Tackling Tall Poppy Syndrome with Jay Geldard - E Tū Tāngata

Well, hey everyone. Welcome back to the Culture Maker channel. Great to have you here, whether I'm catching you on YouTube or on podcast. Thanks for taking the time to listen. Today I interview a really, neat guy, It's a great podcast, a guy called, Jay Geldard. And Jay, runs a charity trust, called E Tū Tāngata.

And it's all about, changing the way we think about ourselves. It's about the negative talk In our lives and the tall poppy syndrome that we all suffer from. So his aim is to really, challenge that and to help us to challenge it. He's got a great book, which we can even read to our kids that'll help our kids, change the story they tell themselves about themselves.

Anyway, it's a fantastic interview. Have a listen and, I'll check back within you later.

Hey James, it's so good to have you on the podcast, mate. Thanks for making the time.

Yeah, great to be here.

Yeah. In a minute I'm gonna ask you to tell us about, the organisation you've started, but maybe just tell us your story and how that leads into it.

So I grew up in a Christian home, got two amazing parents. Grew up in Ōtautahi Christchurch. That's always been my home. And numerous times I've tried to get out of the city, but, it wasn't to be. I married a beautiful woman, from Northland, but we ended up living here. So Christchurch is my, people, my place, and I love it here. I grew up in a Christian home and went to an awesome Presbyterian church, in Hornby, and still part of that now. Got three beautiful kids, who are 11, and 10, and that's the two boys. And I got a, daughter who's eight. And, we live local. We, go to church local and love what we're doing at the moment helping those around us.

Yeah. So how, how'd you get into it? And, what is it? What is E Tū Tāngata?

So I worked for an organisation, I still do, called 24  7 Youth Work. I lead that nationwide. And, so 24  7 youth work has youth workers all across the country, from Northland to Southland and all in between. And, I've been, leading that now for 13 years. And seven years into my leadership I took a sabbatical, and went over to the UK and people said to me, oh, you do youth work in New Zealand? Tell us about it. And I remember describing the climate that we found ourselves in. The highest suicide rate in the world, double that of most countries in the world. The mental well-being space we're in. Just describing the climate. And I remember the look on their eyes when they said to me, oh that doesn't add up. You live on the other side of the world. Three hours flight for anyone. You've got no Trump, no Brexit. No refugees crossing your border. Why is it that your young people are killing themselves faster than, anyone else? And I had to sit with that question for three months and I get emotional about it because, I'd come too desensitised to it. You know, I hear of a school in Christchurch, who lost six young people in one year and ah, yep that's just another young person - Ah, yep. And I just had to cope with it while pressing it down and just moving on because we didn't have time to feel the emotion because you would just collapse under the weight of every 12 hours a young person takes their life. And so, you know, it's just, it's just too overwhelming. So I had come a bit desensitised to it, but I had three months to sit with this and, I remember just going, oh whatever we do, we've gotta come at this differently because I remember thinking about the tree and some trees have branches. Well, all trees have branches. But you've got depression, suicide, self harm, violence - we're addressing the tree. And, my reflection over in the UK was, we've gotta actually address the root issue of this. We've gotta come at this differently because there's an elephant in the room that we've named it. We've shamed it. People are leaving the country because of it. We see this devastation of the elephant in the room. We see, you know, the mental destruction of it. Why do we put up with the elephant in the room? And for me the elephant was this thing called Tall Poppy Syndrome. Which summed up - is your success in New Zealand, is a threat to mine. I wish you well, but not too well. And if I ask any Kiwi to rate themselves out of 10, 10, being amazing, zero being average. We all have to think that we're six or seven.

Because that's the Kiwi way.

