Campbell "Struthless" Walker - Withdrawing with Drawing | The Imperfects

This episode features a conversation around suicide as well as addiction.

If these are topics you might find challenging, then we recommend skipping this one for now, but please come back when you're ready.

My name's Hugh. I'm a co -host on The Imperfects.

I'm the son of Sri Lankan and English immigrants, and I call Australia home.

We at The Imperfects acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is recorded, and we extend our respects to the elders past and present.

I've spent much of the last decade are travelling around this country sharing stories.

In doing so, I acknowledge and pay homage to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' rich history of storytelling.

I also acknowledge that whenever I talk about or practice resilience, there is no greater example than the one set by the world's oldest living culture.

For the me's out there who don't think they're creative, what do you say to them?

I think it's about recognising that you can't exist without it.

It's things like designing your day, it's things like picking your outfit, it's things like making your breakfast, it's things like the way that you even have a conversation with somebody.

The words that you choose, all of these things are contributions.

You're not destroying something when you talk to someone, you're making something.

Well, hello old chaps and welcome to the Academy of Imperfection, where experts in their field share their wisdom on the subject of imperfection.

Today's guest lecturer is the inspiring artist and mega gigantic YouTuber with over a million followers known as Struthless to teach us all about creativity.

So drop everything, not your dacks, and join students Hugh, Ryan and Josh in the Academy of Imperfection.

I'm not an expert. You're an expert.

You truly are. I used to sell pills in a club called Academy dude so much experience in an academy but now we're in the academy of imperfection with someone who doesn't want to be an expert but absolutely is so exciting the reluctant expert we don't have like an alert or a siren do we can I do it?

that was pretty good That's good.

Warning, warning, divine and gorgeous man alert.

Yes. We have a divine and gorgeous man in the studio.

Beware, everyone. Yeah, beware, beware.

It's you, Cam. Cam's like looking really worried.

Where is he? He's going to replace me.

I'll fight him. No, we're joined today by Campbell Walker, better known as Struthless.

And I'm going to get straight into your bio here so people can get an understanding of who this divine and gorgeous man is.

He is one of Australia's most original creative voices, blending humour, vulnerability and sharp insight to explore the chaos of being human.

What began as a personal outlet, cartoons scribbled on notepads and share on Instagram, has since grown into a multi -platform creative career.

Campbell's YouTube channel has attracted over 1 million subscribers and 50, I wrote 50 millions of views, making him one of the most trusted and beloved voices in the online self -development space.

His debut book, Your Head is a Houseboat, to become a best -seller praised for its accessible wisdom and irreverent charm as a speaker filmmaker illustrator and creative educator he's worked with brands like adobe spotify batuda advocate vice gq samsung gatorade comedy central and tinder but behind all that success is a deeper mission to make people feel same whether he's unpacking self -sabotage with a stick figure or admitting his own struggles with addiction burnout and mental health campbell's real gift is his ability to connect not through perfection but through honesty he doesn't pretend to

have the answers instead he offers us a map one filled with scribbles smudges and unexpected detours and reminds us that we're not lost we're just human and we'll welcome to the imperfect thank you can i get you for every time i enter a room just to like do that little spiel that was lovely you're gonna need to schedule some time yeah yeah no thank you thank you so much for having me this is great like yeah oh so excited to be here oh we're huge huge fans of what you do yeah it's just so cool I mean as someone who like wants to be a creative person it's it's so inspiring to see your videos and hear all

the things you have to say and your insights and I'm I'm like a I want to be like I'm not a YouTube creator but But God, I would love to be one day.

It just seems like a dream job to me from the outside at least. And before you say anything, I would like to join in.

As someone who has spent the last 15 years working in mental health and wants to make strategies around mental health more accessible to the entire country, I look up to you as well.

Like you have reached so many people with such important messages.

So yeah, I agree. You're great.

Oh man, thank you. and podcast, this is great Alright now can you tell us why you love us?

It's sort of like tit for tat here If you've got three paragraphs two paragraphs, whatever It's custom to bring more Oh thank you So I think this is going to end up being you're in the academy and I know you're a reluctant expert I think what we want to talk to you about is the role lot of creativity can play in one's mental health journey.

But I think this is also a story about the stuff that you've overcome or wrestled with, or maybe you haven't overcome it, but you are constantly sort of battling with in order to create the way you create.

Just to give everyone a bit of a snapshot, and a snapshot is not the right word, but could we talk a bit about your childhood or your upbringing or where it all began for you?

Sure. I'll start with an easy easy fact and we can work backwards from there so we probably moved house about 20 times before I turned 20 so quite a lot of change a lot of constant change um I don't know if my parents were necessarily ready for kids but uh me and my sister arrived I think they were ready by the time my brother came around so okay that's all right um how old were they when they when they had oh they were in their sort of like mid -20s so they weren't you know teenagers um and then this is more the backdrop i guess but they were both like very creative very original people which i

really liked yeah yeah yeah i don't know how much they liked each other yeah um but you know you can't win them all do you have happy memories of childhood was it a happy childhood oh it's it's mixed but it's happy it's happy if you really think about it okay well you did really they think about it then that was good um all right so as a kid i was obsessed with pingu what's pingu the show with the yeah yeah yeah claymation yeah yeah yeah yeah all that yeah yeah yeah masterpiece yeah yeah um so you know pingu like walks around he's got the friend robbie the seal and he lives with his little sister

pingo and he's got his parents who are like yep beautiful show anyway i was obsessed right like i was right at the age where i was like yeah man like die by the Pingu.

Yeah. Anyway it was Christmas I want to say Christmas 96 maybe and there was this toy that was just being advertised to me in the way that targeted ads now seem like they're being advertised to us and I was like oh my god I need that toy it was a Pingu igloo right yeah yeah yeah yeah so it was exactly what it sounds like it was like a model igloo that you could just put Pingu in and you could play and then you could basically like recreate Pingu in your bedroom how cool oh yeah yeah anyway so i was like man that is what i want but i guess i was not too sure how to ask because you know you get

these messages that have you know like you got to ask santa so what i had done is i'd written to santa and i'm like hey i really want that pingu igloo that's all i want i want nothing else just the pingu igloo and then i just left it in my room i guess you know because that's what you do you hadn't told my mom and dad because you didn't need need to tell your mom and dad because santa's got this yeah anyway to their credit they found it on christmas eve and they're like oh my god it says all he wants is a pingu igloo and i don't know i'm a parent i'll do the exact same thing that they did they're

like let's go like and so they both kick into gear and um yeah my dad god bless him like runs around to all of these shops trying to find it and turns out they're all sold out so he goes from shop to shop to shop and then he like ends up getting to the final one and he sees that there's a display model he's like please please please please can i buy that pingoo igloo and they're like yeah you can oh and he's like i am father of the fucking decade yeah definitely yeah so he gets the pingoo igloo gets it gift wrapped comes home puts it under the tree and then in the morning i've like more or less memorized

the dimensions of what that box should be looking like and so i'm like you know like yeah i'm like I'm like, oh, you know, come to Pingu Daddy.

And so I go straight to this present.

I open it up. I see the Pingu Igloo box and I open up the box and there was nothing in there.

Turns out the display model, they had gotten it wrong.

And I'm like, what?

And so I start crying.

And as mum tells me, she's like, all you were saying was Santa doesn't love me.

And my sister just chirps in with, it's because you've been a very bad boy.

Santa, you bastard I know Boxing day rolled around And I managed to get the Pingu Igloo Along with a handwritten note And a heartfelt apology From Santa Santa slash David Jones He has David Jones Yeah, weird right I guess he's going to get his toy I mean the elves got laid off That's a happy memory That's really cool So you got it Do you still have it?

Yes. Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah, man.

I would love to chat about Pingu for the next few hours.

Oh, let's do it. Actually, no, I just said that.

I wouldn't. But I do enjoy someone talking about something they're passionate about and that was very enjoyable.

But I would love to talk about Pingu for the next couple of hours is just the polite thing to say.

It's just what you say to people.

Yeah, when in Antarctica.

But the book that you – is out today, in fact.

Yeah. Is it today? Yeah, literally today.

As we record, yeah.

As we record, it's happening.

