Podcast transcript: EY Change Happens Podcast – Hugh van Cuylenburg

Intro: Change happens. How we respond to change can make or break us and our careers. Join us for an intimate insight into how influential and authentic people lead through change – the good, the bad and everything in between, because whether we like it or not, change happens.

Jenelle: Hi. I’m Jenelle McMaster and welcome to the Change Happens podcast, conversations with influential leaders on leading through change and the lessons learned along the way. Today I’m joined by Hugh van Cuylenburg, a mental heal advocate and co-founder of The Resilience Project, a programme that teaches positive mental health strategies that has to date impacted more than 1,000 schools and a million Australians. He’s been a keynote speaker for more than 500 corporates and has worked with national rugby league clubs, AFL clubs, State cricket teams and Netball Australia. He also individual mentors athletes across a range of codes and has developed comprehensive programmes for many workplaces. An educator for more than 17 years, Hugh practices gratitude, empathy and mindfulness – or GEM – to create a happy, fulfilling experience. He’s also an author of The Resilience Project and a co-host of a podcast “The Imperfects”. In the digital age, and clearly also in this time of lockdowns and home schooling, cognitive overload, loneliness, boredom are real threats to the mental health of children, youth, employees and, quite frankly, everyone around. Now, with that context in mind, we will explore what insights Hugh has into managing and leading through these times, particularly with an emphasis on mental health. Hugh, welcome!

Hugh: That’s close to the best introduction I’ve ever had. That is very, very thorough and you’ve got my name right, which most people don’t get!

Jenelle: Yes! Well I might just end this here on that high. We’re done!

Hugh: Yeah, thanks for having me. That was great. Thanks Jenelle. 

Jenelle: At the risk of starting with what is always – well, not always, but these particular times, quite a loaded question. I will start with how are you? Given you’re in Melbourne and I’m in Sydney and we’re both in lockdown again, you more so than me, but still how are you?

Hugh: It’s a very, very interesting question because I think the caveat I’ll put on that my sone woke up at one in the morning with croup last night. 

Jenelle: Oh no!

Hugh: For anyone who’s had a child with croup before it’s -

Jenelle: I have.

Hugh: - oh, you’ve been through it, have you?

Jenelle: I have, yep.

Hugh: Ah, you actually think they’re dying – like it is -

Jenelle: It’s really scary and confronting.

Hugh: He gets it about probably twice a year and he’s four so I was falling asleep at 10:30 and I heard him do this cough, because he’s been unwell, and I went oh no, that’s really croupy. So I just lay there just waiting for it. So I lay there and I lay there, sure enough 1am it started. So I went and grabbed it and it was quite bad and we went downstairs on the couch. We’re trying to watch Fireman Sam to calm him down. But, anyway, the caveat I’m putting on this chat is that I didn’t get back to sleep until quarter to five in the morning and then my daughter was up at 6:30. So the answer to your question is I feel so exhausted but generally speaking and considering we’re in lockdown in Melbourne for the fifth time, I’m feeling remarkably good.

Jenelle: I am incredibly grateful for you time. And also it’s interesting too when you think about that stuff is always hard and those early years in particular are super difficult but now I can’t imagine the additional load of questioning you’ve got to go through. Like, he’s got a cough, could that be something else? Do I need to go to a hospital? What’s the implications? Will we have a COVID test? You know, now there’s even more layers of questions and implications and even language that we apply to our thoughts and decision trees around these things.

Hugh: Totally. And I – he’s a – I’ve spoken about this a little bit before, I won’t go into details too much, but he’s an anxious kid. He’s four and he’s very – he’s really anxious and he’s finding the world very confusing at the moment as I think a lot of us are. But, you know, when I compare him to his friends who are the same age he’s finding it particularly challenging. It’s - trying to explain the world to young kids at the moment I’m fining it really frightening because, you know, you watch the news right now and it’s terrifying. Like if you spend too much time watching the news, which you should be doing - 

Jenelle: Yeah, I try not to actually because of that – the – it’s – it gets you down.

Hugh: Anyway, I’m sounding very dramatic! I’m just very tired. That’s the answer for your question.

Jenelle: No, you are tired. No that’s OK. And actually it sort of poses a question for me in itself when I think about the space that you work in and, you know, you’re teaching other people about happiness and resilience, all of which we’ll get into, but you on a personal note as someone who is in Melbourne, you know, facing what have arguably been the harshest, you know, lockdown restrictions in the world, you’ve got young kids, the situation like what you’ve just talked about, what have you learned about yourself in managing resilience? And maybe has it evolved the narrative that you’ve had in your teachings or your insights around it as you’ve been navigating such tough conditions in the space where you’re advising others?

Hugh: Yeah, it’s a fantastic question because I was discussing this only yesterday afternoon with my psychologist but I think it’s an important conversation for me to put out there because we don’t talk about this enough, but I have felt enormous pressure and I think people in corporate world feel this pressure to be OK all the time. Like, to be seen to be totally on top of everything and the irony there is that we’re not a lot of the time. And the irony of that is that pretending that you’re OK and not being honest with how you’re travelling often leads you to being even more not OK. So with my psychologist yesterday she said, first question, she said how do I find you today? How are you going? And I said, do you know what? I’m going amazingly well. And then I talked her through the last couple of months of my life – I haven’t chatted to her for a while, and it involved saying to the CEO of The Resilience Project, a bit over a month ago saying to him mate, I’m not OK at the moment. I’m really battling with work life balance, with burnout professionally, with – and I’m feeling pressure that I have to be OK because I’m the resilience guy. So, if I’m not OK does that mean that, you know, I’m just a fraud and then chatting to my – saying to my wife, she said to me are you OK? What’s going on? Usually I’d go “I’m fine, why, what’s wrong?” and get a little bit shitty at that question, but I said no, I don’t think I am OK at the moment. I’m so burned out at work and I meant to recover at home but I actually home more difficult than work at the moment because there’s a one-and-a-half year old who doesn’t sleep, there’s a four-and-a-half year old who’s having a lot of issues and I don’t know when I – I can’t recover anywhere. I’m exhausted emotionally, I’m exhausted mentally and I sit here now a month later and I am in such a good place right now. And my psychologies said you’re OK now because you told people that you weren’t OK a month ago. She said if you’d kept pretending that you’re OK I can’t even begin to imagine what state you’d be in right now.

