The Rich Roll Podcast - From Chubby Kid to Celebrated Athlete & Host of Dancing With The Stars

Episode Date: September 22, 2014

Some people are artists. Others are athletes. It's the rare individual who can excel at both. As I kid, I was interested in sport and things creative. But for some reason, I came to the conclusion that you just can't do it all. I had to pick and never the ‘twain shall meet. Call it a left brain, right brain thing. Most of us lean in one direction. We're either logical and calculated by nature, or we're whimsical dreamers. We settle on a side and call it a day. But what if we really could excel at both? My Australian mate Daniel MacPherson is great example of someone who seamlessly traverses back and forth between seemingly unrelated worlds, tightrope walking both hemispheres of the mysterious cranium with facile grace and ease. Not only is he a tremendously talented and gifted athlete – a guy who has competed at the highest levels in triathlon, he is also a quite gifted artist – as an actor, television host and media personality. Not to mention an exceptionally successful and celebrated one at that. It's by no means a stretch to call Dan the Ryan Secrest of Australia — and I mean that in the most complimentary, non-perjorative sense. Brimming with good looks, endless charm, intelligence, athletic prowess and creativity to boot, quite simply put it's hard to imagine there is anything Dan can't do, and do well. Dan has qualified for and raced the Ironman World Championships, the Half Ironman 70.3 World Championships, and began his triathlon career at the storied Cronulla Triathlon Club in the suburbs of Sydney, training amidst the sport's greatest athletes – world champions like Craig Alexander & Chris McCormack (my guest on RRP episode 24 ). This is the same club that produced triathlon legends Greg Welch and Michellie Jones – the biggest names in the more formative years of triathlon. As a youth, Dan was intent on becoming the best triathlete he could be. Then something totally out of the blue happened. At the conclusion of a local race, he was “discovered.” The rest is history. Best known for his role on Australia’s long running series Neighbours, Dan starred in City Homicide , the British police drama The Bill and was the host of Australia’s X-Factor. He is the currently co-host of Australia's wildly popular Dancing with the Stars and is starring in a soon to be released independent sci-fi drama called Infini. But despite Dan's blinding good looks and impeccable fitness, what is amazing is that it wasn't always this way. You might be surprised to learn that Dan was actually a chubby and somewhat insecure young bloke. 

Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast, Episode 105 with Dan McPherson. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. Rich Roll here. Not surprisingly, your host of the Rich Roll podcast. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the RRP. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing the show with a friend. Thanks for all the great feedback. Got a lot of great feedback from last week's episode with Mishka. That guy's super popular. That really was a cool conversation. Glad you enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. Also wanted to let you know that I was on the phone with John up to him and saying that they had heard him on my podcast. And he said, even during the race, when he was in transition, coming out of the swim and getting on his bike or coming off the bike and getting on the run, that people were yelling Rich Roll podcast at him. I heard you on the Rich Roll podcast. And he just, he couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe that the reach of the show. And that warms my heart. It

makes me really happy to know that you guys are out there listening and that you support the people that I cherry pick, that I handpick to have on the show. That's super cool. So thanks for doing that. Thank you also for using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. This really helps us out a lot. And I got an interesting email the other day from a fan. He said, hey, it's great what you're doing with the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com, but it's kind of a pain to go to richroll.com every time I want to go to Amazon and click that banner.

There's actually a widget out there that you can kind of embed into your browser so that every time you go to Amazon, it just automatically credits our show with the commission on that. And I don't understand how it all works. I got to look into it. I got to get my tech guys onto it. But I'm looking into trying to make that available, which would make it a lot easier for you guys to support the show. And again, it doesn't cost you anything extra on your Amazon purchases. Amazon just kicks out some commission change, and that has really helped us out a lot.

So thank you, thank you, thank you. All right. You know what we do here. We have a goal. We have a collective goal, and that goal is to help all of us live of this equation, my part, is each week I sit down, put together, and offer to you guys conversations, long-form, long-form conversations with people who inspire me, thought leaders, artists, entrepreneurs, world-class athletes, doctors, nutritionists, trainers, and even everyday people, people who have managed to transcend their circumstances, people who have managed to do amazing things, paradigm-busting minds and personalities here to educate, motivate,

and inspire you on your own unique path to uncover, unlock, and unleash your best, most authentic self. Yeah, dude. All right. Today's guest, Dan McPherson, he's a buddy of mine. He's a sometimes training partner. I wish I trained with him more than I do. I don't train with him that much, actually. But he's a great guy. He's become a friend. And I'm really glad to introduce him to you guys here. of interesting subject that I spent a lot of time thinking about over the years. And it's this idea of kind of predeterminism, this idea of left brain versus right brain, this idea that some people are artists, other people are athletes, but artists can't be athletes and athletes can't be artists. And this is something I kind of believed my whole life. I always had artistic inclinations, but I liked being an athlete. And I just thought, well, I have to pick one. I can't do both. Am I going to be left-brained or am I going to be right-brained? I even think there was a popular book on this left-brain, right-brain thing when I was a kid, because I remember my mom always talking about it

and saying, are you left-brained or are you right-brained? But the point is this, most people generally fall on one side of this spectrum. And again, you know, I thought you had to pick or you had to choose, never the twain shall meet. And, you know, people can't do both. But this is not true. And my buddy Dan Demack, as his nickname goes, proves this notion false. Not only is he a tremendously talented and gifted athlete, this is a guy who has competed at the highest levels in triathlon. He's also quite a gifted artist. As an actor, he's a television host, he's a television personality, and an exceptionally successful one at that,

particularly in his native land of Australia. I would say that it is not a stretch or an exaggeration at all to call him the Ryan Seacrest of Australia. And please, before you protest, I mean that in the most complimentary, non-pejorative sense possible, because Ryan has accomplished a lot. The guy's an incredibly prolific business person. He's everywhere you look. And Dan's kind of the same way. He does it all. Dan's a guy who has qualified for and raced the Ironman World Championships.

He's also raced the Half Ironman 70.3 World Championships. And he began his triathlon career at the very storied Cronulla Club in the suburbs of Sydney, training and racing alongside some of the greatest athletes in the sport of triathlon, guys like Craig Alexander and Chris McCormick. The Cronulla Club is the same club that has produced Ironman legends like Greg Welch and McKeeley Jones, the biggest names in the history of the sport. It's really a cool story, the history of that club and the amazing talent that it's produced over the years.

And Dan was part of it. He grew up with it. And we talk all about that today. When he was a kid, Dan was pretty intent on becoming the best triathlete he could be. And then something totally out of the blue happened. He was at a race. And in sort of one of those Hollywood lore type stories, he was discovered. And the rest is history.

Dan's best known for his role on Australia's long-running series Neighbors. He was also on a show called City Homicide, the British police drama The Bill. And he has hosted Australia's version of The X Factor. And he's currently co-host of Dancing with the Stars. And he's starring in a soon-to-be released indie sci-fi drama called Infini. And the trailer is out for this movie. It's super cool. I'm going to put it, I'm going to embed it on the blog post page for this episode. So definitely go and check it out. It reminds me a lot of the original Alien. It's definitely an homage, an homage, a hearkening back to those killer sci-fi movies of the 80s.

And I think you guys are going to dig it. So I'm looking forward to that movie coming out. And Dan, you know, really, I think in his first true starring role in a motion picture, which is pretty exciting. Dan's also very active in something called the Indigenous Marathon Project, which is a nonprofit that supports indigenous populations getting more healthy and more active, putting together teams of indigenous populations to run the marathon and create healthy role models for this underserved community, which is really great. He's passionate about that, and we talk about that as well on the show. So basically, Dan's a guy who straddles both worlds, the left brain and the right brain. He continues to train and compete at the highest level in the sport of triathlon, but he also does this amidst juggling this incredibly demanding, high-profile career as host of Australia's Dancing with the Stars, which is pretty fascinating to hear him talk about kind of what a day in the life is like of being host of, you know, such a hugely popular television show.

What's also really interesting about Dan and quite amazing is that, you know, first of all, Dan's a guy who's so handsome and fit that it's absolutely blinding. But he grew up a chubby kid, an insecure kid. And he was a kid who found his solution through fitness and healthy lifestyle. It transformed his life and he's passionate about it. And he now uses, he puts his fame to good use, leveraging his popularity to continually spread greater awareness for the promotion of healthy, active lifestyles. So that's pretty cool. He may not be a professional triathlete, but he's definitely a pro behind the mic. We had a fun chat. And he makes me look good because he's so good at doing this kind of stuff. He's so engaging and so interesting to talk to. So that's it.

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or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. It's the end of my California summer. I'm disappointed. I have to tell you. Coming to a very abrupt, unexpected... I know, abrupt and sudden end. Heading back to Australia, actually,

to do another series of Dancing with the Stars, which is the job that affords the lifestyle that we get to keep, which is quite nice. When does that start up? That starts up at the end of September in Australia. And it's a 10-week series out there. And we only do one episode a week. So it's not strenuous work.

But it's three hours of live TV. I think it sounds strenuous to me. It sounds terrifying to me. The idea of being in front of that many people watching this captive audience. I would imagine that when you're doing it, it's full on like there's yeah there's no room for anything else in your life I mean it's such a phenomenon but it's it's obviously huge here in the US and it's I think we're going back to do something like series 13 in Australia it's my my seventh series back there and and it is it's kind of like a two-month

whirlwind circus because there's so much you know rehearsal and press and there's a whole bunch of stuff going on a lot of travel um although we shoot shoot in um in melbourne i kind of often commute to other jobs or i'll work other jobs or i'll commute home to see my family in sydney while i'm back there so it's just kind of this nuts crazy couple of months yeah i mean just just the taping of the show is probably the smallest part of it. The press has got to be... Yeah, the press is huge, but also I guess rehearsing a nearly two-and-a-half or three-hour live TV show to make it look smooth live on air, it takes a lot of work.

And people say, you work very hard, or you make it look really easy. That's probably a compliment, but you work hard or you make it look really easy. You know, that's probably a compliment. But, you know, you work very hard to make it look very easy. And that's the skill of whether it's an athlete or an actor or you're a TV host or a musician. All the hard work is kind of done before the cameras roll. I think there's this incorrect presumption that hosting is easy. You know, you watch TV and it's just a guy up there talking, like, how hard can that be? Like, you know, screw that Ryan Seacrest, man.

I can't believe that, you know, like, how hard could that be? But if anybody has ever been in front of an audience and, you know, had to be on point and spontaneous and, you know, hit all their marks, I mean, it's a skill, man. Yeah. It is very difficult to do. It certainly is. And it's a skill, man. Yeah. It is very difficult to do. It certainly is.

