Survive, thrive and adapt with survival expert Mike House

Mike House is one of Australia’s leading survival instructors and leadership coaches.  He has survived several life-threatening situations in the ocean, raging white water and tropical jungle.  

Mike shares the leadership lessons learnt when in extreme situations; why we should step out of our comfort zones; learn rhythmic breathing to find calm; and why we should never leave our vehicles if stranded. 

Duration: 54 minutes.

Links:

Mike House

Book: Unshakeable

Ebook: Why did they leave the vehicle?

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·      Sincere thanks to Jay (Justin) Hill for his expert sound mastering and patience! Jay, together with the incredible Eva Chye, have inspired me through their passion project If Innovation Could Talk – a YouTube vlog also promoted through LinkedIn. If you have your own ideas for a podcast or video, feel free to reach out to them through the LinkedIn page.

·      Thank you to all my generous guests for their time in sharing their expertise and experiences around My Warm Table.

·      Music: ‘Sweet Soweto’ by Cast Of Characters. Copyright licence for use via soundstripe.com  

Transcript

Mike House: 0:05

G'day I'm Mike house. 20 years as a survival instructor and an agent of deep change in organisations, has been working with leaders these days and you're listening on Sonia Nolan's, my warm table, welcome.

Sonia Nolan: 0:20

Do you panic or breathe when you're in a sticky situation? How do you deal with uncertainty? Have you stretched out of your comfort zone lately? We're asking these questions today and learning about surviving, thriving and adapting with my house, one of Australia's leading survival instructors, and leadership coaches. Join us for a conversation spanning everything from campfire cooking to near death experiences. I'm Sonia Nolan, and you're on my warm table. Mike, it's just a delight to have you around my warm table today.

Mike House: 0:55

Great to be here. Thanks.

Sonia Nolan: 0:57

I'm really interested in the work that you do. And in fact, you and I crossed paths. Some years ago, when I was working with a not for profit organisation, and we had too comfortable we came to you for a leadership training and leadership bonding type of experience. And oh, my goodness, you made us try and make fire of which me and my partner Clinton were useless. I'm gonna blame him. I'm gonna say it right out there. If you're listening Clinton, it was your fault that our fire didn't work. But it was, it was such a great experience. And, you know, learning from you on that day, piqued my interest. And then again, we've crossed paths, you know, serendipitously in a totally other life. And so it's just a delight to have you here, Mike.

Mike House: 1:42

Thank you. It's great to be here. So

Sonia Nolan: 1:43

I'd like to start with your role as a survival expert. Tell me what does that mean? And how did you get to be one of those?

Mike House: 1:52

Yeah, so it's a part that's a bit past tense. I haven't done it for a while. But the role was the peak of the role was making life difficult for people on advanced survival exercises. So we take people up into the Pilbara, about 1800 case north of Perth. And we'd set them off for 10 days with a soapbox or survival kit and a couple of litres of water and whatever clothes they were wearing, and they'd walk about 200 Ks, finding all their food and water along the way off the land, basically. And my job was to keep the levels of uncertainty and duress as high as we could without killing anyone.

Sonia Nolan: 2:28

That sounds really mean. Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah,

Mike House: 2:32

people have seen me in that mode, where you're really different when you're doing this job. I've kind of never really had a career aspiration or path, I've just opened interesting doors. And it was one of the doors that made itself available. And I was fascinated from the point of view of both what I could learn, but in terms of expanding skills that I already had, and I became particularly fascinated in the psychology of it. So you know, what makes people operate well, in those extremely uncertain and quite arduous environments, teaches us a lot about life in general and about leadership and about bringing groups of people together in effective ways. And I found that there were so many parallels between that and other work that I was doing. And that's kind of where I've headed now is taking those insights into building capacity. You know, I say my purpose now is about igniting capacity in leaders so they can ignite capacity, and others. A lot of that is just really about understanding who we are and how we operate, especially under pressure.

Sonia Nolan: 3:36

And you look at the world now. And you look at the leadership, environment and uncertainty, ambiguity, everything's moving so quickly, you need to make decisions. Without all the information that we might have had even 510 years ago, we're living in really different times now. So those sorts of skills and that sort of tapping into who you are as a leader, as a person, as a human is ever so necessary.

