[00:00:00] welcome back everybody to yet another episode in the Energized with Bram podcast. And this episode is for your entrepreneurs, your difference maker. People that are proactive wanna make a dent in the universe, want to change the world for the better. And always are looking for new ways to get inspired, to learn, to grow, to thrive.
I wanna warmly welcome you back to this show. Today we are joined by a fantastic guest. This guest, got shot 14 times on active duty being a elite agent and was obviously very close to death.
You can imagine if you're lying on the floor, you're waiting for help. You're losing a lot of blood and you're seconds away from death. This is exactly what this person went through. That in itself would typically set you on a path where you probably would turn your back towards active duty, but not this guy.
This guy is a rock star. He actually went back to work after two years of [00:01:00] rehabilitation, came out stronger, more resilient and more let's say resilient to tackle the stuff head on. I'm not gonna say too much about it. I'm actually gonna allow him to introduce the sort of work he's been doing, but very much looking forward to having this conversation with you today.
Derrick McManus, welcome to the show. Great to be here. And I love the energy. I'm feeling it already. I'm pumped. That's amazing. You got a beautiful word when I asked you earlier, how are you feeling? What did you say? Sensational. And I love the way that you actually pronounced it,
Sometimes you know, you got people saying, not too bad, or, yeah, it's all right. Sensational. I'll have that one every day instead. high five for you, mate. I love it. I'll take it. Tell us a little bit more. if you just look at career wise, you know, prior to becoming a public speaker and a professional speaker that is flying around the world jet setting,
We'll talk about that later. But professionally speaking, prior to that, what [00:02:00] exactly did you do? So, I've been a police officer for 42 years. Started out, on the everyday average, police career, walking the beat up and down the streets, back in the days when we were actually walking. I went into general patrols.
I worked in the country for short periods of time, and absolutely loved being a cop. Just being out there interacting with people, trying to make a difference in their lives. I literally enjoyed every day of my career. There was a couple that had a downside, you know, the day I got shot that wasn't the best day.
Over a 42 year period, there are very few days where I can go, do, you know, something I didn't enjoy that day? it's been a really great career for me. And then of course, then you upgrade it to the STAR Group. Correct to the,STAR group? Yes. The, STAR Group Special Task and Rescue.
So that's high risk arrest, hostage, siege, counter-terrorism. I was trained by the military [00:03:00] SAS in counter-terrorism, underwater recovery. when the queen came out to visit, we were the close quarter protection for the Queens Cliff Rescue, cave Rescue Mine, rescue helicopter operations, witness protection, high risk witness protection.
All the exciting stuff. I absolutely loved it. Not really sitting, bored at your desk The really odd thing it sounds like it's pump. Pump, but there were days where we go, oh, I'm bored. Or what should we do? Oh, let's go out and do some training.
So we'll do some cliff training and stuff like that. When it was on, it was on big and it was great. but yeah, we have those down days where there's nothing happening. And then you get those days where it's really big, but that's just the same as last Tuesday and the Tuesday before that
because it becomes that repetitive stuff. and you would see the same in, you know, the work you do with your clients absolutely love it. But you've actually done that so many times. it's just another Tuesday. That's right. I'm wondering how you dealt with that, because what you just alluded to is quite interesting in the sense that [00:04:00] there is that repetition, and you're basically doing a lot of preparation for a situation that might happen or might not.
And if it does happen, you don't know how it's gonna happen, where it's gonna happen, who is gonna be involved. There's a lot of question marks. So how do you actually deal with this sort of not knowing with so much preparation and then having to flip the switch on in a second, and be on.
I've always described it as being prepared for the unexpected. You have some reasonable idea as to what might happen. This is not the first in history where we've had police forces. This is not the first in history where we've had violent offenders. We can go right back to the Greeks and the Romans
It has been happening all the time. human behavior is predictable to a degree. It doesn't mean that we know that person is going to do it, but we know that somebody is going to rob a bank, assault their partner, whether that be male or female offender, all these things we know are gonna happen and so we need to [00:05:00] be able to say.
No matter what happens, we will have a contingency for it. in our training, we will be given a scenario for training And halfway through the scenario they'll say it's changed. This is what's happened now you have to adapt to that, and it would be the most ridiculous, thing they would throw in there.
But it was just to throw us off so that we then had to readjust and go on, attack that properly as well. it was ridiculous then it was sublime and then it, it just kept on mounting and they just wanted. See how far we could go. So, and the old adage, train hard, work easy.
And there were very few jobs where we've actually gone. Do you know something? I dunno how to do this. Certainly the day that I got shot. So you really rock up prepared. You actually feel that you're ready for it. We feel like we have the ability to adapt. And that's probably the most important thing.