We're from the past. Yeah, we are from the past. The book, Doom and Bloom, a beautiful cover.

Thank you. It's just like just looking at the cover like that, it is the book that I'm, like, so excited to read.

But I know as a teenager, if I saw that in the school library, I would be so excited.

Oh, thank you. Thank you.

That really hit home.

home. Yeah. Because that is how I chose books.

They say don't judge it by the cover, but screw that, man.

Yeah. Like, judge a little, maybe like 10%.

Yeah. Can you talk to us about where this idea of Dermot Bloom comes from and the link to creativity?

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

So the way that I was thinking about it, well, firstly, I was doing nothing about it.

I was only thinking about it.

And, uh, I think that got a little bit comfortable.

So I don't know, I kind of sort of fell into like a complacent rut of being like, I'm going to write this book.

It's going to be awesome it's gonna be awesome you know when you don't do something that something's perfect yes and the second thing you write that first little line you're like oh no no no no that's not the big perfect thing that i have in my head yeah i can't be doing that so you don't write the line and then you just think about it for like another month oh yes that was that book for maybe a year and a half yeah but i did have a concept of what i wanted the um the idea of doom and bloom hadn't come together until, I guess, mild warning.

But one of my best mates, I got a call from his brother and basically he called me up one day and he just, yeah, told me that one of my best mates had committed suicide.

And can you draw the artwork for his funeral?

Which is, I mean, there was words in between those two, you know.

It was obviously a lot of tears, years, me being like, what happened?

And yeah, it was like the day of that he called.

It was, it was really, really fresh.

But in the wake of that call, not the literal wake, I found that all of the complacency that I'd been dealing with beforehand just vanished.

Wow. Yeah. It was so, so weird. I mean, like sometimes perspective just happens like that, like, and it should never take a tragedy or the loss of somebody else to shock you into, into, you know, like getting back into action.

But I mean, that is what happened.

And so I start drawing and I start drawing this like picture for his funeral.

And I don't know, I realized that I hadn't actually drawn for a while, maybe like a year, like not probably.

Yeah. And it was strange cause like my mate who I lost, he was, you know, we had a band together for so long and we used to like make art together.

He was like someone like just one of my favorite creative collaborators that I've ever met and the feeling that I felt in that moment was not that he hadn't gone but that the place that we had been together the creative state bloom was still accessible and because it was accessible part of him was still accessible possible.

Yeah. But of course we can't ignore reality.

Like he did kill himself and that's the other side of it, which is doom.

And I mean, that's why I made the first sentence, what I did, which is suicide is a terrible place to start a book.

But if you're going to bring it up, when do you bring it up?

You know, like do you just wait until halfway through?

I didn't think that's right.

And so after writing those words, which was just after he died, I was like, all right, let's do this, you and me, bro.

And then I start typing and it all just sort of like came into clear view in the sense that like I started seeing self -destruction or suicide as the opposite of creativity in very kind of like literal ways.

Like, are you breaking something or or are you making something?

Whoa. Yeah. And so I pulled that thread and just kept extrapolating and out came a book.

There was a few things in between.

Oh my gosh. So the only thing I really liked is the doom and bloom of friendship because when someone passes away, it's like they were the greatest person to ever live.

There were no faults or no flaws, but you sort of revealed both imperfections of them and what that meant for your friendship and I loved that so much. Thank you, thank you.

I wasn't too sure and I like asked his mum a lot about it and we talked a lot about it.

I'm like, and she said she'd had the same feeling which was, you know, he was charm.

He was just walking charm.

He was so freaking magnetic.

I don't know, like closest personality archetype would be like almost like an Australian Casey Neistat.

he was just the most adventurous dude like always doing everything like he was the guy who showed me rock climbing for the first time and it wasn't on a wall hell no we're going out to the Blue Mountains today I'm like dude this is great yeah for context Casey Neistat is like a very famous YouTuber American guy who kind of was like the first guy to do like daily vlogs yeah and became really really successful thank you I was embarrassed to ask who that was true true true but he's always skateboarding everywhere for a zest for life yeah yeah yeah so yeah Yeah, that's probably like the easiest personality

comparison that I could make and it was like clear at the time.

So I wrote that but he also had so many demons and they came out in like the worst way possible, things like honestly womanising, like not in – I mean you can't justify it so I'm not going to and I put that in the book because he was so unfaithful to so many women and like every girl that, you know, he brought into our friendship group, like they were great.

They were awesome. And he just didn't treat them well at all.

Like, and I was like, what the, what's wrong with you, bro?

Like, why are you doing this?

And so I wanted to capture, I don't know, that he wasn't perfect because nobody's perfect.

And I mean, sometimes like death makes us want to talk about people as if they were the greatest person in the world.

But like nobody is.

You were talking about in the, in the, when he was alive, you understood that, but also wanted, he brought so much in you and you loved him so much and you loved him, his faults as well.

I did. Yeah. And I think like, you know, the question that somebody listening might have is why would you be friends with someone, even when you know faults like that?

And obviously there are faults that are greater than that and faults that aren't as great as that.

But to me, a lot of his faults, and maybe I'm being an apologist, who knows, you can blame me, not him.

Yeah. It seemed symptomatic because we had similar sort of wounds in childhood and the way that he dealt with them was not the way that I would deal with them.

But it, at least from what I saw, it was one plus one equals two for him.

You know, those things that he had been through had led him to act in ways that were so self -destructive and so destructive of the people around him and I think that was probably why I stayed friends with him.

Well, I mean that's probably I think like the truth, like clearly the truth is really important to you in everything you do and talk about and as we know, no one is perfect.

So when you see a perfect angel of a person portrayed, you're just like, well, they seem great but I cannot relate to that person in any way.

100 % and some, yeah, and yeah, when people do get sort sort of caricatured as these angels on the mountain, you're like, oh, man, I will never live up to that standard. But am I meant to be inspired now?

Like what are we doing here, guys?

Yeah. Incidentally, it's sort of a great name for a podcast, guys.

Oh, God. Yeah. So, yeah, I put his flaws in.

I talked about it with his mom, and she's like, yeah, I think that's the right thing to do, and his brother.

And if you're comfortable talking about this, you'd also had your own story around suicide as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Which you wrote about in the book.

I said you before in a unique way that I've never quite.

In a way, I've always thought with mental health stuff, I think why Ryan makes this podcast so incredible is like we talk about really heavy things and then Ryan makes us laugh.

And I think that's always been something I've tried to do with my mental health stuff is to have the really hard stuff surrounded by laughter because you just sort of need to.

I found myself laughing.

Your story around suicide was like, hang on, I was in a cafe giggling This is not what I'm meant to be doing right now But it was a pretty amazing story All the way you reflect on it is unique Yeah, I was thinking about it Because sometimes sob stories can get so Sobby Yeah, there it is So I decided to instead write it As if it was from the point of view of a movie critic But instead of criticising movies He criticised suicide And so it's all this pretentious language like oh wow oh what a pretentious attempt yeah and it was like the only truly suicidal aspect would be the audience as they inevitably

find something better to do with their time you know yeah so i thought that was funny and cheeky and i honestly didn't think the publishers would go for it but they were like hey that was fun leave that in i'm like yes but you had you had reached a point in your life at some point where that felt like that was the thing for you yeah like i would like to say that it was a turning point afterwards but that didn't come until much later you know which i think is sort of uh maybe a bit of a myth that somebody survives a suicide attempt and then they immediately get the perspective or the gratitude

that you know you might hear somebody in the story yet didn't happen i discovered drugs um after that oh yeah yeah baby yeah um big time uh and i was like oh now i don't feel so bad i mean i'd sort of discovered them before but i i like discovered probably addiction i guess i'm assuming this is like pre -youtube and pre -yeah yeah i was a teenager you're a teenager yeah okay how old 17 maybe okay so you discovered your own creativity your own ability to draw at this point yeah oh sort of like yeah I mean I drew so much as a kid and I really loved music like I was playing instruments all the while

so yeah I was definitely like quite creative but yeah it was just I don't know sometimes things get too much yeah yeah and yeah things just got too much and you were just so at the time I wasn't saying you went into after school you're gonna do astrophysics or you were going to like is that right yeah dude yeah yeah it was just like that's a course that very smart people do it's also a funny response like i can't imagine there'd be many people who did if you'd ask them so you did astrophysics and then that person says yeah dude like there won't be many astrophysics students going yeah dude it

just doesn't the two don't fit that much well at the time it was it was 2008 and um the lhc and cern had just opened up so what's that oh the large hadron collider all right yeah yeah and it was just super duper exciting and i was like reading about it every day i was like pretty fixated on it i'm like that's what i want to do it's going to be awesome and you know like obviously it seemed like brian cox who was a bit of a knockabout creative like you know rapscallion who had like ended up more or less like heading up that project and i was like oh it's possible i'm gonna do it and so i was I was quite

inspired by that and I wanted to, I don't know, I guess I just had dreams of finding the God particle.

