Life-Changing Challengers
Dive into the heart of transformation with "Life-Changing Challengers," a podcast that inspires listeners to turn their challenges into opportunities for growth. Hosted by Brad Minus, a seasoned endurance coach with over 13 years of experience, this show brings you compelling stories of resilience, ambition, and personal triumph.
Brad and his guests share their journeys of overcoming obstacles through endurance sports, personal development, and pursuing passions. From completing Ironman triathlons to conquering personal and professional hurdles, "Life-Changing Challengers" is your guide to breaking barriers and achieving your dreams.
Whether you're looking to incinerate your limits, find inspiration to chase your big passion or enjoy motivational stories of people who've transformed their lives, this podcast is for you. Join us to explore how embracing challenges can lead to a happier, more fulfilled life.
Subscribe, review, and share to be part of a community dedicated to making every challenge a stepping stone to success. Follow "Life-Changing Challengers" to ignite your desire, push your boundaries, and embark on your journey to the extraordinary.
Life-Changing Challengers
Embracing Life's Journey: From Personal Struggles to Higher Calling with Neal Fisher
From the verdant depth of a North Queensland rainforest to the raw realities of personal reinvention, Neal Fisher, author of "The Unified Man," takes us on an emotive trek across life's varied landscapes. Neal's openness struck me as he recounted the paradox of his outward confidence and hidden fears, a fallout from his parents' split that many listeners might find echoes of in their own life stories. We delve into the evolving shape of family, the indispensable role of fathers, and the complexities faced by young parents, affording a mirror to society's changing contours.
The twists and turns of life's journey can often lead us down paths we least expect, sometimes to the brink of a financial abyss or the snares of addiction, as Neal knows all too well. His narrative doesn't shy from the bleak truths of ambition run amok or the harsh lessons of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Yet, there's solace in his rediscovery of life's simple pleasures and a minimalist ethos that underlines the narrative. Neal's candid share of slipping into debt's clutches, the lure of cryptocurrency, and his subsequent rise to financial stability underscore a tale of resilience and the power of pivoting back to one's values.
Neal's quest didn't end with financial stability; it led him to a higher calling that he elucidates with wisdom won from hardship. He speaks of the synchronicity of life, the alignment with destiny, and how work can become an act of worship on the path to self-mastery. As Neal navigates through sales jobs, coaching, and encounters with impactful mentors, his story becomes a testament to the power of listening to one's internal compass. His journey reveals the importance of self-discovery and the profound impact of aligning our lives with a higher purpose, inviting listeners to consider their path and the joys of riding life's exhilarating wave toward fulfillment.
Contact Neal:
- Instagram/@Nealfisher_
- https://www.theunifiedman.com.au
- Read THE UNIFIED MAN on Amazon
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All right, hey, welcome back to Life Changing Challengers. I have with me Neil Fisher, who happens to be the author of the Unified man, an excellent book with a bunch of tenants and a set of mindset blueprints to help you throughout planet Earth. So anyway, hey, neil, how's it going today?
Speaker 2:Oh, fantastic, man Loving it.
Speaker 1:That's what I like to hear. Yeah, oh, just by the way, neil's in Australia, so we're actually talking to the future right now, so I'm totally crazed for that. So anyway, neil, listen, I always start out there in the same way and I would like to know just first give us a brief history of your childhood how you grew up, who you grew up with, the makeup of your family.
Speaker 2:No one wants to know that, so I'll tell you all about it. My parents didn't want to raise us in the city so they purposely moved to a small little coastal beachside village in North Queensland in Australia. We lived in the rainforest, lived in an old banana shed in the rainforest fresh creeks, deans, nature, all that beautiful stuff, and also we had the islands and coral reefs and beautiful oceans and the most gorgeous beaches in the world. Looking up on the internet, mission Beach, australia, it's absolutely sensational. It was very fortunate. We had generally healthy vegetables, fruits yeah, there's always a little bit of processed stuff in there but grew up drinking creek water, grew up drinking rainwater and had an older brother and this had a very thorough childhood, very blessed to have a lot of purity. We weren't a crime already that rubbish in the cities or that you see everywhere. So we're lucky and I was lucky too, because we all get. We're all bought with cards. We get dealt cards by the poker dealer. That is God. We're born and I was lucky to have intelligence and humor and wit and prowess. Could be the biggest class clown all through school, but then also I was top of the class and it was effortless. You have all these things that you're blessed with, but there's always. You always get a few dud cards as well.
Speaker 2:I was always fearful, I would say, because I was terrified of my father's wrath. Now, my father was not. He was the best dad ever. He was a shit husband, but he was a fucking great dad. He never done anything nasty to us. It was just a healthy dose of fear. But because it was always so, we're very obedient, so to speak. But he loved us, he looked after us tremendously, took us fishing, camping all around the islands and stuff like that. But having an innate fear from a young age, it creates a schism within when you start to attach to something. Even though I had all of this confidence and outwildly charisma, there was always that fear of, and that was something that hoarsed me through those two-nades years. But, dad, they split up when I was like 12 and I just didn't even recognize it, didn't even register it, because they were still communicating and still saw each other, so it didn't really even affect me. Anyway, you got any questions?
Speaker 1:It's so interesting that you said that, because I don't think anybody's ever said that to me before. I know a bunch of people that have came from so-called broken homes and no one's ever said that to me. So that is an interesting take that you could say that, oh, it didn't affect you, and that's. I think that's probably a good telltale to your parents, because obviously they still parented you as mother and father and the marriage part just didn't work out. So that's a point of parent, that's all I did abroad, because that was always they were fighting.