We dunno what's exactly what's gonna happen. The offender may have a different idea, they may [00:06:00] have something hidden, you know, whatever it might be. But we feel like we have the skills to adapt. This is a skill we need every day in interacting with our children and interacting with our partners in interacting with our clients.
We need to feel that we know our environment so well, that no matter what happens, I can go, oh, that's changed. I'm gonna adapt to this. it's a philosophy that is universal. which is why I thought you sharing your story and philosophies with people would be of great benefit no matter what their background is.
So I really appreciate that. one thing that I'm always wondering, me being a psychologist from Belgium, how do you actually use, or work with things that could easily trip you up, Like what you're describing it could be very high on stress, high on adrenaline.
It, creates a certain state in your body, physiologically speaking, that you could easily get hung up to. As an example, you become an adrenaline junkie. Or something. How do you actually do that when you then go [00:07:00] back to, let's say, holiday time, downtime, family time where you just do it. Let's say you, you paint the walls, you mow the grass.
You spend 3, 4, 5, 6 weeks with your family overseas where none of that thrilling stuff is really part of the picture. How do you deal with that? there's no two ways about it. I'm an adrenaline junkie. as you know, I'm just about to go and walk code a track for the second time and take 46 people away with me.
so you know that adrenaline is always gonna be there. I think you've gotta find your adrenaline, but know where your limits are. There are some people who don't understand the value of having time out. They believe that they've got to be on adrenaline all the time. And that's me.
I've gotta be pushing, I've gotta be shoving. I am very aware that there are times when I have got to switch and go to my kids' concert at school where they're playing terrible music and singing terrible songs and it's gonna [00:08:00] buzz my ears, but I've gotta be completely present there, right?
And be able to leave this alone and focus here. I think. I've also been very fortunate that I have. Fairly high community values. when I was in my early twenties, I volunteered to help coach a gymnastics club. and when I rocked up I said, you know, I'm here to help coach.
And they'd gone, excellent. You are now the head coach. I ran this gymnastics club and was coaching at different gymnastics clubs. I play sport and I don't just play with police, I play with other members of the public on a public team where there's no other police officers. So I like to keep that balance.
I think that has helped me a lot. Beautiful. you mentioned the word presence, especially after being shot. I can imagine that being present, filtering out the worries, concerns, maybe flashbacks, anxiety, [00:09:00] whatever, that is not an easy feed and I think it's worth us talking about, especially, with your work called human durability.
Could you walk us through how people can use that to stay present and poised So they don't get taken away by anxiety, flashbacks, depression, whatever it might be, PTSD. So I think this all goes back to expectations people talk about societal expectations, family expectations.
The the biggest expectations we have are expectations of ourselves, and we assume we have expectations. From society. quite often society doesn't actually demand as much as we might think. And don't get me wrong, I fall foul of this as well. It's not, just something that other people do.
I fall foul of it as well. I believe other people expect, but when I sit down and really analyze it, the greatest pressure I put on myself is my self expectations. I'm also very aware. [00:10:00] That taking time out is very important. certainly when there's flashbacks and, you know, after the shooting, I had flashbacks, I had nightmares, I had panic attacks.
but it's about. Understanding and as psychologist you'd appreciate, it's about understanding why are those things happening? and having gone through big traumas and, and doesn't have to be big trauma of being shot or physical injuries. It could be the trauma of losing your business.
the shooting, was big. My divorce emotionally was bigger. That was the one that affected me more psychologically, my divorce more than the shooting. we'll get into that in just a little while human durability is about sustaining optimal performance. optimal performance is understanding what is the very best that you can do in a given circumstance.
that is a very compassionate way to look at performing at our best. everybody gets fixated on [00:11:00] peak performance. I've gotta get peak performance, and when I get to peak performance, I've gotta sustain peak performance. And if I start failing, then people are gonna start judging me. society will start judging me.
It's hard to keep that up. high performance is actually impossible. You cannot sustain peak performance. Peak performance is focused on one thing only. if you're focused on business, your family suffers, your health suffers.
Your social life suffers because your are focused on business. If you actually then switch to focusing on family business and other things suffer. optimal performance is. Finding out what the circumstances are and being the best for those circumstances.
Now, if you are trying to focus on work and be good there, but one of your children's sick and in hospital, you are not gonna be able to be a peak performer. But you've gotta be compassionate and say, with these circumstances, what's the very best that I can do here? And be pleased that you can sustain that.
that may not be the. Top performance, it may not be the middle, it may be just keeping the [00:12:00] books open, just being able to talk to clients, But we've gotta understand what that means to us. And I was never given this as training, but somewhere intuitively in the back of my mind, I understood that that's what I needed to do.
