Mastering Vitality, Team Culture and Mental Toughness: A Conversation with Wellness Coach David Lindsey

Greg Spillane: 0:11

What's going on everyone? Today's guest, all the ways from Sydney, australia, is David Lindsey. David is a highly experienced wellness coach and keynote speaker who has dedicated over 15 years to transforming the lives of thousands of individuals worldwide. David's passion is changing how we perceive health and vitality and the connection between fitness and workplace productivity. His belief is that anyone can enhance their own vitality by adopting his system that he put together. He has worked with a diverse range of clients, including Aussie rules, football players, olympians I believe he even spoke to Parliament and everyday individuals across corporations.

Greg Spillane: 1:00

David's emphasis that the true fulfillment and career, business and life begins with a prioritization of one's own health. David has developed a formula that empowers teams, businesses and individuals to discover and embrace the life, true fidelity. We talk a lot about that in the podcast. Step number two is napping. I think people will get behind that idea but drawing from his own vast knowledge gain from his inner actions with various sports coaches, trainers throughout his own career, he's committed now to sharing his expertise with others and now he is recognized well-being expert, keynote speaker, author and an award-winning coach.

Greg Spillane: 1:45

This was a fun conversation. David is a high-energy guy, has a really interesting background his own sports career as a Aussie rules football player ended after a major knee injury. He then got recruited and moved into professional arm wrestling before an injury ended that and then went into MMA and was a fighter for a number of years before moving into the professional works play space. A lot of fun stories, brings interesting perspective at the table and I hope you enjoy the conversation. Here is David. David, i appreciate you coming on the show all the ways from Sydney, australia.

David Lindsay: 2:28

Beautiful. Thank you very much, greg. I'm super excited for this chat and hopefully I can give you and your listeners something that they can use straight away and you just share some knowledge with you guys, like you said, coming all the way from Sydney, australia, and I love it.

Greg Spillane: 2:42

I love it, man. Well listen, you are coming to the table with like the two things that I love talking about most One, sports, second, corporate culture and building a high performance atmosphere in business, and then how the two combine together. I mean, it was really where this show started from. I was an athlete myself, so I'm really excited to dive into this with you.

David Lindsay: 3:05

Yeah, and because that's what my background is. My background is through sports, playing rugby league, doing arm wrestling, cage, fighting the whole box and dice and then seeing the gaps that are in the corporate world and taking my life as an athlete, as a coach, as a trainer, and bringing that across because, as you know and your listeners know, there's so many similarities between the both and yet a lot of people can't see the correlation and don't put the two together. But I'd say that they work in a fine unison.

Greg Spillane: 3:37

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. So talk to me about how you connected that dot and those dots, because I connected them. I was actually in a situation where I was the COO of a startup. We were fast growing. It was a really dynamic environment. It was highly competitive, things were going well, but we had a big competitor who was a little bit better funded than us. That was always a couple steps ahead of us and we were growing our team and I just kept referring back to days of I was an American football player, talking about a lot of the things coaches had told me and different lessons I had learned and the importance of perseverance and competition and all these different types of things, and I started to connect those dots. How did that connection occur for you?

David Lindsay: 4:22

Yeah well, very much the same. Basically along the same vein, like I said, i played rugby league in the lower grades for South Sydney arm wrestling and fighting and it was a conversation that I had with my wrestling coach where he really highlighted to me all of the experience that I've got from there and he said that we can also make more of an impact going to the corporate side and that really got the cog starting to turn and going. Yeah well, you have to look at the corporate team is very much like a core rugby league team. We all have different positions requiring different skill sets and different mindsets. So, like an accountant needs a different mindset to salesperson, they all bring their own unique skill and I was lucky enough to be in a South Sydney team that won the competition.

David Lindsay: 5:16

We didn't have the best team by any stretch of the imagination. We had a good team but not a great team. But what we did have was we wanted to do it for each other. So we had a great team culture which got us to the championship and it was seeing the gaps that were one, and it fit perfectly well about creating the culture that we had in the rugby league to bring that across They're wanting to do it for your mate, because I know from my own perspective, if I'm playing rugby league with my mate and he misses something like I do everything I can I seem to get this superhuman speed and strength to cover their mistake, as opposed to if it's just an associate, like I don't go half in anything I do, i put everything in, but I just don't seem to get that last little step.

David Lindsay: 6:08

And it's the same in the corporate world. If you're working with people that you know like and trust and let's be honest, we spend so much time there that they should really be like a second family because if you do that, you raise morale, you raise productivity and therefore end result is increasing profitability as well, and people have so much more fun with that. And when people have more fun as well, they they're keen to turn up to work, they turn up with energy, they turn up with increased vitality with them vigor and passion, and isn't that a place where we'd all rather be?