Speaker 2:Obviously it affects you, and the reason I say it didn't affect me is because that's what we always have blinkers and blinders. There's always a shadow aspect of ourselves that we can't see. Oh, I'm fine, everything's great. But not necessarily. There's always something under the surface that's going to be being a driver, on your attitude or your behavior. There's going to be something. That's always something to dredge up from the abyss within. So, even though I say it might not have affected me, no doubt it did you can just tell underlying drivers and you just ignore things. Because they were always fighting. They were always fighting in the end and that's why they split up, because they were wise enough to go look, this isn't working for us anymore, but this the kids. So the sacrifice they made of the family unit was to protect the kids, because there was just no good fight in front of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's something that we're not finding nowadays. Right now, with least in America, our divorce rate is over 50%, and it used to be oh, you stay together for the kids and then maybe you'll divorce when they're out of the house. And that's not happening anymore. They're just giving up, and they're giving up on the kids too, and that's what's causing a lot of issues that we've got nowadays here in the States. I don't know, is it the same way there in Australia?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and of course it is Same way everywhere. It's division, it's the whole. I don't want to get I'm not political or anything like that but it's a communist doctrine to destroy the family unit. When you destroy the family unit, especially the father, the father's the figurehead, the father's the strength, that's the defender, the protector, the provider, and when you degrade that role and make it out to be an oppressive role rather than a role of strength and as a role model, you end up with all this trouble. It was kids raising kids, single parents, single fathers, single mothers, and at a young age, very young ages. You're not even matured, you don't even know yourself until you get into your 30s, 40s, so you just end up with kids raising kids. There isn't that role model, there isn't that path of initiation, of ritual leadership to show people, to actually educate them and be, more importantly, be that example. Because at the end of the day, when it comes to a kid, monkey see, monkey do.
Speaker 1:I agree wholeheartedly and as far as that little bit of fear you had growing up because of your father, my father did the same thing to me until I was about 14, 15.
Speaker 1:And even then it still continued, but he did it in a healthy way, where at one point there's a kind of a switch that tricked and all of a sudden maybe just became best friends and that holds to this day. So let's circle back now. Your parents split up when they were 12. You didn't really phase you, you went into. Is it called secondary school there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, high school. You call it high school too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, high school Okay, and you said you got great grades there. Did you end up going to college?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, what happened in school is that, like any of us, we get introduced to drugs there's to losers and all these fucking people around us that just end up bringing us down. So I still trumped in school but then just smoking, heaps of pot, drinking, and just the cowardice continued. The cowardice around defending myself. Or the cowardice around talking to women, because you know, I don't kill. Anybody says marijuana is definitely not good for you and the fact that it's legalized and widespread and so potent it does nothing happens by accident. It's done on purpose to keep your fat, lazy, mindless consuming slob. I know because I've been there. I've smoked more pot than you've had hot dinners like it's not good. So then do it. On a nutshell, do it.
Speaker 2:All that that just amplified my fear, amplified my cowardice, and I would be have my strengths in one area, but there'd be a chink in my armor. I pain within that was never addressing because I was too paranoid to actually step out of my comfort zone and go and do it. So that halted me for a very long time, that sorrow, that pain, that loneliness, that disconnect within and within, until I come to about grade 10, grade 11. So I was 15, 16 years old. I just had an epiphany one day. I woke up and I went. I can't even remember the last three months, I can't even remember what happened, I don't even know what date it is, because I just been smoking that much fucking pot. And then I just. It's like we all reach an epiphany will all change when we finally have had enough pain. It'll just hit us. We'll realize that the bandages are the hide, our wounds. It is ourselves that must heal them. And I made the decision that stops.
Speaker 2:And then from there, my life turned around. I got all the good grades again, I eventually met a girl, got a girlfriend praise be holy, thank gosh. And then I went to go to college, university. I went there and this way, this isn't for me, because there was 10, 10 million other kids there that were way smarter, way more dedicated. It was, above all, it was immature, just the shit that people were going on with. It was just like I don't belong here. And that's what we all need to find is that we all have that pain within of separation, because we don't have a place where we belong, we don't have a group of people that share our interests or share our drives. You have to just keep looking for that, and that's what I did. I left the comeback home to my girl and all that sort of stuff, and from there that's when a whole other chapter opens.
Speaker 1:Oh, excellent, I like to hear that, so let's see. So that must have been what you're 18, 19. So what did you end up doing when you decided to leave college?
Speaker 2:Come back home. Dad wasn't happy about it, but he got over it.
Speaker 1:And then I went to work.
Speaker 2:He was getting paid good money, so he was happy and I was happy to have been a kid earning nothing. And then I come back because there's a small town and being the construction figurehead that he was, everybody knew everybody. So I got a construction job and I was pulling good money making it for me. I was like, holy, I'm rich. And then for the next like year, this worked. That Then saved up the money and then I was able to buy a house when I was like, whatever, it was 18, 19 years old. So then use that money. And he was happy with that.
Speaker 2:When bought this house, started renovating it to do it up, to sell it to make a profit, but then the financial the 2008 global GFC happened, so then it all just went to crap. So then I was stuck with this house and then that's when it started to go down hills, because it wasn't the fact that I was stuck with the house, it was my poor decisions that resulted then, because I was always doing self-development reading all the books, traveling the country, going to the seminars, people like Tony Robbins and all those sorts of people trying to find the way, trying to find the answers, trying to get rich, ultimately attached to the material world, rather than going within and then start smoking heat support again. And then, lo and behold, things started to go wrong. Because I tried different business things like business, just investment strategies and then eventually settled on day trading because I liked the idea of it it's just you and yourself and I had a mentor like what I want and we're meeting groups like we are now online and I'll trade with him. What happened to that? Because I was up in the ether, I thought I don't know what I could do here.