And it's a skill that I always admired in other people growing up, you know, in sort of the best entertainers of our generation, or the generations ahead of mine, sorry, that I was working with. They were always live entertainers, you know. They were the variety show hosts and the entertainment show hosts and things like that that always did live TV. So now we have a lot more live television you know in australia and and here in the u.s because there are so many talent talent shows right oh dude it's like insane how many there are you know it's like

another award show like every week exactly right exactly right but but you know you go back 10 years or early longer there was there's far less live television outside of the sort of the variety shows. The job opportunities were slim to none, right? Exactly. There were only like three guys, you know. Yeah. But now, you know, there's a lot more opportunity. But I hold live television hosting in very high regard

and I hold it in much higher regard than pre-recorded stuff because I don't find it as challenging or as satisfying. But there's something about standing out in the middle there knowing that we don't have very many people watch Australia. Really? Yeah, what is the difference? So we'll rate like 2 million people is a huge night for us in terms of an audience.

Whereas if we rated 2 million people here, you'd probably never see the light of day again. Yeah, but as a percentage of population. Well, it's 10, 10%, you know, so that's pretty high. Yeah. It's pretty good. Way higher than it would get here. Right. And it's prime time. Uh, yeah. Yeah. In terms of sort of like per capita. Yeah, exactly. Right. Um, so it's good. It's, it's good job. And it's, it's what I, what I what it's my other job and it was always plan b it was never it was never my goal to go and to go and be a tv host but uh but you know i do like it and it's and it is i kind of like the the fact that you're on on edge the whole time because the the you know the the difference between you know being great and really sucking can happen

in an instant right you know and you've had those moments on life and one wrong moment you know, being great and really sucking can happen in an instant. Right. You know, and you've had those moments in life too. And one wrong moment, you know, in front of that many people and that's going to go on. That's going to haunt you for the rest of your life. But, you know, sometimes too, making the mistakes and recovering from the mistakes is where you see a true professional.

You know, when something goes wrong, whether it's if you're on a court or whether it's a technical malfunction or someone else you know in part of the the um the productions when things go wrong and you have to clean up that's kind of the fun stuff when it's too rehearsed and it goes so smooth triage yeah exactly right yeah when you see it on tv it looks like everything is working perfectly well but i'm sure there's a lot of chaos in your mind because you know behind the scenes that you know there's something happening that shouldn't be happening and how do you not get distracted by that and maintain your focus it's i mean we got i've got three main cameras on on the floor that i'm that i can deal with with with auto cues and prompters uh there's another one two three there's another three cameras on the

side of the stage uh getting reaction shots of which i'm wary of of where i'm standing in position to those to not block any of their lines. I've got an earpiece in my ear that I've got for people. That in and of itself is like a whole world of... Yeah, yeah. Like somebody's talking in your ear the whole time. I mean, what are they saying? Are they giving you your lines or...

Oh, no, sometimes... ...curing you to look over here or whatever? It can be anything. Sometimes it's as simple as the dancing contestant is facing the wrong camera or is standing out of the light or it's got to move on, got to keep moving, too much time, let's go, let's go. Sometimes it's – you can tell when the producer's in your ear and it starts with, okay, DMACC, I don't want to throw you, but.

You go, oh, no. something's wrong something's something's uh something's gone so so you know you have times where people are you know falling over backstage or the music cue's gone or or they need another two minutes of filled because because the musical guests stage right and you gotta just improvise and come up with something to say spontaneously yeah Yeah, pretty much. You have a teleprompter though, right? We do, yeah. And so when I first started the show, I had pretty much every... I was taking over

from the original host, and his name was Daryl Summers, and he was a very well known television host in Australia. And not unlike Tom Bergeron here in this country, in terms of his status and his career. He lives around here. I see that guy at Starbucks all the time really yeah I saw him I saw him at uh at the gym actually we were working out next to each other and we'd actually met at the American version but I didn't want to be the dude that goes hey uh yeah but you actually have a

reason of anybody you have an actual legitimate reason and that and he would have freaked out he would have been psyched I can't believe it yeah it was with his trainer and he was in the zone it was sunday morning i don't want to interrupt him but hey man you'd host dead some of the stars so do i right bullcrap no i do i do that would have been a fun conversation i would think anyway yeah out here it's uh it's kind of like uh uh television host reality star roundup in Calabasas. Oh, really? If you go to the Starbucks down the way at the Commons in the morning, you could see Howie Mandel, Bruce Jenner, Tom Bergeron. You know, it's like an occasional Kardashian.

Yeah, right. It's old age. It's like, you know, you're not going to see Tom Cruise or anything like that, anything like that, but you'll, you know, it's like reality roundup. Yeah, Calabasas style. There you go. It's all happening, man. I'll have to stop in next time I'm riding my bike past your Starbucks. I love it out here, though. I really do. This whole area has been a kind of a real kind of savior.

Well, not savior, but just somewhere that I've absolutely fallen in love with since I moved to LA. Yeah, it's so nice. You know, if you're into multi-sport at all, I mean, I look around and just, you know, it's like, this is, is there any better place to train year-round? You know, it's amazing. I'm amazed that every pro triathlete doesn't already live out

here, you know? Yeah. But, you know, it's a little remote, you know, if you're a young single person, there's not a lot going on, but you know it's it's a little remote you know if you're a young single person there's not a lot going on you know it's suburban and rural uh but but you recently made the move from you were living in west hollywood right yeah you moved to the beach to the west side in santa monica yeah absolutely i moved over i came over um a couple of times like 2008 2009 and then i had to go back for for a series back in Australia where I actually met my girlfriend on a series.

You were on the same show together. Yeah, it was a Western. I was a cowboy and she was running the pub and the brothel and all that sort of stuff. Like Australian cowboy. Yeah, exactly. Australian Western. And dingoes.

So we met on that and we both moved back here at the end of 2011. And so we did two years in, in West Hollywood and then got two and a half years actually. And, and loved it. But I was, you know, cause we were here for acting and we were focused with acting. It was my kind of primary profession and hosting was always sort of my thing. Triathlon's not your primary thing? Oh, I don't know where times man that's that's the whole it's the dynamic balance man yeah it's the constant battle but it's

a glorious battle yeah when you live in west hollywood i mean for people that that are listening that don't know i mean it's landlocked like you can't really you can't ride a bike you gotta you gotta put your bike in the car and drive somewhere to ride you can't go out your front door i moved to santa monica uh in in march and it was the first time since living in la i'd walked down my front door hopped on my bike and gone for a ride you know it's my third year of living here yeah so where would you take it for granted you know doing that back in back in sydney right and so and uh and and also you're swimming with jerry right at tower yeah that's right that was one of the first things i did when I got here in West Hollywood

was just try and find a good swim squad and some people, you know, in the kind of triathlon and multi-sport world just for some normality, you know. Yeah. West Hollywood's fantastic and we love living there. We've got great friends there. We've got great Australian friends, great American friends, a lot of friends from the UK when I used to live and and work over there and everyone's kind of in the entertainment game or the music game and and and i kind of in the same reason that i've always maintained um my fitness

and my kind of maintain the triathlon and multi-sport in my life is is that i needed a some kind of release or some kind of grounding. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I went and joined Tower 26, and we used to drive down there. Even if I just get down there once a week, I'd go down and just talk about things other than, have you read this script? Yeah, so even when you were living in West Hollywood, you'd schlep all the way across town.

Yeah. That's cool. It was a lot of driving. It was a lot of driving. But it was good. In that time of driving a lot of driving and um but it was but it was good in that time siri siri lindley squad were here and right and lou mckenzie and a few other friends and bett keat were all here and so i'd kind of drive down on friday and and tag along with them but even just to get in like a four-hour ride i'd get up at 5 30 get down here at 6 30

meet them at 7 right till 11 get stuck in traffic till 1 30 that's your whole day it was the day gone you know for four hours you're saving a lot of time by living on the west side um and i want to get into all the triathlon stuff in a minute but just to sort of you know stick to the acting thing right now for a minute um that the the australian kind of acting community out here in la they're pretty tight right they all seems like to me my perspective is they're all hanging out together and having barbecues all the time each other's houses that's that's a pretty fair representation i guess there's i guess there's kind of there's generations or there's or there's clicks or there's circles of of people you know guys guys and girls that have worked on certain

casts together for a long time or or you know like the home and away guys are always really tight and the neighbors the neighbors cast are always really tight and then you get people like say um like joel edgerton and those guys have been here much longer than than others and and so there are circles but we're all pretty um we are all pretty close yeah so it's interesting and it's also amazing to me how many australian men have become leading men in Hollywood. Like I read an article somewhere and it was sort of about the, the emasculation of the American male. Like where's the rugged, like leading man guy like that, who has that elusive thing, you know, that you can't manufacture. And it seems like it's coming in the form of Australians lately. Yeah. Right. What do you,

what is that about? You know, it's very interesting, but there's no doubt that it's happening. And there's certain Brits that are falling into that category as well. But for the most part, it's the Aussies. And I just can only put it down to the fact that we've got – forgive my French, but there's just no bullshit. There's far less bullshit with us. We kind of get in, we get the work done.

Even in things like I've seen, negotiating of contracts and what actors need, you know, to do well on set. For the most part, the Aussie guys and girls need half the stuff that a lot of their counterparts here are used to kind of having and are expected in terms of you know trailers and makeups and calls and whatever like that but i just i just think we we have a tougher work ethic and we just we we kind of just get get in get stuck in get things done work hard and and i guess also that for those who have come through the Australian entertainment industry, there really is,

it is such a small industry back there that there really is no room for dickheads. You know, they really, they kind of get weeded out pretty early. And so you end up with, it's almost like this pre-selection process, in a sense, coming out of Australia. If you've survived and you've gone through and you've established a career there. And then there's kind of two types of – everyone says,

oh, man, every Aussie in LA is – you guys are amazing. You're all fit and strong and good-looking and you're all nailing jobs and you're doing really well. But I think there's two types of – a lot of Aussies will come over here but a certain type of aussie will stay because i think a lot is it is really hard and it's hard to be away from family and it's hard to be away from home and it's and it is a brutal city and it's a brutal industry and it's and it's very kind of impersonal and it's tough and you've got to you got to you know you get knocked down a hundred times and you've got to, you know, you get knocked down a hundred times and you've got to get back up. And that isn't for everybody.

But the ones that stay, guys and girls, there is a hardiness to them. And I think that is part of the reason for their success. Interesting. Yeah, that hardiness, that sort of rugged male quality that you see. I think the American guys that have that, they don't go into acting. Yeah. You know, they're going into something else. Yeah.

But there's something about Australian culture where it's okay to be an actor or maybe it's more acceptable. I don't know. You know, like it's a weird cultural. You don't have to kind of subdue your masculinity or something for want of a better term. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what it is.