You speak my language, Derek. Yeah. I fully get it. So you're big on proactivity and about making choices consciously. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Interesting. How do you then actually come up with the variety of options you have? 'cause I heard you mention that prior to us starting the podcast. Yeah. That you gotta consciously think of the options.
Like how do you, how do you teach people how to do that? So do you know something I've been very fortunate. I've been through the challenge of the shooting. I've been through a couple of challenges elsewhere in life where I had to start really looking deep inside myself and saying, what do I do?
How do I do that? I've been able to analyze and go, you know, something, I need to change that. I need to change this, the [00:13:00] system that I've come up with for making the choices comes down to what I call the four steps of responsibility or the four stages of responsibility. Whenever we want to do something, whenever we need to do something, whenever there's a decision that needs to be made, what path am I going to take?
I believe we need to make, four conscious decisions. We need to consider every option available to us, and then say, if I take this choice, I need to be responsible for the choice. I need to be responsible for the behavior or the actions as a result of that choice. I then need to take responsibility for the consequences.
Both good and bad. I made the choice. I decided to do that. I now need to be responsible for the consequences, but I then need to be responsible. For the future after consequence, whether it's good or bad, I need to be able to anticipate what that might be and say, am I willing to accept that?
I can be responsible for the choice. I can be responsible for my behavior. I can be responsible for most of the consequences, but I [00:14:00] don't like that one. Okay, let's go back and have a look at option number two and go through that again. Now people see this, and they go, oh wow.
That's a lot to go through. Well, it's not if you start off with something small. Whenever you introduce a new system, a new process, you don't go, I'm gonna apply this to the biggest challenge I've ever had, no, you start off with something small, make it easy. Go through the easy choices, okay?
Once you become used to it. It becomes second nature and it just happens People say. When did you first know you were doing this? How did you know that you had done this? Well, I go back to it was intuitive. I dunno where it came from, but I know that when I joined Star Group five years prior to the shooting, I took a look at the choice that I was making and I knew that going into Star Group, it's gonna be sensational.
Lots of adrenaline, lots of fun, lots of excitement, but there's a chance I may be shot n injured. I may be shot and killed. [00:15:00] And I sat down with my wife five years prior to the shooting when I joined Star Group and said, real chance I may be shot and injured. I may be shot and killed. the conversation I had with her first was, if I die, what will your life look like?
Now? Let is a conversation that everybody goes, okay, well that's something that police do. Unfortunately. No, it's not. There's only about 1% of cops that actually have the conversation. Everybody knows it's there. But it's the elephant in the corner of the room. nobody wants to talk about that.
They know it's there, they acknowledge it if you bring it up in conversation, oh, yeah, we know that and move on. But I sat down with my wife and I have what I call open, honest, confronting conversations. it's confronting the reality, but it's done with care, compassion, concern, and wanting positive outcomes for everybody involved.
I said to her. If I die, what is your life gonna look like? Because I wanted her to make, an assessment of what the impact [00:16:00] might be on her life. she was caught up in all the excitement. Going to star groups, it's gonna be exciting, you're gonna have great jobs, but there are negatives that come with it as well.
So we sat down and, Essentially we went through three options. It wasn't about me saying, if I die, I want you to do this. It was about if I die, I support you in doing whatever you want and let's have that, conscious conversation now. So there's absolute clarity, no ambiguity. So if she wanted to go on and get married straight after I died and have somebody else look after the children with her, excellent.
I completely support that and embrace it. And no guilt. she would not be going, oh, what would Derek think? What would Derek's family think? Who will judge me? No, Derek and I have had this conversation. It's perfectly all right. and the second one I threw to her, I said, if you wanna stay single and raise the children then
You do that as well. I also threw her a third option, which I thought was a little bit cheeky. and I said, if you want a little, build a little shrine [00:17:00] in the corner for me and just worship me every day, that's perfectly fine by me too. it wasn't the popular one, but it actually broke the tension of that confronting conversation
Everything's going well and everything's going easy and you're comfortable with life. Our emotions and our rational thinking sit in our brain on an even plane. Mm-hmm. We can debate, we can be funny, we can creative, we can use our imagination. We can do all sorts of things, but as soon as we start getting overwhelmed.
I may be shot and injured. I may be shot and killed. What will your life look like? Emotions start going high. Rational thinking starts dropping. this is when we don't do the smart stuff. This is when we do the dumb stuff. This is fight and flight, all that sort of stuff. So breaking the tension with that little bit of humor, she was like, oh, Derek, oh my gosh.
and you can build a little shrine. Are you idiots? But it break the tension and we could continue the conversation. I love that. That's great. The emotions come down
Similar conversations with the [00:18:00] kids. I had two stepchildren. they were about 15 and 17 at the time I remember I was teaching my, stepdaughter to drive and, she, on two specific occasions, you know, stepdaughter, 17-year-old, 16, 17.