Speaker 2:Quick money Because I'd done all that work on the house. I borrowed all this money on the house and then the GFC the head value of the house crashed. So I was trading all of this money, borrowed money. The value of the house was down. I was smoking heat support. He not turned up to do the work anymore. I was just following his trades in the background, taking responsibility.
Speaker 2:But all this took me bad because what happened with him? He knew exactly what he was doing, but his partner that he was working with got greedy. Because I can see behind the scene. I developed friendships with some of his team and you could get an insider's view of what was going on. So they sold all these programs. So he was under all this pressure, he couldn't trade anymore. He was just making these decisions, trying to make money, trying to make things happen, and it all just crashed. Everyone lost all their money. I was lucky. I pulled out because I see what was happening. I still had a little bit left but ended up just blowing it anyway, because it's too lazy to go back to work.
Speaker 2:And then one day I woke up. I was separated. The one and only woman that I'd fallen in love with she was with another man. My body looked like shit, I was bankrupt and I had a dependence on marijuana and it was all preventable, the whole lot of it. I saw it all coming.
Speaker 2:I just ignored it because I was too grandiose, too narcissistic, up in the ether, just lived in a fantasy world, a delusion, and it just crashed around me. And that's what happens is, when we think too much, we get caught up in our own immature and the culture feeds us as well. We get caught up in our immature right Theosity of special. I was born special. Here's the thing we're all born unique, but we're not born special. You have to earn the right to be called special, you have to earn the right to be called strong. You have to earn the right to be called wise and a leader and someone magnificent. We're born with the capability, but not with the prestige. I wasn't earning it and that's why the universe just tumbled it on its head and just crashed it down on me. And that needed to happen, because I needed to grow.
Speaker 1:That is profound, and I love the way that you speak about it in this grandiose, because it's so going around right now, this narcissistic behavior that we've got. Everybody feels like they're an influencer, everybody feels like they're this, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Well, let's step back again. So you ended up having $208,000 in debt and you were separated, just like you stated. So then you went back to work with your dad, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what happened is because I'd left working. Like I was so wise, I stopped working. I'll just make money trading now, anyway. So, yeah, the only thing I could do was to go back and actually really submit construction to concrete, because, number one, it was something that I could jump into immediately and actually make a good money in to pull myself out of the mess. And number two was like when you're in a hole, you got to stop digging and start climbing. So I got rid of a stock smoker weed, went on a full organic detox purge, died for a year, didn't smoke pot for a year it was probably like nine months, to be honest with you. Then I started smoking pot again, but it was a lot more controlled. Anyway, they went back working for him and I did not want to do it because there's dirty hard work. There's dirty hard work there.
Speaker 1:Especially where we live.
Speaker 2:We live in North Queensland. It's a nuclear heat. It is going to haunt man. It melts out there.
Speaker 2:But here's the thing, though, brad, it all had an positive side effect, which was that I was able to develop strong bonds and learn from and have friendships with real men. Real strong men lived in the old world. They don't know anything about the cyberspace. They don't know anything about social media. They don't know about any of this gogly global citizen guy worshipping gender bending, just identity schisms, just rot us all from the inside out. They don't know any of that crap and, myself included, I'm the last people of my age. We're the last generation to know what the world was like before. There was a world that existed before the old world, before everything went mad, but anyway, the point is, these people granted me in reality, I was taught and showed and embodied the power of perseverance, doing something hard that you don't want to do.
Speaker 2:For years I learned the value of loyalty and dependability and reliability. When that concrete truck, when that mud turns up, it's a time bomb. You have to be there. It's concrete waits for no man. People are relying on you. It is going off and it is going hard and it is going off now. So you had to be there, no matter how hungover you were, no matter how little sleep you had, no matter if you had no sleep. If you know what I'm talking about, you had to be there. You had to be that strong man. It's like going to battle. People were depending on you, you were depending on them. So it taught me the honor code of no matter what, you have to be there.
Speaker 2:Because people say I don't care what anyone thinks about me, that's because you're an asshole. You should care what people think about you, the people in your immediate tribe. What is your reputation? How are they doing you? What is your character? What is your reputation? That's an important word, because we think this and we think that and we have all these ideas. They're just concepts. Most of them are false. How are people actually doing you? What is the feedback they're giving you? And that feedback of how you're being perceived and how you're interacting with the world. That's who you are, what you do and your reputation is the biggest indicator of who you are character.
Speaker 1:I agree with that a wholeheartedly. Prior to you going back with working with your dad being a concreter, you're sitting at a desk, you've probably got a drink with you and you're making these decisions. Now, all of a sudden, everything's gone flat and you've got to go back to working in this blue collar, hard, tough as nails job. Can you paint us a picture? For? Just give us one day in the life of a concreter so we can paint that picture of what the difference is?
Speaker 2:Well, that's it. You said it there. We'll work at night still because we're trading the E-minis the US market S&P E-mini and the E-mini 500. So, yeah, it was this easy going, sleeping all day and just do whatever you want. Easy peasy, go and eat as many ham sandwiches as you like. And that's what happened was the downfall. I became lazy, apathetic and complacent and entitled. I thought it was just going to fall on my lap. So we all need that downfall, that shattering of pride, and that's what I had to do. I thought I was above it all and that I got shattered, had to come back, put on his gum boosts.
Speaker 2:So a typical day is you're getting up. You could be getting up at two o'clock in the morning, you could be getting up at three o'clock in the morning. Up you get and you're hungover too because you've drunk 20 beers a night before you wake up. You've got a gut-sache too because you've gotten drunk and just eating a million hamburgers. You get up, you're dusty, you've got a headache, you go to work and then you have to jump into a beast of a session To get the gym. You want a hard workout, go on concrete. For a day You're either swinging a big metal sledgehammer hitting staff pickets, pieces of steel into ground, rock hard.
