We need to Talk conversations on wellness with coastfm's Tony Street.

Hello, welcome to we need to talk.

It is lovely to have you with us today.

The COVID nineteen pandemic served as a life changing period for many people.

For some, it meant a forced career change.

For many, flexible working arrangements became the norm because of it.

But for others it left us questioning what our purpose was.

Were we truly happy and living our days how we really wanted to.

John Templeton is a former Essays physical trainer.

He has the Guinness World Record for most ring muscle ups in twenty four hours, which I'll find out what they are in a minute.

He was Cleo Magazine's Bachelor of the Year and he's just written a book.

He's spoken at events across the globe alongside renowned self help experts such as Tony Robbins.

John's on a mission to help kiwis better understand themselves and to find their true purpose.

He believes that we're in a pandemic of purposelessness.

Hi, John, what does that mean?

What does a pandemic of purposelessness mean?

Well, the word pandemic means a broad occurrence, really a widespread occurrence, and it was quite fitting considering we have just come out of COVID, but really from my own experience and then diving into purpose, meaning in life, it was pretty evident that there's a large population of people, not just in New Zealand, I mean globally that missing purpose.

Let's dive deeper.

What's purpose meaning feeling like they can add value to society in some way?

And it's a pandemic.

How do you know that this is happening?

What have you seen that makes you think this is the case.

From my own pain, I explored purpose.

That's where it all began.

And when I started researching it because I felt a little bit alone.

I'd sort of lost my identity through the process, didn't know how I could add value to society.

And a lot of soldiers go through this when they leave the military as well.

And I just researched.

I researched were other people feeling this way?

How common is it?

And I found that I thought it was going to be more people my age as well, a little bit older sort of midlife crisis loss of identity, but also in the youth, the youth missing a sense of identity, a sense of worth, a sense of adding value, feeling like they can't really make an impact on the causes that they want to make an impact for.

So it was really research that brought it to light in my eyes and in my mind.

Yeah, what do you think it is in our modern world that has led to this versus perhaps what it was like, you know when our parents were young and did have purpose.

I think everyone knows.

What do you think, Well, I assume it's devices.

Yeah, that's a big part of it, but it goes beyond that.

So if we look at go back thousands of years to survive, nobody was everybody was busy.

It's like everybody had a role, whether that was in the tribe or the family unit.

Everybody had the role that they played.

As time's gone on, we've invented things to make our lives more comfortable, more easy.

There are social systems in place that look after people.

Times are tough, and you know, those things can be great, but they can also lead to people becoming complacent or lazy.

And we have technology AI taking away jobs.

So it's this combination of advancement in technology and let's say systems in place to make life easier because as we take away challenge, we also take away meaning.

Those two things go hand in hand.

So we need challenge to have meaning.

But a lot of people want comfort, and with comfort comes no meaning.

It's really interesting.

It's a concept that I feel like I see in young people.

So I've got three kids twelve, nine and six, and they play a lot of sport.

And you will often hear me saying I'm glad they've got their sport.

It gives them a purpose, it gives them something to work towards, It gives them friends, it gives them community because we often all come together and I kind of feel like if I pulled that away, what would they be doing?

Right?

And it's that same kind of concept, isn't it.

You have to people have to be passionate about something in their lives because if they're not, what are you waking up for every day?

That's exactly it.

And I think as well, I mean, you nail it and you take that across sport is great, but not everyone can be an athlete, no, and so maybe this is few as well.

What happens after the athletics stop, yep, and it does come down to competition is great.

Take competition too far, it can become destructive.

But competition is great for giving people meaning because there's literally a challenge in sport to win a game that they're facing.

What I found with myself, I was an athlete for a long time finishing that same thing occurred.

So I've had I've seen this pattern play out in my own life.

Whenever we lose challenge in our life, we lose meaning.

Too much challenge is stress and we burn out and we you know, die that way.

Too little challenge and we become bored and we die that way.