It's the Kiwi way. And, publicly, if we were in a room with like 10 other people, 10 other men, and one, person goes, oh no, Jay, I'm a nine or a 10, we get to laugh at them publicly. Because that person doesn't understand that the culture doesn't allow that to happen. And so that laughter is an example of us cutting that person down to humble them. And to teach them to think like they're a six and seven. And the crazy thing is, is that if a person wants to be a three or four, we give them medication and we help lift them up. And we get them back to being a six or seven, but how dare they think that they are an eight, nine, or 10. And that's why I get emotional about it. Cause It's broken. Why have we all bought into it? And my realisation is because the elephant in the room has always been there, it's been a comfort to us as a country. It's helped keep us humble as a nation. We've needed that. Humility, it's a good thing, right? But it's now become this false humility where me cutting you down does not make me any taller. But that's what we're all doing and all of us are doing it. And the research talks about the fact that success in New Zealand is when you put yourself down in front of us before we do. And so we are like, aha. This guy got a promotion at work or got a new car or a house, or is doing well in life, but he's putting himself down in front of us. And that's devastating.

Yeah it's, hideous, man. And, I've seen the stats you're talking about. You know, the single, biggest killer of our young mums in New Zealand is suicide. We have the highest suicide rate, youth suicide rate in the world. And it's not just high by a little bit, it's like double the other highest country in the world. Our stats are atrocious. Anxiety levels, the medication of our youth for anxiety and stuff. It's all, off the charts. And so the question, we ask ourselves is, well, how can, if our young mums are not happy, how can they raise a happy child? You know?

That's right.

And so what you're talking about, resonates with what we do and, you're saying the same thing. You're saying we all need to believe in ourselves a bit more and talk more positively about ourselves. Is that it? What is it that you're trying to achieve?

Yeah, so I, sat down with Steve Hansen from the All Blacks, and I said, bless him. He was, about to go to the World Cup, and I'm sitting down and, and he's a good friend and I was just chatting with him and said, I need the secret herbs and spices to the All Blacks to do this. All right. Like for us to change the culture of New Zealand, I need to surround myself with smarter people in the room. And so I caught up with Steve Hansen and I caught up with, iwi around New Zealand, and, I get about 10 of us in the room and we had the word E Tū Tāngata on the wall and E Tū means to stand Tāngata means people. So stand together. And that came from the heart of the tide lifts of boats. So rather than - as a boat, me trying to get ahead by pushing you aside and look at my boat, it's going forward now. Actually, if we get the water to lift then all of us lift. Hence E Tū Tāngata we all need to stand together rather than push you down to make me taller. That wasn't gonna work cause that's what we've been doing. And so we sat with the word E Tū Tāngata. And we thought if we're gonna tackle this, we're gonna have to come at this three ways. And, the bit you noted first, Mike, was it first of all starts with, you know, who are you? because if I value myself, then anyone else around me succeeding is not a threat to me whatsoever, cause I'm secure in myself. It's only when I'm insecure and I'm doubting my gifting and abilities, then watching those around me do well - I'm threatened by. And so then I passively, aggressively knock them down to make myself feel better.

And I think we all do it. I know I have some very successful people in my world that are friends and, it's so easy to just to compare yourself too to them. There's always someone better to compare yourself to.

Yeah so, that was the first way we're gonna come at it. We needed to look at - You have value and let's have that conversation as a New Zealander. And I didn't think I'd be able to get away with that. I remember sitting with Richard Black, a well known counsellor, and originally I had it as you are valued. And Richard said to me, no, because there's actually an intrinsic value in all of us, and it needs to be you have value, not you are valued. And I remember going, oh, I think you're right. But I'm not sure if the country's ready for this. Like, are we allowed to say you have value in New Zealand? And so I thought, oh, let's just trust him. He's the expert in this space - I'm gonna, go with that. And so we did, and that's been a huge success of the Ko papa. People love the fact that we are talking about - you have value. The second way we came at it was actually we need to succeed together. So we need to relearn how to do win-wins. In New Zealand we do win-lose, or lose-lose. Like, I will take you down at the cost of myself as long as you don't win.

Yeah, and we probably almost prefer lose-lose rather than letting someone win, you know?