Speaker 2:In the Gulf of Carpenteria, which is up north of Australia, it's horn up. It's like the deserts, the nuclear. So you're going to hit these pieces of steel into rock all day and melt. Or you've got these liquid weights. You've got this liquid weight. One cubic meter of concrete is 2.2 tons. So to shovel that shit all around the place. You're hungover, you're sick and it's hot and you have to do it. You can't just go and have a break, you can't just call and see. Have to do it, because the people that love and respect you and the people that you love and respect, we're all counting on each other and you probably you'll get smashed in the head if you don't do it anyway. So you have to do it and that's a diet, a six or seven days a week for 10 years. Welcome to my life.
Speaker 1:I don't think people understand what hard work is nowadays. So that's a great picture and I appreciate you painting that for us. All right, so 10 years, you finally get out of this debt that you've made for yourself. What then?
Speaker 2:Well, you're going to love this. It was actually eight years, right, seven or eight years. And then guess what happened? Finally, I finally paid off everything. I finally paid it off. And here's the other thing that people need to keep in mind I could have paid it off all quicker if I had more impulse control, if I didn't eat so much fast, if I didn't drink so much alcohol, if I didn't still just keep doing drugs. I was lucky enough to have a role model and such a strong, positive father. He loves his beers, but he's a strong man and he's a positive man. He is such a good role model. I was able to balance that, but I could have got to where I would need to go a lot quicker if I just got rid of all the impulse control.
Speaker 2:Anyway, the day after literally the day after I paid off my debt, I met a man that I call the prophet of profit and he introduced me to cryptocurrency. He introduced me to crypto and then all of us, anybody that goes down that rabbit hole they get crypto fever. That consumed boy overnight millions, click and then guess what I did? I went and borrowed another 80 grand and sunk that into the crypto bar Idiot. And guess what? It all just turns out on me and it all turns out quick.
Speaker 2:Here's the thing, though, because I'd gotten all that money and then I'd gone through another breakup, so I was in a turmoil, and then I was stuck concreting it again. In this situation, I couldn't handle it. I have to get out. So I sold everything for about half, for 40 grand, but because if I just held on for another couple of weeks, like I was planning to, instead of getting emotionally wrapped up in it, I would have just broke, even sold it all. I would have been sweet, but because I was didn't have impulse control again, it all just turned to crap. And because I had that avarice and just jumped in and click, click, click, click, any click a debt swap mate. But anyway, I'll let my lesson.
Speaker 2:So the answer to the question, then situation because I moved to a city Finally, I can get the hell out of here. And then I went back to my little small coastal home and just went back in my ute, and if I couldn't fit it in my ute, I didn't need it. And that's the thing we all have too much stuff, we all attach to the material world too much, and I'm a minimalist. Minimalism is powerful because just touching on one constant, any possession you really ever have is your body. That's why you need to put full, maximum effort into it, because you can't own anything, because the earth owns us period. So come back and then I can accumulate.
Speaker 2:I was working concrete but because of my trade level of ability then I was making way better money and working way better circumstances. Where it was actually you could pick and choose the jobs you were doing because I wasn't attached so you could do a lot of the time. It wasn't actually too hard because of the crew, the tight, awesome championship blokes I was working with and everybody's understanding we would just structure it. So it wasn't hard because everybody knew it was. Don't get me wrong, you serve your hard days but we'd make it easy. Where I came and that camaraderie of working hard together, that's something that you really get to and you get a lot of pride, satisfaction and fulfillment in the life about just concrete challenges with the tight group of strong men I can relate due to.
Speaker 1:I did nine and a half years in the military, so I got a pretty good idea what you're talking about. You thought you'd die better than me. Yeah, got a good squad of guys around you. Yeah, there's nothing better than having a good team around you. So another 18 months, now you're working, and you're actually working a lot easier because you've got a system in place is what it sounds like. Everybody in your crew sounds like you. Each of them knew their job backwards and forwards, and you can apply them where their strengths were. Is that about right? Excellent.
Speaker 2:That is Still, don't worry me wrong. Still 80% hard, 20% would be easy.
Speaker 1:So that's what I did for the next three years.
Speaker 2:So that's what happened now Brad is. Then for three years because I didn't have the debt and because I was so used to putting all of my money into patting off the debt. Now I had that frugal habit, even still drinking and taking drugs. I still had 80, 85% of my money left over. Because, such a tight ass at that point, now I could actually start building and accumulating and saving up. Here's my money to get into property and get it again. And that's what I did, my dad being the guy that he is. He spotted some of my properties around the town that had gone bankrupt and just the government was just selling them up for peanuts. So I was able to pick up this property for nothing, absolutely nothing, and just work on, then build a house on. There was no mortgage. I didn't need to go and borrow money because of all the money I'd pull it in. It was just every week. I was able to just add something else onto it. And then, in this process too, I met another woman, got into another relationship there and things are going good.
Speaker 2:But we all have a deep yearning within in our heart, in our solar plexus. We all have a feeling and internal compass that tells us that we need to expand, that we need to go in a different direction, and the needle on that compass always points through north and the needle is fear. Now there's two fears there's a primary fear of death and it's a secondary fear of growth. Everything we want is on the other side of that fear. I had a good life, but the problem was it was an easy life. Then it was a comfortable life. Now I had reached my plateau because I wasn't utilizing all of my abilities, I wasn't actually really expanding beyond my comfort zone, I wasn't growing anymore. I wasn't actually really helping anybody. I was not filling my life's calling, being blessed to be born here on this planet.