Mike House: 4:01

I think it's critical these days. One of the biggest tools that I had as a survival instructor to create uncertainty was just to give people incomplete information. Yes. And you know, from being around tables with people that part of our disposition as humans is we want to tell stories, and we want to fill the gaps and often the stories we tell to fill the gaps are not the most positive stories, you know, we get we get a piece of news or, or a piece of a data point somewhere. And we speculate about what it means. And often our speculation isn't positive. We rarely in this era have complete information. And more often than not, we we've got no chance of getting it. So it's really about how do you bring people together under those circumstances so that we've got some sort of shared narrative that allows us to move forward and bring the best of what humans can bring, you know, all of our diversity and different ways of thinking and our different physical and mental ability Are these to the table and get them all singing all at once? You know, it's it's like a really good slow cooked recipe where everything sort of simmered down to kind of got just enough of the right things at the right time. And I think a little bit like that to the the outcomes are not entirely known, you know, the three chilies today could be red, hot, and tomorrow, it might be quite mild, you know, so that, that art, I think of leadership of understanding people understanding yourself deep awareness, being happy with ambiguity and uncertainty, and not knowing all the answers is an absolutely critical modern skill, I think. Yeah,

Sonia Nolan: 5:43

I totally agree. Mike, it's interesting that you talk about, you know, the the diversity of leaders. And do you think that that senior leaders now need to be really careful about who they bring in on their teams so that they get the best out of people in this time of uncertainty?

Mike House: 6:03

I think that the my sense of that answer is it's twofold. So Partly, yes, you you definitely want the right people. I don't know that that's changed over time that much. You know, Jim Collins, in his classic book, Good to Great said that some of the really great companies assemble a team and then decide what to do. Yeah, right. You know, it's based on the people that want to work together and are really motivated to come together as a team. But at the same time, I think a lot of it is about what's the narrative we're telling in the, you know, we've seen particularly over these last almost three years now, in our COVID environment, that people have pulled the pull the horizon to very close in, we've been, by necessity, really reactive. And a lot of organisations have kind of lost that narrative thread of, you know, where are we heading? What's our purpose? What's our reason for being here. And that's got a few implications. One is that people feel a bit lost in their work. And if there's no purpose to it, Labour feels really hard. And, you know, I experienced that myself a bit during COVID, as well. decoupling of purpose and, and work and work just feels horrible under those circumstances. If it feels purposeful, if it's got a bit of meaning, if you if you know, the direction you're heading, even if you're not 100% sure of the destination, a lot of stuff is a whole heap clearer, even though the environment still isn't.

Sonia Nolan: 7:31

I'd like to take us back to your survival training of your own survival training. And I know that you've actually found yourself in fairly deep water and interesting circumstances over your life and career and what brought you to the point you are now which is, you know, sort of tapping into those qualities with leaders. And can you tell us about some of the adventures you've had leading up to today?

Mike House: 7:56

Yes, so probably the most extreme ones, there's been three times in my life where I've been really consciously aware that I'm right on the edge of perhaps not being here in the next few moments, like right on the edge of death, gosh, and it was in all three of them. It was a very clear and acute sense that that was true. So probably the the biggest one was a sailing trip once out to the province where we got blown off our anchor, and ended up right on Sunset deciding to sail into open water, there was a big storm brewing, it's like we don't want to be around reef if we can't get a secure Anchorage. And we ended up sailing back to Geraldton in 60, plus knot winds, so a knots about 1.8 ks an hour. So 120 Okay, and now we need to metre solid waves coming over the deck of the boat, we were tethered onto the boat and you're constantly getting swept off your feet by solid water and I ended up unconscious from hypothermia. And the the medical people that sort of assess me the next day said, Look, you know, if it wasn't for the people around you knowing what they were doing, you were you were probably about 1520 minutes away from not being here. That process was really interesting that the kind of battle with the storm through a whole heap of circumstances, we won't get into the full story but I ended up on the helm of the boat for almost eight hours under those conditions and I wasn't dressed properly for it and that's why I got cold. And there's this sort of went through a number of sort of transition phases from kind of really almost angry and fighting the elements to just kind of relaxed and into the groove of the boat to after I was off the tiller doing my best to buy water and stay functional to this to this sort of space in between where once all the violent shivering, uncontrollable shivering side of things stops which is really intense and painful. You you literally feel as though your whole body is cramping and spasms. After that you go into this really deeply relaxed state, where your body's saying the best thing for you right now is to rest, it's trying to force you just to sort of, you know, hide and relax as much as you can to conserve energy. And it's very nearly hallucinogenic, and feel so calm and peaceful. And, you know, that was sort of the moment that are pretty much out of it, and other people are taking over from there. So