Old girl. She likes to be challenging. She likes to be confronting. and she just threw it to me, Derek, what are you ever gonna do if you get shot? What would you do? And I would say, well, if I get shot, I'm gonna be doing A, B, C, D, because I know I need to do those things and then I'll be able to do X, Y, Z.
And if it's down this end where there's not too much trouble, that'll be a plan. if it's down here and it's absolutely outta control, then this is what I'll be doing. And she just sat there and she went, oh. Right, because what I did was, again, taking those four levels of responsibility and this is the last bit.
the thing I said to my wife is, okay, if I get shot and I die, what's your life gonna look like if I get shot and I don't die? I need you to know right now [00:19:00] that I may spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair if I get a spinal injury. I may spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair, and I need you to know right now, I will find a way to make life interesting in that circumstance.
And so I went away for myself and I said, if I get shot and it's only a minor injury, then I wanna be able to do A, B, C, D. If it does become chaos. What's gonna happen to my mind and body? 'cause they are both gonna wanna do the opposite thing. My mind's not gonna wanna stay calm.
My body's gonna be going into free fall and outta control. So then how do I combine the two back together again so that in chaos. I can control them. 'cause when we can do that, the emotions will come down. The rational thinking will come up. They may not get onto an even plane, but the closer we can get them, the more chance we've got of making good decisions.
Having that mental preparation of, I understand my body's gonna wanna do something my brain's gonna wanna do something else and not being upset when it [00:20:00] happens, and just saying, what do I need to do to bring it back to where I want it? Perfect timing to actually go into the actual shooting. Beautiful.
You lying on the ground. 14 bullets in your body, what's going on in your head and in your body. So when I first started getting shot, I had absolutely no idea what was happening to me. 'cause I didn't feel the pain, I didn't feel the impact. All I knew was I was falling to the ground.
and I started cursing myself. A highly trained star group, officer, officer, how could I possibly be falling a stupid time like this? and as, as I was falling, I looked at a glass sliding door next to me. there were small holes that hadn't been there before. And then I heard the sound of gunfire still hadn't felt the impact.
and as I was falling, I've gone, oh, okay, maybe this is because I'm getting shot. I've fallen to the ground. Landed on my back feet pointing directly at where the bullets are coming from. the shooter is still shooting. He fired 18 times in less than five seconds. So as I'm lying [00:21:00] on the ground, he's still shooting at me.
two bullets hit my left thigh, and when these hit, time slows down. 18 bullets in less than five seconds. These two seemed to take 30 seconds. I felt the individual impact. It was like a sledgehammer slamming into my thigh shock wave up from back down through the body. Second bullet shock wave up from back.
and I knew I needed to fire back. but I'd already had that inkling I maybe shot and injured. and if I do, these are the things that I need to do. And so when I did realize that I was being shot and laying there for what seemed like 30 seconds, I was abusing myself again. How can I lay here for this long and just accept being shot?
And I knew I needed to fire back, but before I fired back, I had thoughts outside the square and I knew that at the other end of my body are my feet and my feet are pointing up. And I knew that I needed to get up just that little bit, [00:22:00] but I had a flack vest on. we call them flack vests.
I had weaponry, I had equipment. And as I've lifted my upper body up, my feet have come up to counterbalance. And the thought that ran through my head at that point was I better not shoot myself in the foot. 'cause the guys at work will gimme shit for the rest of my life. He hit again, shot to attention.
you get shot 14 times and then shoot yourself as well. Not smart, But I did fight back, when I fired back, he stopped. I then rolled my right a couple of times. I've got massive injuries. Seven major injuries. life-threatening injuries, and two severed arteries, right severe artery in my left forearm, seven artery in my right wrist.
I've gone round the corner, I've managed to get to my feet, but then fallen to my knees again, crawl around the corner, collapsed to the ground, rolled onto my back, and that's where I stayed for about three hours until people came to get me. during that time. [00:23:00] Emotions were high rational thinking's low.
at one point the shooter starts shooting again, and he's shooting through bricks directly above me. the dust from those bricks is falling down into my eyes and threatening to blind me. if I got dust in my eyes, I wouldn't be able to see what I was doing. So I'm covering my eyes, and thinking that he knows where I am and he's shooting this way to intimidate me.
at one point I moved my. Hand enough to see that the dust is well above me, and instead of the dust coming down towards me, it's going out on a flat trajectory. when it's going out on a flat trajectory, that means that he's up at that height and the bullets are going straight out.
as I was lying on the ground, I have rationalized, he's up in the ceiling of the house and he is no longer a threat to me. I was able to start relaxing and there were four things I knew I needed to do in the midst of that, and the first one was control, panic, not let panic take control of the whole situation.