Speaker 2:So then it all started again. The depression all came back, the anxiety, the angst and then the drinking just kicked up, and then the drug taking, all that shit and all this increases to the height and bandage that pain and was sober. But the pain was still there because I was still living a comfortable life and it just led me to bring some energy to me. It really led me to the saddest and worst of being in my life because I'd now made it. I was debt-free, I'd built this house. I had a relationship and then I sold the house. I didn't know any money on it. Then I had all this money. I had all of my time back. Fantastic, I finally made it and then now I was empty. I was worse than what I was before. I felt worse than what I did when I first worked at 10 years, 12 years earlier. But I got myself into that mess because then now what I was lost.
Speaker 2:But the beauty is it's only when you're lost when you can actually really start to find yourself, because you let go of all the identities, let go of everything you attach to all your pride, all your ego, all of your grandiosity, all of your so-called perceived status, all of your elevation. It all disappears and you're left with just that pain. That's all you're left with. So that started the second journey, the second hero's journey, which was I've got to leave everything behind. Now. I've got to leave behind the old life. I had to leave behind my family, the comfortable job, sold it all and I had to leave.
Speaker 2:And that's how I ended up where I am now and again, that threshold is fear. You have to accept that call, whatever it is. It's gonna be scary, it's gonna be terrifying. But guess what? If you don't do it, you're gonna die with regret. And I'll tell you right now there's no other pain greater than regret. I know that because I felt regret my whole life, and I think we all do, because we all know in our hearts where we're supposed to go, know what direction we're supposed to go, but we deny it and that's all. We have the pain because we're denying ourselves.
Speaker 1:So you said the pain was like speaking to you, right, and basically you're telling me that the pain was telling you that you need to leave everything behind. Is that what you're? Is that basically what it was telling you? Because I'm trying to get this conversation in my head going. You get a great relationship, you get a job that's paying you money, but there's something you're. What I'm hearing is something's missing. That's right, something's missing. Yeah, you became a minimalist, so you didn't really have any assets. You had the assets you had. You had cash, is what it sounded like. So you have this pain that's talking to you and you decide to move to the Gold Coast, or Gold Coast right, this is what happens. What makes you pick that location and what? What did you think you were going to do?
Speaker 2:Here's the thing is that we all want power, right. We all want to be wise and powerful, we all want status, we all want to be strong, and that's what we're supposed to be. We're supposed to be strong In the heart. We can feel it in our solar plexus, in our heart. That's where our sense of self-worth lies, energetically and spiritually. Cry, that's what I've called solar plexus. I could feel that. All of these things right.
Speaker 2:The call of my conscience was telling me that you need to go. You're meant for so much more. You have to leave behind the world of the known. It's archetypal's hero journey In my story is your story. It's all of our stories, every single one of us. It's the path, initiation, to go through the threshold to discovery, to discover higher consciousness. So I can choose.
Speaker 2:The Gold Ghost chose me, because that feeling, that sensation, it's hard for us to pick up on and it's hard for us to know what it's saying, because it speaks a different language, a deeper language, a deeper truth. We're stuck in the rational world of intellect Rational and intellect is a beautiful thing, but it has its limits and it is also derived from our primal instinct, primal intuition. It is derived before there was rationale, there was intuition and the thing with it is we rationally wanna know the whole story, wanna know all the steps. That just puts us in the future or the past. It's unnecessary. Step number 10 isn't necessary. Step number one is what we need to worry about and that's why our intuition is hard for us to obey, because it doesn't give us step number two or three, it only gives us one. It only gives us one step at a time because it's smarter, knows that that's what all that needs to be happening Right now. You need to be present and take that present action now. Take that one step, take that next step.
Speaker 2:So how does this tie back into the story? I just knew I had to go. I packed everything back into my youth, went to drive out of town. My youth blew up. Day I went to leave, my youth blew up. So I was stuck in town. I couldn't leave. So I wasn't home anymore with the girl or the family, or with the pets or the family. I was staying up with my mates. So I'm stuck here Now. I'm staying to myself. Is this a test or is this a sign? Is this a sign that I should stay here, should go back to this comfortable life, or is this a test of really consolidating what you really know?
Speaker 2:Because what I was going to do, I was just going to get my youth and drive out into the desert and just run away, just go on high and look out on some spiritual trek. What needed? To just get rid of everything all down to my body, my bag, my bank account. That's it, because if you can't strap it to your body, anything you can't strap to your body, that's in your immediate possession, it's not yours, it is now forfeit and it is up to the whim of the world. I had to get there. That's what happened. I was forced to do that and I was like okay, I know what's going on here, I know I need to leave, I know I need to go somewhere else. What do I do? I'll do what everybody does in every story, whether it be fiction or nonfiction you go on a trek, you go on an adventure to go and see a master, and that's what I did.
Speaker 2:I knew a guy that lived in New Zealand, uncle Pap's, multi-millionaire international bodybuilder. He'd been married for 27 years, has kids, kids healthy, wise, powerful. This is the guy I need to go and see. I need to go on that mission. I just rang him up and I just made him online. It's that, bro, I need to come and see you because I just needed someone real in the flesh and I had the ability to do it. No worries, come on over, sounds good.
Speaker 2:I just got off the plane, flew off and then it was like a threshold. I was flying off from Cairns, which is in North Queensland where I lived. I looked out the window and I went no, I'm not coming back now. There was like an this is it, I'm stepping through. I got to the airport in Brisbane, which is near the Gold Coast. I was just making it up then. I was just going to find a new land and a new place to call home, a new base.
Speaker 2:So I'd ordered a new passport because I might end up staying in New Zealand, where Uncle Papsley got to the international terminal and they rang immigration and they said oh, wait a minute, sir. Just wait here a moment please. And I thought, okay, I had health supplements in my bag and some of them are white powders. I thought maybe they take their drugs, no worries. They said did you order a new passport recently? I said yeah, I did. They said that means this passport is invalid, you're not getting on the plane, you're not going to New Zealand, you ain't going to see the master, you're staying right here, boy. I thought, ah, wow.