Yeah. But actually we're stronger together. We're better together. And so we thought actually we need to tell each other or retrain ourselves to do collaboration where, when you win, I win. When you lose, I lose. And rather than this low level trust of co-operation, which is like holding hands, singing Kumbaya. The third way we came at it is actually saying, yes, you have value. Yes, we succeed together. But the third strand talks about the fact that actually others matter. So that person over there who you don't know, they too are valuable and they too, are a person and we need to cherish that person even though they're different from us. And so in 2019, when the mosque attacks happened in my city, Christchurch, the whole nation got behind the families and said, you as humans matter and that's not good enough. And we got behind them and that was to be applauded. But since then, it hasn't continued. Since then, racism and lots of things have happened that have only created a really unhealthy place. But if we saw the other person as valuable we wouldn't speak that in their life you know. So, that's how we've done it, we've come at from three different ways. And, for some people it's the, you have value conversation, which is the heart hitting like, Ooh, do I believe that? Or it's the succeeding together. Yeah, I need to learn how to trust on others and not try and do this alone and try and you know compete. I need to be stronger together. Or it may be for some people, actually, I need to think about others. And I need to think about myself less and actually realise that those people over there, they matter too. And that's been quite profound as we have the conversation across the country.

Do you feel there's a connection between serving others and helping others and starting to actually see some of the value in ourselves as well?

Yeah. I think we're wired to pay it forward. We're wired to live in community, to help those around us. You know, I'd say love thy neighbour. Like when you give someone a present, you get joy watching them unwrap that present because often I get a present, I wanna give it to them two days earlier than Christmas cause for me it's watching their faces. And so I think we are wired as humans to live in community. And continue to pay it forward.

No, I agree. I mean, my story, I think my journey as I've served others and taken that opportunity that I have become more whole myself. But for sure, and in fact, I'm convinced that if I hadn't I would've, still felt as broken as I did, you know years back. Not that I feel perfect, but I think that t's so countercultural cause we're raising society to be individualistic. We raise our kids to focus on themselves and to look after number one. And it actually isn't helping them look after number one. But you are also saying, we actually, need to start believing in ourselves. So what is it that a dad or a mum listening to this needs to do for themselves to start realising the value that they have.

Yeah. They need to start asking the question, what's the voice in their head saying to themselves?

Right.

That voice, that's your friend - is it speaking life into you? Or is it not being very nice to you? Like I remember hearing John Kirwan say - that voice in your head, would you speak that over your friend's lives? And going, no, we wouldn't. So why do we allow it to speak negatively over our own lives? So for us to bring change across the country, we have to begin on a personal level with, do you have value? Do I believe that? Because I know we all believe it for those around us. But honestly, I've realised that us Kiwis - Our t-shirt we sell says valuable full stop. It's our most number one selling T-shirt across the country because people go, I wanna wear it. I, wanna wear it, but I'm not ready to wear it because I only wanna put on that t-shirt when I believe it. And I have to be okay with people looking at me going, this person thinks they're valuable. Does that make sense? And, so that's why I think for us as, men, as dads, we have to look at ourselves and go, what voice, what are we speaking in, in our own lives? Because if you want to be confident as a dad or a man, you gotta tell yourself, I'm confident. And then you become confident. Or if you say, I'm gonna be brave, you gotta act brave before you become brave. And you can't just feel valuable, you gotta tell yourself you're valuable and then you become and believe it.

Because probably that voice for a lot of men is saying that I hate myself.

Yeah. And I, I've had to wrestle with us too, Mike. Like, this is personal for me because look, I failed school. I didn't get High School certificate. Like I remember year 13 at my school, everyone got High School certificate except for one guy, and that was me. And I remember leaving school not knowing what to do with my life, feeling like an absolute drop kick. And I remember thinking, oh, I'm worthless. And so I've had to go on this journey, so this is not something that I've just gone hey, you know, white middle class man, I got this idea. This is personal for us and, also for my family and my extended family. It's been good for us as a family. It's brought us closer together because we can speak truth and lift each other up, as a family and use the language.

So how does a man or a mum or a dad go about hearing that voice? Because we're so busy, we don't even listen to the voice in our heads, you know, we're just, it's all chaos and mess, and we distract ourselves constantly. What do we do? How do we go about hearing that voice and, arresting it or questioning it.