So it's really about finding that fine line between challenge and support.

And I'm interested to see how, Yeah, as a you faced it as well with your children once they finished sport, where are they going to find meaning?

Then?

And you see that with a lot of top athletes.

I mean you see it here in New Zealand with some of the top all blacks that they struggle for quite a few years to find out what is next and what's the point.

So you had some dark times yourself that kind of you experienced that, you know what this is like?

Can you explain them what happened?

Yeah, I would say I've been through three really dark periods and I never got to the root cause that's why they always kept haunting me.

The first was in the military, so I'd been quite successful growing up as an athlete.

What sort of sport did you play?

I played footballers in soccer.

I was born in England, so I was really talented and I played high level New Zealand.

I made the New Zealand Academy in ninety nine and two thousand yep.

Then that was through my teens.

Drugs and alcohol came along.

That sort of wiped that.

I went into the military.

The military saved me in many ways, and through the military, I was given a platform to succeed.

It was like, if you can run this far, you get this ranking, and so as a masculine man, I was just driven to succeed.

I got what's called the one hundred club in the military.

It's one hundred percent score on the fitness test.

I topped a lot of my courses.

I went through the physical training instructor course.

I topped that course.

I was posted to the Special Forces camp.

I was a trainer there, but I failed Special Forces selection to actually be in the Special Forces, and that really dented my confidence.

My ego and that threw me into my first bout of depression.

I didn't know what it was at the time.

I was just for about a year, I was.

Off, why do you think you failed it?

I was too immature.

I wanted the glory.

I want it was pride, you know, I wanted the success, but I didn't have the depth in my being, in the core of my soul.

So I was just a child still.

So that's that's why.

Yeah, it's a grueling process, and you know, the pass rate is around ten percent, so I just wasn't ready for it.

Yeah, physical training instructor selection.

I did pass.

That actually came second and that really helped me regain my confidence again.

But that was my first one, and then I went into many years later.

I was doing quite well investing in real estate.

I was doing well, and then I went into a relationship again.

I just didn't have the skill set required to handle the relationship.

Lost my money, my house, everything, and that that was the big one that broke me.

And for about seven years, that was the on and off depression, crying almost daily like it was really I didn't want to live, you know, for a lot of the time, and that was the one I sought help, couldn't get it, couldn't shake this heavy, dark feeling.

I ended up in hospital.

So it was really bad.

I was in hospital for about a month, blood test, stool samples, everything.

Nobody could come to a solution.

What were your symptoms?

Oh, I was ghost white, Yeah, hail white.

I had lost a lot of weight.

I had warts growing all over my body.

I couldn't even hold water down.

For the last four weeks when I was in hospital, I was just vomiting.

If I had water, I would vomit, and they just sent me home with painkillers.

I know that experience.

I had a similar thing before I was diagnosed with my autoimmune I know what it's like to be just sent back undiagnosed, like good luck.

I mean, I'm assuming yours was stressed.

There was a heavy load of stress you were under.

I mean, I still haven't really got to the bottom of why my immune system flipped the way it did, but I do think I was overworked and burnt out at the time, and I think that was a massive contributor.

You're listening to we need to talk with Tony Street.

So did you get to the bottom of what was wrong?

With you.

Yes, And this is a big part of my work that I do with people now, help them get to the bottom, because until we get to the bottom, it could be quite hard to find to make changes so we don't experience it again.

So I actually saw a nature path and she said, well, you just seem stressed, and I just started crying.

And so essentially that was it.

It was immnse stress from that relationship.

I ended the relationship.

Within about two weeks, my skin color came back, just my whole soul just came back to life, you know.

So that was that time.

And then COVID wiped my business out and I lost hundreds of thousands through that, and that that's kind of when I got serious about maybe ending my life because I just had too many losses to want to keep going.

You know, it really broke me, but it's also what pushed me to find answers.

And so I'm so grateful for all of it because that is what drove me to go.