But we are, we just, yeah, there's a lot of blokey blokes who are unashamed of who they are and they don't kind of have to change that to be on screen. Right. I mean, the blokey blokes here are going into investment banking or something like that, right? Lumberjacking. Yeah, exactly. Being a fireman or whatever. Yeah. Interesting. Well, it would have been easy for you to just stay in Australia and be a big fish in a small pond. So what was the, you know, idea in coming here and, and, and, and saying,

I'm going to try to be a, I'm going to be this small fish in this big pond and give it a go. and saying, I'm going to try to be, I'm going to be this small fish in this big pond and give it a go. Yeah, I think, I guess inherently it's kind of in my nature and I guess in a lot of Australians' nature to travel and to get out of Australia and always look beyond because I think we are the most remote island in the world and it's in our nature to pretty much finish school and pack our bags and go in the world and and you know it's in our nature to to pretty much finish school and pack our bags and go around the world but um but i i just i figured that i was

i was actually at the top of my game in in both acting and presenting at the time in in television so the lead in a tv series and and i was hosting dancing at the same time and and i was kind of out of challenges right for someone who thrived on challenges their whole life and and and still does um i kind of went well what's bigger what's better what and and at the same time my mates were coming over here and i loved it over here and i and i don't know why i did also because the triathlon you could come over here and and already tap into a community while you were trying to do the other thing. Yeah, which was a bonus really.

Because even at the time I looked at moving over, I'd done Hawaii in 2009 and pretty much my bike gathered dust for two years. Yeah, you took a break. I did take a break. I needed a break. I was pretty burnt out. But also, and I'm sure we'll get on to the theme of balance as we go because it's it's really important but yeah you came to the house and within 30 seconds we were talking about that like that but i but i but i um

i'd kind of devoted so much time to to triathlon and and you know sacrifice so much and i kind of needed to actually swing the balance all the way back the other side to my work. And so I did that for a couple of years in, you know, 2009, 10, 11, through until kind of the last 18 months where I got back into the sport. But you kind of need – I needed that push. And so I could have hung around Australia and kept doing the same thing. And I would like to think I could go back if I wanted to and pick up where I left off. Well, you are going back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do. Yeah, I go back and I kind of go back for little bits, but my mind and my heart is in California. It is. Cool. I do dig it. And how has it been? I mean, you've been here for a little while. You've gotten a taste of what it's like. Yeah. It's, it's, I love it. I love the fact that,

that you're dealing with the best scripts and the best writers and the best directors, but you're going up against the best actors and you're going up against the best performers. So, so the two years that I've been sort of grinding here and going back to, going back to the very bottom, going back to the bottom

where you know when i first got over i didn't even have a visa so you so you you don't have a profile you don't have a job you don't have a visa um okay well maybe you'll get lucky and people do and and you know mates have and i was like i have but but what i did do was go back and and and work on on my craft and on my ability because that's the only thing you can see anything exactly right and that was that was one of my mentors you study with somebody here yeah i've tried i've sort of i've studied with a bunch actually and um and you kind of it's kind of like again i this like like sport you know you find a good coach and you work with that coach or, you know, you pick what works and what doesn't and things like that. But it's been the most productive time of growth for me as an actor,

actually not working for two years or trying to work here because, and my mantra was that there's so many things out of your control in this town that you you have to work as hard as you can at the things you can control and and so so that's been that's been one of them and uh and and yeah i mean i'm in a i'm in a great place actually i shot a i shot a cool movie at the end of last year in the start of this year infamy infamy yeah which is an australian sci-fi movie about it the other day it looks yeah it's um and and that was that was that was someone who took a real risk on the host of dancing with the stars to let him be the lead in their movie which was a movie that was

kind of a career defining time for for the guys that were making infamy um and is that going to do the festival circuit i think it will it depends on it depends on the distributors so so we're in the kind of just distribution sales dance at the moment um after after a couple of screenings here in la in the last month and that's exciting and even just to go and go and go to a screening and it's you know you're the lead in a in a sci-fi movie and everyone's sitting there right watching you and you're watching yourself and you know you're watching it with, you know, you're watching it through your fingers, through your hands, over your face.

Oh, no, no, yes, that was okay. It's got to be weird to watch yourself. It still is. It still is. But this one was a pretty incredible ride and, you know, it was actually, I'm just going to drop a name here, but it was Russell Crowe that said, you know, he was here for nearly two years and when he first got here and his first job in la was the hardest one to get yeah and and i kind of felt like that that infamy was was a bit

of a reward for for two years of really just just i could have packed up and gone home and and gone and gone back and you know there's plenty of stuff back home I could have done, but I didn't. And so these guys took a chance. And it's, yeah, it's an Australian sci-fi movie. It's made to sit and made to look like it's kind of the late 70s sci-fi genre. Right. And it was a beast. It was a beast of film, and I'm excited about that.

You shot it in Australia though. Yeah, so we kind of shot this movie that was, you know, it looks like it's a $25 million sci-fi movie on far less than that. And we were working in Fox Studios was kind of the main studio back in Sydney. But we ended up getting two massive warehouses just out in western Sydney, you know, on a business estate, on an industrial estate, and built these massive sets in there. And I was doing Dancing with the Stars at the same time.

And so we really, you know, we got so close. We got down to this final audition and I'd actually flown back from L.A. because I'd just raced 70.3 Worlds last year and then I had to go back for dancing and I couldn't get the audition down in L.A. in time. So I actually did the audition the morning that I landed in Sydney. Oh, wow. So I landed at 7 a.m.

The audition was at lunchtime and I'd been up with Zoe, my girlfriend, the day before we left trying to film it all day, but we couldn't get it right. Oh, you had to film your own audition and submit it. Yeah, but then we couldn't get it done in time, so we had to make this crisis call saying, look, we're going to land Friday

and I've got to jump on another plane Saturday. Is there any chance we could just do an audition when we get in the room on Friday when we land? So there's a bit of to-ing and fro-ing. Finally, it happened at one o'clock and I landed at 7 a.m. and I hadn't slept on the flight and it was horrible. My dad dropped me off at the studio

and I was an hour early and I didn't know what to do. I was like, oh man, what do I do? There was a pub across the road. And so I went and sat down and I had a pint of Guinness. That'll do it. I learnt my and uh rolled in and got the job so so um that was that was kind of the start of the ride and then we had to kind of had to make it work so i was i was shooting dancing with stars in melbourne uh while shooting six days a week on infamy in sydney and i actually ended up living on the set um because it won there was it was that kind of immersive style of movie.

But also, two, I just didn't have time for commuting to somewhere to live and then coming home and mum going, oh, how was your day, honey? And I'd say, well, actually, I was stuck in space battling dudes who wanted to kill me on an alien space station. Just to stay in the character. So I stayed in there. And, again, it's kind of that sporting, particularly kind of that on an alien space station. Just to stay in the character. So I stayed in there. And again, it's kind of that sporting,

it's particularly kind of that endurance sporting discipline that I find helps in shoots like that. Yeah, and I want to talk about how those worlds intersect, but a couple observations. Well, first of all, the movie looks really cool. It looks like the kind of movie that you would see at Sundance or Toronto, you know, one of the big festivals. Yeah, I festivals and yeah i hope so to checking it out so the the trailer is going live trailer is going live uh next monday so monday the first of september so we'll put a link up yeah cool that's uh yeah it's gonna yeah it'll be interesting second observation

feel free to drop as many names as possible. That's always good. You're being a little bit humble when you say, oh, you took a big risk casting a television host, you know, hosting Dancing with the Stars in this movie. casting a television host, you know, hosting Dancing with the Stars in this movie. But you're like this bizarre triple threat because you're not just a host. Like Ryan Seacrest was never on a television series being an actor. Like in the United States, you're either a host or you're an actor. There's this perception, oh, you're in entertainment, like it's all the same. But it's not.

They're very different things. But you have an extensive background as a dramatic actor and as a television host and that's a pretty rare combo i mean i i would think coming to la with that you know or does that just confuse people like we don't know what to do with you i found i found initially that that that um that it kind of did it kind of did whereas i whereas i i figure because i lived in the uk for for uh five or six years when i was younger i lived i moved there at 21 and lived there for six years and and they're kind of similar you can be you can be either you can be you know there was there's tv hosts in the uk winning gilgud awards for their work on stage midweek you know like it's you know

it's they host the top of the pops on the weekends you know things like that it's incredible whereas here i figured that I just had one chance to make a first impression here, and I wanted to make that as an actor, because I think it's easier to go from being an actor to an actor who hosts rather than a host who acts. Right, right. And so I'm kind of continuing on that path,

and the wheel is starting to turn. And there's been plenty of TV stuff here. And I can tell you a stack of stories of how I've got down to the final two and I was too short, too tall. Not charming enough was one that really hurt. How could you possibly be more charming? This guy exuding his charm across the deal here. The pearly whites are just blinding.

Oh, man. And then you walk in a room and there's just 50 dudes who look exactly the same all muttering to themselves, you know, I'm going to get you. Oh, okay. So it's a crazy ride as well. But no, thank you for your observations. But, yeah, and in the meantime, while I'm doing anything, I crazy ride as well. But no, thank you for your observations. But yeah, it's... And in the meantime, while I'm doing anything,

I just ride my bike. Right, so that's the third prong of the triple threat, which is that you're not just an actor who does triathlons, you're a really good athlete and you're a super fast triathlete. So, you know, in the United States, you have the world of like triathlon and entertainment. They only intersect on one day and that's during the Malibu triathlon, which is

actually coming up this next weekend. Are you doing that? I'm into it. I'm into it, but you got to go, right? So that's when you get to see, you know, the entertainment tonight comes out and like films, JLo, you know, getting out of the water and all this kind of crazy stuff. But, but there isn't any sort of celebrity or entertainment person who's actually exceptional in the sport. They just, they're duffers, you know, they're middle of the Packers or back of the Packers or whatever. But, but you were a triathlete before you were an actor and, you know, you grew up in Sydney and Cronulla and you were mixing it up with like Craig Alexander like back in the day. So this is like this precedes everything else. Yeah, it's kind of a bizarre story.

And I'm going to say one of the reasons I want to get on TV in America is so that I can race the celebrity division at Malibu. Oh, you'd just devastate. You would absolutely own that. Can't you get into it already? That's one of my main... So you entered it, but you didn't get the sort of celebrity buy? No, I just entered it as a regular dude. Oh, they've got to let you in the celebrity one so you can just dominate.

Oh, so you'd win by like 25 minutes. You never know. You might come up against someone. Who's your competition? David Duchovny and Matthew McConaughey. Bob Cryer. Bob Cryer. He pops up every now and again.

Mark Paul Gosliar is a very handy cyclist. Yeah, he's a good cyclist, but he's not, he usually does a relay though. He'll do the cycling, because he raced as a cyclist. Luke McKenzie actually came up to me. We were doing Malibu celebrity teams a couple of years ago, and I got a ring in because someone got sick, so I was a cyclist.