Don't we all. And how long did that last for, astrophysics?

Until I discovered amphetamines.

Right. Okay. So it was drugs that took you away from?

Oh, God, yeah. Okay.

They're good at that.

Okay. Yeah. Which I'm not good at being a drug man.

What is? Hello, drug man.

It's like Spider -Man but he got bit by drugs he's just like super lazy and asks you for change It's like Hugh, you will never be an undercover cop Hello, I'm a drugman and I'm wondering where the other drugmen and women are so I can participate in the drugs with the other drugmen Drugs ahoy What drugs would I know as amphetamines?

I don't know. Speed, meth Okay.

Yeah, yeah. So you discovered those.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what purpose did it sort of fulfill for you when you discovered it?

It's so many, man. I mean, there's this Bill Hicks part, like line where he talks about like, oh, drugs aren't the answer.

And he's like, sometimes they are.

You know, sometimes you're a teenager star for significance and, you know, you want to escape.

Drugs kind of fill that hole.

It's like, it's not a mystery as to why kids gravitate towards drugs.

He's not saying it should be the answer.

He's just saying it is an answer.

We shouldn't shy away from it or from understanding why people do it.

I mean, I'd done drugs before this suicide attempt and stuff, but it was after that that I was like, oh, man, I can really escape.

I can really get out of my head right now.

And it was lovely. And also around the time, my family had just fallen below the Australian poverty line.

so drugs were also a bit of a financial answer for me so I was like oh well I'll just start selling drugs everybody wants drugs yeah get your drugs um sorry yeah you were the drug man I was the drug man yeah hi I can drug man yeah can I ask you a question about your sort of I guess I'm imagining a graph in my head of like from that moment on and if the x -axis is time and why is your sense of self and shame along that journey of drugs?

Yeah. Can I put a Z axis in?

Yeah. It's like dissociation.

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.

Not even touching it.

Yeah. Like, you know, don't mention the war, put the blindfold on, don't even look at myself.

It was that. But then there were moments where it all come crashing down.

And, yeah, there was – I suppose it was like when the drugs became harder drugs.

That was when it all became like a little bit more conflicty, I think.

Like both with myself and with the people that I lived with and, you know, ended up kind of living in, how do you put it?

Turmoil, personal turmoil unless I was high.

Yeah. And how long is this period of time from like when are we talking here?

Probably until I was about 20, I think.

So it's not a huge amount of time.

And then it was just casual drug use after that, like probably for the next like seven, eight, nine, 10 years or something.

But like the heavy kind of abuse stuff was all, yeah, late teens.

How do you go from the heavy use to casual use?

I haven't heard that story before.

Oh, yeah. I moved towns.

Yeah, so I had to get out.

Why did you have to get out?

Uh, firstly I was at university, but then I got kicked out on account of making money.

How could they, um, I got kicked out because of the drug.

Yeah. Yeah. And then also like, yeah, they were basically like, we know what you're doing and we're going to call the cops if you come back.

And I was like, all right, see ya.

Um, yeah. So I left and then my old habits do die hard. like casual, it wasn't like a, like the drop off of a reef, you know, like, you know, getting back into normality.

Like it was more of a taper, I would say.

And a lot of that taper for me was just, you know, still dissociating, but taking less and less hardcore stuff until, you know, I'm just a casual drinker like every other Australian.

Yeah. So I guess like that, Like, I don't know, taking steps.

Yeah. I won't endorse it or say that it's healthy.

I was just young and dumb.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think you have written about or talked about, and I think for a lot of people they become not the answer at a point.

It's drugs. Drugs, sorry, and stop being fun.

Can you talk to that?

Yeah, I think this is any compulsion or any addictive behavior or any kind of self -destructive behavior that you find yourself in.

So it could be drugs.

It could be scrolling on your phone.

it could be I don't know what's it what's another bad one gambling yeah we did it guys yeah yeah or like even like you know like complaining compulsively like or just like constantly finding faults like it could even be like a mental habit that you just absolutely want to stop doing these are things that start because they are fun in some sort of way whether they might be called fun by wider society is a different question but on some level they feel there's like like a, you know, there's a sneaky hit to like eating a bit of chocolate or like whatever it happens to be.

In the same way, there is, you know, an enjoyment about, you know, the ritual of getting drugs, the ritual of doing drugs, and then actually being high.

That doesn't come out of nowhere.

It starts because it feels good.

Now, at some point, it stops.

At some point, it just stops being fun, but that isn't the point when you stop doing it.

And that is basically textbook how how these things become self -destructive habits unfortunately there is an insidious thing that happens afterwards and that is it tries to hide itself as something that is occasionally fun so like i'll use i'll do a few examples but like drugs will disguise themselves as really fun after they've stopped being fun by you know like it'll be a mate's birthday party you'll all be having a really good time you're like ah see it was fun it was just a set and setting before but it's like we've conflated two things what you're actually finding fun is the company of people

that you love what you're actually finding fun is everybody coming together and celebrating there are drugs but that's not the reason they're fun in fact sometimes it's the thing that actually detracts from them or like scrolling on your phone right like you know content awesome how good and then like at some point content stops being fun and it starts being a problem and it's derailing your life and you're like oh my god i'm losing six hours a day i'm I'm staring at my screen more than I'm doing anything else.

And I'm, you know, feeling myself actively getting dumber.

I'm losing my ability to think critically.

I know that all of my thoughts are being influenced by big tech. Oh, but I saw something pretty funny the other day.

And it's like, you could see that funny thing anywhere, you know.

Oh, but I saw something inspiring.

It's like inspiring stuff is all around us.

Like, I don't know, you go to the library and you'll still be able to get that thing.

So it's, yeah, I think.

It's such a good example with scrolling.

It is the trick of those platforms that often we do say, like, oh, I know it's not good, but it's funny.

Like, I just like the funny videos.

It's like, yeah, yeah, but what about the rest of it?

Yeah, it's complete.

It's like, yeah, just textbook justification.

I mean, you see it everywhere.

It's like, no, he's not a cult leader.

He's just a really charismatic guy who I follow and worship, and I guess I'll carry out some crimes.

I actually like Kool -Aid.

I actually like drinking it.

I think the other thing about content addiction is what it masquerades itself as which it does almost better than any other kind of addiction which is like I personally get hooked pretty easily on political content and the news and then I'll tell myself I'm informed or like if I'm going down another rabbit hole I'm like no no no I need this for work I need to know what's going on I need to understand the culture I need to feel the vibe like, no, I don't.

No, I need my brain, dude.

Yeah. Yeah. There was a, there was a pretty, like a couple of years ago, I got rid of my smartphone and I didn't have, didn't have a smartphone.

I used like a flip phone and that's right.

Yeah. On the Adam Grant one, you mentioned it.

Oh, right. Yeah. True.

Yeah. Um, and, and I, and I wasn't looking at, at Instagram or any social media for most of the day.

How did you know how to hate yourself?

Well, yeah, I had to relearn that um excuse me barista can you take your shirt off and flex thanks dude i just want to really hate my body for a bit yeah well get an analog you know there was one moment where someone mentioned whatever flash in the pan cultural moment was happening of the day and said like oh didn't you hear about the i can't remember what it was like the dolphin in wearing the underpants didn't didn't you hear about the dolphin in your underpants like no i know i haven't you haven't seen the dolphin in the underpants video you haven't seen it i was like no i haven't seen it everyone's

talking about it yeah and i was like i haven't checked instagram and they're like how do you know when things happen like if you're not checking like they were genuinely concerned that i was like disconnected from the world and i was like well i do know you just told me if you just told me about the most important thing of the day i don't feel like i need to to see it, but at least I know about it.