Jenelle: How did it feel for you when you said those words to – out loud to your wife and to your psychologist? How did it feel at the time?

Hugh: I love both of them dearly, in very different ways obviously! 

Jenelle: I hope so! Got awkward really quickly.

Hugh: Ben, our CEO, I’ve known him for a long time and I – The Resilience Project is – I mean I get a lot of credit for it ??? [7:20] present it, but it’s successful in most part because of him. He’s an extraordinary individual. But he went straight to operation mode. He was like, OK, so we need to shift this, we need to move this, we need to cancel that. We can’t cancel that we’ll get a – and I was, at the time I felt like oh gosh. But then I went home and told Penny and she said OK, so I need to do this, I need to fix that, I need to do this, I need to – and neither of them really sat in that emotion with me. I think it was a bit confronting to have me saying I’m not OK because I’ve never said that before. And they were both so desperate to help that they went straight to OK let’s problem solve. And funnily enough we interviewed Dr Billy Garvey, a paediatrician, on our podcast last week and he was talking about how you deal with a child who’s got a problem. And he said the first thing you do is you sit in the emotion with them and you validate it. Then you identify that as an opportunity. Then you give them some space and then later you problem solve. And I was listening thinking that’s not just kids, that’s us as adults as well.

Jenelle: Yeah. So you validate.

Hugh: Yeah, so you validate. You say I can see you’re feeling this and I understand why you’d feel like that, that makes sense to me. And then in your head you think here’s an opportunity for us to grow our relationship or for us to grow this situation or this team or whatever you’re going through. And then you give a little bit of space, you don’t try and problem solve straight away. And then you come back to it, you know, a day or two later and you say, OK, how can we – what can we do here? And it’s funny Dr Billy Garvey, this paediatrician, said as parents we just want our kids lives to be easier so what we do is we – our kid will say I didn’t get picked in the soccer team and we say, that’s OK, that means you can play football. You love football, that’d be good. But I experienced that firsthand with this – with my wife who funnily did it the other way. You know, the next day she said, oh, I totally understand why you feel like that. That must be – you know, you’ve been doing this for 10 years nonstop. You haven’t taken a breath in 10 years. And then the CEO, Ben, I chatted to him 2 days after that, he said to me, mate, I’m really worried about you. I get why you feel like that. So the both of them did it sort of in reverse. And it was funny having lived it I was like, yeah – I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m not having a go at either of them, they’re 2 of the most special people in my life, but both of them went solve the problem first. So to answer your question how did I feel, I felt much better the second time we chatted when they’d just validated how I was feeling. That’s all I needed. That’s what I really needed and the problem solving part, yeah, that was going to be part of it, but I didn’t need it straight away. I just needed to be validated for the way I was feeling. Because I felt really vulnerable when I told them I wasn’t going OK. And when you’re feeling – when you let someone know you’re not going OK, I don’t want to sound like I’m being dramatic. I think most of us at the moment are not really – I mean, if you’re in Sydney or Melbourne right now, there are very few people who could honestly say, yeah, I’m totally fine, life’s great, I think. Maybe it’s not as hard for you but – I saw Betoota Advocate did a post the other day saying – it made me laugh a lot – it said, in inverted commas, it said “I’m actually finding this lockdown pretty great” said man living in Bondi with view of the ocean. I think for those of us who are not sitting in an apartment in Bondi with a view of the ocean I think life is tough. And I think we’ve got to be more honest about that because – because of that this is what happens when you say you’re not OK. You have this – when you actually say it out loud, this is what happened to me anyway, and I think what the research says, the research says you have this new humility about you. Like, you’re really humble in that I don’t have the answers and then you have this curiosity takeover which is, OK, what do I need to do here so I can start to get better or feel better? And you come at that with a very humble approach. Like, I don’t have the answers. I mean my psychologist said to me yesterday, she said I know you feel pressure to be OK as the resilience guy but she said this is the most resilient I’ve ever seen you in two years. You are showing up today living and breathing resilience because you’ve said you’re not OK and you’re trying – you’re curious as to what you can do to get better. She said that’s more resilient than putting on a performance around gratitude, empathy and mindfulness in my opinion, which I though was really nice.

Jenelle: I think that’s right. You know, and I think one of the challenges that I’m seeing - personally experience as well as I’ve seen in others – is this feeling like you almost don’t have permission to say you’re not OK because you will always be able to point to people who have it worse than you. We can point to countries that have it worse than us. We can say, you know, yes, I live in Bondi and I have a great view therefore I shouldn’t complain or I live in Sydney and I’ve had - this is my second lockdown, you’ve had five, but actually I’m still experiencing some hard times or loss relative to my set of experiences. And even just feeling that permission - because I think that’s part of the problem as well, feeling like how ungrateful do I sound if I say something out loud. You know, I am surrounded by others. So I think permission to say you’re not OK regardless of your circumstances – obviously we can always, when we speak to the opportunity and the problem solving, we’ll be able to point to those other things, or look at what I do have etc. But I think that first place of being OK, taking the pressure off and saying look, actually I’m not OK today and maybe I’ll be OK tomorrow. But I think that is an important thing. And it makes me also think, I don’t know, I shouldn’t share the story but when you were talking, Hugh, I was thinking about the 90s movie White Men Can’t Jump, you know? And, I’ve already said that, but the scene where the girlfriend was like I’m really thirsty and Woody Harrelson goes oh, I’ll get you some water. And she’s like no, I need you to identify with my thirst. And he’s like – but if you’re thirsty I’ll get you some water. And she’s like not hearing me, I want you to feel my thirst. He’s like why would I feel – but it stays in my mind. It’s a silly example but sometimes you want people to acknowledge that you do feel thirsty and it’s OK and I’m sure we can get some water in a moment but right now it’s important!

