Better Than Yesterday with Osher Günsberg

Matthew Mitcham is a retired Olympic Diver who has a life full of firsts. He’s the first openly gay athlete to ever win an Olympic gold medal, winning that gold medal with the highest-ever single dive score in Olympic History.

While his career was incredibly high profile, and he indeed achieved dominance in his sport - it was what happened out of the pool that has in my opinion shaped the wonderful man who came over to our apartment this week.

Matthew wrote a memoir in 2012 called “Twists and Turns”, and is currently topping off a linguistics degree as he grows into a superb cabaret performer.

He’s got a show coming up this week in Sydney -

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

with Matthew Mitcham

Saturday 27 October, 7pm

Bondi Pavilion Theatre

http://www.bonditheatrecompany.com.au/shows/up-close-and-personal

This conversation talks a bit about diving.

A bit about sexuality, and a LOT about addiction and recovery.

There’s quite a bit of stuff in here that might trigger you if you or someone you know has a history of crystal meth use - and if you need someone to talk to in Australia please call Lifeline on 13 11 14, or reach out to the crisis counselling service in your area.

Speaking of reaching out.

In this conversation Matthew and I speak a lot about meetings. The meetings are everywhere, they’re not hard to find, and if you need help, and you’re willing to do whatever it takes to not need to drink or use again, you’ll find what you need in those meetings. I can’t recommend them enough.

If you’ve never had a problem with drinking or using - I hope this conversation gives you a window into what life can be like in recovery, and the daily work that can happen so that life doesn’t need to be a repetitive downward spiral heading to the foregone conclusion of institution, hospitalisation or incarceration, or worse.

That’s not the chirpiest intro I’ve done - but this is a solid chat with a guy that’s got some solid time, it was good to talk about recovery this way.

You can find Matthew on twitter he’s @matthew_mitcham and instagram @MatthewMitcham88- let him know you heard him here, and enjoy this conversation with Matthew Mitcham.

That was he’s on Twitter @matthew_mitcham and instagram @MatthewMitcham88- let him know you heard him here

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Emma Roche is an Australian author and whole-food plant-based food advocate who lives year-round in Belgium.

You can find her on instagram @plantplate

I’m very aware of the privilege that I have as a white, male, middle class guy that I can afford to live a plant-based life.

Indeed at times in my life I have definitely gone overboard and bought the $20 jar of organic virgin dirt single origin solar-powered peanut butter.

However it doesn’t have to be like that.

And lately I’ve been getting more and more frugal about how I feed myself to live this way, and you know what - chickpeas are cheap. Rice is cheap. Veggies are cheap.

It doesn’t have to be a Gwennyth Paltrow $470 a week for one person grocery bill. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be.

This is where Emma Roche comes in.

She’s written a couple of brilliant books about living a whole-food plant based life on a budget. In fact they do what they say on the box

“Whole Food Plant Based on $5 a day” is the book I first found, and it spread the message that you can feed yourself and your family well, and cheaply, on less than $50 a week per person - which is a pretty excellent price point if you ask me. Her books are available at plantplate.com

If you’re new to the idea of eating this way, or you’ve been curious about it but don’t know how to make the first steps away from the food you grew up knowing, or you're befuddled at the $10 macrobiotic sprouted tempeh that you think you need to put in each meal - this episode is for you.

A warning, if you haven’t eaten yet and you’re listening to this on an empty stomach, you’ll want to cook something delicious today I can guarantee it.

Emma’s a great chat, and we caught up over Skype from her home in Europe. Enjoy this conversation with Emma Roche.

Until we speak next time, do what you can where you are with what you have, and urge those in power to do the right thing.

Our Prime Minister’s number is:

Telephone:

(02) 6277 7700

Fax:

(02) 6273 4100

Angus Taylor the Minister for Energy is

Phone: (02) 6277 7710

And Melissa Price, Minister for the Environment is at

Ph: (02) 6277 4242

It’s up to us my friends.

You can’t do everything, you can’t do nothing, but you can do something.

So let’s do it.

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I am so excited to be sharing my conversation with Susan David with you.

Her book "emotional agility” was one of the books I devoured in the first few months of coming off of meds, as I tried to learn more about my head and about what’s going on when I get triggered with panic or rumination.

The wide angle view of Susan’s work is that discomfort or indeed uncomfortable feelings is the price of admission to a meaningful life.

When I first saw her Ted Talk, “The Gift and Power of Emotional Courage" which has well over 3 Million Views by now - this was like a revelation to me.

I say to Audrey all the time - I have these moments where it’s like we’ve hit the “release” button on the pressure cooker - just one small string of words or an idea can free me from the swirling vortex of rumination.

And when I first heard Susan’s hypothesis, this was like permission to have this discomfort within my body - and that indeed absorbing it and realising that not only was I bigger than it but also that it would pass - well that was incredibly liberating. Bear in mind that I needed to be on meds for a long time until I was able to hear such things and have them stick - when I was sick and experiencing psychosis it wouldn’t have mattered if A Harvard Ph,D psychologist like Susan David sat in my kitchen and told me this like she does today - it simply wouldn’t have mattered.