And it was kind of this really interesting thing of like the cream rises to the top.

If it's really that important, someone will tell you about it.

You might be like two hours late.

Oh, God forbid. God forbid, but you will hear about it in some way.

I'm so curious as how you would go from, so the casual use and then to this man who is completely sober and at his creative best and now to be helping like 50 million people is unbelievable.

Unbelievable. Thank you.

So how do you get to that?

Overnight, actually.

Yeah. Always the way.

Yeah. Good question.

I don't know. I think my wife played a massive role.

I met her in Woolies.

Shout out Woolies. Did you really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. On Valentine's Day.

Really? What happened?

We were just shopping.

Really? Yeah. I got game, bro.

yeah so yeah we started talking and then just got on like a house on fire you know neck minute two kids but the support and love that she brought to my life and also her family like her wider family brought so much love into my life man wow yeah that was just so beautiful i don't know meeting like her twin brother who was the first person to recommend me you actually um yeah really really?

Yeah, full circle. Yeah.

Yeah. And meeting like her other, her other brother and her other, and her sister and then like her mum and dad, they're like the loveliest, loveliest people.

They're just so warm and open and just, just like a happy bunch of people.

I love them, man. Yeah.

And just, I don't know, like the acceptance and the love I felt there, not saying that I didn't have acceptance and love, you know, anywhere anywhere else, but just like the more avenues you have, the more you can sort of start to like, not feel like you're caught in a rip.

So that was really, really beautiful.

Yeah. Powerful. Wow.

That's, that's beautiful.

That metaphor is really beautiful.

That like, so a sense of stability that comes with that sort of love.

Yeah. So how did she, like, how much did you share with her at that point about like what your previous like three, four years?

Oh, we shared everything.

Like there was no reason to keep secrets.

it's we just loved each other and how how did she respond to all that curious yeah curiosity love like all the it was easy yeah yeah I think maybe what was on our side was the lack of discernment that you have in your early 20s that sort of stuff and everything that you do get told you're like cool cool cool but also like the things that I'm articulating now I have the benefit of time and also the benefit of, you know, that sort of like being part of my career, learning how to articulate that stuff.

So me telling you about my life now did not sound like me telling her about my life then.

It was like, oh, and then I did this and yeah, yeah.

Fuck, do you want to get chips?

Yeah. Of course. That makes sense.

Chicken salad. Yeah.

so where so where are you at creatively at this time you're in love now and you've traveled the world and what like what's happening creatively for you i had tried to get a job in advertising and i was successful unfortunately and yeah ended up working advertising for a while my belief was that advertising would be a creative career and so i'm like yeah this is great i'll get paid to have ideas no corporate so corporate so dry it's like a cover band of creativity you know what i I mean, yeah.

Yeah. I worked in advertising.

Whereabouts? I worked at an agency, a little boutique agency in South Yarra for a couple of years.

I did film at uni and then was told in the first lecture, this was 2005.

They're like, well, don't forget it.

It's a hard course to get into, but there's no jobs in the industry, so good luck, basically.

And that was like the first lecture, and they're like, well, fuck.

And three years later, GFC.

Well, yeah. Yeah, three.

Exactly. It was smack bang on the GFC.

I was offered a job through a friend at an ad agency and I was like, great, a job.

That's huge. So, I took the job and they were really nice people and I'm still close to the people that run that agency.

They're really great people, but the work and the whole advertising industry really, I lost a couple of years in that and I was like, I can't do this anymore.

Also, because I was placed in it and I'd love your perspective on this actually.

The way that the advertising industry divides people into you're creative and you're not and I was put in the knot basket.

It's a bit like Boss Baby.

You ever seen Boss Baby?

I haven't seen it, no. So the lore of Boss Baby is that there's all these babies and some of them will get born and put into Earth and then the other ones will become Boss Babies and they run the factories that create the babies.

And that's how you bring up Boss Baby in a mental health podcast. But that was, it is kind of like, yeah, advertising, where it's like you go into account services, you go into creativity.

creativity yeah and i was originally put into accounts because i was like part of a grad program type thing and then within three months they're like you're really bad at accounts and then someone else is like but you seem pretty creative so got roped into the creative thing and i was like yeah this is great this is awesome that's actually not that bad yeah yeah i'm getting paid to be creative yeah yeah yeah absolutely and i had an amazing creative director like yeah who i don't know you know those people you meet them for a season of your life and then all of their lessons just stay with you.

Yeah. And like the depth of their wisdom becomes formative regardless of how much time you spent with them.

That was my creative director.

He was a guy called Dave Martin and he was just, I don't know, shaped the way that I treat creativity in so many ways.

The main way being treating creativity the way that you would maybe treat a sport.

It's something that you can train for.

It's something that you can, you know, know set up conditions for to make yourself better it is something that you can you know use various techniques if you're stuck like i remember one he would always do like if we're ever stuck on an idea he'd be like oh well what would nike do or what idea would get you fired you know and have all these like various little like reframing techniques anytime that you got in a mental rut and they all just stuck with me that's really cool i love that everything you've talked about there because i for whatever reason picked up this idea in life at some point that that they're

creative people and they're not creative people.

Boss baby. Boss baby, yeah.

And that, yeah, there are things you can sort of do to get a little bit more creative, but you're only creative if your output is judged to be great by other people.

Yeah, or if it fits a very specific set of executions.

Yeah. Can you talk about the value of being creative just for yourself?

Oh, I think that's everything.

I think there is value in sharing your creativity with people.

And some of it is, you know, the material value, obviously, you know, like and feeling recognition and like feeding the soul that way.

And a lot of it is the connection that you form with people.

You know, like what I was talking about with my mate who died, where it's like you get into a creative state and you can take people there and it's sort of like a bit of a relief from the angst that we all feel all the time.

But I feel when you are creating for yourself, you are macro dosing that, you know, you're just getting into that state where a lot of the usual day to day stuff can sort of fade to the background.

It doesn't mean that those problems don't exist or those problems aren't important.

It means that you're recharging your batteries in order to deal with those problems later.

Well, it's, I mean, I think the, what that makes me think about is something that I heard someone say somewhere, and this is a problem now, cause we see so many things that it's hard to kind of like give a source to we many historians yeah someone said can we stop turning our creative activities into side hustles because it's like there's this sort of temptation now that when we love doing something or we're good at something then we should make start a business or we should like start a store on instagram and make money out of it somehow but in my experience The moment money is introduced into

creativity in whatever way that might be, it might be you're hoping to sell ads on your YouTube channel or get lots of views so you can make money or sell a product or whatever it is, it immediately changes the environment and the experience of the creativity because you're, and you've spoken about this a little little bit in terms of the external world and the inner world.

And that's something that I've always found really tricky to do because as soon as you find something that really connects with you creatively, of course, it's natural to go like, I want to do this all the time.

And in order to be able to do something all the time, it kind of has to be your job for a lot of people.

Yeah. I think the way that I get around that is by understanding creativity in in two separate buckets kind of what you were alluding to which is there's heaping sand towards the middle and then there's the shaping of the sand castle right so you've got like all of the stuff where you are just free associating and you're being creative it's all about your inner world it's all about synthesizing taking things in and just i don't know like starting to create something but not with any inhibitions not with any editing and then you've got the part where you sculpt it and the sculpting is inherently

external you know this is how you are shaping your ideas when you say external do you mean like you're doing it for someone else yes yeah yeah yeah because that's that's what i think creativity ultimately is you know like it's like a handshake like somebody else has to be there to receive it you know it's just another way to talk to people it's like poetry it's like whatever the words are the emotions hit you before you've even understood them.

Yeah. And to state the obvious is what you mean, I know, but that might be you're into pottery and that might be like, you might give that bowl to someone and it's like the audience could be one person.

It could, absolutely.

Or it could be like Seth Rogen.

It could be all of us.

You seen his pottery?

Oh yeah. It's so pretty.

Yeah. Go off King. That's great.

Yeah. But yeah, I mean like in the case of that, we'll use that as the example.

So you've made something beautiful and you've put whatever it is into it and defining that is probably like a useless venture.

