Overcoming Career Ending Injury Mentally & Physically with John Clayton

KEEGAN: Live with John Clayton.

John's part of the ATG for Coaches community and that's how we came in contact but he's actually got a really powerful and important story to tell and a lot of experiences around the challenges that a lot of professional athletes go through.

John's managed to come back from a career-ending injury and sort of, I guess, a failed childhood dream.

A lot of the people that I work with had massive aspirations as athletes and didn't quite get to do what they wanted.

Some did but most didn't, John's turned that into finding solutions and helping other athletes to overcome the challenges.

So the conversation today will explore that journey.

Thanks so much for making your time available to have this conversation.

Can you start sort of by sharing a bit around your early journey there as an athlete?

JOHN: Yeah, absolutely and I appreciate you having me on as well mate.

I know this is a really good opportunity to have a chat and pick your brain because you're one of the masterminds behind ATG and Real Movement before that.

For me, where I’ve come from is that I had some real aspirations, obviously growing up wanting to make NRL and play professional football and I think maybe there's a subgroup of those guys that have the natural talent.

I wasn't one of those so I had to really work hard at this.

So I came up with a bit of a plan for myself which was to get the grind, and figure out the strength stuff.

I think we all fall in love with the strength when you start to see just those small incremental improvements and that type of thing and I found that that worked for me.

So I actually got some good opportunities out of that.

The effort-reward ratio seemed to be well reflected.

So I could see when I put an effort, I got that outcome until a certain point.

It was about 18, 19 when it started to be that.

The more effort I put in the more I would have side effects.

So knee tendinitis would start to pop up. I didn't know what it was at the time but not fun.

Achilles tendinitis. All these sort of overuse injuries when I was just trying to put in more effort than my competition to outdo them.

So that was sort of where I started.

I think for me and I know that I see this now in other athletes as well, is that when you build this mindset around “I have to make it”, you have this sort of control agenda where if you're not going to make it, then what's going to happen when something takes that control away from you.

So for me, once I got injuries and I had no control then I started to find a bit of a spiral of my thinking and where my life went for a little while and things like that.

So meeting with athletes now, I still see some of those tricky thoughts popping up and notice that these traps are pretty common and I don't think I was alone.

I think that's probably the underlying thing of what I would like to be working towards is that it's a pretty common experience and some of the skills are broad around things like psychological flexibility, where we can teach you skills that work in multiple contexts rather than just helping you achieve sport and then when you get injured, don't actually help you, make you float, don't help your flourish then make you suffer.

So that's sort of where we come from.

KEEGAN: Yes, it's often it is that single-minded commitment of the athlete that allows pro athletes to become pro athletes, is that psychological flexibility, is that sort of something that would take away from being that pro athlete, or is it something that is going to complement the journey whether you make it or not?

JOHN: So this is definitely one I’ve had to think about because you definitely see, you've seen it as well.

These athletes that have these really like black and white rules, “I ever do this otherwise, I’m a failure” the old not first and last sort of thoughts, and then like the last dance Michael Jordan, I’d watch that and thinking this is a guy with a very rigid mindset that has achieved great things but then turns, possibly turns that into the rest of his life and hits barriers with that.

So I know that's probably a controversial view but my thought is that you can have… broken clocks right twice a day.

That's my theory on people with fixed mindsets that are professional athletes that do well.

They could do it with building psychological flexibility and still get to the outcomes they want as long as they're building the six facets of the hexaflex which we'll talk about later if we get a bit of time.

But if they're still doing that, they don't need these rigid mindsets that come as a bit of a crutch.

As soon as Michael Jordan would have got an injury, that mindset wasn't helpful or would have been debilitating and he would have been suffering.

How was his relationships around that?

And I think for every Michael Jordan might be an example that's a hard one.

There's 50 other athletes that then have maladaptive stuff that happens after they get these rigid do-or-die type thought processes that go along with it.

KEEGAN: Yeah, so what is mind flexibility?

JOHN: Yeah, I’d be interested in hearing more about mind flex and the stuff you've done and put there because I think that's probably helped me understand the differences between that and psychological flexibility in the literature.

KEEGAN: Yes, psychological flexibility is a term in the literature where mind flex is a term that my money mastery mentor Paul Counsel, a guy that I’ve been learning from.

He speaks a lot about mind flex and doesn't use the word mindset because we don't want a set mind.

A set mind can't change and so yeah that's what you're sort of referring to there.

So what is psychological flexibility in the literature?

JOHN: It has a lot of different ways of being described.

I’d say the main one is the ability to shift the way you respond to a stimulus based on its context.

So I’d say psychological rigidity which could be mindset, like a set mind, would be, I learned that if I approach something by giving all my effort constantly then I get the success, that might have happened in a rugby league context and then I try and apply that to my relationship and I just apply all my effort into that relationship and I completely smother my partner.

So that's a lack of flexibility because I’ve extended that rule and that rule's not helpful in this context.

So psychological flexibility is about realizing each different context, changing your approach, and then being flexible enough that you're not automatically doing the same thing in each different environment.

So that's the textbook definition, the way we look at it through acceptance and commitment therapy which is the other psychological flexibility approach is it's taking action guided by values despite difficult feelings and thoughts, and emotions.

So you could… if your goal is to also…

What's a good scenario?

You want to be the leader in your team.

That's what I’m dealing with a few athletes at the moment.

They want to be a leader but one of the guys criticizes them.

You then get the thought “Oh I’m a worthless player. I’m not good enough at this”.

You've got to then diffuse from that thought, and act on your value which is to reconnect with the team and your value would be still leadership or empathy or compassion or whatever.

So that's sort of where it goes with this type of stuff.

It's acting congruent to values despite difficult thoughts and feelings and emotions.

KEEGAN: Yeah and for a lot of athletes, there are massive challenges around identity whether it's through injury or not being selected or contract negotiations and all the way that family looks at you once you become a professional athlete.

There's a ton of stuff to deal with that from the outside.

People don't necessarily understand the [ ].

I haven't experienced it first hand but I’ve been close with a lot of the guys that I worked with and so if you're looking for that… context specific is a big part of it of recognizing “Okay, is the situation where I need this mind flexibility or psychological flexibility?” and then having the focus or the attention to be able to actually do something to continue down a path that you choose to go down.

Is that sort of what you're pointing to there?

Yeah so with the example of leadership, the athlete is kind of getting their confidence rocked or shaken by how the teammates are responding to them.

If the value is that they want to be a great leader then they have to return to that value, return to what they're about but how do they shift that emotional kind of thing of being mocked or being criticized?

JOHN: Yeah absolutely, it's definitely a very different way of thinking.

If I take one step back to ACT, which is one of the main tools for psychological flexibility.

Acceptance Commitment Therapy comes from Buddhist origins.

So a lot of it is around observing the mind and noticing the aspects of the mind that are pulling and we call it hooking.

It's one we often talk to clients about because it makes sense.

You get hooked by a thought or hooked by a motion pulled into doing something.

The real analogy there is the choice point.

So you talked about choice there.