Personally? I think you need to surround yourself with some good people who can - Because that voice has become our friend. That's our conscience. That's until someone else goes, hey, tell me about that. And then helps you process and go, what were you thinking in that time? Like, what were you, you know? What belief system were you speaking over your life?And when you say what you're thinking, they're like, okay, that doesn't quite sit right. Like, actually, if we change that language to speak this, then what would that mean? And so for me, I've needed the external person who I can just, you know, process on. It doesn't have to be counselling, it doesn't have to be a supervisor, just someone who you trust who you can go, hey, this is what's going on for me and this is how I'm really feeling. And then as you describe the feelings, the person who hopefully they're a few years wiser, can go, this is what I'm hearing, is this correct? What is that voice saying? And then you get to the bottom of it actually saying that I'm not feeling safe It's saying that I'm not valuable, you know? But we don't know that until we have that person to, question and go reflect back what we're saying. And I've had that and it's been amazing and freeing. I remember you know, I'm a CEO of the biggest not-for-profit, with youth workers in schools. And, I remember going and, seeing my friend and going, I'm dyslexic. And so I'm like, oh I hate the fact that I can't write a letter. And then my friend goes, oh, so who do you get to write the letter? And I'm like, oh, I get one of my colleagues. And okay, so you get the letter written. I'm like, yeah, I do. But. I'm not writing - other CEOs, they're writing letters. I have people help me with emails and if I do a post on social media, some word's gonna be wrong and I hate that. But he's like, but the letter gets written and yes your name's at the bottom of it, but it's being written. I'm like, yeah, yeah, but it's not me. And he said, Jay, it doesn't matter if you wrote it or didn't write it, you got the job done. And so he said, people look at you and go, wow look at what he's doing. And they don't care that you're writing emails or not. All they care about is you getting the job done. So, that's an example for me of having to process that voice to go, oh, I'm useless because I'm meant to be a CEO and I can't even write an email.

Listen, this is interesting. In this series of my podcast, I have had two or three other interviews which aren't publicly yet, which you don't know about, and they're saying the same thing. We need guys in our life that we're talking to. So the fact that you've come back to it is like, wow. And we all, struggle with this, you know. And I've mentioned when someone said this in the previous podcast, I was like, yeah, well I was fortunate as a younger guy to have some guys ahead of me in the game. And, in fact, you were around at one of the guys place the other day and, these guys are significantly spoke life into my life. And so the challenge is to find them. Challenges us to go looking for guys, looking for safe people because it can't just be anybody. They need to be a little bit ahead in the game. I heard you say, they've been on that journey a little bit and they're actually safe to talk to. They're not gonna be people that are gossiping or meaning you harm.

Yeah. And the other thing I've done, Mike, is I've, in my wallet, I've got a list of four names, four people that are allowed to speak into my life. So, if, if they hit me up or call me out, like my, wife is one of them. Then I listened to them. Because what I found is that I had hundreds of people telling me their thoughts and opinions on all sorts of things, and I was taking all their thoughts and opinions on board. And then I realised this is too overwhelming. I was trying to please everyone. And then so I realised actually I am who I am. But actually there's, four people now that can speak into my life and call me out and say, mate, you're outta line there, or you're getting a little bit, you know, you're going a bit away with, and I'm gonna listen to them now. And that's been very freeing for me because, as I said, I took on everyone's advice - I need to change that, I need to change that, or I need to adapt. They'll be better at that. And then there's four people now who are like, ah, no, just be you. Like, don't tell me what other people think you should be. And that's been quite freeing for me.

Yeah. And listen, I think this is really wise, but I think it's such a challenge for guys. I think there'll be a bunch of, I'm thinking of some of the guys at my work, some of the guys that we work with, and I'm thinking, yeah how, do they have people in the world that they can reach out to, you know? It's hard, you know, we're so connected with our devices to garbage. But we, struggle to be connected to anything real and meaningful. And that's part of the challenge.

Yeah. Come on.

So there's a challenge, guys, finding some people in your world that you can talk to that are safe, and really just going and looking for that. Jay, gosh what else? Any, other thoughts? What other things can us guys be doing better to be looking after our state of mind?