Cause it's like, who knows, but when you give it to somebody, they can feel it.

And I think that's kind of beautiful.

But if you were to give them the lump of clay before it was finished, they'd be like, Oh cool, man.

Thank you. That's um, that exists.

Yeah. So I think, yeah, like shaping something and actually refining it and then thinking about it from other people's perspectives and you're like, okay, like what would Josh want?

Like, how would this go?

How could I better make this functional?

And you know, like just making, polishing.

I mean, you could, another sort of metaphor, I guess, is the difference between if you're thinking of buying a present for someone, there's the creativity of thinking about what you want to buy for that person, or you just give them cash.

And it's like cash is good, but you don't really feel the connection with the person who gives it to you.

Whereas if someone gives you a gift that that they've, like, it's like, oh, this is perfect for me.

You've obviously put a lot of thought into it.

It's a creative act.

And that's a, you know, a lot of people say that they're not creative, but that is a way of being creative.

Oh, man, creativity is everywhere.

And I know how that sounds to people who are, like, allergic to, like, aphorisms like that.

Like, they're like, shut up, guy.

But, like, it really is.

It's like every single thing that you can look at was created.

You know, the tables, the microphones, the people, all of us.

you just can't get away from it yep because I always for some reason my auto response is no I'm not a creative person but I have created a lot of things and when I do it's the most so the example I have from yesterday is where I didn't realize being creative so my son two old son always says favorite thing when we all say our favorite thing to happen and my favorite thing I didn't say this to them because I always make it involve them but my favorite thing was actually I had to send four emails yesterday So it was the same email to four different people.

And I was going to cut and paste it because it would have taken me one minute.

I went, no, no, I'm actually going to spend an hour sending you a very unique and quirky email to all these four people on the same topic.

And it took an hour, but it was actually my favorite part of the day.

And then in my head when I was answering the question of like, oh, picking you guys up from school was my favorite thing.

In my head I was like, no, it's actually writing those emails.

And I was only listening to you then say it's everywhere.

I was like, oh, no, I was being creative.

I mean, you're doing it right now.

You're making a podcast. Yeah.

I love that Can I ask, this is a little non -sequitur to what he was just talking about but I'm looking at the book and I am thinking about some of the tough stuff is probably saying it incredibly mildly that you've been through in your life and I think it's a difficult area because I don't want to negate or romanticise tragedy or hardships but But how do you view your life as a way to, like how do you create out of pain, I guess?

And is there opportunity to do so?

Yeah, because what's the other option?

Pain wins. And I think it's, I mean, it's out of necessity as well because if that's all you got, it's like, I don't know, I think the metaphor that I use in the book is being surrounded by shit.

yeah um yeah and it's like well if you were surrounded by on a farm you'd find a way to turn it into fertilizer if you're surrounded by in life you kind of want to end up doing the same thing otherwise it's just going to suck and i think there are many things that you can do in that situation and i don't have any expectation that anybody should turn turn it into creativity or should turn it into growth.

But it is, as shit is, the most potent fuel if it's processed correctly.

There is like one analogy that I kind of like from that chapter that was probably super relevant to the idea of pain, and that is, do you guys know about Biosphere 2?

Not the Pauly Shaw movie?

Then no. No, I have a vague, I can't explain it, but I have heard about it, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So it was a massive project that was in, I want to say, Arizona, wherein people, a bunch of scientists, whoever, were basically trying to replicate the conditions of Earth, but in this biosphere.

And the reason they called it Biosphere 2 was because Earth was Biosphere 1.

Now some of the implications of this would be like, oh, cool, if we find out exactly how we can make a biosphere that's detached from our current ecosystem, could we not do it on the moon?

Could we not do it on Mars?

But one of the things that they found was that, yes, yes they could grow trees and the trees would grow very very very very fast but the trees would also come down very very fast and the reason was the trees didn't have enough storms so a tree in nature it gets hit by storms it gets hit by like rain and what happens it grows slower than the other trees but its roots expand its roots fill out so it is able to weather all those storms it's Resilient.

Absolutely. That's such a cool analogy.

Isn't it? Wow. So you're talking about that in terms of pain, in terms of that you become more resilient to things because you've gone through all this stuff.

Theoretically, yeah.

Like I understand that some people go through things and the things win, obviously.

but it is also seeing the pain as the most potent way to gain resilience because it's actually playing on the field.

You mentioned quite powerfully that it's not like the movies.

Well, it wasn't for you as far as having a turning point after a suicide attempt of going down a different path.

what was it and how like when was it after I don't know if there was a turning point it's the same thing with sobriety you know people have this myth of rock bottom that they have to hit and because they have that myth they hold on to it as opposed to changing there were definitely many moments where it should have been a turning point you know where I got sectioned for example which is when you get locked up into mental health jail um and I should have had it then or you know like Like when I had friends overdose and die, it should have been then, whatever it happens to be.

But I find Turning Points to be so much more mundane than the movies make them out to be.

There's no romantic.

No. It's honestly an everyday battle.

It's the same thing however you feel about AA, but the way that AA says it's 24 hours at a time.

And I think sometimes holding onto the myth that there will be a moment when clarity hits you, you have the epiphany and you go, yeah, I'm different now, like that's just not going to come.

And the sooner that you can accept that, the sooner you can actually start to mend brick by brick.

Is there a moment when you look back and go, oh, I am different now?

There are a few. So, yeah, until I completely contradict what I just said.

No, I don't think it's a contradiction.

I think it's like a different, it's a different story.

But I feel like there's, like I haven't gone through what you've gone through but there's been epiphanies in my life where it's not like some like i was going down a path of behavior or internal thought um that was not good or a pattern of behavior and it's not like i reached a point and exactly as you said like i'm going in a new path now and i'm going to be a new person but i have had an experience of thinking oh shit i I haven't done that in a long time.

Yeah. Yeah. Can I get specifics on the example?

Well, I drank a lot too much in my 20s.

Yeah. And that led me to, it wasn't, sorry, it's a complicated thing, as you would understand, but that was mixed up in a cocktail, to use the right metaphor, of depressive thinking and really aggressively negative self -talk, which led to a general cynicism about the world and the people in it, which I think plagued me for a lot longer than I realised.

It was kind of the air I was breathing without knowing.

And then after a series of things like making this show, having kids to be the main thing, drinking a lot less, I kind of realised I haven't thought like that in a while.

And that feels good.

That's really interesting.

the idea of just yeah unconsciously your life gets better and then you realize i'm very familiar with that in the other direction okay i realized the other day i haven't gone to the gym in like a year um but the sobriety thing that actually is probably one of the few examples that i have other than you know obviously before like my mate dying uh that i do have of like an actual turning point okay and that's because i tried to architect a turning point so many times before but it wasn't until I really truly felt the shame of all of those failed attempts that I actually got there.

I think I've been making really like five out of 10 attempts at, at sobriety for a while, but it wasn't until I became a dad that the impact became clear.

And it was, I guess like there was a bit of a mundanity to it on the last day that I ever drank, but there was also a bit of weight to it.

It was the anniversary of my wife's mom's death and also my wife's dad's birthday.

They fall on the same weekend.

Very emotional. 1000 % not about me.

Now we went up there and I was going through some stuff of my own and somebody brought out a beer.

I hadn't really been drinking that much until I became a dad.

But at some point, a friend of mine who I really respect, he's like, oh man, you ever just have like a beer to take the edge off?

He does not have an addictive personality, but he does have a lot of authority in my life.

So I was like, oh, well, if he can do it, I'm going to do it.

Just completely forgetting that we're not the same person.

So those words were the way that I justified it to myself.

And I'll drink a little little bit here and there, but you know, I've, whatever that bug is where it's like, you can only control the first drink, I've got that bug.

Yeah. And on this particular day, I, yeah, just had a drink, had another drink, had another drink until it all went to my head.

And I just made an absolutely like shameful display of myself in front of people I really, really love.

of like my wife's whole family on a day of, you know, celebration and mourning and a day when we like, you know, there are a million reasons why I should be taking a backseat on that day.

Meanwhile, I'm also like just showing how irresponsible I am as a parent.

And so it's like whatever faith you would have in me to like, you know, like look after my wife or look after my daughter is just, yeah, it's like disappearing one beer at a time.