Greg Spillane: 6:45

Absolutely. This reminds me of a book I'm sure you've read, but anybody out there listening that hasn't should pick it up.

Greg Spillane: 6:51

But James Kerr's legacy right about the the all blacks and the culture of the team and the years and years of just, i guess, really being the one of the great sports teams ever, but just talking about the culture that they had built within that organization where really the, the all blacks, were bigger than any of the players. Right, it was never about the players, it was always about you know who they were and what their standings were and the culture that that they had built as a team.

David Lindsay: 7:22

Yeah, and I love with all blacks and legacy, specifically like how They, these guys, are world champions. They come from little island, obviously, new Zealand, and I do use them in my talk as well but how They, these guys, are monsters and yet they, they don't even say it is lying themselves. They say it as part of their duty, where they clean the dresser rooms after they've played, because They, like you said, the game the all blacks is bigger than the individual. And so being able to humble yourself, to go back and sweep, because a lot of their parents are cleaners, a lot of their parents, you know, they're of the lower socioeconomic scale. So they, they don't they? that's someone's mom coming to clean up after them. Why don't they man up and clean up themselves? so, stepping down off the pedestal and They're humbling themselves. I think it's a great attribute to take in every element of life, not just sports, not just corporate, but everywhere.

Greg Spillane: 8:28

So when you, you know, i know you do a lot of speaking, but You know you also do some coaching. When you, when you go into organizations and you're meeting with a CEO or you know whoever it might be It, you know that everybody agrees right. Conceptually, this all makes sense. But now you have this team of employees. Some of the employees don't come from sports backgrounds or athletic backgrounds. Some of them may feel like it's a little bit Testosterone driven or whatever it might be. I know, i know these are. These are things that I faced in my own Experiences. How do you, how do you, overcome that as you're having these conversations?

David Lindsay: 9:04

Yeah, well, what it is, is it? I Do understand that because I've come up up against that is all going. You're trying to make this too manly. You're trying to do and go. No, no, just listen to the system, trust in the process because, like I've Said to you before, i've got my five steps towards in improved vitality and with that that's.

David Lindsay: 9:26

It's just about raising your energy, raising your Vim, vigor and passion for everyone. Yes, it takes my elements from my life as an athlete and as a coach, but everyone's relatable to it. It's about utilizing systems and strategies to snap into action so that we have that energy. It's not testosterone field, it's human field, because you can sit across all different social sides, cultural backgrounds. They all utilize music to help pump them up. You look, whether you're looking in the Middle East, whether you're looking in Australia, when you're looking at the Native Americans, use music pop, up, up, up, up, up, up, up up to get them excited, to get them pumped up.

David Lindsay: 10:11

I, as I said before, i utilize the all blacks, the Haka, doing that to Change their physiology, which changes their psychology. So utilizing all these different elements to bring it to the corporate world. And it's not manly, it's humanly to do that. We all thrive off the same systems. And then once you, slowly, once I explain it and Then people start to see it, then that's when they jump on board. It's not about holding hands and seeing kumbaya, that's not what it's about. It's about making small, incremental pro progress, one percent every day. And you know that that compounding effect, it changes the individual, it changes a team and it changes a corporation for the better.

Greg Spillane: 11:01

Yeah, no, I agree what you. You developed a Framework here. You have five steps to improve vitality. Maybe you can take us through the five steps and how they they work together.

David Lindsay: 11:12

Yeah, certainly I love to.

David Lindsay: 11:14

So the first step is creating routines and rituals to snap into action. Like. We all have our mobile phones with us Within arms reach 24 7365. It is such an underutilized tool by the majority of people. So utilize the power of music. Get something on the way to work That's gonna help you get excited. Use something that's going to really pump you up. I've got my own unique playlist that, for me, it gets me going. It's like when I was walking out to the cage when I was fighting, i'd have wolf mother joker in the thief and Even now, when I put that song on, it still gets me pumped up and it gets me excited.