Hugh: I remember going to see that movie at Westfield Shopping Town in Doncaster when I was in Grade 6. It was a bit of an eye-opener that move to me at age 12, but I remember that scene so clearly. Even as a 12 year old I kind of at a very basic level of understood like people need to be validated. 

Jenelle: There you go! Now, let’s bring it back to you know your profession, Hugh. I wonder if you can start by giving us an overview of the journey to date, really, and, you know, a potted history of how you found yourself doing what you’re doing and, you know, what lead you to devote your career helping people find happiness and resilience?

Hugh: So I’m in the process right now of writing my second book and it’s been really interesting because I’m trying to put this stuff forward in a new way because I felt like a lot of people have heard me speak before and I don’t want them to feel like they’re getting, you know, I want them to hear something new. It’s just great timing you’ve asked that question because I’m – what I used to say when I answered that question was in 2008 I went to India and I volunteered there and I met this group of kids who were sleeping on a dirt floor and no running water, no electricity, they were so happy and I wanted to understand what they did to be happy because my sister was struggling with a mental illness and I wanted to help her. That’s what the first book said but I – the more and more I think about it, the more and more I unravel it with my psychologist – and by the way, I talk about my psychologist a lot and I do that deliberately. I’ve never had a mental illness in my life, I’m so lucky. And because of that I never saw a psychologist because I thought that’s what people who have a mental illness. It’s for all of us. Like, a counsellor, a therapist, someone you can chat to about your life, it just is absolutely life changing. So I’m just putting it out there to everyone listening, but I’m unravelling this with my psychologist at the moment. And the more I think about it I realise that it started with my sister’s mental illness when she was 14 years old and her diagnosis of anorexia. But I remember coming home from the hospital with my family after visiting my sister I just remember this figure of my dad just sort of hunched over the kitchen sink doing the dishes and he was in tears. And it was like – I was 17, it’s the second time I’d seen him cry in my life and I remember thinking, gosh, we’re not a happy family and we have been for a long time but we’re not anymore. And I desperately wanted to know what I could do to help mum and dad feel happy again and my little brother Josh but I just had no idea. I had no idea what to do but I wanted to know – I just – I was fascinated on the question what is it that makes people happy and I, for me, felt like I could tell them really funny stories and recount ridiculous things from my day to make them laugh over the dinner table and I often tried to do that to distract them from the fact my sister wasn’t eating. So, I think at a young age I learned the art of storytelling in a desperate attempt to try and distract mum and dad from their misery. But then professionally I went into teaching and was very focussed on pastoral care because of my sister’s journey I guess. But, yeah, it wasn’t until I was living in the right in the thick of the Himalayas that I discovered this community who practice gratitude, empathy and mindfulness every single day. And I remember thinking, gosh, like why don’t do this properly in Australia and came back to Melbourne and then put together a school programme, basically, which was very, well, it wasn’t very popular for 3 of 4 years and now it’s in – I think it’s– we’ve got 300,000 kids around the country practicing this stuff every single day. Which is really exciting for us but it’s also exciting for these school communities that have a framework that I guess teaches kids things they can do every single day to help them to feel happier, to improve their mental health and to cope better in a challenging time. So, gratitude, very simply being the ability to pay attention to what you’ve got, not worry about what you don’t have because we really kind of struggle with that in Australia. And I am stereotyping here but I see it a lot – I do a lot of work in corporate organisations and I feel like the more privileged we are or the more busy we are or even the wealthier we are the more we struggle with the concept of gratitude, which is just – we just find it so hard. Gratitude is when you pay attention to what you’ve got, not worry about what you don’t have and we struggle with that. Like, yeah, this “if and then” model of happiness – if I buy this then I’ll feel happy.

Jenelle: Yes.

Hugh: If I buy this house, if I buy this car, if I get this promotion then I’ll feel happy. None of that stuff works. It’ll work momentarily for a little bit but then, you know, everyone listening to this will have had a promotion at some point that you definitely wanted. How long does that make you happy for, you know? Is it like six months or a year until you see a better job and you think I need that job and then you don’t - 

Jenelle: It’s incredible how short-lived it is, isn’t it? But then your just - 

Hugh: I reckon I’m being very generous saying 6 months to a year I think. You know, for a lot of people I remember this is back in like – when was this? Probably about well 11 years ago I got a job and I was like, oh this is it, I’ve made it, I’m so happy here. And I think it was 3 months later someone who had a similar job to me got a promotion to something else and I remember thinking I need to get what that person’s got, then I’ll feel happy. How have they gotten to that and not me? And I became very miserable because I was so focussed on someone else. Like it was someone else getting a promotion. It could have been -

Jenelle: It’s all so many conditionals don’t we?

Hugh: Yep, totally. We have so many conditions on our happiness. So, that’s the gratitude piece that they do so well. Empathy, everyone knows that’s when you feel what someone else feels and we’ve got to get better at that if want this world to heal right now. And in mindfulness it’s a complicated one but if I could simplify it for this chat I’d say it’s just the ability to be wherever you are and just to be aware of what’s happening as it’s happening in your mind, around you, all that kind of stuff. And that’s what those people did so very well and that’s what I put into our programmes. So that’s a long answer to your question, sorry Jenelle, but that’s kind of - 

Jenelle: Oh well I think that’s quite – I think that it’s quite pithy, actually, because it’s – there’s a lot in there. I actually wanted to stay on empathy for a moment. How do you teach empathy?