He came up and went, man, look over there. It's Dave Zabriskie. I was like, what are you talking about? He and went, man, look over there. It's Dave Zabriskie. I was like, what are you talking about? He goes, look, look on the top tube. It says Zabriskie. I was like, no, man, that's the guy from Saved by the Bell. He goes, no, no, no, no, look at this. And it was actually Mark Paul on Dave Zabriskie's Cervelo.

Dave did do the relay, though, two years ago, three years ago. Oh, man, we wouldn't have even seen Dave. Oh, yeah, he's oh yeah he's absolutely destroyed he just did uh he just won uh race across america ram's a four-man team with ben bostrom and dave mirror dave mirror dave mirror is mickey yeah dave mirror has taken the triathlon oh my god you follow him on instagram we're instagram buddies i've never met him oh yeah i haven't either and yeah i go back and forth yeah he's like he's like liking my images and i'm liking him and i'm like i've never met this guy but i feel like he's my buddy i feel he's so full on dave if you're listening i feel your enthusiasm man i love it it does inspire me he's so enthused

about and i love seeing his his improvement in the sport too he He's for real. Like he's treating it like, you know, it's a professional career for him and he's killing, you know, his cycling is extraordinary. Yeah. And, you know, the word back from Ram was that he's unbreakable. Yeah. So it's pretty cool. Yeah.

I saw he just did like a hundred mile time trial last weekend. And he's placing really high in these races. Wow. You know, so it's pretty interesting. Well, if you've got the engine and then you've got the mental side as well, I mean, you're a long way there. Right, and for people who are listening who don't know who Dave Mira is, he was a very successful BMX racer for a long time.

And, you know, I don't really follow that sport or know that much about it, but I do know that from what I understand from people that I've talked to who know that sport really well, you do know that from what i understand from people that i've talked to who know that sport really well you know that's kind of like uh the united states is really good at like pothead sports like you know snowboarding and stuff like that and and or x you know sort of x games kind of things and i think that was sort of a traditional approach to that sport but he was one of the first guys who came in and was like i'm gonna work you know and he just worked super hard and and if you apply that to triathlon you know you can you can move up quick yeah he's yeah i love i love seeing his stuff on social media but he was there was a multiple like extraordinary number of x games gold medals like he's the guy and a kind of

pioneer yeah exactly yeah yeah um now he's Now he's off multi-sporting. Yeah, I know, right? And can ride a bike. He really can. And he's not a bad runner, man. He's pretty quick. It'll all come together. He's racing.

He's heading up to Mont-Tremblant to 70.3 Worlds next weekend. So it'll be interesting to see that. All the best, buddy. All the best. How did we get there? I don't know what we were talking about. Malibu. Malibu Tri.

We were talking about trying to win the celebrity. Yeah, that's my goal. All the best. How did we get there? I don't know what we were talking about. Malibu. Malibu Tribe. We were talking about trying to win the celebrity. Yeah, that's my goal. Right. Right. Well, you're going to get there. So it's a two-pronged attack. You've got to get into the celebrity division. You've just got to book a pilot.

That's it. I mean, it's weird how you're in this business where literally, we were talking about this before the podcast too, like one phone call and your whole life changes. Like you go off a pilot season, you do a pilot, and it beats the odds and gets picked up, and then suddenly you're on the cover of every magazine you know it's so bizarre i mean that is such a mind fuck you know what i mean especially if you're you know going in and you know it's down to you and one other guy and you know the show is going to go your whole life changes and you walk out of that and you have no control over

whether you're going to get it or not but you must walk around thinking oh my god if this happens then this is going to happen and that's going to happen i'll give you two instances of that one was was this year where where i just started training for roth and and and i was committed to getting back getting really fit and doing that and about a week in i got down to the final two for this show that was being shooting over in wilmington, North Carolina, which is just down the road from Dave Miro, apparently. Oh, right, yeah, you'd be training with him. So for two weeks, I'm Googling everything about Wilmington

and where can I train and what can I do, and then showing up, pow, pow. So you got replaced by one of the guys. Right, you're already picking out where you're going to live. We've got a car, we've got to spend my money. How much am I getting in it? Yes, right. How could you not?

How could you not? And no wonder so many people burn out. Like that's got to just, I mean, if you go through that a couple times, that'll make you insane. Well, our craziest one was actually when Zoe and I first moved over here and it was our first pilot season. And it must have been, it was quite late in the piece, so it must have been it was quite late in the piece so it must have been about uh must be about march april and and we kind of wake up and zoe's phone rings at 7 a.m

and and it's her manager going hey you've got a network test today check your emails and she's like oh okay cool hang on so she gets up it gets her email and she she goes oh there's this thing called um last resort i think it was last which was the big the big uh nuclear submarine thing oh right right oh yeah yeah i remember that yeah so you you've got to um yeah they stole a nuclear sub something like that you know and they go you park at an island and she goes oh well which which one's last hang on so we get up and we go through we got this we got the dead script pile which is gets bigger by the end of the pilot season we're digging through this for these auditions and the highlights

and the notes. Oh, here it is. Oh, which one was that? Oh, yeah, it was the... Oh, that one? Oh, okay. So, yeah, can you be in at the studio at midday today for the network test? It's down to you and one other girl.

And yada, yada. So, okay, cool. So we get up, start practicing lines, read the script again. Off she goes at 10 o'clock. And, of course, to network test for a pilot you gotta you you've got to negotiate your contract right i used to negotiate those contracts you gotta negotiate in like you're basically as a lawyer representing an actor who's going in for an audition they're going into test and you've got to lock the contract before they get the part they have to know exactly what they're getting

like every can't step in front of the camera until that exact contractors law it's such an insane industry and it's not just series one it was you know I think it's like seven see yeah this is like the next this could be the next seven years of your life right so and you got to do it like you got to drop everything you're doing and like negotiate that immediately yeah so so Zoe leaves home at 10 o'clock and by, you know, 11.45, she's signed this seven-year deal in Hawaii. Right.

Okay. So where's it shooting? Well, it's shooting on the North Shore. Okay. So when does it start? Well, it starts in a month and it's going straight to series and it's going to be there until November. And we've just signed a lease in West Hollywood

and we've just moved over. And we're like, okay. And we just got together. We were like six months into this relationship. So we're like, oh, okay. So Zoe does the audition, comes home at three o'clock and then we have the talk. Okay, well, what are we going to do? Well, all right, honey, if you get the job, we'll move to Hawaii.

I'll be the house husband. I'll just train and serve and cook. You're like, that sounds pretty good. That's the best house husband gig. And you can work and we'll do that. And then we'll come back at the end of the year and we'll do LA then. Okay, okay, cool. We're doing it.

And then you sit up and wait for dinner. And then we have dinner and you sit up and you're watching TV and like. Staring at each other and not saying anything. And then finally the phone rings and really sorry. wait for dinner and then we have dinner and you sit up and you're watching tv and like staring at each other not seeing anything and then finally the phone rings and really sorry and and the love i love the line that the the representation use is it's not going any further it's like oh yeah really sorry but it's not going any further you're like ah so for 12 hours we were moving to hawaii and then you wake up the next morning you do it all again i had one other one where i went in for a great project with steven sp Spielberg and they were making over an ambulance

and you go over to Universal and you go over to Ambulance it's amazing you do this great job and you meet the director and you're like oh this is great you come out of there buzzing going this is amazing and then you kind of sit and for the rest of the day on the couch kind of kind of waiting for the phone to ring and uh finally it rings oh hello hello it's my it's my manager hey man hey yeah yeah how'd you go today yeah went really well i said so listen i just had a phone call from the guys over at amblin i was like oh yeah yeah how you know trying to sound super casual oh really oh really they called about me yeah yeah you dropped your id in the in the lobby and you've got to go back and pick it up i was like oh man the ups and ups and downs of a non-working well the other

thing is they they say you will be in touch which means uh you're never gonna hear from them again and it's not like they call until you didn't get it you just don't hear anything yeah it just goes it just you know suddenly it was like it never happened and that's one of the lessons is you just you walk out of there expecting to never hear anything and if it comes back around then and so be it yeah that's a mental discipline it is it is definitely a is definitely a discipline it's definitely a craft to that is there anything that that we've seen in movies or tv where it came down to you and one other guy and we know who that guy is i'm trying to See what I'm trying to do? Yeah. I'm trying to get you to drop some names. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No.

No, look. He's not going to. That's that thing that actors do. They never want to say when they turn down a part. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. They won't break that. No, we're pretty tight like that.

It's that etiquette. I will say that now kind of i just shot infamy with with luke hemsworth who his brother to chris and liam and and and uh three of those guys that's not fair i know how's that right yeah luckily the parents stopped at three so these jobs for everybody else but um but they're they're good buds and luke is luke lives across the road and he started training and i've lent him one of my bikes. Oh, cool. And whatnot.

And he actually put me – I think he's read your book. He's got your book because he was the one that put me on to Sun Life. Oh, cool. I feel better now. Yeah, there you go. Love you. Yeah. But I was booked on a flight with Chris in 2008.

So my manager and Chris and myself, so three of us were coming over to try and do LA. And then I got a job back in Australia. And I was like, oh, do I stay? Do I go? And so I stayed back in Australia and did a cop show for three years. And Chris just explodes. And Chris just, man.

And that, I mean, that seems like it happened overnight well yeah look it was there was i think it was about two years where where it took before he really really and i think he got two he got two two two two jobs within like a week he didn't get anything for two years and then and then in two and bang he's off and and he's just he's just incredible in everything he's done and and um more power to him and his and his whole family they're great people but but it just shows how how quickly it can happen man and that's not yeah that's why you know that's what that's what keeps people coming in droves and you know and you realize showing up absolutely this town is just filled with every person, you know, from all corners of the world showing up to try to do that.

And it's easy to be dismissive of that or pessimistic, but it happens, you know. It still happens. Yeah. But what I've realized and what I think is that a lot of people might get their chance, they might get their shot, what I've realized and what I think is that a lot of people might get their, their chance,

they might get their shot, but, but nothing in this town is nothing. Everything is built on hard work, you know, and people work hard. And so some people might get, might get a lucky, lucky break,

a lucky shot, but if that's not then backed up by hard work, then, then it fades and it disappears and they subside. I would, I would imagine 98% of the people that arrive here to pursue that kind of dream are people that just want to be famous. They're not really in it because they love the craft of acting and they're artists and it's about the work.

You know what I mean? and they're artists and it's about the work. You know what I mean? I've got kind of a pet peeve about that whole line when people say, what do you want to be when you grow up? Famous. Well, famous is a byproduct. It should be a byproduct of doing what you do.