I want to understand psychology.

I want to understand what drives people.

I want to understand how people's pasts affect them.

I want to master psychodynamics within a relationship.

I want to master at all so that I don't have to feel the pain again, and from there I can help others.

And so what did you do at that point to understand it all?

I read books, a lot of books, and I haven't stopped.

I mean a book a week easily, and it it was all context.

It was spirituality.

I wanted to understand life, and I asked the deep questions, what's the meaning of life?

Like why we even here as humans?

What are we doing?

Where are we going?

Where have we come from?

Who am I?

Who are you?

What are our relationships for?

And I just read.

I've just I can't put any other way.

I've read and researched.

I one of my mentors, doctor John de Martini, he runs an institute called the De Martini Institute.

I spent a lot of money learning from him.

And when you finished all of that, what were the takeaways?

I haven't finished.

It'll never stop, okay, I'm always learning.

The biggest thing is we're in control of our mind at all times, our psychology and whether it is depression, whether it is anger, frustration, all of it is within us.

We hold the power for all of it.

Our purpose.

Coming back to purpose and meaning, it all sits within us, and what got me through was actually meditation, learning to meditate and learning to find my center so that no matter what was happening.

If I was making money, I could stay composed.

If I was losing money, I could stay resilient.

It was really about what is the most optimal way to find my center?

Because if I'm centered, I'm grounded, I'm healthy.

You know, stress is really just our perceptions of what's happening around us, and so if we can master our perceptions, we can master our stress.

Therefore we can be healthy.

So sitting at the core of health, sitting at the core of a happy relationship, sitting at the core of a successful entrepreneur or investor is someone who is centered.

They're centered, they're grounded, they know who they are, they know where they're going in life.

And with that clarity comes power.

You can make decisions, you can get rid of toxic people in your life that are going to cause you some kind of stress, and you can bring in people that are similar values that support your mission.

You know, So it really is about understanding your psychology, staying centered no matter what's going on externally.

So just going back to what we talked about at the beginning, the sense of purpose slessness with the current environment we have because those traditional roles and challenges are necessarily there anymore.

How do you fix that side of things For the majority of people that might find themselves.

Not needed, everyone is needed, whether that's to their son or their daughter, or to their parents.

If we can contribute to something other than ourselves, we're going to find meaning.

For some people that might be I don't want to use the word small, but straightforward, like a father or a mother, or a daughter or a son.

If we can contribute, we're going to find meaning in purpose.

It doesn't have to be grandiose, but for other people it will be grandiose.

If you know, I want to make quite a big impact, and so it's going to be it's going to appear more grandiose.

But at the end of the day, it's what's a problem that you want to solve?

And if your son or daughter has a problem, you know, I have a family member very close to me.

Let's just say it.

My sister and her kids are missing a bit of direction in their lives.

And I said to my sister over the Christmas holiday, I was like, well, what do you want in your life?

You know, where are you hitting?

And she said, I just want to be a great mother And I said, well that's your purpose.

I was like, master it, read books, study it, learn different perspectives on parenting, and find a pathway that works for you.

And then one you can give that to your kids, but you can also share that with other mothers.

And that's really where purpose lies.

Find a problem that you're inspired to solve, smaller, big, just start there.

To do that, you have to be intentional, right, so you actually have to decide this is my purpose?

And do you think people are unnecessarily aware of their purpose?

Is what I'm saying?

Or are they just drifting through day to day going I'm just getting through the day.

I'm going to work.

You know, I might have a bit of a sleeping on the weekends, but still not really know what their purpose is.

One hundred percent they'll be unconscious to it.

And Abraham Maslow's a psychologist.

He's got a hierarchy of needs.

I don't know if you've heard of I have heard of that vararchy of needs.

If you look at a hierarchy of needs at the base, you've got essentially physical survival and then it moves up through security, safety, stability in life.