Hugh: Well, the really exciting thing for me. So, Melbourne University did a 3 year evaluation of our programme because I just wanted to know is what we’re doing actually having an impact at all and, if not, what are we doing wrong? And interestingly enough they measured the impact of the three in the schools and they found that with over 4,000 kids we couldn’t measure a change in empathy levels because their empathy levels were so high before we even started. Like before we went into the school the empathy levels amongst the kids were so high we couldn’t track any changes. Like they all peaked at – like they all knew what it was, they all reported to practice it all the time, they reported to think about it all the time, which is really, really nice. So that was an interesting finding but the way we hope to continue teaching it is a little bit different to the way everyone else does it. One of the main ways we do it is we teach emotional literacy, which is the ability to label the emotion you’re experiencing as you’re experiencing it. Because a lot of empathy is about looking at someone else and going how does that person feel right now? But if we can’t identify our own emotion, like if we can’t work out how we’re feeling at any moment, like a lot of people can’t, especially men, we’ve got no chance of identifying someone else’s emotion. So from a young age it’s about getting a child to say right now I feel this emotion and then the next step is this is why. And there’s some beautiful resources out there, whether they’re just looking at emoji charts – and it’s getting kids to look at them and say I think today I feel this. Or right now I feel this and oh, OK, so why do you feel that? And - 

Jenelle: That’s a really powerful thing to be teaching in young kids, emotional literacy actually. I’m doing work with my team at the moment at adult level. We’re calling it subject-object ??? [20:06] you know when you are experiencing something and then you stop and you pause and you look back on that and go how was I, how did I show up in that, what was I feeling, what was happening to me? That’s a really advanced – or actually it’s quite hard for us as adults, so it’s an amazing thing – maybe it’s easier for kids, getting them to name it earlier, which is fantastic.

Hugh: I think so, yeah. I did a lot of work in a juvenile detention – I’d go in there and work with these boys individually and I was woefully underqualified at the time but I still found myself in this position where I would sit and chat with these boys and there was a huge fight at one of their facilities and I had to go in there and – when it all calmed down – I wouldn’t be much good in the heat of it, but I chatted to one of the boys after. I said how do you feel – how are you feeling and he said shit. And I said, no, no, no, I want to know what emotion you’re feeling and he said yeah, shit. And I said no that’s not emotion, I need to know the emotion. And he said oh, I don’t know, I just feel shit. And I said OK -

Jenelle: Really shit.

Hugh: yeah, yeah, that’s it! And I said why do you feel shit and he said I don’t know, I just do. Then I held up these cards and I flipped through these cards with the faces on them and I said when you see the face that you’re feeling right now point to it. And he finally saw this emoji and it had like the tears emoji like looking really sad and he said that one. And on the back it said lonely. I said oh, it says here you feel lonely, is that how you’re feeling? He said yeah, and I said go on, say it. And he said I feel lonely. And said why? He told me in an instant. He said I feel lonely because mum and dad don’t come to visit. I feel lonely because my mates from school don’t visit me anymore and I don’t have any friends here. So what he’d done was, because he could tell me the emotion, he could identify – he was able to identify the problem and then we cold problem solve it together. So that’s a big one for us as adults as well. Like when we’re not feeling good we often just go – we don’t articulate it out loud but we just sort say to ourselves, geez I feel shit at the moment. But maybe it’s a better thing to go I feel hurt, I feel jealous or I feel lonely or I feel whatever it is and then work out why do I feel like that. And then when you work that out go, OK, well what am I going to do about this now? And I think that is, yeah, to me that’s a really healthy way to approach things. And it’s a lot of us don’t do that because we’re too proud or too busy.

Jenelle: And also I think the times have changed. So if I think about emojis and short-form text, you know, everything’s shorter and shorter and shorter, you just do a sad face or you do an angry face or your head’s blown off emoji or you write LOL, you know that sort of thing.

Hugh: Yeah, yeah.

Jenelle: We’ve now taken shortcuts to expressing emotions and I think that gives us an out from having to sit in it and name it and then go in to interrogating well why do I feel that way? Because to say – just to put a, you know, a sad face or a thumbs down rather than I feel alone, which his a much more powerful word which invites a conversation around let’s talk about that why. Really different, isn’t it?

Hugh: Yeah, it is. And I like that. I think one of the things we have to get better at unfortunately is adapting to technology and I wish a lot of it could go away, social media especially. But knowing it’s here to stay I think a helpful thing to do to people, and I love you brought that up, is to say next time you use – someone says “How are you going?” or you write something and then you use an emoji actually go well what’s the emotion attached to this face and actually say it to yourself. Like I, I’m going to go into my phone right now, and you know how when you go to use an emoji it tells you your recent one, I already know what it will be. Yeah, it’s the hand, you know the hand on the face one? Like, you’re just like that.

Jenelle: Yeah, face-palm.

Hugh: Yeah that. Like I’m such an idiot like that’s been my most - 

Jenelle: Yeah. It’s been a face palms [23:31]

Hugh: Yes, yeah, totally. I sort of feel like that’s an emoji we should all be using a little bit more as far as it’s a very vulnerable, like, humble – I’m going off the topic here but I really like that one. I love that as far as, like, I don’t have all the answers, I’m a bit of an idiot, what do you think? It’s really powerful to be – to me that’s like, you know, it’s very humble, I’m interested, not interesting. I want to be interested rather than interesting right now. I think that’s a nice place for all of us to start.