One choice is towards the values, taking that committed action, the other one is then getting hooked and being automatic.

So the brain is very good at running through pathways that keep us safe so it will avoid discomfort. It'll avoid anxiety, fear, all these sorts of things that are going on that puts you into an environment where you're not sure, uncertainty.

I’d say the real big thing there is going to be that a lot of that for professional athlete or someone in a leadership position is going to be, that's where all the value is as well.

You can't do a leadership role without being rejected at some point.

You can't be a leader without feel and fear that you're not good enough or that you're faking it and people are going to find out.

All that stuff comes with… because the brain will go “Yeah, you're good today” but what about when you said that to blah-blah this morning.

It just does that, it's trying to keep you safe but it's not helpful.

So the only way then is to re-engage, expose yourself back to that environment and then go again and the thoughts will come but the chatter you can sort of just sit it down rather than have it hook you each time and you unhook each time, you get unhooked, you just keep coming back to that.

KEEGAN: So I imagine you've studied this because you've had your own challenges.

I know you've had the injuries but how's this impacted you personally?

I know you're back playing so you through a lot of this, what's your personal journey been like with it?

JOHN: Yeah and I think back-playing is a bit of a stretch.

I’m playing local footy in a small competition so it's fun but it's nothing like playing any sort of state-level stuff but yeah, enjoying that.

For myself, yeah, look, I think I was just at a point where the things I’d used, all the patterns I’d used before weren't working for me anymore and I needed to figure out a new way of doing it and I did want to talk to you about that because the first thing that I found that worked for me was breath work in the HeartMath was the big one for that.

Ever since I’ve been using that but I’ve heard you mention it a couple of times but I haven't heard you do a deep dive into it.

So I want to just pick your brains on HeartMath as well.

KEEGAN: Yeah I think I came across it through Bruce Lipton and I think Clint Greenshields might have put me on to Bruce Lipton back…

We lived in the same apartment block in France when I worked with the Catalan Dragons and we spent a bunch of time together.

He made me tea a bunch of times and we sat and spoke about things but he really introduced me to a lot of different concepts.

I think that's where I came across it or maybe through Paul Chek but I think they're both into it.

But yeah the concept of that heart rate variability correlates to health and to the mental state and hormonal balance and all those sorts of things is pretty well established in the literature.

My understanding is that it came from sort of soviet astronaut sort of space program research where they realized that's a really good marker of “Are these people going to survive? Are they adapting to this environment? Are they safe?”.

So yeah, it's pretty cool. It's pretty intuitive.

You really plug into your physiology.

For those who haven't heard of it, you put a device on your ear and there's a handheld version as well but you got it there.

Yeah, so it tells you what's going on with your heart at that moment and it sort of seems almost like woo-woo to people who haven't looked at it but there's a ton of research there, and then once you experience it for yourself, you go like “Yeah, change of state is really possible”.

I think breathwork is probably the most direct way for people to experience this.

I’m all about experiential learning and when you experience a change of state through breath work then you sort of know “Oh yeah, I really can be very different in a short period of time based on what I do with my breath” but the same is sort of true for posture or thought patterns.

There's different ways that you can change your state.

Tony Robbins uses a lot of dancing and jumping around and hugging people and all those things will change your energy, change your state but the HeartMath tool is one that's shown to sort of speed up recovery and get you back into the rest and digest sort of more parasympathetic dominant state.

So yeah, I came across it through that and I introduced it to a number of players and did a lot of it myself.

For a lot of guys, it doesn't stick but I think it's still a valuable experience for them to have, to know that they are in control of it and that stuff is real.

It doesn't matter what you're thinking about, and it does matter how you're breathing but yeah I’d love to hear what you think about it.

What's your experience been?

JOHN: Well for me, it was a bit of a game changer.

I’m the same as you, I for myself, for teaching other people experiential is the way to do it.

If they don't experience it, they're not taking away.

It doesn't come at the point of performance when they need it.

It's just something that they heard and what can you remember when you're under stress.

So for me, I started doing it and I felt an immediate impact on my physiology especially, and straight away, I still saw a change in my results at uni which was where I was really struggling at the time.

So I found I could study better.

I was sleeping better.

I was playing park footy at the time and I noticed I stopped having that super build-up of anxiety before a game.

I used to vomit before games.

I heard Ben talking about it, doing that as well but it was always, it was about my anxiety.

I shouldn't be feeling like this and this is too much and so I would just do that in the morning for 20, 30 minutes, and then I’d come into the now.

I’d feel that emotion come and go and the urge would come and go but since then I’ve done it.

I’m up to about 1600 sessions on it.

So I’ve been using about five or six years now.

They've got all these points things which I love and I think it's almost like dense strength for your physiology.

It's because you get badges and things and you can see your progress and I can see if I get a new record and I love all that sort of stuff.

So I think it's really gamified and I really enjoy that.

So for me, it's been a big one for players I use it with now.

I’m the same.

I don't know if they're going to stick that they use that because I have to purchase it.

Well, I just give them a once off and I’ll show them what happens.

I do a baseline then I show them what happens when you breathe and if they're really keen I might work through the science of it but I would say 99% of players I’m not going to talk through what's happening in the autonomic nervous system when you're breathing and that type of stuff.

I’m just saying you're having an impact by breathing and you're changing that stress response into a more balanced day and they can see it.

If I say you're going to turn into waves and you're doing little skitters at the start and they see it, then they know they're having an impact.

So I think that's really valuable.

KEEGAN: Do you think that's made an impact like you say that you're back playing footy but you're not back like because you have that standard for yourself if you wanted to be a star player and play at the highest level but to be able to play, you have to have a certain level of physiology, do you think that's played a big role in you being able to recover and getting your physiology back online.

Because of that change in your psychology of not being in the fight or flight all the time not being chronically kind of overstimulated with the sympathetic system.

JOHN: Yeah, absolutely. I think the big ones for me what I used to feel was and I’ve only learned more about fascia recently but I used to find I had lots of tight points where I’d get that forward head roll and be tight in the shoulders and as I said, Achilles but all that stuff's come better with movement and training.

But I wonder if overall as a system, I think you've probably seen these people in a flight and fright they look like a cat when they've stepped in water or something it's like [ ], if you start to see that that's probably someone who's in stress state more often than not.

The thing I really enjoy about this approach or appreciate, it's the body reacts the same to chemical physical, and emotional stress.

So if you're training really hard and overtraining that's the same interaction in the body as if your emotions are running you down as well.

So it's all the same type of stuff.

So if you're not managing this stuff, if you're not and I don't mean controlling, I mean priming and preparing and ramping up and down and knowing that it changes, if you just stay in sympathetic activation through your nervous system and it's like your flight fight.

Then you're not going to have the reserves ready to respond to your next training session when you have the actual performance to happen.

You've been in it for 24 hours, you're not going to be ready to go.

So I think there's heaps of value in it.

I also use it and I thought this might be an interesting point in “I don't believe completely in all the hypnotism side of things but I do believe that they have a way of priming the nervous system to accept information”.

So I would say this type of stuff, any sort of breathwork is a great primer to physical training or to a session where you're trying to do some coaching with someone one-on-one.