So like the shame, obviously it wasn't there while I was drinking, but when I woke up, it all hit me very, very, very hard. And there's this question that I had learnt about, a reframing question, which I've said a lot on YouTube because I think it's so powerful if it's used correctly, and that is how is this the best thing that has ever happened to me?

Like in a bad moment.

Yeah, how is the worst thing that's ever happened to you the best thing that's ever happened to you?

you know, which kind of comes back to what we were talking about, about pain and gathering all that pain into one spot and the, you know, trying to turn it into something.

And the idea is there might not actually be an answer, but the idea is that your brain can come up with an answer.

If you ask the question, it's like when you hold onto a belief too tightly and asking yourself, you know, what evidence would change my mind?

It's like, you know, that you can answer that question, but sometimes you just have to ask it.

So sitting there in shame and a a hangover i was like all right screw it i'll roll the dice i'll ask this stupid fucking question and i was like how is this all this shame or like this gigantic headache how is this the best thing ever happened to me and the only answer i had was well it would actually to be the best it would have to be the last time i ever drank and it was wow yeah wow that's a tp what's a the turning point ah that that story also reminds me of the way that you from what i've seen you talk about on youtube and perfectionism and the 70 rule uh which i i'd never heard before i think

you came up with it basically i i would have heard it somewhere okay right well i think it's really interesting because you talk about it in in well first of all you start talking about it in terms of creativity but then you talk about it in terms you mentioned sobriety as and it can be applied to many things.

Do you mind just explaining the 70 % rule?

Yeah. And I'd also like to make an edit on that because I think it does work for some things, but it doesn't work for other things.

And sobriety was actually one of those things that I think I called too early in that video.

It turns out I need to abstain or I cannot.

Yeah. But in terms of creativity, I like the idea of a 70 % rule.

So what it is basically is saying, don't make make things perfect, make things at least above 70%.

Like aim for 70%. Aim for 70 % or like once you pass the 70 % mark, feel okay to publish it and just get used to that.

And it's not saying make mediocre work.

It's saying be okay with your work once it hits the point of you're okay with other people seeing it or once it hits at least a passing grade or better than a passing grade, like a good grade on its impact in the world.

Everything else you do after that is polish but knowing that you've at least answered the question, at least answered the brief of whatever it is that you were setting out to do means that all of that polish feels good and that you can at least upload it at some point and not, you know, like get to the point of diminishing returns where you over -polish it until it no longer exists and, yeah, like kill all the magic from it.

I like that in terms of creativity because it means that I don't hold on to my projects forever.

whatever. I like it in terms of things like the gym or things like running, like the weather doesn't have to be perfect before I start, or, you know, I don't have to absolutely feel like it, or I don't have to do a full workout.

So it just lowers the bar to entry, which sometimes is the actual entry, just feeling like there is a barrier to the entry.

And then when you actually start, you're like, Oh no, this is fine.

This is fine. Whatever it happens to be.

Going to the gym is a good example or any sort of like personal goal you set yourself because it's those sorts of things which are kind of hard and you require consistency or discipline or something.

and if you set yourself a goal of I'm going to go to the gym three times a week and then you do it for two or three weeks and then on the fourth week you only go once or you don't go and then you kind of tell yourself well I'm a failure because I didn't do it perfectly.

Absolutely. And then you just give it up.

To accept the 70 % rule it's like well I haven't gone this week but I've gone 75 % of the other weeks that I started so I'm not a failure.

I love that. Yeah and I mean whatever number works for you but I like, I think 70 % just being like a bit of a mnemonic for, you don't have to fall into an all or nothing mindset.

I have been trying to commit to doing like breath.

Well, I haven't committed to anything, but I found breath work to be really helpful for me when I've been going through a bit of, um, some stuff recently and it's been a real game changer for me.

And I've been doing it every day and I sort of got to a point of like, or a few times a day on some days.

And I got to a point where I'm like, all right, I'm going to have to do this every morning and night and I was doing it this morning.

I just didn't like it.

I was like five minutes in.

I'm like, this is not, this is, I don't want to do this.

So I just turned it off and listened to a song instead.

And every time in the past, I would have gone like, you're such a fucking failure.

This is the beginning of the end.

You're not going to be able to do it anymore.

And this whole negative voices coming in would come in.

But today I was like, no, I'm allowed to just not like it one day and just stop.

And that doesn't mean I'm a failure.

I didn't do it it perfectly but yeah give give myself a break it's above 70 i guess yeah um so thank you so you talk about the ways of processing pain and hardship and one of your videos on youtube which is just incredible is how to journal and and the role journaling has played in your life we have a journal uh with our podcast where we take out moments of inspiration and it's just a question, purple answer on the journal from different episodes.

It's called My Imperfect Life.

And I think there's probably a link in the show notes now.

Yeah, we can probably buy them.

Yeah, you can buy them right now.

Okay, I misheard you for like a brief second.

Instead of hearing My Imperfect Life, I heard Mine Perfect Life.

Like it's like a Mein Kampf joke.

And I'm like, that doesn't feel tonally correct.

No, it is a different category than Mein Kampf.

So I'd love to hear from you.

you, journaling has been a big part of, I think, the Resilience Project journey for many years now as well.

So journaling for you, what are the ways to journal and what does it do?

Yeah. So I'll start with how I believe journaling works or how I've felt journaling work in my own life.

And that is you have stuff in your head and it can be stored in your head or it can be stored on paper.

And paper is so finite, it's so flimsy.

You could burn it if you want.

I'm not telling you to burn it, but it's there.

You can see it. Your head, everything has these big big echoes it's like you're standing in a gigantic cave and somebody's just whistling constantly and you're like oh my god it's never going to be quiet but then when you actually like isolate whatever that thing is it's just a whistle yeah it's like a little bird man yeah so what I see journaling as is like an indexing uh function where it's like I'm taking all of these ruminating thoughts and I'm putting them somewhere else storing them and I'm signaling to my brain that it does not it no longer has to carry them because it has put them somewhere almost

like a like a storage locker somewhere, which I mean, that's how computers work, right?

It's like, yeah, you don't use a supercomputer to store files, use it to compute, use it to process.

I think our heads ought to work in the same way.

I don't know. Maybe.

I don't know. But yeah, what you do then, like, you know, so that's like a mind dump.

Right. And more or less mind dump.

I'm so fucking sorry.

Yeah. So like, you know, I broadly see like journaling in two styles.

So you've got mind dump.

You've got like this free kind of like free flow.

There are no guardrails.

Just get everything out of your head and put it somewhere that isn't your head so you can actually use your head.

And then the second one is guided journaling.

And sometimes it can come first if you don't quite know or if mind dumping isn't coming naturally to you or sometimes it can come second.

So once you have everything there, you can take little bits and start asking these little questions questions almost like uh almost like yeah processing them we take our uh big pile of shit metaphor and turning it into fertilizer this is like sending worms on it you know what i mean processing them opening a freaking can of worms in your journal you know and so you ask these questions in order to see things from a different perspective and once it's all outside your head you're not weighed down by the echoes of the big cave up here and you can't actually start to make sense of it.

It's like, I don't know.

So many writers are attributed with this quote, but I'll give it to Joan Didion.

It's like, I don't know what I think until I write it.

That's cool. Yeah. I've recently started doing this, experimenting with this journaling thing, which I came up with and then I looked it up and it turns out that lots of people do it.

So it's an existing thing, but I feel like I came up with it because I hadn't seen those things yet.

That's me and the iPhone, bro.

That's mine. Yeah. Same.

Yeah, oh, you too. Now, what is it?

So, I've started writing letters to myself.

Oh, cool. So, I'll literally write a letter, like handwritten, and I literally write dear me.