But thankfully I have healed a lot and I’m getting about doing the daily work so that ideas and concepts like this can indeed stick in and make a difference to my day.

In fact just this morning, Audrey and I were coming back from the airport after a lovely week away in Bali, when I did something I shouldn’t have done on three hours of sitting in a chair plane sleep.

I opened twitter and saw an article claiming that the Trump administration was using an unstoppable and cataclysmic climate change projection of a 7oC rise by 2100 was justification that car emission regulations weren’t going to make a difference to why not lift the restrictions and just go to town on emissions since we’re all going to die anyway.

Now if you’ve read my book you’ll know that Climate Change was my trigger - and indeed the paranoid delusions I was experiencing convinced me that such a scenario as this projection was happening today and I was the only one that knew about it.

So as I sat in the back of a cab, my body just teetering on the edge of sunburn and tan after a week reading my Yuval Noah Harari book in the sunshine, my wife texting the dog sitter trying to reunite us with Frank later that day, the familiarly cool and punishing stab of fear pierced my stomach.

Crisp and precise, my intestines turned to macrame and my heart nearly bursting through my ears. I could hardly breathe and as I look at the peerless blue sky and a man walking past in shorts I feel the icky tendrils return into my brain, the blue sky is bad, it should be cloudy this time of year - why’s he wearing shorts? It’s supposed to be cold? These two things clearly mean this article is correct, fuuuck here we go... I’m suddenly completely disconnected to the present. I’m no longer in the cab, no longer with Audrey, no longer basking in the glow of a week in Bali lying around by a pool reading books with my lover.

I’ve been hijacked and I’m now imprisoned in a cage of future fear that feels completely real in my mind, utterly disconnected with where my body actually is.

So I go straight to my tools. Breathe. Get control of my breathing. Feel my feet in my socks. Get into this moment. Get into my body. Reach out and touch Audrey on the hand. Connect with her and this reality right now, not the one in 82 years from now.

Breathe some more.

Where is this feeling in my body?

It’s in my...

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Matt Griggs is a high performance coach, keynote speaker and meditation teacher from Sydney Australia, you can find him online at mattgriggs.com or on instagram @mattgriggs.

For years Matt worked with some of the worlds most successful athletes in the surfing world, helping them focus in and out of the water for not only world-beating performances in competition - but with resilience out of the water too.

Matt famously coached three-time world-champion surfer and shark-puncher Mick Fanning, and 6 time world-champion surfer Stephanie Gilmore, as well as numerous NRL players and other elite athletes.

Matt is also a meditation teacher, and we delve right into the particular kind of mediation he teaches in this podcast, because while I’m still a novice - I do try to meditate every day and I do find it to be very beneficial in my life. I also know that not everyone will use the same kind of mediation - some may prefer mindfulness, some may prefer mantra meditations, or another way of finding that particular place in your thinking - whatever it takes, give it a go - because I don’t know much, but I do know that every elite athlete, leader, broadcaster, performer and business person I admire - they all meditate. Every one of them.

So there’s something in it.

Matt and I get technical when we start talking about focus and consciousness, but that’s ok you can hit rewind and listen again to anything that might have slipped past you.

I’m all about these kinds of conversations - because while our lives may be full of questions - thankfully whatever problem we’ve had that’s hassling us - someone else has had it before and they figured out a way to deal with it - so all we have to do is find them, find what worked for them, and apply it to our lives.

I’m so grateful that you get to hear this conversation with the fascinating Matt Griggs.

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Doug Menuez is a photographer from the US, who has covered everything from the Ethiopian Famine, the emergence of the AIDS crisis, and most notably the rise of Silicon Valley between 1985 and 2000.

You and I are communicating right now, both broadcasting and listening, thanks to people that he chronicled during his time documenting the incredible emergence of that part of the world and the technology to come out of it.

Doug and I first came to know each other when I was studying at THNK in Amsterdam, and I’m so very grateful that he and I were able to talk today.

I’ve always been a firm believer in documenting your work - my vast collection of on-set and behind the scenes pictures from the early years of Idol and my time in the USA are a testimony to that, and Doug is a fantastic example of why it’s important.

Possibly his most important work was documenting the incredible rise of Silicon Valley from 1985-2000, capturing the creation of technology that you and I use every single day.

You might not ever think you’ll be a photojournalist, you might only ever take photos on your phone, however what Doug has to talk about today is not only a masterclass in documenting the world around you - but also what it takes to truly change the world, from a man that was in the room as the world was being changed.

This one’s pretty nerdy - it’s not often get to talk to one of my photography heroes, but hey you never know - what works for Doug in his photography process might just translate into your own process...

Doug joined me over Skype from his loft in NYC, enjoy this conversation with the great Doug Menuez.

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