David Lindsay: 11:55

So you have the power of music, but also the power of posture. You see so many people when they come into work, it might be eight o'clock or nine o'clock in the morning and already their shoulders are slumped, they're heads down and you go, greg, how's your day? It's not a very good day. Yeah, man, it's nine o'clock and already you saying it's not a good day. Come on, head It's. It's a common saying head up, shoulders back. You know, and I've heard that from my grandparents when I was a little talk growing up head up shoulders back. And I didn't know, and I'm not sure if they knew it, but that's a start of the Superman pose. We stand with a power of Superman head up shoulders back, because that not only allows you to breathe better, but it also Changes your mindset. You stand up, you walk with power, passion and purpose, and it all fuels your way that you think. So you combine those two and it becomes magic, music and posture. And The good thing about this as well in the corporate world, is you turn up to work, energetic, ready to snap into action, and it becomes contagious Because a person next to goes man, i wonder what Greg's on? Oh Man, i need some of what he's got. Then then a bill one becomes two, becomes four, then, like in the book, the tipping point. Get to that tipping point? Well, it's, the majority of people are walking in pumped up and ready to go. And isn't that a great place that you'd want to work at. You'd be willing to stay out for less money, because you enjoy the teamwork, you enjoy the morale and the people around you. So that that's a first step is routines and rituals to snap into action. The second step is Napping for peak performance, like your your background in.

David Lindsay: 13:52

In football, in American football, you don't sprint for 80 minutes non-stop, same as in rugby league, same as in any sport. You have short, intense chunks, but then you also have time where you relax, where you recover. The mind is a muscle. So in work we don't wanna work for 12, 14, 16, 18 hours without a break. That's why people are burning out. Especially over the last you know, three years, people just stressed out same thing. They've got their phone accessible anytime, 24, seven, three, six, five, and they never get a chance to switch off. So I talk about the pomodoro technique Working on one thing Being super focused, no phone calls, no emails, no distractions, for 20, 25 minutes And then, like when you train the muscle in a gym, your mind becomes that muscle.

David Lindsay: 14:50

Then, once you get used to it, you can go that little bit more, that little bit more, up until 40, maybe 45 minutes at a max, but you're super productive with that. Also, having a lunch break importance of having a lunch break Getting away from the office, staying hydrated, refueling your body and mind with nutritious food, not with donuts, not with pizzas, because people wonder why they have that spike straight after lunch and then they drop. You know, you hear it all the time. Oh, the 3 pm slump. That's because they're fueling up on caffeine, on fat, on sugar. They get that spike, then they get that drop. So having a lunch break enables you to refuel your body and mind with nutritious food And also to relax it, to bring the game home strong. Then after a nap, you snap back into action for the afternoon. So you're ready to go.

David Lindsay: 15:52

And then the third step is tap. Many people think of tapping as giving up and quitting, but I reframe that as allowing you to step back, analyze the situation, realign, reconnect and refocus, this time with a different strategy, to not get caught in that position again. Like when I was fighting, i might get caught in an armbar where people try and hyper, extend my elbow or break my arm. So, like in business, i can fight it for a certain amount of time, but if I keep going too far, they're going to break my arm, which is gonna be a lengthy and costly recovery. It's the same in business.

David Lindsay: 16:31

Like you, look at Nokia, they were constantly tapping and evolving And then they stopped because of infighting of them using the Symbian system as opposed to going to the Android system, so that stopped them from evolving. You blockbuster, toys R Us, kodak, all of these worldwide companies. They're now no more. Kodak actually had the first patent to the digital camera, but because their money was in film, they left that on the shelf. But you have a look at companies like Metta, tesla, you have McDonald's. They're constantly tapping and evolving and staying relevant. So, being aware, same deal with the last three years. This is a perfect time to try something new And if it does happen to fail, that's all right. You tap, you learn, you grow and you evolve, but then you listen to-.

Greg Spillane: 17:33

Let me just interrupt. I have a couple of questions I just want to dive into a little bit. You know, one of the things that's happened in the last couple of years is this rise of the remote workplace. I'm not sure what it exactly is in Australia and how common it is out there, but it's become very prevalent out here And as someone who's been a part of some really really great corporate cultures, you know where you go to an office every day and you're working with people and you're building relationships and eating lunch together and collaborating, and a lot of innovation comes organically, and then there's happy hours.

Greg Spillane: 18:09

And you know I'm in a situation now where I'm running multiple companies, essentially remotely right, so most of my conversations occur like ours are, which is, you know it's through a video. And one of the things I haven't quite figured out yet, both for companies that I'm working with but also from a consulting coaching perspective, is how do you build that type of culture in a remote workplace, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'm sure that's something you've come across several times.

David Lindsay: 18:40

Yeah, and it is. It's happened so much, like you said, over the past three years And it's a great way that we've been able to adapt. There are advantages, but there are also disadvantages. Like a massive advantage for me is being able to talk to you all the way over there in the States from Sydney, australia. I've been able to speak around the world from a place at Arncliffe in Sydney, so that's one advantage.