I needed [00:24:00] to control shock. Is the body's response to psychological as well as physical trauma. I needed to be able to control that, shock response. I needed to slow down my heart rate and my breathing. If I could control those four things, it would slow down my rate of bleeding and I would be able to survive a little while longer.
the only time, that changed is when he stopped shooting. When he stopped shooting, I didn't know where he was. That's when emotions started going high. Where is he? What's he doing? Is he gonna come and hunt me again? rational thinking went low, but then he started shooting again.
I was on the ground for three hours constantly monitoring my body, knowing that the pool of blood on the ground next to me was just slowly growing and growing. it was my blood that I was lying in. my arms closed down and lost strength and warmth.
My legs closed down, got cold and weak. and at two hours, 45, there was so little blood in my body [00:25:00] that even my vision closed down. Now instead of my vision turned the shades of gray or black as pragmatic copper, expected my vision, went to an absolutely pristine white. Completely pristine white.
Wasn't a tunnel, it wasn't a funnel, it was just everything went white. and it's at that point I started thinking. Is this what they talk about? Is this the white light I'm not religious, but it went through my mind. Is this what they're talking about? I thought to myself, I should have stayed in Sunday school if this is what's actually happening.
But, it's also the time where I actually started fighting even harder. I've been lying on the ground, conserving energy, doing as little as possible. but once my vision started. Closing down, I kicked in harder. I started moving my body just to give myself confidence. I started speaking out loud to myself.
when we hear the words, it's more powerful than just thinking them. I started saying, Derek, don't give up. And that was the wrong thing to say when I'll reflect back now. So I'm very [00:26:00] fortunate. I said two things. It started out with Derek, don't give up. And the second one was, Derek, keep fighting.
And it was a better one. I only remember thinking those two things. at that point there were two rifle shots from outside the house, back towards the house. For the three hours I was lying on the ground. The one thing I knew I could rely upon was that my mates from Star Group and SA Police, would be with me as soon as they safely could.
Those two rifle shots were confirmation boys were on their way dump of adrenaline, probably some endorphins. and my vision snapped back up to perfect. I was passing in and out of consciousness because I just didn't have enough blood. but the boys got to me, picked me up, got me to the doctor.
And at the time I got to the doctor, I was going in and out of consciousness and I remember him saying, I can't find a blood pressure. there was so little blood in my body. They couldn't find a blood pressure and therefore they weren't able to get a syringe into my vein so they could [00:27:00] pump blood into.
They did find one eventually, and I was down, the human body holds 10 units of blood. I was down to the last two units of blood, according to the doctor, and about 30 seconds from death. Wow. I can imagine that at some stage your life flashes by and you start thinking of like, is there something that I regret my family, my kids have spent enough time.
No, no, I never had the, the life flash before my eyes and there was no regret. I'm a very fortunate person. you can't be in Star group unless you're absolutely dedicated to it and working really hard all the time. it is an elite level of performance.
My family were always my highest priority and everything had, a ranking. when I was at work, I had to be focused on work. When I was at home, I was focused on home. when I was at sport, I was focused on sport everything had this hierarchy, which was a matrix and moved all the time, and my family understood that as well.
work, were not quite as [00:28:00] understanding. They demanded a lot, but my priority was always family number one. Work. Number two, social life and the rest of it. when I was lying on pause, I'm just wondering, you mentioned that the stress of the relationship breakup your marriage
Even more taxing than the actual shooting. Can you walk us through how that occurred and how it affected you? Yeah, I've had lots of these discussions. I've thought about it a lot. the shooting was something that I anticipated may happen,
Going into that environment. It's happened to police before it could happen to me. It had never happened in the staff force history, 17 years history. Nobody had ever had an injury. But I couldn't rule it out because it's possible that it could happen. And it's not to dwell on it, it's just to be aware of it.
If you're aware of it, you can start doing your planning. when I got married, I made a solemn oath that I would be married for life. It was something that I believed in. It's something that my parents drilled into me. one life, one [00:29:00] love, one marriage. when you get married, you stay there.
and that was my attitude to my marriage. I wanted to be there and I did everything I could to maintain it. but we got to a point where. it was not a good environment for me to be in, mentally, emotionally. I wasn't there and I was suffering, and I had to make the decision to leave my marriage and emotionally that destroyed me.
That was a failure. That was catastrophic for me. people say, well, yeah, but the shooting should have been more, catastrophic for you. I find that it's not. it's not the incident, whatever it might be, it's the importance to you. It may be, you know, you spill the milk and that is massively significant to you, and that just destroys you on the day I know that's an insignificant thing, but I want it to be that flippant because that could be so important to somebody else.