Speaker 2:But that only lasted for about a quarter of a second, because when you see to the path, when you get the hell out of your own way, give yourself over to the greater driving force. It organizes everything for you. Everything is happening divinely and uniquely and precisely for you, at all times, all moments, forever. And I knew, sweet, this is a sign. My philosophy is my body, my back, my back again. My goal is my home. My body is my presence. This is a change in body, this philosophy right, right, accelerated growth.
Speaker 2:My sister lived about half an hour north of the airport. Sweet, when I saw my sister, I would see her for ages, stayed there for a week and all these things that would happen being people, excitement of meeting in a new land, but also don't get me wrong uncertainty and the fear, the lure of the comfortable, familiar. Every morning I'd wake up with a fear. Every afternoon I'd go home with an elevation because I'd be pushing the comfort zones, the beauties of social media. Friends of mine in the Gold Coast, good friends of mine and they saw on social media that I was down here. They said come down to the Gold Coast, you'll love it. My sister said down the Gold Coast, you'll love it. And I come down the Gold Coast and I love it.
Speaker 1:Did she say go to the Gold Coast, you'll love it?
Speaker 2:Let's try it.
Speaker 1:I don't know Good that's. It's those intuitions that really are starting to intrigue me a little bit. So, as we're speaking, you're giving us these nuggets of information and wisdom, as you're telling the story, which is remarkable because it gives you credibility, but it also gives people that are listening to this conversation a break. Hey, I did this because so I am digging that, by the way, and I appreciate it when these philosophies I'm going to call them philosophies, for lack of a better term Are these philosophies things that you've been thinking about this whole time, or are you giving us this hindsight that you've come up with this later on, and this is what you must have been doing at this point?
Speaker 2:But it's always big today and at the end of the diet we all have all the answers with it. We just need someone from without to show us. You can't trump intuition or instinct that is ever present. You can't build instinct. You can't learn more about instinct. All you can learn is how to tap into it more. These deeper truths. They're revelations, because it's revealing what was already there, but through concepts, philosophies and perceptions. That's how we're able to view things in a different light and actually able to harness them more. So I come to the Gold Coast right.
Speaker 2:The next phase of the adventure begins. Come down here, and it was just like Grand Theft Auto. It was like being in the fast lane. It was hell of a lot of fun, fast cars and all this shit was happening. At that point, too, I was sleeping in my friend's laundry. I was sleeping on a mattress in the laundry, but I was happy, I was feeling great because it was like I'm somewhere, grateful for what I have. I have somewhere cool and quiet to lay my head and have freedom.
Speaker 2:Still, the next step Every morning you wake up the compasses, come on, let's get there, let's get there. And then all these little things just started to happen, like when you get out of your way and you take that leap of faith. It all works out for itself, especially just in a place around the corner. I've just started meeting all these people, all this synchronicity and all these first hand lessons of the things that I'm embodying Just see them everywhere. You'll start to see things, they'll start to click, they'll start to make sense. And until you go on this path, until you really let go, you'll never truly understand what I'm saying. You have to truly feel it and experience it yourself to really get what I'm talking about here. The force is real. When you tap into it, you realize that you can't force the force. You have to step back, let go and allow the force to flow through you, because you can't force the force, it can only flow through you. And the more I do that, the more things just start to turn up, the more free I feel, because I realize that I haven't got the burden of creation. I only have the burden of action, of speed, of actually getting out and having a go, taking a shot, and it will just all be organized for you. So many things, countless things, have just done that are just indescribable, and it's almost got to go down the pride route again because these things were happening and I still hadn't gone to New Zealand.
Speaker 2:Remember, the master was still over in New Zealand. The wizard across the water was still there. He was waiting for me, or rather, I was waiting for me to make the decision. Because I was putting it off, because I was afraid to go over there now, because I'd now had a happening life going on here. I thought about it and I'd say no, I don't really need to go anymore. And he reached out to me and said he's still coming. And I said, oh, I don't think so. This and that's happening. Being the wise master that he is, bore me to set me this message concise, powerful. It was a revelation, a truth. And I went yeah, have to go. And a friend of mine, a trusted friend of mine, said to me you need to complete the mission. Remember the whole reason why you left to go and see the master. You've met these other people here. You've met these other helpers, these other teachers, these other mentors, but they're not the master. You need to go and see the master.
Speaker 2:Eventually, that company went to New Zealand, went to another country. It was just incredible, absolutely phenomenal, life changing. To be around an elevated person, to be around that champion, motherfucker, to absorb the energy, that level of awareness and presence, just to feel that power, to set that in. I want that power and we all have that power, every single one of us. We just forgotten that. We have it because we're born with it, but it goes dormant because of indoctrination, crappy parents or lack of initiation or media, shitty school system. They even just poised itself with the food that we eat and the hedonism that we just cherish so falsely. It disconnects us from that purity Because you look at a child, right?
Speaker 2:A child is born pure, playful, intelligent, curious, sharing, caring, like any kid born as axivator is. They're all just reflecting what they've seen, any kids, that body, these behaviors. They're just reflecting what they've learned unconsciously from their unconscious parents and the unconscious media that they've consumed. A child is just fun, loving, expensive and expressive. Look at them. All they want to do is play and that's what we're supposed to be that unique, sharp, joyful, expansive, beautiful soul. That's what we all are. We're also strong as well, and that gets beaten out of us.