Sonia Nolan: 10:29

Wow. So to me, those elements of trust seem really important in that time and trusting the people that you are with as well. Is that something that was for, you know, in your mind? Or were you in this sort of primal state more so

Mike House: 10:42

really primal? In that kind of circumstance? By the time you need people at that kind of level? They there's no conscious thought about anything. And in that state of almost, you know, so it's, it's incredibly relaxed, it feels so counterintuitive, you know, the elements are still raging around, you really have no say in it. And it wouldn't matter whether somebody wanted to do you harm or or help you, you you kind of wouldn't care in that state. So it's, it's really interesting

Sonia Nolan: 11:14

had you been is that the first time you'd been in that state? Yeah, and since the other couple of times, when you're near your near death experiences, are they similar,

Mike House: 11:25

so they were more, they were shorter. So one was trapped underwater, in the oven river training for the urban descent, I was actually upside down stuck up against a tree that was under underwater really quite tightly mesh tree, I didn't think I was going to be able to move and I was out in the middle of a river. So some anybody else getting to me would have been pretty much impossible in in the two minutes before you run out. And, and so that was just the foam on the top of the water parted for a moment. And I just had a, a very aggressive grab out of low hanging branch that happened to be just above the surface of the water that I could see. And if that hadn't been there, I would have been stuffed really. So again, it's one of those moments where you go, Yep, that was right on the line. And the last one was stuck on a rope in a waterfall in Vietnam, the people operating the rope system, ultimately cut the rope, I was about 20 metres up a waterfall, I realised they were going to cut the rope. So I was doing everything that I could to sort of get myself out of the situation. And at the time, I was assessing instructors of those kinds of activities. So I had a fair few things in my arsenal to try. None of them worked. And, you know, I saw one of the guys who was driving the ropes down the bottom, basically. So we make a cutting motion that his neck and it's like, wow, they're going to cut the rope and I'm 20 metres up in the air. So a turn and put my back to the wall and, and basically just prepared for a huge drop and, and try to spread myself out on the water surface as much as possible. So sort of had no idea how deep the water was. So I was expecting to break stuff. And fortunately hit enough of a gap and managed to get out of the water before it was off down the next rapids. So that was pretty exciting to

Sonia Nolan: 13:16

just one of those sounds harrowing, let alone having three of those in one lifetime. You know, you're almost a cat with nine lives like,

Mike House: 13:23

well, they're the ones I'm aware of. I've probably been pretty close on a few other occasions where I was oblivious.

Sonia Nolan: 13:29

I'm probably a good thing too. So what have you learned about yourself through those sorts of experiences?

Mike House: 13:37

Well, one of the things I always say to people, like why you're so adventurous, and I say life's an adventure. Yes. And all an adventure is is something with unknown outcomes. And my one of the things I really encourage people to do is challenge themselves, you know, put put yourself at your age, whatever that is. And for some people that could be as simple as you know, trying a different recipe they've never cooked before. It could be as simple as let me go meet somebody new, could be a podcast, it could be could be podcast, it could be alone in a city, let let me go and try and connect with people that could be learning a new skill. Yes, it doesn't have to be crazy out there on the edge, putting yourself in danger. And in fact, I think you know, there was a period of my life where I was really motivated by adrenaline and really high octane adventure. The end of that is an inevitable crash at some point, you're gonna step over a line that way you you have no way of getting back. So I think adventure is just being on the edge of where am I uncomfortable. So for myself, I tried to put myself in that environment at least once a year where I'm a novice, and I'm surrounded by people who are expert, and I feel at least a little bit scared about what I'm undertaking. One example was doing a comedy core stand up comedy cause doesn't have to be high risk. It's risky and a different thing. Risky in a different sense, you know, learn, learn a different skill set, take on a project, that's new. Anything that keeps us at our age, and I think that keeps us young, it keeps our minds active. It introduces us to talents and understandings of ourselves that we wouldn't necessarily have tapped.