I've got one more suggestion and this is part of the culture of New Zealand, and you would've heard of this language called a try hard you know, that guy's a try hard, right? It's part of the journey of tackling Tall Poppy Syndrome New Zealand. This has come up a lot and a lot again, around people who told me, stop being a try hard. And I, ran into Chris Parker, the comedian, and he just, he really laid it out and he said, what's wrong with trying hard? Let's just talk about that for a moment. So, if I'm flying from Auckland to Sydney on a plane, I want my pilot to have 'tried hard'. I want them to make sure they've ticked every single box to be the best pilot they can be. If I'm having heart surgery, I want my cardio cardiothoracic surgeon to have 'tried hard'. And so what's wrong with actually trying hard? Because doing the opposite, being flippant or being just, you know, not being the best version of you and with your marriage with your kids is, actually, I think is worse. And so I wanna, challenge that, 'try hard' mentality to encourage those listening to can you be the best version of you and try hard on your marriage. Try hard with your kids. Try hard in your job. And if someone calls you a 'try hard', call them out and go, yeah, I am trying hard. I want to be the best version of me I can be. I only get one go at this. So that be something I want encourage men and women in, is that that language needs to go because it's just causing so much harm to our... It's confusing cuz you're trying to be successful but not too successful. You're trying to grow but you don't wanna grow too much because people are gonna call you 'try hard'. And then we wonder why our mental wellbeing is this data that it is. But it's because it's just broken. Go son. But not too hard, you know, it's just, ugh. Oh, I just think if anyone listening here, can I encourage you to be a 'try hard' and just try your hardest.

Man, I, should title this episode 'Try hards' Yeah, that's perfect. Something I was, um, posting about recently, and I'll be interested in your views on this because, as I said, you know, the, the listeners to this are Dads, which means they're leaders, right. And at work, I think the leaders are trying to develop other leaders in their businesses and often it's so hard to look past the mess of someone else's imperfection and actually call out leadership in that person. But that, actually is the job of the leader is to sort of, when everyone else is seeing a messy individual, it's to sort of looking past all that and seeing the raw talent and calling out leadership in that man or that woman that's at work, because if you don't, they're certainly not calling out themselves cuz they got all this personal hate speech going on in their head. And they need someone just to say, hey, I see you, I see that talent and let's, work on it. And if we do that at home as well, because our kids are coming home from school with all the same internal talking, that the role we have in speaking life into our kids and not being afraid to give them a big head, cuz that's the other thing. Right? I think I've seen on your, website somewhere is this sort of fear of giving people a big head. If we encourage them, they're just gonna get this big bubble head.

I talk about the fact that we want to be, either bumblebee or a fly and what I mean by that is, if you think of a fly, you think about botanical gardens, rose bushes, beautiful smells. You can see it. The fly will find the poo. In the rose garden and we'll sit on that. You're like, what are you doing? It's got so much beauty around it. And you found the grossest thing in the botanical gardens? But then a bumblebee will always find the rose amongst the junk. You know, will always find, that one. If it was a, a rubbish tip full of garbage, we'll always find that one rose in that place. And so I, I encourage all of us to look for the roses in every single person. And don't look for the poo In the lives of people because it just doesn't do anyone any good. We need to call out greatness out of each other, rather than find the poo that's so key.

So as, the CEOs, the leaders, fathers listening, that's about being that bumblebee. And, and flying around the environments we're in and looking for the beauty in the chaos that we're looking at. That's powerful, man. And, that needs to be a shift for us all because sometimes people can't do it for themselves, so we're saying, you know, there's men in your business, there's kids in your home which are unable to stop that negative self-talk. And so someone's gotta be the someone who calls out the other stuff.

And when you started your company or your business or what you got involved, people, your staff are always a priority, but over time the process starts trumping people. And our things are really important that we look at our team and go, actually is process trumping people or do we put people over process?And again, you've gotta have process, don't get me wrong, but I think sometimes, in unhappy cultures it's because the process is dictating what's happening with people. Rather than someone going, hey, what do we need for our people? What needs to happen for them?