Not anymore. Yeah. You know what I mean? That used to be the case, but now people are famous for being famous and that's it. And that's such a bizarre yeah fact of our culture that is disturbing yeah it doesn't matter it doesn't sit well with with my i mean if someone hosts a you know a celebrity dancing show it actually doesn't sit well with

my with my kind of my core in fairness some of those people that are famous for being famous work really hard absolutely they work very hard at being famous for being famous but there's no discern discernible talent at play other than like an incredible drive yeah yeah absolutely yeah they gift it they give the discipline for hard work you know it's completely weird power to them but it's uh and it's weird how technology is shifting that with internet stars and i'm seeing this weird generation gap for the first time. Like when you have Vine and Snapchat and these platforms, there are teenagers out there with like 2 million Vine followers that post silly little videos. And when these, you know, 16-year-old boys show up somewhere, girls scream like, it's the Beatles.

And it's the wildest. And then I'll watch it and I'll be like, I don't understand the appeal. Like, I don't get it. And is it kind of like, is it kind of like their, because it is such new technology, is it kind of like their star musicians of another era? Right. Because they've learned how it kind of like they're they're star musicians of of another era you know right because they've they've learned how to kind of master this new technology that to a lot of us

is still kind of alien you know exactly or or like the 16 year old girl who has a youtube channel and she tests makeup and you know and basically talks about shopping and what she likes to wear and she's making 300 grand a month off her youtube yeah it's like i subscribe it's incredible yeah i've got some great advice there but it's incredible it is it is it is unfathomable i mean that you know if you had to go back 10 15 years and said you could have never predicted it yeah um all right well we gotta talk about triathlon man all right all right enough of that boring stuff yeah no no but i mean i think that what's what's unique and interesting about you is is how these two worlds intersect and how you know

we want to talk about balance like how you balance both of these things i mean you know triathlon isn't something you do on the side this is really your lifestyle and it has been since you were a kid i mean you became an actor because you were discovered at a triathlon doing that so this is like the fabric of your life yeah absolutely um i i got into triathlon um in 1991 i was 11 years old and i was a rugby player and and my dad is from new zealand and a big big rugby rugby supporting family over there and my rugby coach was one of the pioneers of the triathlon scene in Australia, and he used to run the number one Sydney sprint triathlon series every summer. So it'd be one race a month at Cornell, just near Cronulla,

and everyone would turn up. It'd be Greg Welsh and Brad Bevan and all these legends, and they'd go and race what is now known as the Cornell World Championships because it's still a local race, but everyone goes there. Right, but everybody who's in triathlon knows that club. Absolutely. Because it spawned so many superstars. Yes.

I mean, when you were there as a kid, we haven't even gotten to the part where you started, but was there a sense that it was a special place, that these people were going to be world champions in the making? Well, it was just a shed like a cronulla cronulla pavilion is kind of like this sort of run down little pavilion not on the beach side but on the bay side so cronulla is kind of a peninsula and and on the bay side there's kind of flat water and there's some shark nets and stuff you can swim in and stuff so it was kind of like like a rec room, you know, that we just kind of meet at six o'clock.

And I started there when I was 14 or 15. But when I was 14, it was 1994, and Welshie just won Hawaii. And McKeeley Jones was there, and she was, you know, world two-time world champion at that point, or just two-time world champion at that point. And then you had all these juniors. And then you had kind of the local legends here like guys like jason harper and mick maroney and people who are winning races at that level and then the generation below when i was 14 the guys that were kind of 18 were chris mccormack and jason metters and sean maroney

and and craig alexander and and and and greg welch came out of that program. Absolutely. Well, Greg Welch, he was actually then the generation above. So Greg and then the Southwell family. So there's four brothers and their father and they were kind of local legends and pioneers back even probably in a few years previous, but they were all there. And so you'd go for a run and, you know, you club run and you'd be running with not only the Hawaiian Ironman champion

but absolute legends of the sport who are, you know, older than those guys and Australian kind of triathlon legends and then a bunch of juniors who were all mucking around who would go on to, you know, win Hawaii a couple of times, you know. It was incredible and it still is. it still is awesome to go back there it still exists the club is still going the club is still there i'm actually the patron of the cronulla triathlon club um and and i'll go back and and i'll go for a club run and and their christmas run is is always very entertaining um you know everyone's running around in santa speedos and jumping off yeah

cliffs into water and stuff yeah absolutely so we so it's a great area and it still is a great very big surf club um surf club uh background there as well so you got four four surf clubs in on one beach basically in cronulla and each of those clubs have been world champion clubs multiple times interesting did the two lukes didn't come luke mckenzie and luke bell they didn't come out of that program they didn't they they're good enough to have come out of that program certainly they're good enough to have come out of any program yeah but uh but no they were they were kind of at other i don't know if lu if Luke McKenzie spent much time in Cronulla, but Luke Bell definitely not.

He was down more in Victoria. But even in that area, the cycling world, big, big, great roads to ride. So Matt White, who rode for Discovery for a long time. Right, and he was a coach at Garmin, right? Yeah, still at Garmin. Now he's a director at GreenEdge at the moment. So he was from down there.

Graham Brown, Chris Sutton. Robbie McEwan. He was Gold Coast, I think. But actually, Mark Cavendish came and stayed. Oh, really? Yeah, I sat next to Cav at the Tour Down Under two years ago. And he said, where are you from? I said, I'm from Cronulla.

He goes, oh, I used to live at Sutherland. I came out to train in Sutherland for two years before i got my before i went pro and he said what cav cav was practicing his sprints up at waratah bike park you know like that's amazing yeah just picture him like in the isle of man you know it's raining and he's pasting it out it's dark out yeah remember when cav when he first started he was a bit overweight too now he's really oh yeah he gets a little pudgy when he's not yeah it's it's funny like somebody could ride their bike that much and still you know yeah but it's great yeah great sporting great sporting background and great sporting culture an area to come out of down there so

it was kind of in the it's it was in the blood really so you started playing rugby though yeah i was a fat kid yeah yeah i've, I've seen it before pictures, man. You were definitely like a pudgy little kid. Yeah, I still fight the battle. I still do. So was getting into triathlon a means of addressing that or was it just something fun to do? I mean, I was 11, so I was kind of young.

It wasn't the time for me, but maybe for my parents, and I've never really asked them, and they never pushed me into it, but they encouraged me in the same way that they encouraged me and my brother and my sister to do whatever we wanted to do. So they were very supportive, and Mum would drive me to swim training and they bought me a bike and things like that. So that was a very supportive place to grow up.

But I noticed that I went to a boys' school. I went to Sydney Boys High in Sydney, and across the park was sydney girls high and so it was about you know i was 11 12 when i was 13 or 14 i noticed that oh i started getting a bit taller and i started getting skinnier and then i because i was swimming four times a week oh hang on a second i might do the math you're like oh hang on a second and oh and then you know you come into that age and suddenly oh actually this triathlon stuff's kind of good right like a girl looked at me yeah she looked at me hi hi you should we get off we'll get off the same bus ah so you know just one day you wake up and realize there's like a thousand girls 50 meters away i'm gonna go training right

so and i did i lost i lost a healthy amount of weight i mean it's never unhealthy but i think but genetically all my family's yeah started off a little rounder and ended up a little squarer yeah that's how it is and when did it become something that you were like really focused on um about 15 or 6 when I was about 15 or 16 we won uh a state like teams championships through my school and McKeeley Jones actually had a junior triathlon team with with three very good athletes from Cronulla junior athletes from Cronulla and I kind of you know kind of thought I might try to get into that and then I got I got um and then my actually my coach uh became the national coach

who took over from brett sutton and he started coaching a lot of the pros and and and took over the national uh national program and and through that i ended up going to i got invited to go to the new south wales institute of sport and it's a famous place yeah absolutely and i was 16 and i go there for a talented athlete kind of identification camp and do a week or two there. They churn out amazing swimmers. Yeah, swimmers and paddlers and athletics. I mean, they've got actually that program now, the NSW program is spectacular.

And this was pre-Sydney Olympics too. So there's a lot of funding. This was 96. There's a lot of funding starting to go into those, the facilities and the governing bodies and whatnot so so it was an exciting time but then um within within two days of that and two days of that starting i got chicken pox and so i was just i was completely out with all these sores and then and then straight after chicken pox, I got glandular fever. And so I was a mess. I was sick.

And I was 16. That'll take you off for a long time. And it did. And it kind of derailed me. Even when I tried to come back, my immune system was wrecked. And I just kept getting tonsillitis and getting sick and getting colds. And even if I tried to train, I felt horrible doing it. So then I did that.

That was age 16, 17 into age 18. But the flip side of that was that it was in my final two years of high school, so I studied and got quite good marks and I actually met my manager or the guy that subsequently became my manager, I met him at a triathlon at Cornell where I was out there directing cyclists and working as an official because I still just wanted to be around the sport. And so I started going to acting classes after school

instead of going swim training. And off of that, I got my first job, which was in the Australian soap Neighbors. Neighbors. And I played a triathlete in Neighbors. Oh, you did? Neighbors is like something that's been going on forever right

it's like an institution 30 years maybe and launched 28, 30 it's sort of like Law and Order here like it launches a lot of young actors

careers right absolutely was Heath Ledger on that show he did Neighbors a bit of Home and Away I think I don't know if he did Neighbors

he definitely did Home and Away but we had Guy Pearce Kylie Minogue is like our biggest biggest international pop star came out of neighbors um so yeah uh jesse spencer at the moment i worked with he's on chicago fire at the moment um see a lot of it was either it was an either neighbors are home and away with the two soaps and that's the breeding ground like once you're in that mix then you're kind of you're

that was the australian greeting right right and that's and that was one you know there's a lot of people that that went in did that and were never seen again right but there's a there's a there's a significant number who took that opportunity and and and worked hard and turned into something yeah so you literally go right from high school into this i got i got the the phone call about my job on neighbors the night before my second last high school exam so that's like a universal sign like it just lined up for you to go right from one thing to the next i didn't know what to do so i kind of put my pen down and i was studying for like an economics exam i was like well i don't need that for a while um so i went out and i remember i was just in in awe of or in shock so

i went and washed both my parents cars i don't remember like i don't know what you were like at 17 but i don't know if you're washing your parents cars and unpaid or unasked you know i was like mom i'm gonna go wash your car she said what and i just was in shock like and what am i gonna do like i'm gonna be on tv and i'm gonna move from city to melbourne and i've never been out of home and and so I did all those things at age 17. Yeah, three months later, I had a summer in Sydney and I packed up and I drove with my dad everything I owned in a car and we drove it down to Melbourne. And we'd never been to Melbourne before.