Okay, so my marriage was. Ultimately [00:30:00] important. when that broke down, I went through depression. I went through PTSD because of the broken marriage. not in relation to the shooting. Never had a problem in relation to the shooting. But because I failed and didn't anticipate it, I had no plans in place, I had no contingencies, I didn't know how to handle it.
and that destroyed me. when we broke up, was that after the shooting or prior to? Yeah, after the shooting, two years after the shooting. and it was the shooting that made me reflect on the value of my marriage. it was. An ordinary marriage. It wasn't a great marriage. It wasn't a terrible marriage.
It was ordinary. It was mediocre at, best, and you know, I didn't want to spend the rest of my life mediocre. And the more important thing to me in relation to that is I didn't want my children to think mom and dad's marriage is what I have to aim for.
I didn't want to be that example to my children. I wanted to show my children, you make choices for your best life and [00:31:00] pursue that best life. and it doesn't have to be a perfect life. let's go back to optimal. What's the very best you can do in the given circumstances?
I did everything I could to save that marriage, guidance, concessions, all that sort of stuff. It was never gonna work. For anybody who wants to talk about those sorts of things, I love analyzing it, the reasons why we make our decisions, so I'm very happy to talk about it at length, but.
that was the one that really tripped me up. Now, what happened was, because I wasn't prepared, my family life had broken down. I wasn't able to be with my children 24 7, which was ultimately important to me. my social circles changed.
I wasn't eating well, I wasn't sleeping well. I wasn't training hard to get back to staff root I noted most of all was my performance, getting back to staff force was subpar. And so I've gone, I'm not eating well, I'm not sleeping well. Must be vitamins. I went to the doctor and said, gimme a blood test and tell me what vitamins I need to take and fix this because that's what we men [00:32:00] do.
he gave me a questionnaire about depression, anxiety, PTSD, and I've got tick flick, tick flick, and he's gone. Derek. You have mild depression and mild PTSD. And I literally sat there and it took this long. I went, damn, okay, how do we deal with it? And it was acceptance like that coming out of the shooting.
I said to the psychiatrist at that time, I know that. I thanked him for telling me I didn't have PTSD or anything else But we also had the discussion that PTSD depression and anxiety flashbacks, can hit us at any time. There is no linear time path where, that'll never happen again.
So I knew it could happen and so I've got just gone. Damn. Okay. It's come back to me. Alright, what did we do about it? the doctor gave me some things to do, some vitamin B12 shots. so I did get my vitamins, but one month later it was all turned around and I was back on track. I think this happened because I got in early, I got mild [00:33:00] depression, mild PTSD.
I was proactive, I was embracing the fact that it needed to be dealt with and I felt like I had the ability to deal with it. I took the advice from the doctor, I reflected on what the psychiatrist and I had discussed, and a month later I went back and completely transparently did the questionnaire with the doctor again.
And he is gone. Yep, you're back on track. go on and enjoy your life I also like to reflect. We have highs in life. We have lows in life, and that is just the way we go. There's a lot of mid roads where we're just coasting, but then we'll have a high, you know, marriages, celebrations, babies, birthdays, and funerals
other lows. If we manage those lows and embrace them and go, okay. Here I am. I'm recognized there's signs. Now I need to turn it around. Then we can get back up and we can go on fly if we don't address it,
That's when it could possibly go down into clinical depression or whatever else it might be if we address [00:34:00] it. what you touched on is a big one. you set the scene up across multiple scenarios you covered, which is the value of talking things through before it happens and exploring all the options and getting it out on the table.
That in itself helped you to deal with it more easily if it does happen, as opposed to using it as a taboo. Nobody talks about it. There's silence. You're not really processing it. Then it happens. It probably hits you twice, if not triple hard. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So I've got a model for human durability, which is a circular model.
there is one section where we talk about three levels of knowledge. And we've gotta have an idea as to what our opportunities and our obstacles are, what resources we have to be able to deal with it, and what resources we are lacking. And knowing what you are lacking as well as what you have.
Very, very important. And then the third level of knowledge of what are the indicators that tell me it's going well and what are the indicators that tell me it's going badly. when you see those [00:35:00] indicators, you take action at that time. you can relate to this in all the psychology work you've done.
for those listening, your friends, will say, This has gone wrong. I saw it back then, but I didn't do anything. If only I'd done something back then. We see the sign, but we don't take action. So there's three levels of knowledge, the indicators that tell you it's going well or going badly, and then you start planning for those indicators.
What action will I see take when I see that indicator? I love this because really what you're doing is you're keeping your emotions in, check by, rationalizing it, by following the steps, and that way you guide your mindset and also your physical state. To get a good outcome. So it's very solution oriented.