Sonia Nolan: 15:23

I think it also introduces us to empathy for Absolutely. And I know that my daughter used to work in retail, and she had a customer that came through every every month, he would try something new, and, for example, to put himself specifically out of his comfort zone. So he said, Well, this week, I'm sleeping on the floor to understand what it feels like to sleep rough, even though that's not really rough. But you know, just trying to get a bit more of an understanding, yeah, some insight. Another month, he was I'm just eating a bowl of rice a day to understand what that feels like. And so he was, you know, pushing himself every month, he had sort of a challenge every month of what he was going to do to just try and get a bit more perspective, empathy, and just push himself a little bit like what you've said out of his comfort zone.

Mike House: 16:05

Yeah, I think it's really important that comfort zones are recognised dangerous, they're in illusion for a start, why don't iron illusion, there's at least twice a year in our city of Perth, where there's a new story about a car crashing through someone's front wall and into their bedroom, you could literally die at home in your bed. The best of health, the sense of certainty that we think we have is a mental illusion. We don't know how long life will be for us, we don't know the quality of it, we don't know how it will be disrupted or interrupted true, we do know that it will be interrupted. You know, there's there's no doubt about that. Anyone that's been alive for more than about three minutes knows that it won't go according to plan or expectations. COVID demonstrated that on a global scale. So for me, I think one of the essential skills is having a deep understanding of that and practising the art of dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity in moments where the results are not critical. So that when you do face something, you know, when resilience is one of the things that are talked to people about, can you build it? Yeah, you can, when's the best time to build it when you don't need it? How do you build it when you don't need it? Put yourself out of your comfort zone. And so often we sort of put ourselves in this little bubble of familiarity. It's nice, right? I know, I know the rules of play, I know how it works, I feel competent and comfortable. That's a great place to be. But when you need to tap something beyond that, if you've never been there, it's it's like walking into the desert for the first time. It's hot and hostile. And so what's this about? How am I going to survive? So I will until you dial into it a little bit, probably not. So I think it's critical practice.

Sonia Nolan: 17:52

I agree. And I think it's also we hear a lot about perfectionism and people wanting to be good at the first time. And we just need to be a little bit more relaxed about you know, you don't have to be perfect at it. The first time that we there is this space, where you are The Apprentice, you are the novice, you're not supposed to be the master. So tapping into that space a bit more regularly is is a great thing to do. Look, I've just joined a gym, and anybody who knows me will know that that is way out of my comfort zone. I am definitely the most unfit, uncoordinated person in that room. But jays, I'm getting better every day, Mike. That's the way to do exactly. It's just a fraction stronger, and a fraction fitter every day is getting me to my goals, and everybody else getting themselves out of that comfort zone is such an important part.

Mike House: 18:42

And I guess the other side of that, for me is you know, I teach people for a living, I ask people to step into spaces that are not comfortable for them. And so for me, the other side of that is I've got to remind myself what that's like, because the domains where I am teaching, I've got a low level of expertise and comfort with it. And so how I might ask you to stretch might be really uncomfortable for you, but totally a walk

Sonia Nolan: 19:08

in the park for you, I can assure you.

Mike House: 19:10

And so reminding myself what it's like to be the novice to be confronted by something that is somewhere between a little bit scary to terrifying and to not know whether I can do it. Well, I think anybody that teaches should be doing that.

Sonia Nolan: 19:25

Yeah. And it's providing that safety as well where people can fail. You know, you're allowed, you're allowed to fail. But we want you to work out what you're learning about yourself and how you're building your resilience along the way. You wrote a book Mike called unshakable. Yes. Can you tell us a little bit about that book?

Mike House: 19:42

Yeah. So I wrote that during COVID. It was on my mind for probably three years before that. But like a lot of things I wasn't, I didn't feel enough certainty about whether I had the right to write it.

Sonia Nolan: 19:56

Right. Did that take you out of your comfort zone? Definitely. Yeah.

Mike House: 20:00

So it took a bit of courage, I think, because what I was essentially doing was saying, look, there are ways of us operating in uncertainty that that I think are useful and that I can probably convey something to others about. And that that feels a bit audacious it's it's kind of interesting writing books that it marks you as expert in ways that other things don't. So you could talk about the topic for years as soon as you put it in print people go on Wow, you really know something about that was just the stuff I've been saying.