And in Melbourne, there's Flinders Street Station, which is the main train station. The main road, Sydney Road, hits Flinders Street and you're kind of right in the centre. And we kind of hit the station and went, well, where do we we go i don't know we'll turn right or left i'm not sure so we kind of turned left and we kept going and we ended up going 50k past melbourne before we realized we were kind of in the wrong place so we turned around and we stayed at like a little motel for the night and then i kind of started my first my first day at work the next day and wow and i

just had no idea what i was doing but But just, yeah, threw myself into it. Yeah, and then here you are. I mean, what was the plan? Were you going to go to university? Yeah, the plan was to do 18 months on Neighbors, which was the initial contract, and then go back to university and study economics or something in the kind of financial world.

And only because I didn't know what else I wanted to do, but I was kind of good at that. I got good marks, and my dad was in business and a good businessman so I was like well I'll do that maybe I'll do some you know specialize in marketing or accounting or something I don't know but um but that was the plan and so then I kept signing kind of more contracts and all I wanted out of it was this it was a I said was it's a 1964 holden eh station wagon which is like the classic australian surfmobile uh-huh and i still haven't got one yet but that was that was like 17 years ago 18 years ago come on you should i mean at this point you should have gotten

yeah so maybe i still gotta get that but yeah for at least by the time maybe for your 40th birthday that's kind of that's coming up quick actually i'll just yeah it's got six years not that quick oh man it's the flying bus don't even start with me with that all right so so during this period of time there's not a lot of triathlon going on. You're just building your career and all of that. So when does getting back into the sport come into the picture? I finished Neighbours. I moved to London. I was in London.

I worked on a TV show in the UK called The Bill, which is quite a well-known sort of police show over there. And then while I was over there, I decided that I would get back into some stuff, and I ran the London Marathon. I ran that thinking that I was a pro athlete and went out and wanted to run sub three hours for my first ever marathon. Had no concept of endurance sports because I'd only ever raced junior triathlon

and Olympic distance was about the first I'd ever raced. So I went out and ran, trained really well, trained really hard, went out and ran the London Marathon, went through the first 10K in 39 minutes, second 10K in 40 minutes, third 10K in 43 minutes. Yeah, you hit that 18-mile marker. That's the widow maker. Yeah, at about 18 miles, I was doubled over with both my hamstrings cramping,

seeing stars, going, what am I doing here? And so, yeah, that was the last 12K was nearly two hours worth of hobbling. But I ran a 3.28, which was all right. Still pretty good. But it was pretty pear-shaped. So you go back home and say, I can't let that happen again.

I mean, is that what i kind of made you want yeah well i kind of went okay that's that was interesting and then so so i tried again the next year i do but it wasn't until i left the uk that i i went back to australia and i was doing a bit of running i was doing some half marathons and stuff so i got back to australia and i moved back to cronella and i and i was there and i was doing a couple of gigs and i was on hold for a job and i was on kind of contract with a network back home. And the drama that I was waiting for kept pushing back

and pushing back. And I said, well, I'm living with my dad right on the beach in Cronulla. My buddies are here. They're all training. I always wanted to do Ironman. I still haven't done that yet. And maybe the mindset was that I wanted to,

I didn't want to let go of the childhood goals and the childhood dreams that I'd had and fully commit to my acting career without ticking all those boxes. I didn't want to kind of let, in my mind, it was kind of like I had acting on one shoulder and the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other shoulder, which is triathlon. And I'm kind of like I had acting on one shoulder and the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other shoulder, which is triathlon,

and I'm kind of going, well, I don't want to let one blur the other too much, and I didn't want to give up on that. So your dream was being a pro triathlete on some level? I guess so. Yeah, I'd never... I mean, even back then, the notion of being a pro was different to what it is now.

I mean, we kind of... You know, a lot of the guys that were working. But being one of the guys who's putting all his eggs into, yeah, going to Kona and doing that whole, having that life. Yeah, I guess so. And just for perspective, the sort of stature that triathlon enjoys in Australia is very different than the United States, right? It's a, it's a much more, we had a national series,

a national televised five race series made for TV series on air back then. Yeah. That's amazing. I mean, that would never happen here. Now that we have a million channels maybe, but yeah, but it was, I mean, that was, so that was going back 95 to 98, not 99. So we had this national series with big big corporate sponsors and you know sometimes they'd have swim in a pool or they do like multi-lap sprint things or they do back-to-back enduros which welshy always won you know and things like that so so it was an interesting time for triathlon but but there's suddenly there was a there was sort of a career in it but i think

a lot of those guys were a lot of the maybe not the top 10 but the guys 10 to 25 were had you know alternate careers as well or not but but the top guys in australia are people that people knew about right they were just starting to yeah absolutely there was a there's a there's much more of an awareness yeah there than there is here there was you know a couple of i mean it was a small culture but there was you know there's a lot of magazine coverage and and it was not it's not like they were in you know the back page of the sports pages of the paper, but they had a couple of good magazines, and suddenly they had a television network putting it into people's TV screens

in living rooms once a week, and the sport was changing. I think I was supposed to be born in Australia and grow up there. I'm afraid to go because I don't want to come back you know i really don't like just oh you know swimming is everyone loves swimming yeah i was like that's the place where i should have is that where you started is that you started swimming yeah swimmer so man uh yeah outdoor outdoor 50 pools man they're the best i mean my whole life was you know indoor pools in the middle of winter with humidity and tar dripping from the ceiling. And, you know, the idea of swimming, you know, year-round in Australia where swimming is respected in a way that it's not, you know.

Absolutely. I mean, it's changing, it's growing, it's much different now. But in the 1980s, you know. Yeah. The idea of going to the Australian Institute of Sport, you know, I was like, whoa. Yeah. AIS in Canberra, you know. Oh idea of going to the australian institute of sport you know i was like whoa yeah ais in canberra yeah oh man right absolutely now the swimming culture is is amazing even not even not even the competitive swimming culture but just the fact that you know school swimming right

school swimming carnivals school swimming the lifeguard community absolutely that yeah yeah you know you get thrown in a pool at a young age and because we're you know a country surrounded by by water that you know everyone's got pools and rivers and a bunch of criminals that's it learn how to escape right all right so you got the uh the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other and you're trying to figure out how am i going to have both of these things in my life and both give them the attention they deserve. Because to really excel in triathlon or to really excel in the career that you've chosen, those are full-time deals.

And I still to this day wrestle with that and I still bounce back and forth between the two. So when I was shooting Infini, I didn't train for... I went from racing the fittest I've probably been in years, racing 70.3 worlds and some great races over here last summer to not riding a bike for five months while I was shooting and then going, well, I've got three months off. Maybe I can get Ironman fit in 14 weeks.

Let's do it, you know, and just do it that way. Well, the thing about your lifestyle and your career is you're either working or you're not. You're not like kind of work. I mean, you can work on your craft and go on auditions, but when you're working, it's everything. And when you're not working, there isn't generally stuff going on that way

except for the occasional meeting or whatever. So you can train, you can do that. I love the idea of being in an office at 8.30 and work till nine and have a lunch break and finishing at four. I don't think you would love that. I love the idea of it in an office at 8.30 and work till 9 and have a lunch break and finishing at 4. I don't think you would love that. I love the idea of it. I couldn't do it.

The reality of that, I don't know. I love the idea of the routine of that, you know? Well, we were talking about this before the podcast, this idea of balance. Like I pulled an all-nighter last night. I'm working on this project that I got to get done. And, you know, my day is busy with other stuff. I had to do it to, to, to get it completed. And, you know, I flip flop between the only way for me to achieve the potential that I know I'm capable of, or to create the kind of quality product or

quality result that I want is for me to go all in. Yeah. I'm very addictive, obsessive personality. So whether it's the podcast or a book that I'm writing or training for Ultraman, like I don't want to show up at the starting line, being the guy who kind of trained 70% of what he's capable of. I want to, I want to have that a hundred percent experience and see what I, what I'm made of. And I carry that into the other things that I do.

But that doesn't make me a very good multitasker, you know, because I'm either all in on one thing or the next. And that creates challenges for me on a daily sort of quality of life level. And like you're talking about the person who has the eight to five job, And like you're talking about the person who has the eight to five job, I look at the people that have that sort of, you know, whatever job they have, just that daily routine and that discipline of kind of doing a little bit of everything every day, making sure they get their training in, making sure they get their work taken care of, making sure that they attend to their children and their, you know, their whatever other responsibilities and things that they care about in their life. And for me, it's just the pendulum swinging like crazy from one end to the next and you know i've talked about this before on the podcast but that's my challenge that's kind of what i spent a lot of time thinking about and i don't i'm just wired that way like i don't know that i could be the other way anyway even if i tried and i just have to accept that this is how I operate. Those words, that entire speech could have come out of my mouth.

And I'm sure when Zoe, my girlfriend, listens to this, she'll go, you guys sound exactly the same. And so I guess the balance. I mean, I don't want to interrupt you, but triathlon attracts that kind of personality, I think. Absolutely. The kind of discipline that those people gravitate towards you know and it's and it's not it's just quite simply it's not the type of sport that you can do you can half do you can't half do an ironman you can't half train because it's just one you you won't get through it and two if you do it'll be

horribly agonizing right and that's part of the reason you need to do it and but also too when you've when you attain that level of fitness or that level of clarity or that level of i don't know just just when it all comes together and it and it's like the it's like when it's like hitting the golf ball and you hit it and there's the ting and it's the sweet spot and i mean it's and it's like that on a on-hour or ten-hour level. When you get to that point, it's a pretty special point. It's magic. It's exactly what it is.

And you can't shortcut the journey required to get there, whether it's a golf stroke or whether it's being perfectly in the moment when the camera's on you and you're delivering a line or you're acting a scene, or when you're riding your bike and everything clicks and you just feel like you're you know acting a scene or when you're when you're riding your bike and everything clicks and you just feel like you can just yeah you're going and it's on the work that goes in to get to that moment like you said you there's there's mountains of work and and it's it's funny the only feeling that i that i think the the feeling that that uh the trans... What's the word I'm after? That goes between the two of acting and triathlon is that moment when I'm on set with something.

There was that magic moment on set, on camera, where you're all working together and for whatever reason you create that magic moment. That feeling is very similar to the one of having it all go right on the day. Because essentially they're both performances, but they're very different performances. But I do find a lot of similarities and I do think one helps the other a lot.

So similar to taking what you've just said. I live a similar life where, you know, like I said, I make a movie for five months and didn't train. And then I'm going out and training like a wannabe elite Ironman for four months. And so it's kind of I do try and seek that balance, but it's balance on a kind of steroid level. It's not daily balance. It's macro balance in the sense you look back on your life

and you're like, oh, he was a super fit guy who was also a successful performer. That's a pretty balanced life. But in the micro. The pendulum's either way down there or way down there. Right. It's never... Right, because you're...

Yeah, when you're on set and you're doing Dancing With The Stars or you're doing one of these movies, you can't get up and go to the pool or go on a couple-hour ride for the most part, right? Yeah, I find it's almost detrimental to both. You can do it to a point. You can do it to a level. But both suffer. But can do it to a point. You can do it to a level. But both suffer.