I would say it's very masculine, probably, if you use feminine versus masculine. yeah, yeah. But it's very solution focused. I'm actually gonna go the opposite for you. Because I think it's a very feminine way to look at things. Okay. Most. Most tough men, and I use that inverted commas for anybody who's just [00:36:00] listening.
Most tough men say, I don't have emotions. I'll have a solution. I'll battle my way through. whereas, the feminine presence in us all has the ability to start thinking. I've got another model that I use where I say, what are the challenges and changes you can anticipate in life?
Then what are the feelings and emotions you are gonna go through when you experience those challenges and changes? Just being aware that your emotions are gonna go high, low, all over the place. embarrassment, shame, pride, all those things. Being aware that they are gonna pop up. You can better prepare for them and the model goes on to give you resources, and things like that.
But it's being aware of those emotions. I really appreciate how you flip that around 'cause it's true. Many men, and I would imagine especially in very adrenaline focused environments, like, where you were, whether it's army or counter-terrorism it's high voltage which means it's easier to [00:37:00] not talk about it and think that it will just die off, but it doesn't.
I like how you say, talking about it helps you prepare, anticipate what the opportunities are, walk through it and live through it before it actually happens. very good points you made there. What I would like to do now is, talking about now you're a speaker, actually before we do, what would you say that the shooting and the marriage breakdown, how would you now look at it in terms of what you do today?
Was it a good thing, a bad thing? Was it a gift? How do you view it mindset wise? I've had this discussion with my son. He and I, get down deep and dirty on a regular basis and get really into things he's gone through a couple of challenges as well.
And I said to him at one stage, if you could go back in time and change anything about your life, what would it be? And he reflected words that just seemed to come outta my, my mouth. Obviously we talk a lot and he is gone. Dad, I don't wanna change anything. I like the person I am [00:38:00] right now. And if I hadn't had all those experiences, I wouldn't be the person I am now.
So I don't wanna change anything. but that's about being able to embrace, I stuffed up, that didn't go well. Being able to talk about it and embrace it. And yes, there's still some stuff that I acknowledge happened, but I don't wanna tell everybody about it. We all have those things.
We've gotta have some open, honest, confronting conversations with ourselves about where we made mistakes, what we did well, and more importantly what would I do if it happened again? And that prepares us for the next. everything is built up. Would I want to go through those things again?
Probably not. but. I wouldn't change anything. I like to be able to reflect and say I learned from it and I learned what I don't want to do again from it. I think, we can all do that. Life is never gonna be perfect. Definitely. And obviously they are part of your [00:39:00] trajectory.
is it possible that it opened up the door to what you're doing now? that your purpose is to share what you've experienced and wrap it up in a package that you can share with people that is of value to them on how to be proactive, how to plan, how to talk things through.
thank you Brian. That that does open up that door, just that little bit wider. I, I completely agree. This is an opportunity for me, and that's exactly how I see it. I was approached to do corporate speaking initially because I got shot, and it's a great story
when I tell the story of me being shot, I have people cracking up laughing. crying. reflecting and growing. it's very entertaining but it's not my. Passion. My passion is to engage the messages behind it, the story as a vehicle to have that conversation.
so when I've got approached to do the story to start off with, I've gone, no, not a chance. you want the hero story. The heroes were the people who came in to get me. I wasn't the hero on the day. And, And then as I said, [00:40:00] human body holds 10 units of blood. I was down to my last two, I used 24 units of blood in seven hours.
They flushed me through a couple of times, and the blood service came to me and said, Derek, you used a lot of blood. Would you like to say thank you to blood donors? I was going, yeah, no problems at. I could say thank you all day long. Tell the story, get into the details. But it's not about me, it's about saying thank you to them and they need to understand where I was and how much benefit they were to me.
And I can't do that unless they know the story. So I love telling the story to them. that's when I started finding out there was more to the message than I realized. Don't get me wrong, I love telling the story too. But my purpose in my speaking is to share those messages, share that learning, share those insights, and I also have a, I've got a mantra that I go through and it stays strong, find the system, work the system, tweak the system.
The bit I wanna focus on is find the system and that is your [00:41:00] system. I talk about all the things that I've done and my philosophies and the way I think if my philosophies don't work for you, you do not have to adopt them, and I will not be offended. But if I can share something that you go, oh, that bit works for me, I'm happy as Larry.
You've got a very exciting gig coming up as a professional speaker over in London. So you're gonna be flying around the world all the way to go and join people from MI six Mosser, KGB. CIA and many other of these intelligence, let's call 'em retired Spy Spice in the footsteps of James Bond.