Jenelle: I love that, be interested rather than interesting. And actually one of the other parts to avoiding narrating how you feel, I think, is using your calendar as the proxy for how you feel. So we answer with I’m busy, how are you, flat out, yeah me too, flat chat. That’s not how you are. That’s a state of business for your calendar.

Hugh: Yeah. Yeah we got to stop saying that I totally agree. It’s not an answer to how are you going?

Jenelle: Philosophically I’m interested in understanding how good or realistic it is to pursue happiness all the time? I used to live in the US a number of years. I was always surrounded by ads in the subways and on billboards that were constantly, you know, suggesting anti-depressants for unhappiness. Or, you know, “Feeling sad? Try this”, you know? It always struck me that trying to numb sadness rather than allow yourself to feel those things could itself be problematic. And sadness is a legitimate part of the spectrum of emotions that we, you know, as humans feel. And we never question being happy or excited when it occurs but we always question and try to avoid sadness or feeling flat or down when it occurs. So, just philosophically this pursuit of happiness, how do you temper that I guess on a spectrum of emotions that we - 

Hugh: Well the reason you see the reverse is because it’s become this huge business. Certainly people will sell a lot of products saying you do this you’ll be happy. But it’s completely unrealistic and untenable to say that you should be aiming to be happy. It’s just not the case. We’re not all happy all the time and life is full of ups and downs and negative emotions are good for – like the healthiest ratio of positive to negative emotion is three to one. Like we’re meant to have one negative emotion for every three positive emotions because that – it keeps us grounded so we’re not flying around in the wind aimlessly. Like it’s when you feel lonely that is a sign that you need to – that’s your body giving you – or your brain giving you a sign you need to go and make a connection. Like you need to connect. Unfortunately so many of us will grab our phone when we feel lonely and get lost in Instagram. But we – loneliness is a sign we should be connecting. Or, you know, you feel bored, that’s a negative emotion but it’s a good one because it inspires you to be creative, like creative to kill the boredom. Again, so many of us now will just gravitate to our phones when we feel that boredom but we should be creative in that moment. Or put it this way, when I’m asked what I want for my kids, you know, the answer is not I want them to be happy, which it used to be when they were very young. My answer now is I hope that they know what they can do when their struggling to pick themselves back up again.

Jenelle: Mm, that’s really powerful. I want to move on to your connection with sport. You’re involved with so many sporting clubs and so many athletes which, you know, makes sense. Resilience is at the heart of becoming a better athlete or team. Can you share a story or an anecdote of your work that you can point to that has made a real difference to a player or a club. Something that sort of stands out in your mind and go yeah, that’s what it looks like?

Hugh: Of all the clubs that I’ve worked with, and it has been a lot, I felt the club I’ve had the biggest impact with is actually Port Adelaide Football Club in AFL. And funnily enough it wasn’t doing the gratitude, empathy and mindfulness stuff, it was giving those players and those coaches an opportunity to get up and talk about what their life is really like. Like, when you take their armour off and you stop pretending that everything’s great and you actually be real and show up from a place of true, like, this is my story, this is how I’m going right now. On a pre-season camp there was an opportunity for players, it wasn’t compulsory, but if you feel comfortable talk about your journey or how you’re going right now. And some of the stories that came out, really stuff that the players had worked so hard at keeping locked away so no-one could see. We’re talking about things like people showing their depression or parents relationship breaking down, or maybe it’s a – I mean Travis Boak is probably an athlete I’ve had a lot to do with ongoing. He plays his 300th game on Friday. He spoke about the impact of his dad passing away when he was 16 years old and the impact it’s had on him as a person, as a footballer – the good stuff but also the stuff he struggles with because of it. And it was so connecting for the group to hear a perfect – I mean Travis Boak is the most perfect looking person I’ve ever seen. He’s got – you look at him and go -

Jenelle: I can hear a real man-crush happening here!

Hugh: When I’m – I’m not making this up – I get distracted by his beauty. When he’s talking I find myself getting very distracted with what he looks like, just going there’s no more beautiful man on the planet! Anyway, I mean I don’t take any of the credit for his development. Like he has done all the hard work on this stuff and he’s sought out some great mentors and some great people to have conversations with. He’s had some, you know, he has fully embraced the concept of being open and being vulnerable and talking about who he really is and showing up from a place of true authenticity. Like, this is me, not this is who I think the world wants me to be or this is what I should look like as an AFL footballer. It’s just like this is – I’m imperfect, I’m full of struggle but I’m very worthy is kind of the way he shows up every day. Yeah, he’s a great one. But just that club, like, when I first started presenting there I thought, you know I’ve done every NRL club, most of the AFL clubs and I turned up to Port Adelaide, did my first presentation, and if I’m being honest I thought oh, they didn’t like that at all, that didn’t go too well. And then they said no, no, this is just very new for us, the stuff you spoke about. It just – we’re all on board but you didn’t get the usual response because it’s very foreign what you’re doing I suppose. And then did a year with them and they said what’s next? And I said well let’s look at opening the boys up a bit more. I think they need to be a bit more honest with who they are and who they want to be and, you know, owning their story, all that kind of stuff. And they – and so people shared their story in a very safe environment and the impact it’s had on the group, I think from my point of view, from an outsider, is it’s been quite profound. And just when you hear them interviewed after games now they don’t talk about how well they played they just talk about the connection they have as a group, how much they love each other. Them and the Melbourne Storm. But, yeah, the answer is Port Adelaide and Travis Boak.

Jenelle: Very good. I’m just sort of thinking you use the word club and when I’ve asked you about teams and clubs etc., and I can see how these techniques are fantastic and powerful working in those kinds of groups. How do people find that kind of strength and resilience in times when they’re alone?

Hugh: Do you mean like physically alone as far as like - 

Jenelle: Yeah. Well, people who aren’t in clubs, coming out of a teaming situation and you’re at home and you’re trying to be more resilient. What do you say to those people who are listening and saying, OK, well great, but I live by myself and I’ve been isolated, what do I do?