But if you want to do, you can't do both, I don't think, at both at the extreme level. Or at the level that you're capable of. Yeah, or the level that you aspire to, for sure. I can go out and I'd be careful with my training around show days at Dancing with the Stars. So if I train too much in the morning, I've got to keep my energy.

Your energy's got to be high, right? Because I've got to be on at 6.30 to 9.30 that night. And then so I've got to be really careful what sessions I plan that morning. And even the next day, I'm zapped. But you try to get something done every day to keep the blood flowing. So getting nothing done is almost detrimental.

It's funny, you need to take the edge off. Yeah, yeah. Well, you need to stay in it to keep the energy high. Like, you get energy from it. It's not, you know, unless you're, you know, when you're training super hard, it's different, but just on a daily basis. Yeah.

And, you know, it's like if you keep that engine revving at max speed all the time, it's going to blow up too. So you've got to kind of work out how to. But if you have it at a low rev all the time then when it when it comes time to be able to kick it into ironman training you're not starting from zero correct so you know it's it's that we were talking about this the other day like you stop riding your bike and the cycling fitness just disappears like overnight like you know it just requires constant pressure but if you can just kind of stay connected to it even minimally then that curve of getting back in is going to be less steep yeah well that

kind of minimal kind of bit of work bit of training bit of maintenance on everything bit of life is kind of the most normal i guess you and i get when you're kind of doing a bit of everything but you're not maxing out in any one sphere then that's kind of the most routine and most normal life gets right and then suddenly i don't experience that much either that's not really i kind of get bored with it to be honest as well you know so i kind of like to be life would probably be easier if it was that way but but yeah it's just all right how it's happening for me. No, me either.

And you kind of chase the – but I guess then the rewards are greater too. Right, right. Well, you can rise higher and you can fall steeper too. Because it's scary to put – when you're all in, you're on the line. So you've sacrificed a lot. You've cut other things out of your life for a temporary period of time for a specific goal. And it doesn't always work out, you know. And so you have to be able to live with that as well, I think.

Yeah. But you made a very interesting point, which is this idea of, you know, fully investing yourself, whether it's, you know, in your personal case, triathlon or your acting career career to get the result that you want. But these are very different disciplines in the sense that there's a very linear equation with triathlon. You know, when you take, remove talent from the equation. If you do the work, you will make progress. Like you can, it's a certainty, right? If you apply yourself and create a plan and execute on that plan, then you will be able to, you know, achieve some aspect of that goal. You can finish a race or

what have you. But the creative arts are not like that. You know what I mean? You could work as hard as possible and apply yourself completely, but that doesn't mean anything necessarily. You know, a painter can uh is not going to create a great painting out of his self-will it has to come from this ethereal place of of surrender and letting go and allowing yourself to kind of channel that that intuition and that that instinct so they're a lot they're how do you know those are it's like different sides of the brain right actually absolutely and i actually said that i've said that many times over the years in in interview situations or even just to friends and family of saying well why do you keep going back to this

sport why do you what you know you've you've just got the lead in this gig and you're coming off this gig and you should be going to la why are you going to to somewhere why are you going to noosa for two months to ride your bike it's like well there's so many variables in my career and there's so many variables in my life because of my career but with triathlon it's a to b and and that's x and the harder you work x gets smaller and and and it's tangible and you can see it and you've got a result that you can see and it's a number and it's you know nine or whatever or it's 9 50 or 10 or whatever your time is or for a you know, it's four something or great. And so I can quantify that three months, six months, 12 months of my life and go and kind of hold it with a number and with a result and with a medal and go, that's what this was about.

I can go out and do a TV series and bust my absolute backside inside out to work so hard and the marketing kind of wasn't quite right and the edit wasn't that good and then the time slot got juggled from 8.30 Monday to 9.30 Tuesday and then the audience isn't as big. And then, well, because the Tuesday audience isn't as big as the Monday audience, the ratings were down from 1.5 to 1.3. So the network have decided they're going to put it on hold for another 12 months and you're never going to see it and actually something else is going to come in and actually it's never going to see a lot of day so because of or or let me offer

this yeah you you get your script and you rehearse it a bazillion times in your you know in front of the bathroom mirror and you and then you show up for the audition or you show up for the scene and you're so all up in your head and filled with anxiety that you flub it and it doesn't go anywhere. And then by contrast, you're out partying all night and you roll onto set hungover and just out of it and something happens and you're in the moment

and it's brilliant. Yeah. So it's just different. It's completely different. And that, have you ever read the dude in the Zen Master, Jeff Bridges' book? It's fantastic. No, no, no.

And a lot of that is about just spontaneity and the magic of spontaneity in performance and just letting go. Because if you grip too tight, particularly in performance in front of a camera, whether it's hosting or acting, or even if you're in your racing, if you try and control it too much

and you grip it too tight, you'll choke it. Yeah, I mean, I'm not an actor or a presenter or anything like that, but I have been going around doing a lot of public speaking and it's been a new experience for me to have to get up in front of crowds of people and on a consistent basis.

And my performance varies, you know, and I'm like a very preparation, self-will kind of guy, you know and and and i'm like a very preparation self-will kind of guy you know and i'll rehearse i i gotta memorize all and and and when i do that and i get all up in my head then those are stale presentations because i'm really caught up in what i'm saying and then other times i'm like i don't care you know i'm just gonna get up there and i i don't even know what i'm gonna say say and I just do it and it ends up being way better that way. Yeah, absolutely. You just, I think you just got to trust yourself,

particularly if you've done the work. That's when you kind of got to let go. If you've done the work, you throw it away and just, that's the exciting stuff too. I think that's when I kind of love it. You go, well, shit, anything can happen. And, you know, hopefully people don't start throwing fruit and vegetables at you and booing you off stage

but that's that's an exciting way to work if you can afford to work that way with a director or whatever medium you're working in whether it be a podcast or a feature film I think that trusting

the spontaneity and trusting the magic and the chemistry of whoever's involved, there's a lot to be said for that. And getting out of your own way, getting out of your own head, there's a lot to be said for that. Yeah, it's applicable in so many areas of your life. Like, you don't have to be an actor or an artist for that to be a valuable skill set or a tool.

And, you know, it's made me think that when I grew up, I had this very black and white notion that you could be an athlete, but athletes aren't artists or creative types. Like these, these two worlds don't intersect. Like you can pick one, but once you do that, then that's the path that you're on. And I chose to be an athlete when I was a youngster. I had sort of creative leaning sides or whatever, and I've sort of repressed that for many years. And as a result, kind of became a shadow artist where I like to be around creative. I have like an obsession with people that are in their creative power.

Like I just find that fascinating. And, you know, whether they're a painter or a dancer or whatever it is, just the ability to tap into that very special quality and express that I find to be just so compelling. And so I'm really interested in the creative process and learning about it. And as a result of like writing

and some of the other things that I'm doing, like this podcast, like I've had an opportunity to be more creative in my life. And it's been revelatory in the sense that it's allowed me to let go of that predisposition that you don't have to be one or the other like you can hone the right side of your brain and the left side of your brain both of those can be healthy and expressed yeah it's and you're a great I mean the reason I'm bringing it up is because you're a great example of that you're doing both of these things and you're excelling in both thank you because i still i still lay awake at night struggling with it or or or if i'm training too hard or or you know sometimes if i ever have a bad a bad audition or something i'll blame it

well i was probably training too hard because you do get you do get so it's kind of kind of linear you know it's it's there we're going in a straight line and because triathlon particularly is is a straight line sport you know everything's got you want everything in a straight line efficiently moving forward you know there's no deviation it's not it's not creative in too many ways it's not even like running off roads not even like a trail run which we yeah that's that's great you know you get creative out there you know no it's i'm gonna run it's about as creative as your calculator exactly right it's it's a numbers game you know and so so i do find except you have a pink bike so i actually just sold it oh you did well that's a shame i got a

yellow bike now but uh but uh you know it's so much for the rugged australian male image right we're not afraid about pink bikes man but um secure in your masculinity absolutely look at this little gruff beard uh-huh um but but yeah i do i'm still learning to balance the two and again it's kind of an extreme balance of going on either doing one or the other and I do need to discover ways of fostering both. And that can't be, or maybe it can be, but it can't be, actually I'm going to put my bike away for five months and go and live on set and operate on four hours sleep deliberately to try and unlock things.

Right, like channel your inner Daniel Day-Lewis. Yeah, absolutely. And it's amazing when you, if you can alter your entire reality, you find different things, you know. But you don't often have the luxury to do that with family or friends or partners or whatnot. Luckily, I've got a very understanding partner who's in the same industry. And nor do directors or producers want actors to do that sometimes. But take out extra insurance on you if you're out riding your bike all the time.

Yeah, I actually get a great insurance policy. But, yeah, it is a constant struggle between the right and left-hand side, you know. And yet there's things to be learned from both. Yeah, it is a constant struggle between the right and left-hand side. Right. And yet there's things to be learned from both. I mean, yes, triathlon is a very linear sport, but the sort of relaxation techniques, the skill set that is required to get present to do what you do as a performer, those things are very valuable in sport, whether it's triathlon or playing baseball or what have you.

And the focus and the dedication and the work ethic required to excel in triathlon or in sport in general is applicable to whatever your career is. And I think that there are a lot of, you know, you see it in, you know, there's probably a lot of performers that get into it because it looks easy, you know, and they think there, there's an entitlement issue and they're just going to go audition and because they're handsome or attractive, they're just going to get a job. And my experience, having lived in this town for a long time and knowing a lot of people successful and not in the business, is that the ones that make it, in addition to being very talented, they work their ass off. They're very focused. And there is so much about the business that you can't control.

You can't control how somebody's going to respond to your audition or what have you. But there are a lot of things that you can do. You can be pushing your career forward by making sure that you're connecting with the people that you need to connect with and following through and being responsible and working on your craft and all kinds of things. Just be as prepared as you possibly can be can and triathlon teaches you that absolutely so absolutely the discipline of of of working when no one's watching right you know that's that's one of the

big lessons big big lessons so i'll keep doing that yeah man well i think that's a good place to uh to wrap it up here i'm i'm i'm honored that you would uh you would even invite me on here man are you kidding man i've been wanting to get you on for a long time and we've had our mutual friend asher on yeah a couple times have you talked to him recently uh yeah he's um he's been having a couple of problems with his with his with his with his body with his with his hips and stuff i wanted to um so we're both we're both ambassadors for the indigenous marathon oh that was what i wanted to talk see you were talking about like being uh spontaneous in the moment and so what i do for the podcast is uh you know i do my research i prepare like i know you but i was

like i want to make sure i know much more about you i'd make all these notes you can see this notebook but then i put it away like i don't want to be looking at asking you questions on a list you know. But the thing that I wanted to make sure that I wanted to talk to you about was the Indigenous Marathon Project. Because I've talked to Usher about it at length, and it just sounds fascinating. So I want to hear about this. Well, it's a program run and started by Robert DeCostella, who's one of Australia's and the world's greatest marathon runners. And Deke's very famous in running circles and in Australia.