And then we go home and life's a little bit messy. A little bit hard. Stuff's going on. Stuff's happened. People are feeling a little bit hurt, disrespected, and we walk in the room. I've got a little e-book called Culture Maker, and the basic premise of it is that we walk in the room and we can change the culture, we can change the feel of the room just simply by walking in with our beliefs and our approach and our values and our standards. And what I'm hearing you say is that if we walk in just conscious of being a little bit of a bumblebee conscious of actually speaking life we can change the feel of the room probably in an instant.

Yeah. Come on.

That's awesome, man. And so you've, you told me off here, you were stepping down. Is that public? Can I say that?

Yeah, you can.

I mean, this won't go to air to actually next year, so you'll probably be gone.

No, you can say that. So I have resigned. So E Tū Tāngata was birthed out of twenty four seven youth work. And the board were being absolutely amazing because they allowed me to be one day a week E Tū Tāngata, four days a week leading 24  7. And then last this year I was four days a week E Tū Tāngata and then a day, a week, 24  7. And I was happy to do that and I said to everyone, hey, if it adds to, I'm here to help. I'm good at doing, you know, leading two charities. But then one of my friends rung me up and said, at what point do you give your life to changing culture? Like William Wilberforce gave his life to abolish slavery, and he said, you are split 80 20. Like it's great. You're trying to, you know, you're trying hard to do that. But he said, you need to give your life to this full time. And that was my aha moment. Where I was like, actually I love both Ko papas, but I actually have to give my life to this. And so, it's scary because I'm having to, you know, we're setting up this charity next year in April. E Tū Tāngata is totally free, so we giving everything away. And we somehow have gotta try and survive as a charity, but through the generosity of so many people, we've been able to, you know, continue to, you know, shape the, the culture of Aotearoa. So that's what's happening. It's exciting for 24  7 cause they can appoint a new leader and can go forward and E Tū Tāngata can really have a sharp focus going forward as well.

Yeah, it's a massive challenge. You know, running a charity in New Zealand, trying to fund it, trying to basically put food on the table for you and for the people that you're needing to make it work. I know a little bit about that with our own charity and, man, there's some generous people in New Zealand and there's some people that do believe in a brighter future. And I know that they believe in what you're doing and you know, we've gotta work together because man, if you look at the data, it would indicate that a lot of the social work, a lot of the charities that are around New Zealand are actually effective because nothing has improved. It's a brutal assessment. It's a brutal assessment and I'm willing to take critique on it cause I'm, I can say it safely cause I'm potentially part of the problem. Right? What do you think actually, a part from your very positive message, what do you think we need to be doing as charities and organisations better so that we can have more, more effect?

For me, I'm all about measuring your outcomes, measuring your outputs because, like we are working with Canterbury University who are using a Harvard University framework to measure the impact of us changing the culture. So we're measuring schools, we're measuring sports clubs. We're measuring so we have stuff to know that it works because if you're not brave enough to measure your impact then why are we funding? Like why am I pointing my own hard-earned cash towards something that may or may not be having an effect? I'm very aware that I'm very, I've got Woo. So I, can convince people, you know, that what I'm doing is amazing, but I actually want to put some robust research around it to say, hey, I know Jay says it's amazing, but actually hears the proof that it's amazing because the people who are backing us, backing our organisation are smart people. They want to know Is it working? And so, within 24   7 we we're big on research. With E Tū Tāngata we're big on research just because I wanna know if it's working or not. And if it's not working, I want to figure out how do we actually sharpen this to be more effective because through, the research with 24   7, we've got more effective. We've been able to be sharper with the resources that we've had. That doesn't come if you don't want to ask a question. So that'd be my voice.

And would there be in, wrapping up a couple of thoughts. Would there be one thing that you've gone on with this personal journey that you're doing different as a dad when you walk home or when you wake up or whatever it is, that you would be happy to share as an idea or a tip for other dads?