Hugh: Everyone I reckon is lucky enough to have one, maybe two, people in their life that they know they can just be honest with how they’re going and talk to someone about it. Identify who that person is or who those people are and don’t – you don’t need to say to them hey, can I chat to you about something I’m going through, something difficult. Just – if you’re in lockdown, say let’s have a wine over Zoom or a coffee over Zoom or a phone call or go for a walk or whatever it is. You know, often people as when you first catch up with them, like – and you need to warm up I think a lot of the time, but someone goes hi mate, how are you going? You can’t go struggling, I’m really in a bad place. But when the conversation gets going, you know, say something like how are things at work or what’s going on at work. Then once you’ve warmed up then you can say I’m really battling with this project, in fact I’m actually battling with XY and Z, whatever it is. So you sort of allow yourself to warm up into the conversation and then you’ve chosen that person for a reason, and just watch what happens. Like it’s – it is so connecting. It is so connecting when you own your story. I mean the only thing I’d say is for everyone who’s interested in this stuff, Ben Crowe who is my mentor and he’s mentoring Ash Barty -

Jenelle: Ash Barty, yeah, yeah.

Hugh: Yeah. And how on earth he’s ended up as my mentor I’ll never understand but he does a lot of space here. He’s got an app called MojoCrowe and he has this formula or this process you can go through where you can work through this stuff yourself so you can really understand your story first before you blurt it out to someone else if you want to get a bit more - 

Jenelle: That’s really powerful. He’d doing some work with us as well and he speaks about FOOPO as well – fear of other people’s opinions. That’s been powerful too.

Hugh: Yeah. He’s a beautiful presenter.

Jenelle: Well, Hugh, as you know, this is a podcast about change. It’s all about dealing with change and driving change. Based on your life experiences and your business mission and the work you’ve been doing, what are the lessons that you’ve learned when it comes to managing change and also leading it?

Hugh: Well the first thing I’ve learned is that people are very – I mean I’m not saying anything new here, everyone knows this, but I think people are very resistant to change. As a leader navigating change is all about being vulnerable on the whole process yourself. Like explaining your hesitations and your fears towards it but then human beings love stories. Like we just love stories. We’re captivated by stories. I’ve realised the podcasts that I listen to, the books that I read, they’re natural storytellers. Telling a story rather than saying here’s a process of change we’re going through. I mean that’s all I do when I do my presentations. What I’m suggesting is a pretty big change for a lot of people but I don’t say I think we need to go through a change personally and emotionally. I just tell a whole lot of stories. I tell stories, I tell stories and by the end of it I think people go oh, he’s suggesting I make some changes in my life. But I do feel like we need to get better at telling stories in order to drive change as opposed to saying we’re about to go through a big change, we’re about to go through a big structural change and a big process of change and this might be scary and this might be hard, but instead like here’s this story and here’s some things we’re going to do off the back of it. I think we can frame these things a little bit better and stories, as far as I’m concerned, is the way to go. 

Jenelle: I agree. Now changing tack for a moment to your podcast, The Imperfects, and I know that you’ve team up with comedy Ryan Shelton in that. Tell us about the podcast? Why did you do it? Why do you have it in place? Who’s it for? And what are some of the challenges and delights on focussing on imperfections? 

Hugh: Yeah. I could talk about this for a long time. For a long time people kept saying to me why don’t you have a podcast and I just felt like I knew it made sense but I didn’t really have a new idea to bring to the wellbeing space. I felt like a lot of people were – there was already some great stuff, wellbeing podcasts happening but I for a long time have been a very big fan of Ryan Shelton. He’s, as far as my humour and my wife’s humour as well, like he’s the person we both – in fact on one of our first dates we talked about how much we loved Ryan Shelton. I didn’t know him at that point when I first met my wife. But fast-forward a year, my wife and I had been together for a year and I was in a café in Collingwood in Melbourne and I saw Ryan. I just wanted to tell him how happy his stuff makes me and how -

Jenelle: Ah, he would love that!

Hugh: Yeah, well I stupidly I went and sat right next to him and I was sitting next to him in a café just pretending I was working and I was like oh, hey just to – I just, sorry I didn’t see you there, but I just want to let you know that when I need to feel happy I watch your videos, and, yeah, I don’t want to annoy you but I just wanted to let you know that. And that’s all it was about. And he’s such a friendly, lovely person he said oh, what do you do? And I said well, I wouldn’t usually answer your question because I feel like it’s boring but I just I go and speak at schools about happiness and I need to feel happy before I do those talks and I watch your stuff. That makes me feel happy before I go to a school if I’m not feeling good. And he said oh, that’s really amazing. And sort of followed each other on social media after that. I mean I actually put up a photo on Instagram of me and him when we first met and I said, oh, I’d love to take a photo so I can show my wife. That was a lie! I just wanted to have a photo with him. Like, I felt like it was too weird to say that to him. But a lovely photo together and then I didn’t hear from him – obviously, why would I? Then four years later, three years later I get a message on Instagram. It just said hey mate, could we please catch up, I couldn’t believe it. I was like - 

Jenelle: Oh, did you do a little happy dance when you got that?