David Lindsay: 19:06

One of the disadvantages, as you say, is the things that happen between meetings. When you have a physical meeting like it's a serendipitous time where you come in, you start talking about something and then there just happens to be that oh, i didn't even think of that There are hard moments And that is lost when it comes into just you turn up the Zoom from your home and then you disappear just as quick. So something that we try and incorporate is to have just little breakout rooms. They're not required, but if you might go, greg, i've got this fantastic idea Let's meet into this room and chat afterwards. It isn't the same as meeting, as being face to face and just bumping in the hallway, because that's where the magic really happens. It's not in this structured boardroom where you have to stay on track, you're just walking along. And if you do have people that are in the same location, even if they're working remotely, they can still go and meet up for lunch, go for walks, like. I like to encourage other walking meetings because it's less aggressive, if you want to call it that, because instead of being face to face, you're both facing in the same direction. You're doing something physical, You're doing something outdoors, you're getting the fresh air And there's something magical about that where it gets the mind ticking over in a completely different tangent to when you're sitting in a boardroom. So, if you can, you have breakout rooms. If you can, you still meet face to face.

David Lindsay: 20:47

But, yeah, it's about having that serendipitous contact where magic really happens. You do have to work at it to start off with, but then eventually it will become a habit. People, if you have the right culture, they'll want to be hanging out with their teammates anyway, even if it's online. From Australia to the States, we might be hanging out in a room just cutting the breeze, just having a nice chit chat, and then something might go. Ah, so it's about. It comes back to the company culture as well, where we, because we spend so much time together. We're not just work associates, but we're mates. We want to hang out together, and that's when everything starts to get that snowball effect.

Greg Spillane: 21:37

Yeah, i'm really mixed on it personally, from all sides of it, because I I really appreciate not having to commute, right? You know there's so much unproductive time that can occur even just driving to and from an office, or you know there's a lot of unnecessary distractions. And I find that I can be extremely productive in a remote environment and the flexibility of being able to do different things where I can get as much done, if not more remotely. But you do lose out on that like immersion. And I think there's two parts that you talked upon specifically. One is the water cooler moments. I just there's so much innovation, so many great ideas that come on unplanned beatings.

Greg Spillane: 22:33

You just run into somebody, you start talking hey, let me ask you a question.

Greg Spillane: 22:36

I was thinking about this and then they start to talk to you about it And before you know, you know it's a 45 minute conversation and you've solved some major issue where in a remote environment, you're either doing it over Slack or text or you're scheduling a meeting and there's a start time and an end time and half the time people are checking emails or doing something else. You know, during these different types of meetings where you know that part. And then the second part is this like immersion aspect of it that I think is really important in building a healthy culture where it does become a bigger part of your life. It isn't just, as you said, like I show up, i work, i do my job, i click out my tasks, then I go back and live my life. Like these become your friends, this becomes your family. It's like the all blacks right. Like you start to feel like you're part of this group and you're building something that's bigger than yourself, and I think that's so important to successful culture and high performing cultures.

David Lindsay: 23:35

Yeah, that's 100% necessary is to not just play your little cog, because there is this grand machine And, yes, you're a cog, and to be aware that if you take even just a small cog out, the machine stops because you got one link in the chain, like in a bike chain. You take that chain out, it's no longer effective, it doesn't work. So it's about knowing you're part in the team, knowing that everyone has a most, has a vital part to play in the performance of the team, of the company, of the entire outcome. But, like you said, it's been tough and it's been tough the last few years. There are benefits and it's still gonna be a rocky road for us to navigate the terrain, but what I like to do is try and get people to, if you are working remotely from home, have one day where people go into the office And during that day that's a time when, yes, it's a commuting time. Yes, there's times that are distracted, but the times that are beneficial, the relationships that you build, when you actually can shake their hand and have that contact, when you can give them a hug, you're really building that relationship And, as you said, it's creating that family environment, because you do spend so long at work And I try and tell people that you don't use the time commuting to work and commuting from work.

David Lindsay: 25:12

It's not a waste of time. Utilize that to get you in that headspace. Put on the music, whether it's walking from the train station or whether it's walking from the car park. Walk with power, passion and purpose, knowing your intention, having the music going, and then when you come in, you high five your teammates, you get the energy off them and you also give them energy as well. So then you're building it all up, so you utilize in the time productively and you're hoping for those water cooler moments. You're hoping for those times during your lunch break when you're talking about things other than work, that you have that oh, that aha moment, because it does happen so often. But when you're removed from the office or you're removed from the physical space, that's a lot of lost time there itself.

Greg Spillane: 26:05

Yeah, so I wanna talk a little bit about you. I was reading some of your background. You talked a little bit about it beforehand. You were MMA fighter, arm wrestling. You got an arm wrestling. I think that's fascinating. I know you were a rugby player. Talk to me a little bit about that, like what I mean first of all, like how, where does arm wrestling? like, how do you get started in that? And like what level are you in? Are we talking like professional here or what?