Because you're the founder of E Tū Tāngata you get called out a lot for behaviour. Things that are, jokes that you thought were funny that weren't but my kids call me out now. My son took a hat trick in cricket. He's 10 years old and I remember getting in the car and I said to him, hey, that was awesome, but don't get a big head. And I realised, holy moly, this is the Tall Poppy Syndrome coming through. So I just turned to him and said, son, I'm proud of you, but I want apologise for what I've just spoken over you, because that's not right. So my advice to dads is actually listen to the words that you are saying. Because sometimes the words that we're saying are influenced by our culture, and all we're doing is not speaking life into people. Because we're worried that they're gonna get a big head, but the world's gonna tell them lots of things that they're not good and we, as their inner circle, need to tell them, you know, how amazing they are. So I've, had to change my mindset with this Ko Papa that I've had to re-look at everything I say to myself, to my kids, to my wife, because they go, hey dad, that's not very E Tū Tāngata and I'm like, yeah, you're right. I apologise. Because, so in our house now we have language to call out greatness out of each other. And the kids know that when they call me out on it, that I'm gonna go stop and go check myself. And then go, actually you deserve better. And I just apologise and say, what else can I, you know, I try and adjust my game. So that's been a huge impact on my boys and my daughter and just speaking, life and being aware of those words, I'm speaking.

So I, think there's something you could develop there around that, you know, giving dad language to call out. You said the wording, I can't quite remember it. Language to call out greatness in those around us. I think we actually need the words. We need some language cause we've never been taught it. And going back a step on that. How many dads I wonder that are listening to this have never said, son, I'm proud of you. And just found something to call out on the child that is just unique about that child. I wonder how many of the men listening have never had a dad tell 'em son, I'm proud of you. And so I think dad's, we can go home today probably and it would be really wise and well and healthy for us to pick one of our kids, at least one, and go, son, daughter, I am proud of you. And here's why.

Yeah. That's good. And I, I just think that when the, external world gets the best of us and when we get home, they get the worst of us. And I've been journeying with a lot of friends who are having marriage problems, and one of my pieces of advice, I'm like, have you told your wife she's beautiful today?Have you given your wife a compliment? Have you, and no, I've, I can't. That's so hard. It's awkward now. Awkward is fine. Just start and let it become something that oozes outta you over time because that you've stopped doing that and speaking that into your wife or your kids. We need to retrain you. Even as awkward as it is. We need to retrain you to start saying, you're beautiful, you're amazing. I love you. I wanna encourage you because that will create chemistry in your family. And so check yourself and go - Do I speak affirming words into my wife, into my kids' lives? Because I think it's quite hard hitting, that we probably often find out we don't do it enough.

Yeah, we don't, and you know, we all, there's this thing where we put the kids first. The kids come first. I say this a lot, if the kids come first, it means mum comes last. Mum and dad come last. And if mum's feeling last, then she's feeling a little bit lost and a bit lonely. And so everything starts to foul. Everything's, at home starts to foul up. And you can transform it just by coming home and saying, hey honey, you're beautiful. You know? Or you're amazing. I just love how you do this. Or, just, you know, whatever the language is, will affect everyday, it'll affect her relationship with the kids. It'll just brighten up the room. Do that for three days and you probably can transform any kind of foul feeling environment. So that's awesome man. I love that. Love the language and really encourage you to sort of develop that as part of your thing and encourage men to find some language around this stuff cause we need it and we need to speak it to ourselves and we need to speak into those closest to us. Hey, I really wanna thank you for your time. Really appreciate it. Is there any, we can just finish here, but is there any one passing thought you've given heaps? Is there anything, just in finishing off everything we've summed up that you'd say, Hey dad, this is what I want to tell you.

There's only one of you, there's only one of you out there, so don't try and be someone else. Just be you. And be the best version of you you can be. That's all I've gotta finish with. I think we need to understand that better.

Yep. Awesome, Jay, really appreciate your time. Love what you're doing. I'm looking forward to what you're doing - actually transforming, our families, transforming our culture, speak life into the culture of New Zealand. We all need to, Try Hard. So let's do it.

Awesome man. Thanks Mike.