Oh, cool. And so, I write dear me, and then I will, in the same way that I imagine, I've never had like a pen pal, but in the same way that you would have like a handwritten letter pen penpal where you're like kind of updating each other on your life and where you're at and then asking the other person like how's this thing going how's this thing so i do that with myself so i will write a letter like this like and i'll write as if i'm talking to someone else but the someone else is me in a week so i'll be saying like oh i'm really nervous about this i'm really nervous about this thing that's happening

today i don't know how it's going to go um but blah blah blah blah so I'll write all that and then also say like um how did the dinner go because it's future me oh I love that so then in a week when I get the letter back I'm like I've now wait do you actually send them oh yeah oh my gosh I love this I send them and then I put literally in the post post them in the mailbox what and then I receive them and I'm like oh yeah I get to open a letter so I open a letter and I'll read the letter that I wrote a week ago go maybe or whenever it was and the stuff that i was really worried about a week ago

i realized like well maybe that oh that was fine yeah that event that i was really nervous about actually was fine and so then i'll write back and said actually it went really really well blah blah blah blah so i'm i've written like three now and it is awesome wow it is so it's so much fun getting getting a letter.

And I also realized that it was like in Mr. Bean, in one of the Mr. Bean episodes, there was, he'd written himself Christmas cards.

He had like Christmas cards to himself.

So I'm Mr. Bean. I also like what letters do to you because they make you have to zoom out because you're like, oh, what has been going on?

And you do have to reflect.

It's almost like, you know, when you look at like a little graph, like a stock graph or whatever it happens to be, and you go like order by one day and it's like going everywhere.

Then you zoom out by five years and you're like, oh, that is a consistently steady upward line.

I find letters give me that same sort of zooming out process.

It's quite beautiful.

What other most excellent things are you doing and not telling us about?

Nothing else. I'm so keen to talk about YouTube, if we're up to that part of the story, because that is the way that most people know of you.

you have over a million subscribers on your YouTube channel.

You are by far one of the biggest YouTubers in Australia, I would say.

And it just feels like it's a world that you can stumble across these creators who have these huge audiences and sort of what feels like infinite freedom when it comes to creativity.

And I don't know if that's necessarily the case.

Like I've spent most of my working life in commercial television and radio and now we've got a podcast. I feel like this podcast, at least when it started, it was like, well, this can be anything we want.

And now it's a thing and it can't be anything every week.

But at the start, you're like, well, we can just create whatever we want.

And then you do. But like on YouTube, what is that experience like?

like? Well, firstly, I want to ask about you saying the difference between creative, whatever you want at the start of this podcast and what it is now.

Do you have a preference as to what you like to do?

Well, that's a really interesting question.

I actually do. I think I would prefer, I prefer parameters.

Yeah. Well, that's, um, come back to, uh, advertising.

David Ogilvie said it, you know, give me the freedom of a tight brief.

Yeah. I mean, I'm the same.

So how do you be your your own creative director, I guess.

Great question. So right now I am currently on my own self -imposed brief, which I've called my alphabet superset.

And that is the idea of creating 26 videos, each about a topic that starts with a different letter, actually up to why.

So yeah, video 25, we'll be ending that soon.

So you asking that question is a question that I've been been preparing to ask myself, because having this brave for the past year or two has been really nice because when you can do absolutely anything, it'd be like, if I gave you a piece of paper and a pencil and then just sat there, nothing would happen.

Maybe you'd doodle.

If I said on the top of it, draw an elephant wearing a hat, you'd be like, all right, bang.

And what the big difference is there isn't the fact that you've drawn an elephant with a hat.

It's the the time it took to get started because when you have a starting point when that starting point is defined you don't waste all of that time like staring at the you know the blinking cursor and being like ah it's perfect in my head wave and taint that beautiful blank page the beauty of the alphabet for me has been I think I know what it is that I like to do like I like to explore lot of topics and i like to see how they relate to mental health and i like to see how they relate to creativity but being able to have you know just like take out so many options actually like makes the one option just

a whole lot easier it's like um it's like that uh old uh journalism adage where they're like the bigger the story the smaller you tell it if you're telling a story about a war start with you know like soldier yeah or even smaller start start with like you know some shoes, like, you know, a child's shoes that are, like, sitting on top of some rubble and go from there.

I know, sorry, that was pretty heavy.

No, no, you made me think of exactly how...

I don't know if you've seen...

Have you seen the recent version of All Quiet on the Western Front?

No. Oh, well, you predicted how it starts.

Oh, really? How it starts with soldiers' clothes.

It's that same thing, isn't it?

It's this, like, sequence that just hits you, like, so hard. They even found it in advertising, not to like take a cynical look at charities um but you know i think it was oxfam who put out the research when when they talked about big numbers of people who were suffering they didn't i don't remember the actual data but i do remember what came on top they didn't get nearly nearly as many donations as when they just talked about one person of that because it's like people want people they relate to it and then you can start applying the statistics and the greater numbers afterwards but you know

people need a gateway into caring yeah can i on on um creating for youtube as someone who's probably to be honest probably has an unhealthy addiction to youtube oh yeah um that is plagued me for i reckon since i first saw it i was like yeah you're like me at the zoo yeah yeah i've wasted i've looked at i've seen some life -changing things in there and i've wasted hours and hours and hours but one thing that i find interesting is how there are so many new possibilities but everything's starting to look the same and how do you create in a world where everything just seems to be all the all the colors

are mixing into brown yeah that's a great question i mean immediately i think of uh the canadian media theorist marshall mccluhan okay um yeah i've heard the name yeah he's the he's the famous medium as the message guy okay yeah and so like he basically predicted the internet in the 1960s like this guy is a i don't know i'm a bit of fanboy.

But the way that he saw media was that whatever you have, it's always going to conform to the requirements of the way that you give it to somebody.

So if you have something on YouTube, there is always going to be a message.

It doesn't matter what the video is.

There is always going to be subtext of, you need to click this.

You need to watch to the end.

This is urgent. I need your click more than, you know, any other video needs this click.

And so like you could be looking at the most innocent content you could be looking at you know or like even healthy content like mental health content but all of it will still have the message the underlying message of youtube somewhere in it yeah and so it's like at the end of consuming all of this stuff there's still that bitter aftertaste of oh man but the world is kind of homogenized and people are all vying for attention and the internet is kind of cooking us and that's no fault of anybody using that system it just is and that's, you know, and like your best bet is to see how much you can divorce

the message from the medium.

But ultimately it's like, that's also how people create.

Right. And I think, I mean, that's also why I love books because like the signals that a book sends to you as you read it is this is worth my time.

And this is still, this doesn't have a screen.

there are no ads in a book pretty cool yeah yeah yeah yeah right yeah um yeah and uh even I think like one of the most beautiful intangible benefits of a book is because you spend time with it you know there's like book summary services yeah one thing that I think that they miss out on is the fact that ideas do have to marinate and you have to sit with ideas for like a week or or even longer, you know, like a month, in order to start to see those patterns and absorb them.

Because if you, you know, read like, you know, the 10 -minute summary of whatever it happens to be, that's not the point.

The point is to actually internalise the lessons.

Yeah, mum always used to say, I don't know if she ever said this to you, but she said this to me, she was like, it doesn't matter if you're not quite getting the book at the start, but get to the end of it because you'll be a different person at the end.

Whoa. while yeah but my engagement with books is like terrible and i and but my engagement with like youtube is quite high and i and i think i'm and this is not offensive to you i have to don't take offense i think i'm poorer for it yeah man i i yeah i don't think you're alone in in that assessment yeah youtube interestingly is the only social platform that if we count you know snapchat chat, Instagram, TikTok, all of them, that reliably leaves people less drained to the positive.

So yeah, can't remember where the data's from.

And I hate to misremember facts on a podcast, but here we are.

But yeah, every other social media will leave people like reliably drained.

Whereas YouTube does tend to leave people with a better experience.

That said, it pales in comparison to, you know, what you know would make you happy and what you know, like exactly what your mom said, like you'll be a different person at the end of this.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so your videos on YouTube, everything's getting shorter and shorter.

Like the, the videos that people are watching under 30 seconds now, and that's what captures people's attention.

Your incredible videos will go for 24 minutes, 28 minutes.

They're, they're into the twenties, but people do watch your videos.

They watch them all the way through.

For me, I went to a very big Campbell hole That sounds weird That's awesome Sick Call me A Campbell shaped rabbit hole Yeah, cool Over the last week And I've watched all your videos And I wasn't even paying attention to the time I wasn't thinking what else should I be doing I was so fascinated in it I don't think there's a question well i can i mean thank you there you go i think sort of what your your experience you i think is brought so many people would experience and and the way that you described this i think it was in your creativity is dead video um and you had a health scare oh yeah i

did too yeah what was it oh yeah yeah um yeah i'll talk you through it yeah i had really severe anemia um so just a sort sort of like untreated blood loss that had been going on for a while.