So if you're trying to teach someone something and you've done a breath session at the start, you've got their attention monitoring and you've got their physiology ready to accept, they're not…

You can't remember things when you're stressed.

You can't remember the capital of Canberra in Australia if you're under a stress and you're trying to run away from something dangerous.

So it's important to remember that this is a physical human being and that we're not just responding exactly the same to every person.

KEEGAN: And so that was one of the things that helped you to really know that your psychology is playing a big part?

What else have you sort of added to your own system?

JOHN: Absolutely and a metaphor I was thinking of today and probably because I just want to engage with you, was that HeartMath and physiology that type of stuff is like the sled work.

So it's your short-range stuff, you're really getting that blood flow going but if you just do meditation, all you do is you're monitoring, you're just becoming aware of what's happening in your internal processes which are still awesome.

If that's all you do, you're on the way.

If you look at it as a spectrum of the same like short to long range or to someone in suffering to someone flourishing.

I would say, people who are rigid, if you work on those skills, that gets you to a normal state, you can give up there but you can also get to an elite level using those same processes.

So for me, I was doing a psych degree undergraduate and I tried CBT which is like the base, cognitive behavior therapy everyone knows about.

It's evidence-based. Didn't work for me at all.

A lot of the processes so I just started looking at every other approach.

I was really into Carl Rogers in the Rogerian person-centered approach.

I was really into some of the existential therapies but when I came across this, the third wave which is acceptance commitment therapy, some of the other ones which I won't go into but I found when I experienced it, there was a change in my own interaction with my mind.

So I could see the space between my internal processes and my reactions and I was able to take steps back and choose where I was going next rather than be trying to argue and waste energy and argue with your mind. I don't mean arguing physically.

So that was where I started to really feel attraction from it and my partner was into it too and we're still together.

So we've always just been bouncing this off each other.

So we talk about it a lot.

We talk about where it fits and different parts of society and not.

For me, it's always been if I’d had this in some of the other stuff in an ATG now when I was 17, I would feel like I want to share that with that version of myself and that's where I really connected with you and Ben around.

That young version of me, I really want to get there and go, “These are the things you need to be doing” and that's what I feel I can do at the moment working with Capras and in our region as well as get to some young guys especially when they've had injury and go “Build these skills. It'll help you perform but it'll also help you not suffer”.

It's the same skill.

KEEGAN: Yeah, I love it. I think it is such an important area and I know most professional teams are working in this area.

They know that the mental side is important, the question is which tools are best and as you say, there are kind of those standard methods.

But having been through a lot of that yourself, I think, and being relatable to players gives you a real advantage to have an impact with them.

Are there some stories there that you've really made an impact on and sort of feel… have you got to taste some success, I guess, as a mentor of this style therapy?

JOHN: Using it over a long period of time, I’d say it is a hard style to grasp, it's because it's based on Buddhist roots.

Although it's evidence-based now.

There's over 3000 studies, I think it's about 300 random controlled trials and in comparison to existing therapies, it's on par if not better in some areas.

It exceeds in… pain management is one of the big areas.

It's evidence-based psychological therapy.

So an end of life care is the other one.

So for me to turn that to players, I probably start with the evidence that is there.

I’ve had experience using it myself.

I know other people that are using it but it is a challenging thing to grasp because it's a very different way of looking at the mind when society's ingrained certain things in you.

You'd always be happy, negative thoughts mean you're broke and all these sorts of things.

So I think initially it takes a bit of time to get through but once you get past that it's a relief for a lot of people.

It's like “You mean I don't need to be struggling to get rid of this, I’m normal”.

Normalization's a big thing and validating the challenges of an experience, is the other big thing but I think players really get it once they get it, it's huge for them.

I would say the couple of players I’ve had, I think, I’ve had big impacts with were people with some stuff that's been challenging in their past that might have been still sticking with them and they're having anxiety around those sorts of stuff.

I’d say they have the biggest improvement.

So you might get incremental improvement in players that aren't already psychologically flexible.

People have barriers that have the biggest improvement.

There was one guy working with that that had never played rugby league, played soccer his whole life, and then at 18 he goes to me, “I’d like to play for Capras” at the time and he'd just started training with him and they actually said to him, because he was a cameraman at the time, they said to him, “You can't even maintain training with the team. It's a bad look to have the cameraman training with the squad”.

So it was a very disheartening moment for him but probably fair considering he'd never played league consistently and he was a bit out of shape at the time.

So he came and said, “Look, I want to be playing Q-cup”.

So we set a plan. It was a two-year plan at the time.

We did lots of things. We did different trainings, physical trainings and then we also did this stuff and HeartMath at the time with him as well and he ended up out of, against all the odds, playing a game in PNG when everyone was out and he played in the 20s competition and did well in the state here.

So he got that goal in the end and I think really what we had to do is go break it down and go, even though you're gonna have these thoughts to say “You've never played before. You're not good enough”, all these sorts of barriers because we're able to build this scaffold.

I just lost you for a second.

Yeah, so I think that's the important thing.

KEEGAN: Making the Queensland cup on two years of training is pretty phenomenal.

For those who aren't familiar, it's the level under the National Rugby League, the highest level that you can play in Australia would be the Queensland cup.

So to get there in two years is kind of unheard of really.

There's probably not another guy in the competition who would have that story.

I’ve never heard a story like that so it's pretty outstanding and obviously the physical… it's one tool, right, the psychological stuff.

It's not like you can do this and never not train, not do your weights, not worry about your diet or it's one component but that's…

JOHN: And I don't want to take anything away from that guy either.

I gave him this stuff and he already had that desire.

He was gonna do it and he got in and train every morning. He did all that stuff.

So not taking any of that away from him.

I just saying that when he came to me, these are the things I work with him on and I think they helped.

KEEGAN: Yeah, you can never know what impact you have exactly and even for yourself, you've learned a lot of this stuff, you've done it…

How much of you feeling better in your bodies because of ATG?

How much of it's because of these psychological therapies?

How much is it because you're happy in your relationship or you can never quantify exactly what's contributing to what?

You look for, clues and trends, and follow intuition as much as we like science and it's good to quantify things.

There's a certain amount that you can't… you can never know.

You can do your best and if the result is good then that's all that really counts and if it's not, then you have to keep looking for other solutions.

What's next then for you with this?

It seems as though you know that there's something really valuable here.

The research says there's something valuable, you've experienced it, and you've had some wins.

Probably the thing that I love most is then at that stage “Okay well what would you like to do with this” and helping people to look a bit further, aim a bit higher, think a bit bigger, and go and do it and have the support to go and do it.

That's probably what I love most to have those kinds of conversations.

So maybe we can have a bit of that conversation now.

Where would you like to take this?

JOHN: Yeah, I definitely say I appreciate everything you do in the chat.

I don't know if anyone realizes but in the comments, Uncommon Success pulse and the pulse of ATG, you're just so generous with your time.

So it's always like trying to provide prompts to people to look at these sorts of things as well which is definitely something I appreciate.

But for me, I’ve been looking at it thinking these questions and it's a hard one because if I was to just do it in the environment I’m in.

I really enjoyed that. I love seeing young players, especially where I’m at.

I think I like seeing them getting these things and then flourishing.

So at the moment, I’m doing things like, I’ll go in early into the gym and we'll do an area of ATG with the player and then alongside that, we'll do a breath work at the start and we'll talk through different concepts in our rest or whatever and I love doing that combination and then maybe going for a coffee after and having a bit more of a chat.

I really like that but it's not a scalable business if I want to get the message out there.

So I’d really, I think for me, my passion is sharing this in a way that people understand.

I think that's the challenge and there's another Keagan in the pulse of ATG, I was talking to and he's doing a book, you might have seen on ACT, acceptance committee theory.

We had a chat and he was like it's one of those things that's so hard to explain, you've got to get metaphors, you've got to use different ways experiential.

So for me, I’ve got to find a way to get it out there so people can get it and grasp it and experience it and then use it in their lives and that's probably where I’m at.

I want to try and find mediums and channels where I can share this and I thought this today would be a good chance for that.

If I even reach a couple of people, it's hopefully something useful that they can add into their lives or at least look at and share with someone else.

KEEGAN: Yeah, there's six people tuning in at the moment and that's the start.

To be honest n equals one is everything.

If you help that one player and that one coffee, a lot of people look into scale before they've actually proven their concept and they kind of oftentimes can lose sight of n equals one because of research, people will discount “Oh it's only anecdotal, it's one person. That's all there is”, there's one person times as many as you touch and if they have a win then they have a win and that's it, that's all there is to it.

So I love the concept.

I love what you're doing. I think it's a great place to start of being really high touch and going as deep as you can with someone to give them everything that you have, that's what Ben's done with ATG.

He was coaching a very small number of people in Clearwater in Florida and he was getting phenomenal results with him and that gave him the confidence of like “I know I can do something else with this”.

I’m not sure what it is and when we started speaking he had 50 online members and you're sort of thinking like “There's something more but I don't know what it is or how to get there” and now we can all see and it looks clear and obvious and he's so good at content.

He's so consistent and of course, he was going to be that person who goes on Joe Rogan and stuff but it wasn't necessarily clear to him three-four years ago that that was going to be the case.

All he did was get those phenomenal results with the people that turned up, whoever that was, and that spread.

So I love the way you're starting with that and I would love to think that within my community and potentially from today's conversation you get the opportunity to have more conversations of n equals one like “Yeah, I think I’d like to have a conversation Johnny and how can I go further with this?

The challenge for you then is “How do you deliver that?”, when there is less touch and when it is somewhat of a complex conversation?

How do you systemize that?

What could you put together that someone could experience as a one-off over seven days, over 30 days?

What are the on-ramps to this way of being a way of thinking where someone can experience it without a lot of risks, without a lot of commitment to move in that direction?

Yeah, these are kind of the questions to answer and we don't usually go as deep on this on the podcast-type scenario because I kind of, I don't know, it's just like a different energy I guess when we're talking about building that business but what is it like?

Is it the HeartMath concept and experience?

Is that where you think people will start?

You want to start with where people are at, what's most important to them, what's bothering them, what's the pain point that you would see as the thing that someone would want help with that they can identify, that they clearly understand in themselves, that they're experiencing.

JOHN: Absolutely. If I look at you guys and a lot of the ATG community, it's like people don't just come to you because everything's good, they come because they've got a niggling injury or they want this performance improvement they've seen other people get it.

It's like they're looking for that solution.

There's normally a specific thing that you start with and you give them some of that experience and early wins and then you start to move on from there.

I’m sorry for cutting you off there… I was going to say, I’ve started that process with my research.

So I’m in a Ph.D. pathway.

So what we're looking at with acceptance and commitment therapy is I’m working with the sports science team at CQU and we're looking at monitoring and acceptance theory which is like a broken down version of this but if I was to give it simply… it's that mindfulness is monitoring.

The issue in the research is that you can have someone who's like a long-distance runner, and you teach them mindfulness, and their performance gets worse.

Why is that?

So the theory behind this is that if you're just monitoring, you're just noticing pain, you're just noticing sensations.

If you're doing something difficult that's not helpful.

So you need to also teach acceptance skills at the same time.

So you need something tangible.

So the way we're looking at researching it, this is just a proposal stage, we're still working through it, we're looking, this sounds awful but, heat tolerance tests.

So we're using heat on someone and then seeing whether some of these skills will help them deal with higher levels of heat tolerance and pain.

So is their pain threshold higher after the skill testing?

So really trying to build in…

I’m working with the research team because I really want to build my own research into this context while doing the one-on-ones with people and developing the skills there.

So I’m starting down that pathway.

I think it'll be like a snowball, it'll sort of pick up traction and hopefully at the end of a Ph.D. I might have four published studies.

Hopefully, that will lead into the work that I’m doing and show that it does work and that it's good for specific things in sports.

So that's my hope.

KEEGAN: Is the motivation of the Ph.D. to have proof for others or is it to learn for yourself?

Do you think it's going to bring you new knowledge or is it to have more ammunition to be able to go and make an impact?

JOHN: A little bit of both. I’d say, you're probably right.

The systematic review at the start will be, I’ll learn a lot.

I’ll learn more like everything and step back and fit it into context but I think you're right.

I already know that it works.

So for me, it's not learning that these things work in these contexts, it's more doing it in a rigorous scientific way.

So that I can then share with other people.

I find it useful though to talk to players about… no one cares if you say I’ve used it on myself unless I’m a millionaire and I’m showing all these successful things.

They don't really care that I’ve used it all myself.

If I say though that I’ve researched this and I’m studying it at a higher level then it's sort of a bit more of a merit when you start.

Eventually, if you get experience and you give people success, they don't care where you start really but it's just an easier starting point.

I feel to have that credentials next to my name to say “Yeah, I know what I’m talking about”.

KEEGAN: Yeah, there definitely are positives to having formal education.

Some people call Ph.D. piled higher and deeper.

Some poor, hopeless and desperate is the one that Robert Kiyosaki uses The Rich Dad, Poor Dad guy.

I think Paul Checks has piled higher and deeper but there definitely are benefits to it and it takes a lot of work and a lot of great things come from that scientific field.

At the same time if you look at ATG, if Ben had gone that path, he would have had zero impact at this stage.

There's no study that he could have produced.

There's no series of studies he could have produced that would have had an impact on the way the world trains versus working with one person and then turning that into just doubling that, it probably doubled every whatever period of time it is but it really is changing the way the world trains.

There's a good chance in any gym, on any given day that you'll see someone doing ATG-type training or movements that you would never have seen.

Training their tibs or training their split squats, training Nordics, you wouldn't have seen it four years ago and you can see it now.

So to me that's what matters most is those results and sometimes when you do the scientific stuff and you're in that scene you think that that's where the difficulty comes from.

As you say, I would agree, the athletes want to see results, they don't necessarily care 100% about you but that is still a strong level of proof and Ben's really done that, he's marketed solely based on himself.

He could have marketed based on working with a lot of NFL players and he made that decision early like NFL, NBA, and NHL.

He's worked with major league baseball.

He's worked with top 5, and top 10 athletes in pretty much all the major U.S. sports but he's chosen not to market even based on that.

It's really just been “This is working for me, test it for yourself” and that's what works.

Now dunking is easier for people to see.

It's more difficult for people to see what your mind look like and yeah you could prove it through wealth, you can prove it through performance but it's challenging to prove.

I mean Wim Hof's probably done the best job of that.

It's interesting you've chosen temperature because that's probably the best way of showing like “Yeah, my mind's different to the average mind. Look at what I can do”.

He went and broke all those world records and he was definitely into the eastern philosophy-type stuff.

There's probably some real similarities.

Yeah, I’m a huge fan of that approach.

Having a Ph.D. on the side is also great.

It takes a lot of energy, and effort, and sometimes that means you don't get the other things but yeah that's something.

One way of looking at I guess….

JOHN: I appreciate that.

I think it's good to think in different ways because sometimes you do get stuck in these echo chambers where you hear the same things and working with researchers that they all spread…

KEEGAN: They love research. I work with business owners and so I love business and that's been the big thing.

For me was like turning it into real products and having that accountability of this person's paying for something, are they happy with what they've paid for?

I really like that direct accountability which is it's kind of different with that other system.

There's not necessarily that direct accountability for results, it's more like a long-term change.

The system changes the way people are educated which is important as well and it's just a different path but yeah the on-ramp is the key.

I think that's the key thing inside ATG.

A lot of people on-ramp through sleds, they saw one or two movements and they're like “Oh, yeah, that makes sense. I’ll give that a go”.

And especially with sleds, oftentimes people be like “Well, I really do feel a difference after this, things that hurt before don't hurt. This is phenomenal”.

Coming up with that powerful on-ramp that invites people into the longer journey is probably one of the…

Yeah, something for anyone who wants to make an impact on the world.

How do you do that?

I was watching that Mr. Beast podcast with Joe Rogan, if you haven't seen it, I think it's something that everyone should watch.

He has a different sort of psychology going on to a lot of people.

His hook thing is on the top of his Youtube page.

So he's the number one subscribed Youtube channel and he has the most views on his Youtube channel.

So he's 91 million subscribers on his main channel and then he has channels in other languages and gaming channels and reaction channels.

So I think he has 200-something million subscribers but his hook video is literally him giving away cash to people.

So that's kind of his on-ramp of he asked people on the street, “Are you following me? Are you subscribed? Show me on your phone, open your phone up, show me” and if they say “Yes” he just gives them a lot of cash and that's his hook thing on his Youtube because his goal, his whole sole purpose in life is to be the most watched person on Youtube and so he's been dedicating himself since he was 11 to making viral videos.

He's now 23 and interestingly, he doesn't keep any of the money.

He puts all the money back into the videos.

So he's making these five million dollar productions and he's spending millions and millions of dollars.

He has a team of over 100 staff and he literally isn't accumulating wealth.

It's a challenging philosophy but it's still being maximally valuable.

I love the idea of he's trying to provide as much value as he can to the world.

He just doesn't want to keep it but he's still rich because he could work for any marketing agency.

He's got all these connections. He's been on Joe Rogan now.

Now he can't be poor even if he wanted to because of the brain that he's developed and the connections that come with that and I think that's something to strive for.

How could I provide maximal value to this?

So I didn't care about money and business.

How can I get this value out to the world?

I think everyone should do that.

Everyone who has the desire of feeling of like “I’ve got something important here”, there's an inherent frustration that comes with that and I think that's a positive thing of “No, the world needs to know this” and Ben had it with the knee thing.

Mr. Beast had that thing of like “I’m gonna have that number one Youtube channel in the world”.

You have this thing of like “This is really important. This does make a difference to lives”.

A lot of athletes have these psychological challenges, these physical challenges and it's tough to come back from them.

How could you maximally express that?

What is the on-ramp?

Circling back, handing out cash is not going to be your thing because your goal isn't the subscribers but what is that thing that people would see straight away and go “Oh, yeah, this is for me. This is interesting”.

It's not necessarily the easiest thing to answer but in attempting to answer it that gets a creative thing flowing.

What could you talk about in your first call that would open people up to other possibilities that they hadn't considered before, that concept of the sort of a high-value first interaction?

I guess that's after the first thing that grabs their attention but if you have that then you get to test the next thing… which you're really confident in the end thing.

How do you get people started on the path?

JOHN: Breaking it down.

KEEGAN: It's not simple like you see with my stuff.

I love a big broad range of things but if you can try and have that key concept of what you want people to achieve that people can latch on to, I think with uncommon success it really is about how you get your value out to the world.

I have spoken a lot about becoming wealthy and I do value that but mostly from the perspective of “We've all got something valuable to offer and our best life and best experience of life is in expressing that” and some people choose not to, that's fine but those who want to express it and feel the frustration of not being able to express it as well as they can, that's what it's for.

How do you express more of it is probably the thing that I would love to go continue the conversation on… because yeah, you've done it with some of those guys, and then okay well what's next?

I don't know if you come across the work of Tony Priddle.

I was going to ask you.

He played at the Dragons when my father was the coach there way back in the day, in the 90s and so he works with the same sort of psychology of elite athletes and he's doing some work.

He's with Brisbane Raw.

He's worked with a lot of athletes and teams and yeah I was wondering if you'd cross paths because you got the footy background and psychology of athletes.

JOHN: I normally keep an ear out for…

So did you ever run into John Novak at the Roosters?

He was around for a few years.

So he was a dancer in aerobics oz style.

Do you remember that back in the 90s?

Yeah, so he was at the Roosters for five years and he worked with the first-grade side and did all the mind games.

Anyone wants to look him up boomerang effect is his mind game stuff but he does a lot more work with golfers.

So I think golf uses a lot of these sorts of skills and it works really, it's very measurable.

You can see… they were focused, and they hit that strike.

Complex sports like rugby league and other ones, it's harder to show the impact.

It's sort of on average, how do you feel?

Are things getting better?

So it's you can still feel it but it's harder.

KEEGAN: Yeah, it's not as black and white with finite skill as golf is.

I think that's one of the first examples that I saw with the HeartMath thing as well as being able to control the heart rate variability while listening to really loud music and being in a stressful environment and maintaining.

Have you played around with it much like that, challenging yourself with stress?

JOHN: Absolutely, I think that's probably one of the best things.

It's like you can figure out what different things do you if you even with players.

I sometimes sit, next time I’ll make a loud clap and I’ll show them how it'll spike their stress.

So you'll see this scattered…

So I love doing that stuff.

I love trialing different meditations and seeing how they work.

If you've seen anyone who's keen on the podcast and seeing Dr. Andrew Humidman, the one on gratitude is a really good podcast and it's very powerful.

I’m measuring it on myself, gratitude, love, compassion, or any of these sorts of emotions.

If you can really nail them, have a much better impact on the measurements for me when I do that type of stuff.

So I can see my best sessions if I can really nail a moment where someone was grateful towards me but it's a hard one because there's tricky things too.

You start thinking then and if you get hooked too much with your thoughts, you get distracted but it's lots of fun.

I love it.

I love being… I think all of us are here because we like experimenting and being that canary and going in and trialing things and finding out what works and then you get that little nugget that works and you go “I want to share that with someone” and that's sort of where I’m at.

I’m thinking I’ve got a couple of things that are worthwhile.

I’d love to keep sharing those with the players I’m working with and then hopefully reach more people with that type of stuff because I know it works in certain contexts at least.

KEEGAN: Yeah, I’d love to touch a bit more on the physical like the ATG journey for you so far.

How did you come across the method?

JOHN: Yeah, it's a weird sort of situation.

I was new, I was coming back to play local footy last year and I went and looked up VMO activation and so that was how I came across one of Ben's videos and saw…

KEEGAN: Google or Youtube?

JOHN: I can't remember, probably Youtube. I don't really know.

KEEGAN: I didn't google it.

JOHN: Yeah but then straight away, then fell down the rabbit hole, turned up to, I don't know if you ever heard of a trainee model called zoo.

So I went to a zoo session and I was talking to the trainer there and I was like “Hey I’ve been trying these split squats, they're amazing”.

He goes “You've got to go and look up Keegan and the Real Movement Project” and I was like “All right”, so that's when I started down the rabbit hole and Lionel Harbin who was the person who put me onto it, he's the Capras coach now and he's been a big fan for years.

So he knows… you'll walk backward up Mount Archer which is the local mountain and he then does Jefferson curls off the rock, with rocks up the top, and split squats.

So he's just one of those nut cases that even though he's a head coach, he just does everything himself and he lives the stuff that he talks about.

So, No. I think he really pushed me and he's a zoo fanatic too.

So he does all the animal movements and yeah he was the one that got me into that originally.

So I knew he was onto something when he brought up this stuff and then when you experience it…

I don't think you can stick to this unless it works. It's just such a big commitment.

So once you trial it… I was dabbling.

I did split squats, reverse Nordics, Nordics, and tib raises.

That was all I did for three or four months and I got so much benefit out of that that I just went “Okay, you got to stop just going, your kind of weak spots in other areas and build these up” and then I started to… went to the online program and then joined the coaching in January and just went “Right oh, let's do this. Let's get into it and share it with other people too”.

KEEGAN: And what was the biggest thing you were looking for with it?

Is it knee issues with a primary driver if you're looking at VMO then I guess…

JOHN: Yeah, I lost a heap of weight after I finished playing footy.

So I started around 115 kg, and when I finished playing, I’m down to about 97 and I still had knee pain and it went away initially but then it came back and a like lot of people, I needed something to push myself.

So I went long-distance running and did a half marathon and just had constant knee pain and I couldn't get rid of it.

So that was where it was like “Okay, I need to find a new way of doing things and now I just… my missus tries to push me away from people at parties because I don't want to be that guy but someone comes up and says “I’ve got knee pain”, I’m like “You gotta check out this stuff online, it's pretty amazing”.

KEEGAN: Yeah, so how long was it?

What do you think it was?

Because you see it started with the tib raises, reverse Nordics, was that enough for you to…

Did you do backward sleds? Did you mention that there?

Did you get some results with just those movements before you did the full program for your knee?

JOHN: Yeah absolutely, the reverse Nordics, when I first did them it just felt like something was pushing around in the joint, it just felt like stretching and pain and so I just really regressed that and then slowly built it up and that was the first thing that I started to feel.

I had more space to deal with whatever was going on, more range, I guess, is probably the one.

I’m not the best. still not. I’m not an exercise physiologist or a PT or anything.

So talking in this stuff, I try and get the lingo right but apologies if I miss anything, you can just…

KEEGAN: I think space is definitely a way that some people will sort of refer to it.

I think Kelly Starrett, I think uses that kind of language if I’m not mistaken and it's cool to hear it more from an intuitive sense.

You learn so much from players the way they understand their bodies and the language that they use and even the way they instinctively want to train.

I think is often better than what they're actually being trained with.

So yeah, that's in effect the reverse nordic, the lighter or the gentler way of getting into that if someone's listening is like… the couch stretch is like a gentler way to get to that that some people get issues with.

The reverse Nordic, it's kind of an aggressive way to lengthen the rectus femoris and challenge the knee but if you don't have enough of a foundation there's a higher risk for sure with the reverse Nordic than for example with the couch stretcher.

I mean it's cool that you got the result and nothing works 100% for everybody but it's a powerful movement.

But yeah, so you felt as though that was the big thing that got your win and sort of the buy-in to ATG as far as on-ramp goes.

JOHN: I’ve done everything so at that point, I was like I just… and I was talking to my missus brother and he was like “You get into that age mate. This is just something you have to deal with from now on. You just got knee pain, that's just the way it is”.

So I’d had it for like five years, six years, and then all through footy so it was something where I was like “This is never gonna go away”.

So to actually see a result you're just like “Whoa, what's going on now? What else is possible if this worked?” and you've seen it with players.

Now I just talked to them like “Oh yeah, I’m getting pain below my knees” and I’m like “I know something if you want to give it a try” and there's other people looking at getting meniscectomies.

Cartilage. There's some stuff to say you can get the nutrients in there and you can try these sort of squeezing movements, you can sort of and build up those muscles.

I was reading the ATG clinician in the chat, he's awesome too but it was when he was saying you just ramp up the quads because the cartilage should be that last point of impact to absorb that force.

So if you can be getting everywhere else catching it. These things make sense when people hear them and then when you experience them, it's just life-changing, I would say “To change that trajectory from knee pain for the rest of my life was such a big thing for me”.

KEEGAN: And people kind of get hexed with the idea that yeah you're going to have that for the rest of your life, there's nothing you can do about it.

You get told “You've got bone on bone, get used to it. Maybe we can keep operating on it” but often athletes get told “You're going to have a joint replacement in the future” like it's kind of a black magic thing where nobody knows that, nobody knows.

Maybe people are going to work something out and it's going to be healed.

You should always stay open to the possibility that things will get better.

I think in every aspect of life but as with injuries and niggles especially, we don't know everything and things can change and they have for you and for so many other people.

I don't know if you know [ ].

He was in my 20s back in the day.

Yeah, should have made that connection earlier but yeah he was at the Catalan Dragons when we were there and he'd obviously had really serious chronic knee injuries and we got him squatting and he started squatting every day and I wasn't even telling him to do it but eventually, his back and his knees were feeling much better.

He still had challenges through his career because I didn't know about the full ATG system and stuff at that time and maybe it wouldn't have solved everything for him but he got much better and got back to playing some really good footy and whatnot and but he's been doing ATG recently as well and he said it's made a big impact for him.

He's up there [ ].or he's still connected with the footy as well.

So yeah it's probably a good one to reconnect with.

JOHN: I saw that you talk about Troy Savage a bit and he was around, I wasn't in a team with him but he's with Anthony Cherrington too.

He's done a heap.

They're both into the ATG stuff and ethics had two ACLs in the preseason, it might even been three at the start of a trial and that sidetracked his career.

So he's now a huge advocate of all this stuff.

KEEGAN: So yeah, we were there at the same time as [ ].

So Troy Savage was in Real Movement for quite a while and then he came to the training camp that I did with Sonny when that was really the biggest application of ATG that I’ve had.

I had a month with Sonny Bill before he went to Toronto to play in the super league but Troy came up for that camp and joined in on that and that's when he sort of realized that there's something to this and we also spoke a lot about business and stuff and he was doing a bit of work for me with Real Movement and then he sort of got that clarity of “I’m gonna do this footy mobility” and yeah, he was working roadside, looking after, making sure the roads were clear for roadworks in Sydney and he really wanted to do something else when we first started working together as you would, doing night shifts and whatnot, and yeah, now he's got that brand.

He's worked with the New Zealand Māori team and he's worked with tons of pro athletes.

No exercise science background did Real Movement and then came to that camp and sort of has run with things, and yeah, like your story.

It's not that I did it.

Troy's a high achiever and someone who works really hard.

He came to one of my workshops actually we did handstands and it was probably the first time that he'd been worst in the group at something athletic and now he's got great handstands as well as all the other stuff that he's done, it's not as much part of his brand anymore but yeah, I love that he's gone on that journey and maybe he would have done himself in some way and he's definitely a high achiever but it's cool to be a contributor, and be part of other guys’ sort of journeys.

But yeah, [ ] was there at the Roosters as well.

When I went there in 2013, he was there for the start of that.

Robo made some big changes in the first little couple of months that he was there but yeah it's cool to see those guys helping to get the word into footy.

I know it's coming from a lot of different angles in terms of the ATG stuff.

I was just speaking with Patty about it yesterday.

He's talking to a lot of players, they've worked it out for themselves, and some of them are bringing it to Patty saying “Hey you probably need to go further with this” and inspiring him as we were talking about yesterday.

But yeah, so where are you at with it now?

You sort of got that out of progression with the knee, what are you doing with your own training and where are you headed with that now?

JOHN: I think one thing I like and I think is something you talk about like Ben with dunking, I’m trying to get something where I can get some things that I can visually show that this stuff has given me.

I know I feel faster. I know I’m fitter.

All these things are true and I’m injury free but I would like to trial some things and go like “Yeah, I told you this a while back” but in the chat, I was like “Stretch goal try and play a game of Queensland cup again”, very stretch goal considering I work with the team but things like that where I could show I was able to do this at the age of 34, what could you be doing if you're 18 and trial and this stuff?

So that's where really, I’d like to get that excel.

I said to you before that I’m not a freak athlete.

I’m not some sort of genetic mutant or something.

I thought that was funny, that mutant conversation there, very left field but yeah I’d like to just show.

I’ve always been someone that if I do the work I get the results.

As long as I’m putting in regularly.

So I think I could ramp up and show that I could get my CMJ above average or a right up there to solve players where it's like speed sprints, maybe the 1.2, different testing but also then on the football field.

So I played, and I got a bust on this eye.

I played in a carnival on the weekend, it's a Murray carnival for anyone who's seen some of those and we played five games.

So the age of 34, one of the oldest guys playing in the field, I was able to get through five, get half games but of football and still go against all these guys that 18, 19, 20, that have got bodies that regenerate like nothing else.

I think that's one of the things I value in ATG is being the example but how I think I’m still trying to figure out where I sit with that.

Do I need to be playing? Maybe not but I like being able to put it out there and go “Check this out” sort of stuff.

KEEGAN: Yeah, players definitely respect and resonate with other players and people who know what they're going through.

Right, but at the same time, it's like a “You can do it and it can work” but it's also not an excuse to not have the results that you want.

I think sometimes a lot of people with the example of knees over toes guy Ben Patrick is like “Okay when I can do XYZ, then I’ll start helping other people” and it's like “No, that's not really how it works”.

He was helping a bunch of people.

He was coaching, he wasn't world famous but he was doing a bunch of things and that's a big part of why you get to recover and get results with yourself is because you're learning from yourself and from others.

Again going to the Mr. Beast podcast I was listening to…

He got in a group with four or five other guys who wanted to also do well on Youtube.

I think they had about 20,000 subscribers each at the time and they started just critiquing each other's videos and they would get on a live call every day and critique each other's videos and they were all obsessed with it and they all got to a million followers within, I think he said, within a month but it was within a short period of time that they all sort of cracked it.

And so having that mastermind but having that third-party feedback and he was talking about you just don't get enough feedback, you don't get enough failure, you don't get enough anything on your own and so it's by putting it out there, by coaching, by doing your best with what you have, that's really where you learn and if we're talking about ATG then there's plenty of stuff, there's plenty of support there, the system's relatively simple for anyone to be able to apply it and you don't have to have your own results.

You can say “Check out this channel. Check out this pro athlete that he's working with etc”.

Same for you with the therapy that you're talking about, you've quoted to me that there's thousands of studies and different trials and your own experience.

So there's no actual need for anything else to be able to validate, it's already there.

There can always be more results but get into it and don't let that be a kind of mental crutch because you can always make that excuse of “Oh yeah when I’ve helped a hundred more people or when I can do XYZ myself, when I can dunk or when I can…”

Yeah, it's cool if you do it but it probably doesn't…

It’s like dichotomy, where you want to value your own journey and it would be valuable if whatever you do, if you go play Q cup, if you go play NRL like Ben was talking about, playing in the NBA and coaching NBA team playing that was part of sort of his story two-three years ago.

He was thinking quite a lot about that.

I don't think he's thinking like that anymore but he didn't need to do that to do what he's done but he still plays and people can see “Well yeah, he can play”.

It doesn't really matter whether he makes the NBA or not, and it doesn't matter whether you make the Q cup or not but if you show “I’m working and this is what I can do” then there's some respect that comes with that and you can show that with the gamification of the HeartMath stuff.

It's really clear if you've done 1600 sessions or such then you've clearly done the work where someone will go “Oh well, he really believes in this”.

I think that is really valuable to be able to say “I’ve done 1600 sessions of HeartMath” or “I’ve done x amount of sessions of ATG, this is where I was at when I started, this is where I’m at now”.

To me, that would probably carry more weight than a lot of the other stuff that you could talk about and then word of mouth is probably the biggest thing.

If you look at Troy Savage as an example, if he'd have gone down the academic path, we probably started working together 2017, so if he'd gone down the academic path, he'd just be finishing his bachelor's or maybe towards the end of his master's somewhere, depending on how it went for him.

If he was part-time then he'd be… versus what the part that he has taken where he's already working with pro athletes, and the odds that people who go and get their bachelor's and master's work with pro athletes at international level or a bunch of guys, pretty slim.

So he's gone and done it without going down that path because he took the path of action but it should take five or ten years as well from when you decide “I want to make a huge impact”.

It's yeah, five or ten years later.

If you stay really focused, you probably will.

JOHN: What do you say Olympic dream?