Speaker 2:So beating around that master really showed me the true nature, because I was almost there intellectually, but not energetically, not instinctively, not intuitively. And that's what I learned is that it really solidified the whole full circle of obeying that internal compass and obeying that gut feeling and just taking that leap of faith and it's just changed everything and it's just the absolute best it could have done and, of course, without pain. This pretty, pretty romantic picture, no worry, it was challenging, it was lonely, moving to a new tent and all by myself. I'm still heart-struck and in grief, struck for the pain I'd caused left behind. I know that woman still up there in grief, pain there, but it had to happen because there was greater pain than staying, because when it's not a match, everybody's losing, everybody's already in pain. So you have to sever it, you have to go through a higher level of pain that lasts for a shorter period of time, instead of just a slight acceleration descending all of regret and sufferings. Hell of a journey and I invite everybody else to just step through that sphere.
Speaker 1:That's pretty, that is. That's powerful man. So how much time did you spend with the master?
Speaker 2:It was two days, two and a half days, with the master. When you're in that presence, you soak it up and that's the thing is that, because they are so present and powerful, they're like gravity. You just get sucked into it, man, and you take it on board. And now I work with that master every week, like we are talking now routines, disciplines and rituals of elevation to rid ourselves of all of that lower level mature survival brain step mechanisms.
Speaker 1:All right. So you spend some time in the Gold Coast body bag and bank account and you head over to New Zealand and after the two days you come back.
Speaker 2:That's right. Come back completely changed. The oddest is how you made.
Speaker 1:All right. So let's let me think. I just wanna think about go back to reality here just a minute ago. So I get that, but bank accounts dwindle. They don't stay at that same level unless you're making, unless you got somebody investing for you and continuing to build it while you're there. So I'm assuming that's starting to fall now. You gotta buy a plane ticket to New Zealand. You gotta spend a couple of days there. You're still out of your paying rent or something in the Gold Coast. So where do you go to? What's your? What's the venture that has come from this journey?
Speaker 2:It's like this. Work is worship. Work is that's how we show gratitude to the creator, to this whole plane of reality is work. All reality is work. Any reason any of us can be lazy is because we're living off the consistent effort of others. So what did I do? I just got a job. I just went to work. I just anything, whatever it is, you just have to be having money coming in.
Speaker 2:So that's what I did and I looked for. I wanted to do like a sales job of overcoming rejections and getting skills and communication and all that Cause. I already had that stuff but actually refined it in a professional sense. It's a timing of everything, but just so happened that, as soon as I got back, just fell into that role and I didn't go on an application online or any of that crap. I just saw what I wanted and got it, just went and saw the people face to face and said, hey, man, how you doing. That's what you do in life. You go and take your seat, try to hide behind a text message and just send an email. If there's ever the opportunity where you can just go and see someone face to face and let us ring them up and just be yourself and just that energy, you'll get it.
Speaker 2:So that's what I did is I just went and became a border door salesperson, fundraising charities. For a few months I developed all this case and skills and what do you call it? Self-reliance and just getting over the fear of just knocking on people's doors and meeting strangers. But here's the thing, though the conscience is always calling, that needle is always going and it's always telling you the next step. Now, why is it enough to know that? It said okay, this isn't working anymore, you've done your time, you've gathered what you needed, time to move on. That's what I did. So I left there. I didn't know what I was gonna do, I just thought I needed to take the next step. So then I just got a handful of just jobs, like working an electroplatin factory and driving a delivery truck and just trying all these things, while actually going through the process of self-mastery, really turning within and really focusing on building those internal resources.
Speaker 2:Because here's the thing external world is the reflection of your internal worlds. It doesn't matter what you believe in this life, it's the matter of what you're aware of. Awareness trumps belief, and this world, this entire universe, it's a quantum hologram, is a unified field and it is driven exclusively by consciousness and energy. And that's what we are. We are conscious energy. So when you actually align with yourself, with your line, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, consciously, things just start to happen. And that's why I just left North Queensland. All these things just started to happen. They started to align because I was aligned with my destiny. Because here's the thing God, the greater power, the ultimate universe, the force. It's real. It is real. It is definitely real because I feel it and you don't know it until you feel it, and it has everything organized for you. But you also get to make the choice how does that work? How is it causation and how is it free will at the same time? I think God could organize these sorts of things. It's just the way that it is. So that's what I did.
Speaker 2:And now, for money, I just do jobs, and then, obviously, I do coaching, because I what I need coaching, everybody needs coaching. The coach has a coach. Coaching has certain connotations attached to it. It's like coach. We just think of it as something blasé, like a personal trainer or like the soccer someone teaching you how to play soccer, or a tutor. It is so much more deeper than that. It is the masculine initiation into manhood. It is the spiritual guidance, the initiation of a spiritual elder or the journey through the shaman Coaching is just a modern world, but what it's actually really talking about is the powerful process of maturing, and that's what coaching is and that's what I do. And Uber and that's how I meet my clients is because I don't know who's gonna get in the car.
Speaker 2:I don't know who's gonna get in the car, because you never know who's gonna get in the car. It's like rolling the dice and people and some people tell straight away energetically you can feel it just want to do the right thing or they're not aligned. And here's the thing I don't try to sell anybody. I don't sell. They buy. Either our Jesus are gonna align or they're not gonna align, and it's the same in your life. This job is either gonna align or it's not. This relationship, this food, this craft, this book project that I'm working from the people that I'm in business with, it will all align or not align. And it's not bad because someone says no to you or rejects you. That's not bad or good. It just is because it's being organized for you. That's what I do now is allow the force to flow through me.
Speaker 1:That is excellent and it's again powerful that you talk about this alignment between you, your destiny, the energy and God are. Whoever your higher power might be, Whatever you might call it, whether it's Buddha, jesus, god, whoever there is your personal higher power. And once that aligns and this is basically just me paraphrasing back to what you were saying once it aligns and you follow the energy, the choice is common and it's up to you, your free will, to make the choices to move you to your better life. Am I getting that right? That's the one baby.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it will align for you. You just have to get out of your own way. You're making the choices. Things will just turn up, dev and I. What's gonna happen? Things will happen. It's like I talk about it in my book.