David Lindsay: 26:32

Yeah, so that was such a random conversation, like I'd finished my rugby league career, because I had two knee reconstructions. I had the first one when I was 17, had the second one when I was 21, i think it was And then, you know, my sport had been taken from me but I could still use my entire upper body while I was rehabbing my knee. So I got I was big already, but I got really big, i got really strong. And then a bloke at a shopping center just came up to me and goes excuse me, do you do arm wrestling? And my mind started spinning. And I go what are you talking about? And he goes oh, just the look of you. You've got short leavers, but they're stocky, they're this and they say that. And he started talking to me about it And I go you know what? I've only done it for drinks, like at a pub, and when I do it for drinks I don't buy. So I get them to buy. And I laugh because I thought he was joking. And he goes have I considered it as a sport? I go, i never even knew of it as a sport. And he handed me his card. He was the president of the Australian Armwrestling Federation And I just went, man, my head was absolutely spinning.

David Lindsay: 27:47

After a couple of days I got in contact with him and I went and did some training So and I thought it was all just brute strength. But you very quickly learn that it's a lot about technique, about how you even get the grips to start off with, and it's also mental strength as well, because after training for a couple of weeks I went up against his big bodybuilder, where he he had the same as me short leavers, but was very stocky, and so we both went in for the hook and our heads hit And then I beat him straight away. After that he was no competition because he knew that I was willing to go into deep waters with that. But yeah, i did really well against the arm wrestlers in Australia. I was actually on my way to go in some professional arm wrestling tournaments over in the States.

David Lindsay: 28:36

But when I was over in Corfu I was practicing with with a mate, like we're in Corfu for a mate's wedding, and it was actually his brother that I got him down. But because he had his wrist cock, they wouldn't give me the win. So I did the first thing you learn not to do And I turned my body and snap, i actually thought. I actually thought it was a bar breaking, because as I turned my body my ribs were on the bar and it sounded like a dry piece of wood snapping. But I snapped my humerus Oh Jesus, so yeah and had to come back to Australia and get it operated on. So I never had any professional arm wrestling matches because I was on my way over there to do it And obviously, yeah.

Greg Spillane: 29:20

I was going to say I'm scarred. I think I was watching a I don't know some video, youtube video or something arm wrestling one time And I, you know, i've done some fun kind of arm wrestling on my own and actually randomly won some competition one time down in Mexico when I bachelor party. I don't know how I got into that, but that's another story.

Greg Spillane: 29:43

But I think I was watching one of these, one of these videos and all of a sudden, like the guys pulling, pulling in, you just see his whole entire arm snap in half And I'm so traumatized from watching somebody's arm snap in half arm wrestling. Any time I see an arm wrestling video now I'm just like waiting for it, waiting for it It's. It's such a traumatic injury when it happens.

David Lindsay: 30:04

Oh, it certainly is, and it's so loud And it was almost within 10 years to the, to the day that on in Australia we have a show called the footy show, where it's rugby league players coming in, they talk, and there were there were two big, strong guys, wendell Sailor and Ben Rice, and they had an arm wrestling tournament And I I happened to go asleep but I got tagged so many times in it of David check this out, david, reminder of anything because one of them went and turned his body and same thing snapped his arm.

David Lindsay: 30:35

And what I, what I did was I closed my. I knew it was coming because I could see him turning his body, so I closed my eyes, but what I forgot to do was I forgot to put it on mute. And hearing the noise is really the worst part for me because it takes me back to when I did it. The noise just echoed through my body. Like I said, i thought it was the bar because my ribs were resting on the bar and my girlfriend she was my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, so she stuck with me through knee reconstructions, through arm breaks all the ups and downs.

David Lindsay: 31:11

She's been there the entire time. She thought that the bar broken as well, cause she was probably about five meters away and just heard the noise. But then we rushed off, went to the hospital in Corfu, Greece, and then came back to Australia and got my arm operated on. So they had to put a plate in, and when they did that they actually hit a nerve and my arm became paralyzed And my whole world just got ripped from underneath me.

Greg Spillane: 31:42

Yeah, so you blow out the knees. Your rugby career ends, your arm wrestling career is over at this point, right before you can go professional. And then you went up. The MMA stuff started after that.

David Lindsay: 31:54

Yeah, it started after that. But what happened during the? it was especially the first week after I got the plate put in my arm, where I couldn't use my arm. When I got a nerve conduction study, they said unfortunately the nerves are shrived up and dying, which put me into a deeper hole. And I thought my whole athletic career, my whole sporting career, coaching people in the gym, was all gone. Who's going to want someone with their arms paralyzed? I can't do it safely. But luckily I had a good support network around me because I didn't see, see anyone. We closed the door, we locked it off. There was me and my girlfriend. Just for the first week or so She helped drag me out of it and then my friends helped elevate me. And then, once I started to get the movement back you know I've been educating myself on how to coach people outside of the athletic realm during that period because you know, coaching from sports, coaching people it's the exact same thing. But you know, got the movement back and started doing Kung Fu, Jiu Jitsu, kickboxing and wrestling And then I wanted to get my black belt.

David Lindsay: 33:03

That was the first goal. But as I started getting better and better with that, i thought, you know I really want to test myself. The competitive juices came out and I go. I don't want to just spar, i want to fight, i want to get in there and get into MMA and fight.

David Lindsay: 33:19

So we set up a plan on like first of all, i had to find out exactly where I was, and that's what I talked about in the three pillars of high performance is creating your own unique roadmap. First of all, you have to find out where you are exactly, where you are physically, where you are with your skills, where you are mentally, where you are emotionally, and then find out where you want to go and then you backtrack with that. So I ended up putting my heart and soul into that and fighting, and during that time as well that was in 2008, i think was when I had my first fight before the really exploded. But I had so many people that canceled because it was just a tough boy thing. You know where people go. I'm a cage fighter, i'm this, i'm that, and I had videos out there of me training, me being like ripped up because I was fighting at 65 kilos, but I was a big 65 kilos. So the amount of people that would pull out, which is 145 pounds.

David Lindsay: 34:28

So, it was an emotional roller coaster Because once you train, you set up, you know that you have someone else training to punch you in the face, to try and break your arm, to choke you out, choke your unconscious, so you have to change your mindset, so for that to constantly be ripped out. But it was during this time as well you learn so much about yourself, about the resiliency you have. yes, through the knee reconstructions, yes, through the broken arms, but more so through the tough training in wrestling, in fighting, being able to embrace the grind, being able to go in places that is uncomfortable and then getting comfortable being uncomfortable. So that that's what I speak about as well, about embracing that. It happens in the real world and that's where we take so much from sports and bring it across.

David Lindsay: 35:19

I just loved it. I love doing what other people talk about doing but don't do. I love being able to go outside my comfort zone and accomplishings where people go, but you're not angry, you're not aggressive and you go. no, but it's a sport. And then they see that once a cage door closes, the referee goes ready, you ready, is it switch? it goes on.

Greg Spillane: 35:45

Yeah, it's what I love about sports in general is, you know, i have not been in no cage. I think the thought of it is exhilarating but also terrifying at the same time. I can only imagine your first experience getting into that cage and fighting. But you know, I've been involved in other things that are high stress moments and you know it sounds like you have as well. And I think one of the great things about it and this is why I love the connection between athletics and then performance and life because everyone's athletic career ends eventually, right, it's just a matter of time, you know you get into a cage with some guy who's trying to rip your head off.

Greg Spillane: 36:30

it probably makes getting up in front of an audience and giving a speech a lot easier, right, like we all talk about how hard work is, but it's like you've done some things that are unbelievably hard. It starts to make other things in life, you know, puts them in a perspective and it makes things a little bit easier. And you know, i think when you talk about, you know, elite athletes or people who have been able to compete at the highest level Olympians, for instance. I know you've done some work with some Olympians. You know you think about the mental toughness and mental strength it takes to be able to qualify and make it the Olympics, especially in sports like you know gymnastics or figure skating, where you have this like moment right Your entire career. you've been training four years and you have this moment And the people that are mentally tough enough to face those moments. it just the rest of life just becomes a little bit easier, right?

David Lindsay: 37:21

Because you have that level of mental toughness already 100%, as short as and I was actually talking with a mate two days ago who played played in the NRL as well And he said what, what a lot of athletes as well is that it builds up that resilience. But then afterwards, when, once the fans have gone, once the structure is gone, you have to create your own structure. Because when you're playing football, you get told you're training at this time, you're around that group of people that are all striving for that one thing. You get to perform in front of an audience, same as with fighting, same as with speaking. you perform in front of an audience, you get the energy off that crowd. And then it's difficult, especially in the early days, months, even years, once that gets taken from you because you lose this structure. Yes, you're, you're resilient, but you're resilient in this form.

David Lindsay: 38:16

Then you have to look forward to what's next. And what I like to do is I compare fighting to speaking, because to me they're both very, very similar And people can like I speak at conferences about finance. I speak at conference conferences about security, about cleaning, about leagues, clubs parliament I've even spoken to, but I don't know all these different things. But I know about raise and vitality And everyone understands sports terminology, whether they've played sport or whether they're an armchair athlete. That's where my speaking goes across the board.

David Lindsay: 38:55

But whether you get a fight or you get a conference speaker, they, they confirm it. And with me it's always the first one is oh no, what have I done? And that lasts for about two minutes And then I get excited about it. I know eight weeks time I've got to fight, eight weeks time I've got a conference. So then I find out what's, what's the strength of my fighter, what's the theme of the conference? And then I practice fighting, i practice talking and I do it and I practice and I get better, and I get better and I get better, until it's a day of the conference or the day of the fight By then, because you practice and put so much time, effort and dedication into it.

David Lindsay: 39:37

Enjoy the time. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy, like I said, with with fighting, i come out to music, i come out to Wolf Mother joker in the thief. So enjoy that moment when they're introducing me for a talk, enjoy that moment, energize off of it. Then, when they close the cage or they come out and I do the first line, then I'm in the moment. I'm truly in the moment.

David Lindsay: 40:01

Whether I'm fighting or whether I'm talking, i can respond to the people that are in the audience, i can respond to my opponent when, when I'm fighting, then at the end of it I get a standing round of applause and I get to really soak it all in, both we fighting and we speaking. And then after that it doesn't stop there. Then what happens? I have a day or two of downtime and then I go back and I watch the fight, or go back and I watch the tour and I see where I can get better, what I can do. Can I hold the pause a little bit longer? Was my body movement correct? How is my wrestling? How is my striking? So each time I want to get that little bit better, that little bit better, both in sports, in business and in speaking. So that's where I have a correlation between the two.

Greg Spillane: 40:55

Yeah, and I think you touched upon something very important at the end, where it's like watching the film, right, you're in a fight. After the fight's over, you're going to sit down, you're going to watch what you did. You have a trainer or you have a coach that's going to help you watch it. Hey, maybe you should try this next time, but it's this concept of coachability, right? I?

Greg Spillane: 41:14

think that that's something that many athletes are very used to. They're very used to having a coach, or they're used to having someone that's watching them, that's criticizing them Not in a negative way, but criticizing them in a how can I make you better, constructive way, and I find that that's something that executives and entrepreneurs could be better at in some cases. I'm curious your thoughts.

David Lindsay: 41:40

Yeah, because I love it when my coach goes like, with fighting, david, you drop your hand. With that, david, you did this, david, you have to do this to set up like knowing that it's not just a one strike, but a strike leads up to another, strike leads up to level change, leads up to your hands here, leads to the takedown. It's about tightening everything up. I love when people come with things to improve, when they're constructed with a criticism. It's not just like David, that was terrible, tell me why it was terrible. That way I can get better. And that comes down to the fifth step, which is recap, which is all about continuous, never ending improvement.

David Lindsay: 42:21

We do all the time in sports. You would have done it with football, i did it with football, i did it with fighting is when I was coaching football team as well. I sit on the sidelines, take down notes, what worked, what didn't work. We'd watch the video. All of the coaches would watch it. We'd record notes. We can power the notes and we watch it a third time, this time with the plays. The plays will get a hand out of the sheets, but then it opens the lines of communications, not just top to bottom but, more importantly, bottom to top, the people that are on the ground, people that are on ground zero. They hear what's going on. Because, as a coach, i want problems. I need problems, but we also need solutions, because it's all about that continuous growth, the continuous, never ending improvement.

David Lindsay: 43:07

Whether it's as a football side, as a speaker, as a business person, if I'm the same guest in six months as I am today, it's a waste of six months, because I'm sorry, greg, i'm going to be a better guest tomorrow than I am today. That's what I want to keep doing. I want to keep getting better at everything I do. If I'm the same speaker in six months as I am today, that's a waste of six months. If you're the same business in six months as you are today, again it's a waste of six months. Everyone else is moving forward and getting better. So in order to even stay the same, you have to raise the game. That's why we sprinting The 100 meter sprint. The times keep going down, because we get better technology, we train better, we have better nutrition, we have better shoes, we have better surface to run on. So you have to keep running, raising your game. You can't keep running with the stuff that happened back in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, with 2023, we need to keep moving forward.

Greg Spillane: 44:12

Couldn't agree more. One of the other things I've seen and I'm curious to your thoughts on this because I know this plays very well into the theme of tying athletics to fatality and high performance But yourself, like as someone who became an arm wrestler, you lost. No doubt, undoubtedly you lost along the way. As a fighter, i'm sure you were not undefeated. I'm assuming Rarely are fighters undefeated, but it's a willingness to put yourself on the line, in many cases lose And then, as you said, looking at it as an opportunity to get better right. You're going to be a better guest tomorrow than you were today because you're going to look at the show and you're going to be able to make improvements. And maybe you didn't say something perfectly right, although I think you've done a great job, but that's okay. You're not worried about that.