Sonia Nolan: 20:31

Write it down

Mike House: 20:33

whilst the cover on it. So that was part of it. The other thing that held me back with the book was is to really uncomfortable parts to the notion of being unshakable, I actually put the onion brackets on the cover. Because the first part is, uncheck abilities is an illusion, you know, every one of us can be deeply shaken to the core. It's probably going to be by something we didn't expect. Yeah. without notice without notice. Yeah. So I think that's really critical to acknowledge there's there's all of that sort of philosophy that was around a while ago about no fear and all that sort of territory. I think it's just garbage. You know,

Sonia Nolan: 21:16

we are human,

Mike House: 21:17

we are human. Yeah, we

Sonia Nolan: 21:18

have to tap into the humaneness.

Mike House: 21:20

We need courage, and the only time the only time courage is relevant is when we are afraid. If we're not afraid, we're not.

Sonia Nolan: 21:28

No, that's so true. That's so true.

Mike House: 21:31

The only time we need resilience is if our backs to the wall, you know, otherwise, it's it's not present. It's not a thing. It's

Sonia Nolan: 21:38

the subtext, and I've talked about that a lot is that, you know, you don't need one, unless you've got the other they actually go hand in hand. It's

Mike House: 21:45

like, you know, dark is not dark, unless there's light. Yes, that kind of thing. Yeah, they're parts of the same equation or continuum or something. So the first bit was, we're all deeply shakable. We need to acknowledge that. And there's an uncomfortable wondering, woven into the spine of the book, which is I wonder if, for all of us, there's something that will shake us so deeply that there is no recovery? Do we have a breaking point from which it's like, I can't get back from this. There's certainly the times that I've personally been shaken. I know that you've come out fundamentally changed. So is there a breaking point? You know, that's that's an uncomfortable wondering in a book that talks about being unshakable

Sonia Nolan: 22:30

as humans on a life journey? I don't know whether this is philosophical, or, you know, philosophy, according to Sonya, but aren't we supposed to be broken? And aren't we supposed to be rebuilt in different ways to experience the full extent of being human?

Mike House: 22:47

Oh, wow, what a great question. Are we supposed to be broken? It's probably comforting to say yes to that, because it certainly happens. A lot. I

Sonia Nolan: 22:57

mean, because you know, if you put yourself out of your comfort zone, you're breaking a tiny bit of yourself to stretch and grow. And some of my dearest friends who've had the most challenging circumstances that you couldn't, you know, if you wrote a soap opera on it, you just look at it and think, oh, that's ridiculous. that couldn't happen to one human, you know, and yet they continue on. Yes. And they are broken, yet they are re rebuilt in a different way. So I just wonder about that as the human condition.

Unknown: 23:25

I think I'd have to agree with you. I haven't given that much thought up until that question, but it seems intuitively right. The fact of life is we're going to encounter adversity and trauma and difficulty. And if you don't, then you've got some kind of Uncanny luck.

Sonia Nolan: 23:43

Yeah. Oh, you're not stretching yourself. I don't I don't know. You're right. You know. Yeah. I

Unknown: 23:48

mean, at the very least, we're going to, if nothing else happens to us, at some point, we'll lose loved ones, just because they're at the end of their life, even if they have a great life. And they're healthy, right up until the day they die.

Sonia Nolan: 23:59

It's so true. That's right. You're not spared.

Mike House: 24:01

And we're going to have to deal with that. So yeah, maybe maybe that is part of the journey.

Sonia Nolan: 24:10

So you also talk about a concept called gorilla mindfulness.

Mike House: 24:14

Oh, yes. So that's gorilla as in freedom fighter, right? Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, gorilla. Yes. So gorillas are typically outnumbered, outgunned and outclassed. They've got to use resources in ways that they weren't really intended to get a very quick and reliable outcome. And I'm a real fan of mindfulness, the the there is overwhelming data to say that we should have some kind of mindfulness practice if we haven't already. There's three challenges with it, I think is particularly for action oriented people, people that sort of get up and about and do things if you ask them to just be mindful. Just sit and gaze at a flame or sit and watch breathing or even pause and eat this mindfully. Usually there's part of us that's going you But what do you want me to do? The doing of things is so compelling that we're more likely to go off stuff that I'll just crack on with the to do list. So that's challenge one. Challenge two is, even if we develop a great practice, I could spend 40 minutes this morning meditating, and that could be gone the first time someone cuts me off in traffic. And by the time I go through the many transitions of my day, the chances of that holding all the way through the day at pretty low, even if my practice is great. And then the third part is that it doesn't work in moments of pressure. It's not like I can be in the middle of a high powered meeting, or contentious discussion, or one of these moments of challenge that we've been talking about and say, Oh, look, you know, I've just lost my call a beat. Do you mind if I take 20 minutes in the lotus position together in the middle of a leadership meeting? Yes, I am the subject matter expert on that. But just give me a moment. I'll be back with you whenever this one was in birthright. So gorilla mindfulness was a little tactic that I came up with to help people deal with moments of pressure in the actual moment of pressure, and can be applied in any transition we make. So it's basically got three steps. The first is take three rhythmic breaths, what do you mean by rhythmic breath, so same amount of time in and out, military people call it talk about box breathing. So in for a count of four, pause for a count of four out for a count of four, pause for a count of four. And they just kind of do that sort of cycle, there's a bit of research that suggests longer in house the next house, I think there's a sort of a seven in PAWS three out four has been shown to be pretty effective. But whatever it is a rhythm that that works and that you can consistently hold. And the reason for that is as soon as we're breathing rhythmically, were physiologically out of fight or flight. So that really primal reaction that we have to anything that's interpreted as danger. A lot of what we talked about so far could be right in uncertain circumstances. And the thing with fight or flight is its its function is to turn off the thinking part of our brain because it's too slow. If you're avoiding things like a rock fall or a fist to the face, or hungry Sabre toothed Tiger, you know, it's thinking about it isn't fast enough. You've just got to act. Yeah, of course. And so it shuts down our frontal cortex, we there's been some really interesting bits of research done with that where we were in that kind of reactive state, we are measurably more stupid, are we using

Sonia Nolan: 27:33

something really deep, meaningful, measurably more stupid,

Mike House: 27:38

more stupid, and some of us can't afford this?

Sonia Nolan: 27:44

So what does that mean that we're measurably more stupid, we just make dumb decisions? We would not what we wouldn't be able to save ourselves would be that

Mike House: 27:51

that's that we're not rational anymore. Right? So people one of the questions that used to get asked all the time in the survival space, you know, someone would be separated from a vehicle, and they would walk to their death and people would go, why? Why would you leave your vehicle in the outback? You know, everyone knows you'd stay with the vehicle, surely, and especially if the vehicle was well equipped with food and water, and, you know, it's sometimes good sleeping gear the whole lot, you know, we're, we're actually prepared to be living out there for a period of time. Why would you leave the vehicle what were they thinking? Is the question and the answer to that is they weren't thinking the whole point of fight or flight is it shuts thinking down because it's too slow. So all of that part of our brain that's capable of creativity, problem solving, deep thought analysis, all of that sort of stuff. It's all in the frontal cortex and it's incredibly powerful but it's quite slow.

Sonia Nolan: 28:44

Yeah. And just on that element, you've just talked about the people leaving their vehicles are you actually wrote an ebook on that haven't you and you can download that from your website because I was having a look at that the other day and I thought Yeah, it's so interesting because you just that's what it's always on the news you know, they've gone wandering and you can't then you find them sometimes only kilometres away Yes. Where they needed to be

Mike House: 29:08

yeah, there's tragic stats about that I most most people who perish in those circumstances either lost or stranded is usually how it starts so vehicle breaks down or they get separated from their vehicle go for a walk into the bush and camp on the car again. The the tragic stats are that pretty much everybody dies less than 24 hours and less than 24 ks from where they started. That's awful. And what happens is we get into that reactive fight or flight state most people's instinctive drivers I've just got to get to safety and and usually it means back to the highway or back to the last piece of civilization or whatever. So they set out in what they think is that direction. Most of us don't have enough experience of walking, particularly in cultivated conditions, you know off footpaths or tracks or Whatever, to know how long that takes and what it feels like and how to set yourself up to walk well. And they, they also don't plan for water. And so they get gradually dehydrated, the the symptoms of that thirst is a really light symptoms. So by the time you're feeling thirsty, you're already in trouble and especially if it's hot. And then one of the first things that goes when you're dehydrated is your ability to think as well. So it becomes the death of 1000 stabs you just going downhill with worse and worse and worse decision making capability, you get more and more desperate, and people start to do things that from the comfort of your lounge room, we really don't look rational. So they get hot, and they will take the clothes off and discard even though it's really hot and sunny and get sunburned shell logic says Keep yourself covered up. Yes. And it's you're just getting wound deeper and deeper into a reactive state. The fascinating you say, you know, a lot of people listening I would imagine would go well, so what you know, we're not lost or stranded. But the reality is that reaction anytime something presses our buttons, or has us feeling unsettled, so it could be something as innocuous as just meeting somebody for the first time. You hop a little bit onto that fight or flight continuum, you know, it's not all the way on, you're not in sort of crazy out of control, not thinking at all. But there's that part of you that's going to hope this goes well. If somebody asks you a question without notice, even if you're a subject matter expert, you have that that moment of blank, you know, I know the answer. I know I know the answer. But I can't think that that's actually fight or flight, the frontal cortex shut down momentarily. And it takes a little while for you to go home or you have a meeting or a situation where there's some conflict involved. And after the fact you should have said this. So I can we all do that. Don't wait a moment. Yeah. Where was that thought in the moment? Well, you weren't thinking you were in the state.