And it resulted in one day, like, you know, me standing up and then just falling straight down.

So I go to emergency, long story short, my hemoglobin level was 66, which it should be about, is basically off the chart.

So if you imagine a chart, your normal hemoglobin for like a person, like an adult male would be like about 140.

40 and what the role of it is doctors get me in the comments.

What the role of it is, is it transports oxygen to all the various parts in you.

So if you don't have enough, you don't have enough oxygen in various parts, you get really sleepy.

You get really like irritated.

Uh, you know, uh, there's not enough blood going around your system.

So I get there and it was one of those things where like, when I got to the AD, you know, you know, when you can just sort of of gauge how serious something is by the way that a trained doctor reacts to you yeah so like I stood up and you know like in the ED she's like no no no no no like took one look and then just comes back with a wheelchair she's like in I'm like all right dude yeah so yeah we go and then it's like the only thing worse than that is bringing another doctor in to have a look oh my god Gary check this out that's so true that's so true so yeah we'll check Gary brings in Karen

you're like far out out, man.

And she brings in Molly.

We actually got some students here and we'd like them to see this.

Yeah. So like next, next thing I know, I'm getting like, you know, five units of blood basically pumped into my body, which was so strange because you don't realise how sick you are when you don't have blood.

And like, there are a few signs, I think when I got to hospital, like they, I'd never done this before, but they made me sleep at an angle.

So all the blood would stay in my head.

So like with my head down and they're like, no, you got to.

I'm like, cool. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Like a bat.

Like a semi bat. Yeah.

Yeah. A little bat.

Yeah. Yeah. A Batman.

Yeah. Basically it felt like I was coming back to life.

Yeah. Cause it's like, I don't know.

It's not quite a coffee.

It's not quite something else, but you know, you just start to like gain consciousness and you're like, oh my God.

Yeah. I haven't thought like this in a while.

Yeah. Like when the phone charge goes from red to green.

Yeah, dude. That's exactly what it's like.

Yeah. And then I think the parallel to creativity hit me shortly after that, because the thing about blood, when you get blood is that blood has to be donated from somebody, right?

And if somebody donates blood, they're doing it for, you know, max a cookie, maybe a milkshake.

They are a good person.

You are not getting a bad person's blood.

You are getting a person who loves to give and you're getting their blood into your body.

And I was like, oh my God, I got five different great people.

I don't know. Like there was just kind of like this like beauty of it.

I felt like this, I don't know, shared sense of humanity.

The kind of thoughts that you think when, you know, a doctor finally tells you, no, it's not cancer, you know, like, you know, like just really dramatic thoughts.

Yeah. Yeah. And I realized that, or not realized, maybe just like started hypothesizing that creativity kind of works in a similar way where it's like somebody makes something because they want to make it.

They want to give, they want to contribute.

And then it goes to somebody else and that somebody else feels good.

And the difference between the blood in their body was minimal.

They can lose a pint and still kind of go about their day.

But that pint when it's in my body, that was is bringing me back to life.

So if I make something, or if you make something, it might feel like nothing to you.

And always the internet reminds you that it's nothing, you know, this didn't go viral enough.

This wasn't good enough, you know, like, like look how good this other person's doing.

So it can feel like nothing, but when it hits somebody else, they might not know how much they need it.

And it might actually bring them back to life.

They might never tell you.

I mean, I think that is one of the most amazing, like whether you call it an analogy or metaphor or whatever it is, it's so easy to forget that because yeah, you're right.

It's like when you make something and it might be if you have a platform like a podcast or your TV or whatever you're doing, but it might not be that.

It might be like a quote you put on Instagram or something that anyone can do and a lot of people do do.

do it just seems like it seems somewhat disposable to you but then yeah the right person sees it at the right time and it could not only change their life it could save their life in in lots of ways and i'd almost shrink that to it doesn't have to be put online like no like we've got a neighbor who is an amazing she's an incredible baker and she'll turn up with like she's like i cooked too much do you want some and it's like yeah it meant so much to me we've got another neighbor who who just like we'd just moved in but didn't know her that well.

It was Christmas and she came around and she'd made like a block of white Christmas, which I hadn't had before, but it's kind of like White Rocky Road with cardamom and all this stuff in it.

Sounds like code word for cocaine.

Does, doesn't it? It sure does.

She'd bring around this big slab of white Christmas, you know what I'm talking about.

Nose got red like Rudolph.

But I didn't realise that I was lacking a sense of community until she did that.

And I was like, this feels so good to feel like I'm a part of.

That same thing, you don't realize that you're sick until you start getting that cure.

Yeah. It's such an opportunity for everyone.

Like it doesn't matter, it doesn't have to be a video on YouTube, I guess is my point.

It can just be a small gesture of creativity for someone else.

So what do you say to people who, I'm just thinking about people going, yeah, I get that being creative can really help mental health and can help you to make sense of the difficult things that pop up in life and to help us to sort of bloom.

But for the me's out there who don't think they're creative, what do you say to them in order to discover creativity or to give examples of what creativity could look like?

I think it's about recognizing that you can't exist without it and expanding the definition to include things that you already do.

You know, give yourself the points.

Like, for example, if I said out of 10, how creative do you feel?

Oh, like one. Why didn't you say zero?

Because I wrote a book.

Yeah. Yeah. And even if you say zero, like, you know, like, so like we'll talk about the extreme example after this, but I find that idea of motivational interviewing to be super compelling as a start, but if how many things have you created, like out of zero to 10, when you the contributions that you have made, and then ask why you didn't rate yourself lower and you start to validate your own journey.

So if somebody is thinking about their own life now, like, all right, dude, I work as an accountant.

I run, I have a dog.

I don't do any of that sort of stuff, but I do feel the throes of doom that you're talking about.

What am I doing? I would say it's things like designing your day.

It's things like picking your outfit.

It's things like making in your breakfast. Things like the way that you even have a conversation with somebody, the words that you choose, all of these things are contributions.

You're not destroying something when you talk to someone, you're making something.

And just because that thing that you're making isn't visible, doesn't mean that it's not being made.

So I'd say it's just about recognizing that it is everywhere.

Beautiful. So nice.

I mean, I think every time we send a text message or an an email like quite literally yeah it's like it's an opportunity to be creative in in some way i mean hell even like emoji choice like the way that you react in a group chat like the choice of meme that you you know yeah send people like all of it it's just when we recognize that that spark is actually everywhere and that creativity isn't some exclusive boss baby -esque birthright we can sort of start to allow ourselves the freedom to, you know, escape and bloom.

You've made me think that expressing kindness is an act of creativity.

Absolutely. And thinking to do that, like thinking of a person and going, I might do this for this person.

What else could it be?

That is creative. And that's, yeah, what a great act of creativity that is.

Such a pleasure to meet you.

Oh, man, likewise. You guys are infectious.

Yeah. You invented infection Did I?

My arch nemesis Florence Nightingale Oh god no I just can't wait to watch more and more of your Likewise guys Likewise It's beautiful Congratulations on the book It's out It's out everywhere now You can get it now Look for the amazing book cover judge it and then buy it Thanks guys Enjoyed this week's episode but want a little more then you might want to know that we have a brand new show called a little more imperfects over on patreon for a little bit of money you'll get access to bonus episodes with the three of us every fortnight, early access to live events plus other things that we haven't

thought of yet but when we do think of them you'll get them visit patreon .com forward slash the imperfects.

The Imperfects is hosted and produced by Hugh van Kylenburg Ryan Shelton and Josh van Kylenburg Our executive producer is Bridget Northeast, producer Bella Northeast. This episode is edited by George Martin.

The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment.

The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you're struggling, please see a health care professional or call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

[Creativity as an Antidote: A Conversation with Struthless]-[Campbell "Struthless" Walker - Withdrawing with Drawing]

📋 Summary

The Intersection of Creativity and Mental Health

The "Doom and Bloom" Philosophy

Overcoming Addiction and Finding Stability

Redefining Creativity

The Power of Small Gestures

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript