm not, I'm not linking with Medicare. That's the only reason why. So I do just a private fee for service. So you can book in and pay my fee. And that's it. Or if you're on the NDIS. So now that I'm out of the NDIS, working for the agency, I actually accept a lot of NDIS referrals. And that's the bulk of my work. And I absolutely love that work, because it's so it's so cool. And those guys are very much up for creative therapies. They're not the ones that want to sit in clinics, I want to do things differently, which I love that space as well. So yeah, in 12 months time, I'm working towards that accreditation, that's when the Medicare stuff comes in. And that's when the private health stuff comes in as well. So that's something that will come in 12 months time.

Joel Kleber: 1:02:20

Fantastic. And you mentioned something that which I think is really important is, is the lived experience part where someone can come in, and they know if you've got that lived experience, it's an instant level of more, let's say respect, or the way I felt so for my example was like, when I was younger, I'd always, always treated my mom's psychologists I would say, do like as a kid, I'd say do you have a parent with the same thing? And I'd say no, as like, well, I just didn't, I would not listen to him. That was just my as my stubbornness. So I think it's really, really important. What you do is being open online so that when people are researching for it and coming across, you are cool, this guy's been through the same things I'm dealing with the moment, I'm going to engage with him in the habit instant level of respect from day one. Whereas if someone goes to a psychologist, I don't like every psychologist is different. It's different people, but yet, it's a sussing out process, and it's not really about them, you're going to find out if it's obviously they're going to be interested in you. But I think by having that level of, you're putting your story out there first, and then we'll know about you, Watson, before coming to you, it just makes it, I just think you get them way more cut through and a better session and a more productive one, doing doing it with someone like you, as opposed to maybe going into more controlled environment than traditional environment.

Unknown: 1:03:34

Yeah. And that's why I do what I do. That's why I do the podcast, initially was to share the storage and show guys that it's okay to talk about what's going on. But also now I use it as a bit of a marketing thing. And as if I'm getting a new referral, and maybe it's someone who's not sure about coming to therapy is to say, go check out my social media, or go check out my podcast, I'm on YouTube, as well. And just listen to me and listen to the things I talk about any of that, you know, if you if you like that vibe, cool, we might be a good fit. But if you know, that's also cool thing as well, because it's really important to have that good relationship with the therapist. One that's respectful one that's open one as honest as well. And if you're not feeling comfortable, that's a red flag, you've got to move on. And I've done that myself. And through my own journey. Now when I need to go and see a counselor or a psychologist or a social worker, I will interview them, like kind of like what you were doing. I'd interview them and say, what's your experience with this? And that's what I did with OCD. I said, What's your experience with OCD? And I had to go through a few companies to find the right fit because they would say oh, yeah, we're experiencing OCD, but that's the that's the senior guy, which you're not going to see you're going to see the junior person and they're going to get supervision but now I want the person with the experience. That's the one I want. And particularly for OCD or what I've got, I've got dreams of you know, doing some training in ERP myself as a therapist, you know, I've got that as a client as a clinic. Yes person accessing it, and then hopefully increase the ERP of our training availability in Australia because there's not many courses available for ERP in Australia to go overseas. There's a little bit of exposure therapy, but it's not the same. So yeah, that's something that's coming as well in the future.

Joel Kleber: 1:05:18

Awesome. No worries. I will let you go now. Sounds I don't think it is 667. But I'd love to have you back on again, sometime to keep going on. Thank you for sharing as much details great to be able to sit back and listen and learn. It was fantastic. So thank you for providing all the information. And if people want to learn more about what you do and your podcasts, maybe just give that a bit of a plug in in the web address as well. Yeah, absolutely.

Unknown: 1:05:39

So the website is www dot mindful dash men.com.au access my therapy information, but also some social media stuff there as well. I'm all over pretty much most of the social media. But also the mindful men podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, Spotify, also on YouTube, we put the videos up there too. So yeah, come subscribe and join the conversation.

Joel Kleber: 1:06:01

Awesome. Thank you very much today for your all your information, someone really enjoyed listening, actually. So thank you very much for that. And really good luck on your business. It's a fantastic I love people who take a risk, and they follow somebody they're passionate about, it's really important to do. And you've learned the hard way because I work in with Jim's mowing service easy for someone to walk in our business and be successful if you to do it from scratch in something like this, which is, which is a newer sort of thing. You're creating massive respect for someone who does that. So well done on that. And congratulations and everything. You've done it and I'm gonna follow your journey with interest and hopefully have you back on time again to talk more in more detail.

Unknown: 1:06:38

Yeah, thanks, John. I really appreciate what the work you're doing with the podcast as well, mate, it's really it can be hard talking about our families and our own experiences. But you're doing it and showing guys across Australia and across the world that it's okay to talk about these things. And in fact it's important thing to do. So thanks for all your work to

Joel Kleber: 1:06:54

those Thanks, I appreciate it. Thanks for that. Big thank you to Simon from Mindful men for sharing his story on the lived experience. And you can do so as well by heading to live experience podcast.com Or just shoot me an email if you want to learn more about Salman please check out mindful dash men.com that are you. He also has a podcast which has got a lot of great episodes so please make sure you listen to that and support his show as well. I'm gonna hopefully get him back on to talk in more detail is fantastic just to sit back and listen and learn. For someone who is so well spoken and well researched and knowledgeable in the area. If you are a bloke who wants to talk to someone maybe to be more arm's length someone like someone might be good to link up with so maybe check him out at mindful fashion.com that a you if you liked what you heard today, please make sure you leave a review or just drop me a note on Instagram, Facebook, all the channels. And if you do want to share your story as well please make sure you reach out to me and I would love to have you on the live experience podcast to share your story of lived experience. So until next week, I hope you have a great one.