You are gonna be speaking there. What are you gonna be talking about? I got, caught up with these guys in a, podcast. They're having the inaugural intelligence meeting so that CEOs and executives can understand how the intelligence, environment analyzes information and makes good decisions and pass that onto industry.
I am gonna be talking about the mindset of [00:42:00] success. It is about how we set ourselves up to be open and flexible and agile enough to take information in and be able to, adapt to it instantly. it all comes down to human durability and sustained optimal performance.
Not focusing on peak and not feeling like a failure because you haven't reached it. What is the very best you can do in the given circumstances? And part of that taking in intelligence is every time new information comes in, we make a fresh assessment of whether we're still taking the same path. We may continue down the same path, but that has to be a decision.
Yes, this is still the right path. Or we make a decision because of that information, things have changed. I need to adjust be agile. so it's just making that assessment and that's a mindset. I am so excited for this gig. I can already see you're flying in late, like Tarzan zip line in just to make it on the zip [00:43:00] line.
I have had a conference where I came in on a zip line. I have done this huge so that the viewers and the listeners can also, take note of that, Hugh Jackman's got nothing on me. Forget about Wolverine. Here comes Derek. one other thing I want to throw in there.
you had serious rehabilitation, physically speaking. Your body was at the point of breaking, you got it really back on track again. And you're doing even do it longs again. Seriously. Age 63 after all of that. And you're still, going for Olympic distance stuff on your bike.
Yeah. And swimming. So I'm very fortunate that I enjoy activity. It's not training or exercise, I just enjoy activity. I still ride my bike. I've been a good swimmer in the past. I stay active. I'm also about to walk a track. I stay active and fell back into this triathlon arena.
I have now qualified to compete in the world titles and represent Australia. I will be [00:44:00] wearing the green and gold with my name blazed across my chest at the age of 66. It's not something. I ever pictured.
So when I said to my wife, I may be shot and injured, I may be shot and killed, if I don't die, I may spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair as I was lying on the ground, that was one of the things that was running through my mind
I may spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. And while I was on the ground, I started thinking to myself, how am I gonna make this interesting? So I played basketball beforehand and I thought I could get into wheelchair basketball, right? And then my ego started kicking in and I've gone wheelchair basketball.
I can actually try and make the Paralympic team, and if I can add something to what the Paralympic team does, we may be able to make the Paralympic finals. I may end up with a gold medal. Now, this is while I was on the ground. Body closing down, he's still shooting. White light comes up. I'm still thinking I may be able to make the Paralympics.
This is a sense of optimism and this is what I want everybody to embrace, [00:45:00] right? No matter how bad it gets. Try and find that better place. What's the very best I could do? This is the circumstances I have. How can I make it even better? And so I was thinking. Paralympic games, I could get a gold medal,
I came back, went back to Star Group, so that went out the window. But now at 66 I'm doing triathlon and I'm gonna be representing Australia with my name blazed across my chest. And it wasn't even a plan, but it's all come together The value in just staying positive and looking for the best and looking for opportunities to enjoy ourselves rather than going, oh, life is hard.
So I might as well give up. Or, I've turned 60. Now, 60 year olds shouldn't be running around, shouldn't be riding bikes. I should be resting back and planting plants. No. Find what you enjoy. Chase your passion. Enjoy life, embrace everything. and good things will happen. One last question and we're going to try to get this really short and crisp.
if you would find a [00:46:00] meeting with yourself prior to starting, what's the one word or one sentence that you would whisper in your old, in your younger selves? Ear. Trust yourself. Awesome. Derek, this has been a great pleasure. I appreciate you coming on the podcast. I'm sure that people will take a ton of value from what you shared generously with us all.
if people wanna reach out to you to book you as a speaker, they can probably link up with you. Is that fair to say? Absolutely. Connect with me on LinkedIn. I have a website. It's been redesigned at the moment. Mm-hmm. so whether it's up or down at the moment, right at this moment, I dunno, but it's just in redesign.
but LinkedIn. Even Facebook if you need to. reach out. I've got England coming up. just yesterday I got an inquiry for Vietnam. on the way back from England. I'm gonna be dropping into Dubai to catch up with a few mates there. So I'm around the place. Gimme a bus, let's have a.
Obviously you're also on several speaking [00:47:00] bureaus as one of the speakers that is bookable. whether you find, Derek Direct or you go through the bureaus, it's all there for you. thank you so much for sharing your words of optimism, self-belief, human durability, and for keeping, things fun,
I always liked how you here and there snuck in something to take the tension off so that the emotions would be less. Let's say volatile and therefore you can focus on a good outcome. So hey, brilliant session. Really like it. Thank you so much for coming along. Thank you, Bram. Always love spending time with you.
Likewise. You have a good one. And everybody look forward to our next episode. For now, I say goodbye.