Greg Spillane: 45:02

But that fear of failure is what I'm getting into it. I think that it can be crippling to a lot of people And I think it's one of the things that as a society especially entrepreneurs in general if we can get over a fear of failure and be more comfortable with the idea of every failure, is a stepping stone to success. We'd be much more willing to take chances. We'd be much more willing to try new things. Is that something that you talk about in your own practice?

David Lindsay: 45:33

Yeah, 100%. And that's where the third step of tapping really comes into it, because that's failing fast. Fail forward So long as you learn, grow and evolve from it. So it's not keep doing the same thing again and again. Because you're probably the same as me You learn more from your losses than you do from your wins. Absolutely, because when you win, you just go let's keep doing what we're doing, whereas that's not good enough. I want to do what we're doing, and then some, each time it's, and then some. So when you lose, you really highlight areas.

David Lindsay: 46:08

Okay, When I was fighting, okay, my stand up wasn't the best, i was more of a wrestler, but what can I do to tighten that up? What can I do to make my kicks hide them better? When I'm speaking, cannot pause. Am I comfortable with those pauses? Maybe I need to really use my body a little bit more, because the stage was bigger, so I have to do everything bigger. What can I do? Even my wife said yesterday she goes David, do you always speak that fast? So with that, it was a conscious decision to try and slow things down. When I get excited which I do get excited a lot I speed up, but then I have to catch myself and then slow it down. So it's about failing fast, failing forward. And what I also coach people with is tell me what's the worst thing that can happen.

David Lindsay: 47:04

Because a lot of times say, if I put myself out there to speak and I'm doing that more and more because you have to realize that every no is one step closer to that yes, but if someone says no to me, i'm not gonna die. I'm in the exact same position as if I never asked. At least by asking. I put you in that position where it may be a yes, and then you just have to build up skills to make the yes. Maybe it might be a 10%, then you wanna build up to 15, 20. Then you might get 50% of questions. People say yes, david, we'd love you to come and speak at our event. David, we'd love you to come and speak at our business, at our corporation, because we know that you bring so much energy. It's just that putting yourself out there, getting comfortable, being uncomfortable, accepting the no, but learning from it. Okay, greg, where did I fall down? Is there something else that I can offer to add more value? And just finding out those steps along the way.

Greg Spillane: 48:09

I love that. Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. You have your own podcast as well.

David Lindsay: 48:15

Yeah, so my podcast is all about celebrating company culture, so companies that have a great company culture, learning from them. I love learning from people that are successful as well, and you take parts. Like Bruce Lee said, you take what works and you discard what doesn't. So I'm always looking for guests on there as well, of companies that have a great culture. I love to learn from what they're doing right, but also what they've done wrong along the way. So it's no good just learning they've done this right, they've done this right, they've done this right, because we're not perfect And when we see people on a pedestal, we look up at them and go. I can never do that, but when we learn from their mistakes, they become relatable. So that's what that podcast is about.

Greg Spillane: 49:03

I love it, man. Well, listen, I enjoyed our conversation. As I said, this is something that's very near and dear to my heart. You're doing God's work over there. I can feel your passion.

David Lindsay: 49:16

I do, I love doing it as well.

Greg Spillane: 49:18

Your passion and your energy. But the subject matter, I love it, man. I love what you're doing. I love the five steps. I couldn't agree more with them. I love the way you structured them and put them all together. I think a lot of people will be excited about the napping part of it. I think if we can kind of throw that in everybody's day.

David Lindsay: 49:38

Yeah, because it is having a lunch break, it's getting out, it's allowing the time And, yes, it does go deeper into how you sleep at home, but that's a whole different story. I can get off on a complete different tangent with that, so I'll just leave it there. Short naps power naps.

Greg Spillane: 49:53

Love it man. Where can people come find you?

David Lindsay: 49:57

Yeah, so the best place really is through LinkedIn. I generally put two to three videos a week on just where people can. You know they're two minute videos where people can improve that a little bit. Take on board, because it's all about helping people out. So find me on LinkedIn or feel free to email me at David at davidlindsaycomau, because I'm looking at organizing and speaking to over there in the States to share my five steps to improve vitality.

David Lindsay: 50:29

So anyone that would be interested feel free to reach out because I'd love to get over there. I've done up and down the East Coast of Australia. I just love getting the message far and wide.

Greg Spillane: 50:40

I love it, man, You make it out to Southern California. look me up and we'll go grab a pint something.