Hugh: Yeah, or more than that. I was like – I couldn’t believe it! And then we caught up and he just said oh I’m just going through a few things right now, and he struggling with a few things around professionally - like he wanted to have his own TV show, he wanted to be voted the funniest man in Australia and he thought if I do that, if I get that, then I’ll be happy. And we talked a lot about how that’s not where joy comes from and he’s realised that and he talks about jealousy he was feeling for his best mate, Hamish Blake, and how he actually couldn’t watch Hamish Blake’s stuff, his best mate since they were like 15 because it made him jealous and feel unhappy, and I remember saying to him you need to tell Hamish this. And he said oh, I don’t know about that. I said you need to tell him. You need to tell Hamish – he also said I sort of felt like the only reasons I get opportunities to do stuff is because I’m Hamish Blake’s best mate. And then the only reason I got to work on his shows is because he just feels sorry for me. And he’d told himself these really unfair stories. And I went home after that catch-up, and he was quite emotional, and he told me - I went home and thought, gosh, that was so good for me to hear that. Like for someone like Ryan Shelton struggles with that stuff and I thought actually – yeah I remember thinking to myself I wish everyone heard that conversation. And then I thought well that’s an idea for a podcast. What if we talk to people who are outwardly extremely happy, successful people. Like you look at their life and go I wish my life was like theirs. Just to learn that everyone struggles with stuff. And I told Ryan that and said would you like to do it with me? He said oh, I’ll help produce it, but I’m not going to be on it. And I said why not? He said I’m not qualified. And I said no, but it needs you to make it accessible. You’ll be really funny, people will listen for the humour but they’ll get good lessons in it as well. It took me literally six months to convince him that it was a good idea. And then when he said yeah, I’m in, well lets do an episode next week, and he said no, no, no we need to be a bit more – and I learned from him a lot about professionalism. It took us another year of planning until we then actually did our first episode with Missy Higgins. Like, literally a year later when we were – when he was totally happy that yep, this is the, you know. Well I mean to round the story out with Ryan he eventually caught up with Hamish.

Jenelle: We should round it out because I absolutely love Hamish and I know how this story ends, so do round out how that story finished.

Hugh: Yeah. Well he caught up with Hamish and said to him, he told him. He said I have felt very jealous about your success. I’ve felt like I haven’t been able to enjoy it properly and I’m worried the only reason that you ever had me on the show is because you feel sorry for me and that the only opportunities I get in life are because I’m friends with you, and that’s been really hard for me to sort of – and Hamish, I don’t know the details of what Hamish said but I know that whatever Hamish said made him realise that whenever he works with him it’s because he’s so unbelievably talented that he wants him to be a part of it because he knows it makes his stuff funnier. And that the reason he gets opportunities in life is because he’s naturally extremely funny and people who have him on their shows or give him opportunities, their shows mean a lot. They wouldn’t do it just because they feel sorry for someone. And straight away Ryan was like of course that’s true. Like of course that’s – like, why have I told myself this story for 15 years? And so, yeah, I remember getting a lovely message from Hamish, I think it was Christmas Eve a few years ago, just saying mate what a Christmas present. You’ve helped me and Ryan take our relationship to the next level. And it was just a lovely way to round it out, you know, these people who have - 

Jenelle: Beautiful, beautiful story. Oh, love that. Look, and I know, you know, humour is an important part of the way that you talk to kids about mental health. You know I know that you – a lot of, you know, what you do you’ve got them laughing way before you even start speaking about mental health, or naming that. You know, I know you’ve told us the story about how the Ryan thing came about but I wonder whether there was subconsciously there a recognition of the role that humour – or maybe more consciously than that because you said he brings you joy – that recognising Ryan’s element of humour in such a serious topic of mental health and resilience?

Hugh: Ah, humour’s everything – like I grew up in sporting clubs and your currency in sporting clubs is story telling and humour. And I spend the first 15 minutes – or maybe not 15 minutes, I spend the first 5 minutes of every student presentation making the kids laugh because it’s the most powerful form of engagement as far as I’m concerned. The best public speakers in the world, you know I – people say to me oh you should look at – you should watch this TED talk, watch this TED talk. No, don’t watch TED talks, watch comedians. Watch really good comedians. They are the best communicators of a message because when they, you know, you listen to a TED talk you get to the end of it you’re like yeah, I’m ready, what’s the next thing I’m going to watch? Even the best TED talks in the world I’m ready for them to finish by the time that it gets, you know. Comedians, good comedians, you’re shattered when they finish. I’ve seen Billy Connolly – I mean Billy Connolly is my hero in everything that I do. I adore Billy Connolly. I think he is the benchmark of – I mean if anyone wants to learn about engagement or public speaking if you Google “Billy Connolly old lady on a bus” he tells a story that goes for 10, I think it’s about 10 or 12 minutes. He gets side-tracked as he does many times throughout but there’s no better way of communicating something to people than making them laugh and doing it through a story. And I think Billy Connolly is the best at that. But you know I just even as I’m thinking right now I’m just having a realisation, which I’ll talk to my psychologist about, we – mum and dad were obsessed with Billy Connolly growing up and they would – we had all these video cassettes and we’d often watch him and I would – we’d all be on the couch and I’d often be watching mum and dad watching him. I’d be watching how much they laughed at Billy Connolly and I remember thinking right now mum and dad are very happy. And I just think now like I actually learned about story telling also for the power of it, this power of humour, from Billy Connolly. And I mean I was in – I finished a show in Hobart last week, and this is a nice way of rounding this out, but a guy came up to me afterwards. He would be in his 50s, maybe 60s, and he said oh this won’t mean anything to you at all but I felt like I was watching a young Billy Connolly on stage tonight. And I said mate, you actually – I think not in that he thought I was extremely funny, just in that I’d go from one story to the next and I forget to finish the story, then I go back to another one. And that to me was like you have no idea how much that means because I think Billy Connolly was a huge influence on the way I communicate. I’m not saying I’m as funny as Billy. That would be ridiculous claim, but I – I’m clearly not, but I learned the power of humour and story telling through him. And that’s – if you listen to our pod, which I know you do, but if other people listen to our podcast I tell stories, Ryan’s very funny. And that’s kind of, I guess, how the podcast works and hopefully gives people some – it’s accessible and people are able to have some breakthrough moments in their own lives.