At the top of the pyramid is what you would call self actually, which is someone living their highest ideal, which is where purpose lies to get to that level.

Yeah, it's if you're stuck at the bottom just surviving, it's going to be very hard to be at your best.

But the pathway to get there is your purpose.

So if you're not there yet, it's not like you're you're always on your purpose, you just don't know it.

And so if someone is, yeah, living day to day and there are stresses or i want to say lower lower levels on the hierarchy, they're going to steal your energy.

They're going to steal your resources, your time, your money, your energy.

This is what brings me to life is will use your life that you have now intentionally to climb that hierarchy.

Use it to start mastering your psychology, your financial situation, so that those problems that you used to face three years ago you don't face them.

You're going to have new problems.

Problems just keep coming our whole life.

But it's the quality of problem we face.

Do we want to be just dealing with the day to day stuff all the time, or do we want to climb that hierarchy and deal with more inspiring problems that we really would love to spend our time doing.

Yeah, I find your situation interesting because you know, when you think of people that don't have purpose, you don't automatically think of a guy that was great at sport at school that was kind of ticking all these boxes.

I don't know what your family background is, but you look like you've got yourself together and yet you still struggled.

So this isn't necessarily a problem that is just for people that you know, might not have the ideal home life or they were uninspired at school.

This can happen to high achievers too.

I would say, like you said at the start of this interview podcast athletes, because there's two ways to nihilism, there's two ways to despair.

One is the I call it the route of inferiority.

It's where you're not really living the life you want to live.

You don't feel like you're adding value, You've got low self esteem, and that can be well, what's the point in you know, living I don't know what my purpose is.

But then there's the that's the inferiority complex.

Then you can go the other way, which is the superiority complex, and that is I'm super successful, I've done these things, but there's never enough validation.

There's always more money, you know, for the businessman that has it all, all the money, but he's still unhappy.

So that's the superior path nihilism, and then you've got the inferior path, the nihilism both.

Eventually, it doesn't matter which end someone hits.

Eventually, the only way out of that trap is to contribute to others.

That's the only way out is to serve something greater than yourself.

Do you think that's what was missing for you?

I know it was Even when I had my business was doing really well, I was making great money, and I had quote unquote fame and notoriety.

My identity and ego was attached to that.

So as soon as there was criticism or judgment, it just dented me.

And then when COVID came and wiped out my financial position, my identity went down with it.

And that's when I just sat and spent a lot of time meditating and contemplating, going Okay, well, that path lead to pain, and I was like, I know, the other path leads to pay as well.

So what's the answer, and it is You might even say you'd find this in some religious texts as well.

It's about having being more selfless, But some people will take that out of context because you can be too self selfless and talked over, yeah, sacrifice yourself people pleasing these patterns.

So it's not about It's about that balance of what do I love doing and how can I help people doing that?

And when you get that balance, that's the way out of the dichotomy of the superior pathway to despair and the inferior pathway to despair.

Now that do we need to talk with Tony Street?

How do we teach our young people to avoid going down the same path?

You know, you look at kids at high school.

How can we sort of school them up so that they can have purpose and they know this earlier than what you did, so you can avoid the drama.

I'm not sure if we can.

I think we have to experience to.

Know.

You know, sometimes the hard way is the easy way.

If everything was just told to you, I'm sure you tell your kids not to do things and they do them, and then when they hurt themselves, maybe then they learn that that's not the right way.

So I think that I think it's built into humanity and it's built into evolution, is that we learn through pain.

One thing I do know is the more empowered you are, the more empowered your kids are going to be.

The more empowered I become, the more empowered our kids will become.

So it is it's about empowering yourself.

So if there's someone listening to this and yourself, I would say, empower yourself because that will be reflected in your offspring.

And if you're a teacher, again, the more empowered you become as a teacher.

You know, I had a really great teacher at school, mister Newbert.

If you're listening to this, you really affected me in a great way.

He was just a great guy.

He was just a great guy.