What's your Olympic dream…

KEEGAN: Yeah, if you want to go to the Olympics, it's not a decision that you make today and then go tomorrow and think in sort of two cycles like “Where will I be by the next Olympic games and the one after?” that gives you enough time to take action but not too much time that it's just some pipe dream, your life vision or one day “I want to do this” but that doesn't necessarily spur us into action where if for example with you Johnny if you said “I’d like to help 50 NRL players come back from injury, I’d like to work with 50 pro athletes or I’d like to have the most read book or the most watched podcast about sports injury psychology” then you can say “Yeah, let's do that by 2028” and then reevaluate, okay, what's next after that?

Finding something that's exciting for you I think, it's such a gift, it's such a blessing and if it is, that Ph.D., that's like “Yeah I’m buzzing to do this” then cool but I feel for people who don't have that in their lives and whenever I don't have that, it's tough.

I definitely didn't have that for periods when I was backpacking in my 20s and stuff.

I was trying to find like “Where do I get to contribute? Who am I? Where am I going” and you can accept that and you can be in a good place mentally in a way while you're searching but I think there's still going to be that thing of like “I’m meant to be doing something with this lifetime”.

I think it's okay to have that feeling of “I’m meant to be doing something”.

I think you get that inherent reward of “I’m doing what I’m meant to be doing”.

Are you experiencing some of that with your journey in the last sort of year or so?

JOHN: Yeah one-on-one stuff, I often come home to them because I work in community services as well.

So I do a lot of charity-type work and I get a buzz out of that.

But when I do the one-on-ones with players and I come home or I’ve done a session for the whole team and we talk about breath work or we talk about psychological flexibility or anything like that, I always come back and it's like I’m just going for a few days.

So that stuff just gets me going it's definitely powerful for me and I wish I could just do it all the time.

I wish money wasn't an issue and I think you've helped me reframe some of that in the Uncommon Success stuff.

Yeah, look “You get what you deserve and you can't be changing the world if you can't eat”.

I think that was the quote, something along those lines.

KEEGAN: Sounds like something I’d say.

JOHN: Yeah, and the other thing I would say “I’m a huge fan of Tony Robbins and Mr. Beast”.

I’ve only looked at a little bit of that stuff but Tony Robbins always says “You can't get more than you give to other people” but I think that's more in your value.

So if you look at Gary Vee-type stuff that jab jab jab right hook, you just keep giving more value to other people and I think if as a mentor in the space we're working and you do that really well, you give so much value out.

I’m not surprised that things are coming back to you in your life the way…

But the other thing I was thinking with Mr. Beast is I constantly hear little Youtubers talk about Mr. Beast reaching out and giving me this feedback about how I can improve.

So whenever I see that, I think he's not doing that to become huge, he's doing that because he's helping other people and he's someone who…

KEEGAN: He spoke about that too.

JOHN: Did he?

KEEGAN: Yeah, he spoke about that, the example he gave was a guy that was making about 20 grand a month and started making 400 grand a month within six months or something, eight months and he was giving him tips but he said what he loves about it, he does it for free and what he loves about it is that he has to test his ideas.

“Is this really such a good idea? Do I really know this stuff inside out?” that it gets turned straight into money. That's the buzz for me and yeah, that podcast really made me rethink what am I actually teaching here and what do I really value.

I don't actually care whether I become wealthy.

I’m happy to couch surf or whatever and the thing is, if I am able to help, to support you to what you want to achieve and a bunch of other people and you all help each other, that's what means a lot to me and I know then that if I’m in a tough sport or if I’m in Australia, you'll probably help me out whether… and so the wealth is there whether it's monetary or not by being really valuable.

So it's not a rejection of this stuff is valuable and there should be value generated through it but it really doesn't matter whether…

Rogan decides to keep most of his wealth and he's not super public about it but he's got a big car collection, he talks about having money and I like that perspective, I get that perspective but then you've got…

Yeah, that mystery's perspective of “I’m gonna do this so well” and do exactly what I’m meant to be doing and I don't need to hold on to anything that's kind of it's a challenging way to look at it where he is wealthy, he just doesn't hold it.

The wealth is all out there in the world with people whose life is affected and who knows that he's really valuable.

Who would pay for his consulting if he was gonna offer it as a service or whatever?

Yeah, it's challenging me because I just want the impact and it makes no difference whether someone's paying me a thousand dollars for the call or whether it's free from my side.

It matters from their side often because they listen with different ears potentially with the investment side but it's only one way to motivate people, it's a bit of an excuse.

You can get results with people for free if they know you're good enough and I suppose that's what Mr. Beast has, that massive credibility, and yeah I can work on that myself to have more results, more credibility, and more good content where people feel that money isn't the only way to do it.

So yeah, this is stuff that's sort of rattling around in my brain.

In a way, it even motivates me, even more, to be better at what I’m doing by taking that selfish kind of side of it out of it and being really clear of it's really what I’m here for.

This is what I do best, it's what I love, keep doing it and if I could take that out of the equation I’d…

You're sort of saying as well but you haven't decided to maximally provide value to the world yet, in the way that at least in my lens.

JOHN: So yeah I think I’d like to do videos and content and stuff but yeah I think I’ve got some avoidance around putting myself out there on camera and different things.

So I think that's where I’m at with that type of thing.

So I think this conversation might be a good one to go “Hey, use some of these skills on yourself and just make it happen”.

KEEGAN: Well you have used them on yourself and it's doing that then into another area and we all feel it, nobody's killing it on every platform or it feels completely comfortable with every type of video that they might make or whatever but just expanding 5%, 10% from where you are is…

Could you make one presentation? Could you make one post, make one.

Just taking that one next step can sometimes be the catalyst for what becomes then a habit because you have that vision for yourself.

I’d love to see you do that and I can see that you have a ton of knowledge and experience and your own story as an athlete is a really powerful one to get to the place that you're in now.

A lot of athletes get into a downward spiral when they miss out on their identities, challenge, and all those sorts of things and you have overcome that, you've got that positivity, you've gone and got yourself a degree and you've got a role in a footy team and you've done a lot of things that a lot of players would like to do whether they make it or they don't make it and so yeah if being able to share that or to transfer that ability to others is something that's super valuable and I think you'll get a lot of joy out of.

So yeah, I appreciate the discussion John and it's good to get the chance to sit down and share.

And those who have listened in if they want to connect more, what's the best way to get in touch with you?

JOHN: That's the other thing. I’m completely absent from all social media.

So I’m not anywhere but I guess I’m on telegram now because ATG made me.

KEEGAN: I can drop a telegram link in there so people can dm you there if that's the best way or you could have an email or…

JOHN: Yeah, email is good too.

Yeah, either one. I’m happy to share both of those.

KEEGAN: I’ll put it in the description and then people can reach out if there's something here that they need to act on.

I’m sure a huge part of the ATG audience is dealing with this side of things so the mental challenge, as well as the physical, is real with a lot of stuff.

So really appreciate your time and appreciate your great connect chat.

JOHN: Thanks, Keegan

See you, buddy.