I think he's a sub-210 kind of guy and very, very good back in the day. But anyway, he started a thing called the Indigenous Marathon Project. And each year they select a squad of, I think, around 20 to 30 runners from indigenous communities or remote communities as well as big cities and and choose kind of 20 or 30 guys and girls of varying shapes and sizes and abilities and train them train them with a goal of making the squad to go and run the New York Marathon and this has been going for a couple of years now, but basically it's empowerment through running. Right.

And it's teaching leadership skills, it's teaching principles of health and fitness so that each one of those squad members can go back to their family, to their town, to their village, and kind of bestow this information and this knowledge and this kind of newfound um way of life on onto others so basically it's it's kind of a it's um it's giving people who wouldn't otherwise have this opportunity this opportunity through running and i've been fortunate enough to to to run with guys and girls who would never have thought that they could run, you know,

a 30K time trial around Uluru, the most sacred sort of rocks in the world and, you know, the landmark of Australia. It's incredible. So these guys are breaking down personal barriers and discovering so many amazing things about themselves that they can then pass on to others. They take it back to the community. Yeah, absolutely.

It's pretty amazing. So how many active kind of runners are participating? So I think at the moment I think there's 30 or there's going to be a squad chosen on the 28th of September at their 30K time trial. And I think they'll probably take around between 10 to 15 athletes to the New York Marathon this year. Are you going to do that? I might actually head out to the time trial, which is in Alice Springs,

but I'll be back in Australia doing dancing in November, so I won't be able to do New York, but I'd love to to but i was going to um i spoke to osha the other day so hey man when i'm back there's sydney marathons on and it's the week before the the time trial for the project why don't we go and run the marathon sydney marathon together and raise a bunch of money because i think it costs um i think that if you raise five thousand,000 Australian dollars it funds the place of one squad member oh I got you so I was like

well let's go and run the Sydney Marathon together and we could raise five grand each and that funds two people to go and be part of the squad and he said man I'm injured

I haven't run for two months he's torn I don't want to give too much of Osher's medical history away to the world, but we're going to have a chat. He hasn't run for too much, but he has been cycling.

This is what happens when you leave him alone. I know, man. It doesn't work, man. You need the wonder twin powers. He's holding down Australian television while you're gone, and he's going to come back here. The Bachelor is going on right now, right? The Bachelor is on air at the moment.

So, yeah, he hosted Australian Idol for many years, and then I did X Factor while he was doing Idol, and then we're both over here and good mates for many years. And then he started The Bachelor, and I've been doing dancing. So we're tag teams. I literally get back on next week, and he leaves the day before I arrive. And when he left. Yeah, because it wouldn't function if one of you guys wasn't there right no the whole thing would just i do i instagram

that day that we went riding i was like clearly australian television is off air today because both these guys are riding bikes in malibu who's running this thing yeah exactly you guys are here uh just reruns of the simpsons i'm'm sure. Exactly. But no, he's good. And I love his enthusiasm for endurance sports. Which is a new thing. He's really taken to it. Like it was only, I mean, you helped him get a bike, right? And now he just loves it.

Yeah. So in the way that... In his neon, he just goes crazy with it. He just loves his fluoro. Fluoro, I love it. But in the way that people are taking to... In his neon, he just goes crazy with it. He loves his fluoro. Fluoro, I love it. But in the way that people are taking to, and suddenly now Ironman is,

and triathlon is so much more accessible, it's funny the way then people are kind of then looking forward to ultra. They're looking forward to ultramarathons or ultramans to the point where there's an ultraman in Noosa now. Oh, there is? There is. Ultraman in Noosa now. Oh, there is? There is. Ultraman Australia 2015. Oh, really?

Wow. I think it just sold out. Are you thinking about that? Well, I missed the cutoff. I did send them an email last week. Look, if they're listening, and Daniel McPherson here just wanting to add to the withdrawal list if you are listening.

Got a great advisor sitting opposite me. Hey, buddy, would you be my advisor if I do it? No, I'll be your crew captain. Fantastic. You should do one. Well, I originally said to Zoe, I just finished Roth, or didn't finish Roth, as the case was. You have to turn down all your acting gigs.

It's only three days, isn't it? It's the nine months before those three days that I'm talking about. Oh, look, it's absolutely in my sights, and particularly Noosa being another one of my spiritual homes. That's another place where I'm afraid to visit. Man. Well, we need to do this then. You need to come out, come and stay at the house.

I really would love to go. Do you have a place in New South? Yeah, I've got a house there. Oh, you do? Yeah, and a little beach house, a big beach house. Oh, man. Come and crew. Come and do Ultraman Australia.

I'm going to take you up on that. If they let me in. Yeah. Well, maybe I'll... Send them an email. Send them a letter of recommendation. Anybody listening here, just info at ultramanoz.com. What was the cutoff?

I can't... Did it... I think they got so much... They got 45 guys, 45 spots. Oh, yeah. And I think entries ended July. So I missed out by... Well, I was away in Germany.

Right. So I'll put it in the hands of the universe i might see if i can get on the wait list and uh yeah see how we go that's exciting man i'd be i'd be stoked if you if you went to check that out well you might get a phone call in a couple of weeks all right good let you know cool man otherwise there's plenty of others but yeah wouldn't mind it's time to it's time to go long yeah real long especially as you get older longer longer is better yeah slow down you just you can keep going you know i think it'd be amazing so i had a i had a really just one tiny little anecdote was at the at the 24 mile mark of

hawaiian ironman in 2009 and i'd had the best 13 miles of a marathon I've ever had and then I had the worst 13 miles of a marathon I've ever had worse than when you were in did the did China in 2011 well China I was kind of still in control a little bit but Hawaii I was just cooked and I was dehydrated I was coughing up blood and I couldn't get any stuff down and China was still moving I was still in control but uh but uh the Hawaii kind of I kind of got my just and the tank was empty so I was still moving. I was still in control. But Hawaii kind of got my – the tank was empty. So I was getting there. But then I got to the bottom of the hill, the pay and save hill that Mark Allen used to call it.

Palani on one side. We're coming back into town from the Queen K. So it's the other side of Palani. So you're running up and then you're chucking right down Palani. So I kind of got to the bottom of that. I was like delirious yelling swearing at myself but then I kind of had this wave of euphoria and kind of calm and kind of clarity come over me after like 24 miles in lava fields and I was like wow if that's if that's what 10

10 hours and 20 minutes if it takes 10 hours and 20 minutes to get to that feeling, I feel like I was just on the precipice. I was at the first step. I was like, what's next? What if you go further? How do you... If you've got to go through 10 and a half hours of this to get to here, what's next?

What's out there? I want to go out there. So I crossed the finish line and I said to my family and friends, I had this amazing moment at the 40K mark and I want to go long. I want to go longer. I just touched the edge. And they're like, no, you're crazy. You're crazy.

So I buried that for a couple of years. I think it's time. See, we're simpatico because I hear that and I'm like, yeah, I get that. You've got to do Ultraman. You're crazy, you know, or an ultramarathon. Yeah, I might start with that and see'm like yeah i get that yeah you got to do ultraman you're crazy you know or an ultra marathon yeah i might start with that and say oh yeah you know i would say that that you know i crewed uh at bad water last summer yeah and i've never seen suffering like the suffering at bad water i mean that is really something else you know when you're going for that long in that kind of heat it was really

interesting you know and there's something you know it's like uh like 130 or something in bad well close to that yeah like there's a well there's a yeah like the pavement the pavement's super hot so every every couple inches up from the pavement it gets cooler so i think it was between 120 and 130 at like you know between 1 and 3 30 in the afternoon or something like that and i guess the pavement gets up to like 170 or something wow crazy like that and and but but the point being that when you get to that that sort of dividing line it becomes like this spiritual experience. Yeah. You know, it's like an ayahuasca trip or DMT. I would imagine I've never done that, but where you enter a different state of consciousness

and then it becomes something that you want to push further through or access again. Yeah. It just raises more questions than answers when you get there, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. So I hear you. To be continued. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. So I hear you. To be continued. Yeah, exactly, man.

Well, this was an absolute pleasure. Thank you very much for saying very nice things about me. And thanks for having me, man. Really, really lovely. It was really fun. And you're an inspiration. I'm happy to have you in my life, man. And it's ridiculous that we don't go out and train more,

probably because I'm not training enough right now. Now that you haven't made yourself available, and now I'm bummed that you're leaving. I know. We'll have to start 2015. Right. We'll start a new life, man. Yeah.

But I echo all of that. So thank you very much. Very cool. I look forward to it. So if you're digging on Daniel, the best way to connect with him is on the various social media mechanisms. Yeah, probably Twitter. probably twitter on all those things

yeah so twitter instagram dan mcpherson dan mcpherson m-a-c-p-h-e-r-s-o-n and is it the same on instagram yeah it is keep track right and you're are you on facebook no i don't yeah no i kind of test those too yeah cool and uh i'll put links up to the indigenous marathon project. I'll put the trailer up for Infini. Is there anything else going on that you want to share with people? No, they're the two main ones, Infini and the project, probably the two ones. All right, man.

And if anything else pops up in between, I'll let you know. Excellent. All right, buddy. Thank you so much. Thank you. Peace. Plants. All right, you guys, that's the show.

That's it. We're done. Hope you enjoyed it. Please, if you haven't already, give us a review on iTunes. We're getting close to 1,000 reviews, and it would be great to hit that. So do me a solid, take the 60 seconds it requires, go to iTunes, log up to the show and let me know what you think there. Make that happen. Let's hit a thousand together. I appreciate it. Don't forget to check out Joy Cafe for those that are in Los Angeles. It's our new, awesome, plant-based, 100% gluten-free restaurant. It's in the Westlake Village area of Los Angeles. It's kind of the

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bit more. I'm at Rich Roll on all my social media, except for Snapchat. My username there is IamRichRoll, I-A-M-R-I-C-H-R-O-L-L. Okay, the assignment, this week's assignment, left brain, right brain, which one are you? We all have a basic sense of where we fall on that spectrum. So what I want you guys to do this week is to pick the side that you're weak at and try something you have never done before that flexes those underutilized brain muscles. If you're an accountant, paint a painting. If you're an artist, balance your checkbook. If you're dyslexic, write in your journal anyway. Give yourself permission,

change your story, remove your limitations. Dan proves that we can all be well-rounded and we need not limit or define ourselves by our proclivities. All right, you guys, until next week, peace, plants. week. Peace. Plants.