He wasn't too authoritarian authoritarian, but he told me off and I cried in class because of him.

But I think the more empowered each individual person becomes, the more empowered the tribe becomes, the more empowered the nation becomes, more empowered, the world becomes.

But it starts with us.

So I would say, yeah, empower yourself.

Learn as much as you can.

So I'm interested those times where those three times where you you know, were in a really dark place, where was your family and friends and all of that.

I mean, they were there, but I was too proud to ask for help.

And that happens with the superiority complex, you know, the victim mentality is that inferior path.

But I was on the superior path, and I was just too too proud.

And I think a lot of men specifically are probably too proud to admit what they're going through.

So that was the first time.

You know, mums have an intuition, so she probably knew.

In fact, I know she did because she would reach out, but I would sort of say I was okay.

The last time is when I came clean and I surrendered and just said I don't have the answers.

I don't have the answers, And yeah, I reached out to my family and they were there.

They were there for me the whole ti.

I just had too much pride to it to really accept help earlier on.

So what would your message be then for others that have to probably experience a bit of pain.

But maybe if like if you'd had this knowledge prior, it possibly would have made it slightly easier to deal with than maybe you wouldn't have been in such despair.

Maybe, yeah, one hundred percent.

I would definitely say the sooner you can admit it.

So I didn't want to say I was depressed.

I was like, I'm not depressed.

I'm a god.

I don't get depressed.

As soon as I admitted it, that was the first thing that was fantastic.

But I also didn't want to become a victim to it.

And a lot of people messaged me once I said it publicly.

A lot of people said to me, oh, you know you're going to be You've got depression for life now and all of these things, and I just refuse to believe that.

So I first thing was admitting it was it was like a whole weight was lifted.

I didn't have to be perfect anymore.

I didn't have to put on a front.

I could just be myself.

So that was the first thing.

So I highly recommend that to anyone, even people with addictions, anything that you have shame around.

Shame is the one thing that crushes people.

And if we can get beyond our shame, we set ourselves free to be more authentic.

So that's the first thing.

Just admit it.

And then I would say absolutely ask for help, but be discerning because I asked for help from certain people and they gave me their opinion, which wasn't best for me.

And so I would say, get multiple perspectives, so be open.

I'm feeling like shit, my life sucks.

I want some help, right, That's a great place to start.

And then search for help, but get multiple perspectives.

The more perspectives you can get, the more truthful the diagnosis is going to be.

Or pathway forward and read.

But yes, I would absolutely say to people, speak up, speak up.

Some people will understand you, some people won't.

Again, just be discerning.

If you just continue to seek improvement, you really can't go wrong.

I'd say, that's the key thing.

Ask for help and just continue to seek improvement.

So where is your life now?

You know you've had all these ups and downs, you've worked out what your purpose is.

How does your daily life look?

The first thing is I'm way more grateful.

I am way more grateful and I know who I am, so that if I was to lose everything, I would be okay with that.

If I was to end up somewhere where I never imagined that's just part of life.

I'd be okay with it, So that gives me immense appreciation just to be alive.

And now on top of that platform is the planning phase.

I've written my book that's going to go.

I don't know when it will publish, whether it's this year, next year.

I've got to find a publisher, if you know anyone, so do that.

And then I want to run some events, either online or in person, and just start connecting with people, connecting with people, sharing my message and the tools and the system for helping others.

And I know that through that, however big or small it happens to be, I'm just going to make an impact.

Whether it's one person or a million people, I just am going to start sharing.

Social media is a good way to do that.

The book appearances like this, which I'm grateful for to help get the message out there.

Oh well, I've really enjoyed listening to your story, John, and I think it makes a lot of sense and I'm sure you will help a lot of people with this message.

So thank you for sharing something that's really vulnerable as well, particularly from a male, because I feel like males aren't particularly great at sharing so well done.

Thank you.

We need to talk with Coast FMS Tony Street.

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