Jenelle: I think when I reflect on how you started this conversation and you talked about, you know, your family and you said there was sadness in your family and you thought, yeah, can I make them laugh to distract them, it’s obviously something that you sort of embodied right – and understood intuitively. Words came later to narrate it. Like now even as you’re sort of getting stronger – or sort of evolving the narrative around how or why, but clearly it’s something that you’ve understood right from an early age in your family experience of how do I bring humour and story to this? So the words have come later but I think the intuition was there from the get go. And I do listen to your podcasts and The Imperfects, you have the vulnerabilitea house episodes, which is a play on the “tea” part of vulnerability, grab yourself a cup of vulnerabilitea, which has been really interesting. There are some really confronting questions. Maybe a quick one to finish this is what has surprised you in, you know, one of those episodes around vulnerability? You’ve obviously understood the power of vulnerability but has there been any surprises in doing those interspersed episodes?

Hugh: My little brother, Josh, who started off – he’s on the podcast now with a microphone, he started off as you know just as our producer in the background and he kept having really insightful contributions throughout. And then we said we should give him a microphone just in case he’s – and then he then had to do – well, he didn’t have to, he said I’ll do an episode of Vulnerabilitea. And we said you don’t have to and he said no, no, I want to talk about it. And so he told this story that I’d never heard about before about how he stopped writing song lyrics when he was 22 because someone found his book that he used to jot notes in they all took the piss out of it and he was – he stopped writing at that very moment. And I didn’t know everyone could do vulnerability but what my brother did was he just told a story from his life that was a very vulnerable story and it was incredible. I mean it inspired Missy Higgins of all people to reach out to us to say I want to do this again, I had a similar experience. And it’s just so – it’s so connecting and anyone can do it, I’ve found. To me that was my favourite episode we’ve ever done. That’s what’s surprising, right, is that anyone can do it really.

Jenelle: One of the takeaways for me was, I mean you were half finishing his sentences saying I can tell all your stories, I know all your stories, and then he told the story and you were like, whoa, I didn’t know that, or I didn’t know it had that impact on you. And the take away for me was we should never be so familiar with people that we feel like we already know their stories. Back to your great point earlier around be interested over interesting. To me that’s where you start to learn and unpack this. So I thought, you know, I just wanted to share that with you as someone that was listening to you. I was like wow even his brother was surprised and you guys are obviously incredibly close. And to me it made me think oh my God, what else have I not asked my brother or sister and have I assumed away so much because we’ve grown up together our whole lives, you know?

Hugh: Yeah. Well my brother and I are like – he’s my best friend and I thought we couldn’t get much closer but this podcast sharing his experiences like when I was in the thick of like really struggling, it was about a month ago, and said I’m not going too well, just to bring it back to the start of our chat, he didn’t know that. And I told him in that chat and he has just been so attentive to me the last couple of months and he’s one of the big reasons I’m feeling much better. So, yeah, it’s incredible the power of vulnerability, it really is.

The Last Three – three fast questions on change to finish the podcast.

Jenelle: Hugh, I always finish with The Fast Three and one of Fast Three is if you were going to put a quote up on a billboard, what would it be?

Hugh: It’s at the end of a movie – I’ve now blanked on the movie name as well – Jojo Rabbit is the movie, and the quote is “Let everything happen to you, beauty and terror. No feeling is final” and I think remember that right now. No feeling is final. That’s it.

Jenelle: What are you reading, watching or listening to right now?

Hugh: I am reading Becky Lucas’ book. Betty Lucas’ book is called “Acknowledgements”. I’m actually reading it for the second time it’s so good. Very good comedian, gifted comedian but I don’t where the – it’s just come out. I don’t know where you find her book as in a book shop because it’s actually an unbelievably good self-help book. She would never say that’s what it is but it is. It’s also a very good – a great memoire to date, I guess. But I’ve learned so much from her book, it’s really been really nice. So, listening to my favourite podcast is one that I’m not even going to recommend because I think most people won’t be interested in it, but it’s called Shoe Geeks, because I love running and it’s all about the shoes that people wear when they’re running and it’s – I don’t think it’s got a huge audience because it’s very niche, but that’s what I’m listening to. What am I watching? I’ve just finished watching it for the second time, it’s Love on the Spectrum.

Jenelle: Oh, I love that. I love that too.

Hugh: Probably the best TV show I’ve watched in my life.

Jenelle: I just love – that brings me joy. Now, finally, what is your superpower? And this can be something that’s additive to the world or an absolutely useless party trick.

Hugh: My superpower is when someone is what do you think the time is and I haven’t looked within an hour I can almost always do it within a minute, I’m so good at it. If I wake up and I just the second I wake up I go I reckon it’s 10 past 7 it usually is.

Jenelle: If that’s the case then I’d best wrap up this call because you would be very aware that we are at time. Thank you for giving me the heads up about that. I really, really have enjoyed the conversation, Hugh. I always say that there’s lots of take aways and people take away different things from different conversations but for me I have really – it’s been super helpful to be reminded of permission to say I’m not OK and the importance of validating it when people do do that before we try to rush to solutions. I loved the reminders about gem [47:32] and gratitude, empathy, mindfulness, paying attention to what we’ve got not what we don’t have. I loved the conversation about emotional literacy and being able to name your emotions. And curiosity, you know, being interested over being interesting. And I think, you know, the power of owning your story, the power of leaning into story telling for driving change and the power of humour in driving change as well. It’s been a wonderful conversation, Hugh. Thank you so much for your time.

Hugh: Jenelle, it’s an absolute pleasure and congratulations on all the stuff you’re doing and all the work you’re doing. I think it’s incredibly impressive.

Jenelle: Ah, thanks Hugh.

The Change Happens podcast. From EY. A conversation on leading through change. Discover more where you get your podcasts.

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