Speaker 2:I called it about luck or luck. Oh, what good luck that was. Luck is an asset you can create. You can generate it, harness luck. And how do you harness luck? Cause that's the thing when you align with your destiny and you follow your heart as corny as it sounds, you do follow your heart Coincidences start to happen. And then they coincidentally coincidences keep coincidentally happening all the time, every day. They're not coincidences, mate.
Speaker 2:So when you're obeying that call, good things happen. When you disobey that call, bad things happen. You get more luck. You'll get more flat tires in life. You'll get more bills. You'll get a health disease, sickness or something like that. You'll get divorced. You'll.
Speaker 2:All this crap will start happening to you when you deny it. I know because it happened to me. I did it for years. Bad things would happen to me because I was denying the call, even if it is just the karma dead of pain within, suffering or depression, of anxiety or suicidal thought, all these things. They come up because it gets bad, because you're denying that alignment so much, because you're in a construct control.
Speaker 2:You just have to let go. You have to let go of everything and face that pain, the real pain within, because it'll tell you what you need to do. It's a matter of short term, high intensity pain, and then you actually get a long not pleasure a long fulfillment and elevation, whereas when you're addicted to vices or whatever it may be, a vice is anything that takes more than it gives. So that'll be pleasurable in the beginning, but guess what? You wake up the next day feeling like shit. Why is that? Because you're stealing, taking tomorrow's happiness and spending it today. So you go through this cycle of all this pleasure seeking and then guess what that leads to a long term life of actual degeneration and suffering and torment. So it's a choice you have to make. You have to either choose a harder pain now, put a life that you want, or you just get the real pain, the real hard pain, later on.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you this last question, and this is probably gonna take you just a minute to go through but in somebody that feels like they're stuck, someone that feels like there's something on the other side and they don't know what it is, they're starting to feel this pull, but due to what a lot of us would call it reality. Okay, hey, listen, I got a house, I got stuff, I got bills, I got this, I got that, but they really feel like they should be moving in a different direction. What would be your advice and the steps they should take at that point to start moving them in the right direction?
Speaker 2:You start with the basics, because the basics are the hardest thing to master. Why are they the hardest thing to master? Because they're subtle and boring. Eating healthy food, drinking clean water, exercising, taking that to the next level, actually training, because there's a difference between exercise and training. Exercise is just exercising your range of motion. Training is actually elevating physically, clicking up, getting rid of all the vices, all the drugs, all the alcohol, pornography and scrolling, gossiping, netflix, all of that shit, all these things that distract your attention, because then you're left to sit with yourselves and then you can get a clearer barometer on what your intuition is trying to tell you. There's no more bandages, there's no more running away. Then that's how I was able to do what I did, because I got those fundamentals right. They're subtle, like I said, they're subtle and boring, but the hardest to master. Because what do they require? They require self-control, they require self-mastery.
Speaker 2:If you can master self, you can master anything. That is literally. It's the hardest journey. The hardest part is always the beginning. You can actually get that right.
Speaker 2:Everything else will take care of itself because you're in control. Because when you have that self-mastery and that clarity of a healthy, abundant energetic existence, the mind will align with the body, have all these negative thoughts, because you're not negative anymore, you are now positive. You've charged yourself up with all these great habits and these great behaviors. Your self-talk will be great. When you align the body and the mind, you get that clarity. When you get that clarity, then you can actually start to step back from your thoughts and then you're not jumping in and wrestling with your thoughts all the time. You'll be able to see them as they are. Actually we have conscious awareness because we're not our brains, we're not our frontal lobes, we're the central seat of experiential consciousness, that zero point in the center of our skull, not in the front of our skull. Like I said earlier, all the answers are within. We just can't see them because they're behind our eyes. So hit the basics. Just do that basic boring shit and get self-control. Once you do that, everything else will take care of itself.
Speaker 1:And that's when you follow the path of the lie out before you, and that's where you'll lead to a Buddhist, what we call it Nirvana being to a point in that your life where you're completely relaxed, you know exactly what to do next, and you continue that journey to wisdom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, much man. That's it.
Speaker 1:It's not complicated, it's just like that's all it is.
Speaker 1:There's a quote in your book what's easy to do is also easy not to do. That was the chapter, and what I always call it here is it's simple to do, but it's not easy, right, like, the process is simple, the process is laid out for you and each step is easy to do, but it's the externals that keep you from taking those easy steps, right, yeah, it's really amazing. So Neil Fisher has a book. It's called A Unified man. I will put a link in the description for you. So I see that you've put at Neil Fisher underscore. Is that all your socials or is that just one platform to stick to?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's just about the Instagram. I'm on Facebook as well, if you can follow me as a million Neil Fishers, but Instagram's a go to.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. So catch him on Instagram, get the unified man. You can get that on Amazon and I will link that in the show notes and, of course, his socials as well. Neil, thank you so much for joining us. This has been an education and a real value add to all of us, and I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:It's always a pleasure Say the things that I wish I had 10 years ago. It could have saved me a hell of a lot.
Speaker 1:And we're going to have to do this again. When you start not when, but I'm sure you're going to find some more wisdom in your journey that you're doing right now Something's going to, you're going to align with something else and you're going to pop up and you're going to, you're going to call me and you're going to be like yo, brad, I just came up with this, and then we're going to have to get back on here and we're going to have to do it again.
Speaker 2:So no, I appreciate it. It's so much to talk about. What is it Talk about that? Yeah, now we're near covering everything today. We'll be back, for sure.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and then we can compare notes on fitness and stuff, because that's where I started. All this was endurance coaching, and I know a lot of things you said resonated with me, absolutely. All right, listen, thank you so much. Have fun out there in Australia and for the rest of you, we'll catch you in the next episode. Oh, Bye.