Sonia Nolan: 31:56

Perfect answer about half an hour an hour.

Mike House: 32:01

So true. I did not bring that information to bear. Yeah, yeah. Well, that witty response, so stand up for myself or whatever it was. And usually it's because we're in a reactive state. So those three breaths, the breathing is the only part of fight or flight within our conscious control. And as soon as we're breathing rhythmically is a powerful signal to our body both psychologically and physiologically that we're not in a fight or flight state. So, you know, if you feel yourself getting reactive, emotional, whatever, taking those three breaths is a very, very quick way to shut that down, won't necessarily stay shut down. You might have to do multiple cycles that Yeah, but three breaths is enough, deep and slow is good, but the rhythm is the really key thing.

Sonia Nolan: 32:48

So is that what essence what guerilla mindfulness is. So that's step three, step,

Mike House: 32:54

step two is to acknowledge how you feel. And if you can do that out loud, that's really useful. So just to name the emotion that you're currently feeling, you know, angry, sad, happy, anxious, overjoyed, excited, scared, whatever it is, as far

Sonia Nolan: 33:11

as your vocabulary will stretch. Yeah, and

Unknown: 33:13

look for, you know, do a lot of work, particularly with guys in Australia that haven't got much of an emotional vocabulary, and they go that, you know, don't have words for that. And it's like, well, well, the other way to do it is where do you feel it in your body. So just go feel tight my throat or, you know, I feel funny, in my tummy, tummy feels a bit anxious or upset, or, you know, I can feel my, my shoulders and my neck feel tense. That's another way to go. You know, we're just bringing ourselves present to I am feeling something. The important thing for this particular technique in a moment of pressure is that we don't get into the story. So because we're empathetic, will often go you know, if I said to you, I feel angry, your response is likely to be what?

Sonia Nolan: 33:53

Why is that, like I do to help you. And then I'll get into the story. Did that to you.

Unknown: 34:02

And usually, we take a deeper dive into the emotion before we come out the other side. And that's one of the things that counselling and other kinds of professional therapies do for us, it takes us immerses us in the emotion before we come out the other side. So that's not useful in a moment of pressure. No, all we're doing is saying I feel happy, sad, angry, whatever it is, and, and putting a really clear boundary around it. I'm not indulging the story, I'm just acknowledging it. And that's not to say that we're bottling it up put on, you know, the later we may well have to deal with that. But if I'm in a situation right now, that requires my clarity, presence and focus, then unspooling because I'm upset or angry or frustrated or anxious isn't particularly useful in this moment. So acknowledge how you feel. And then the third thing, the third step is to say, what's my intention for this moment that I'm in right now? And that helps us to be really clear, present and focus for what's this about. So You know, in this podcast, the the intent is, well, let's have a warm and open conversation about the stuff that we collectively know and explore a few fringes. You know, if someone cut me off in traffic, and I walked in here feeling cranky, that's not relevant to this right now. So me being able to take those three breaths as I walk in the door, how do I feel this is how I feel, what's my intent now helps me to get really present for this. And we can practice that at any transition, a little bit like getting out of our comfort zone. If we practice it, in moments where there is no pressure, it's more likely that it will be accessible when we need it. Because you know, if you are in a fight or flight state, the last thing you're likely to be thinking about is I just need to take three breaths right now. Because we're not thinking,

Sonia Nolan: 35:48

Oh, that's great. So that's gorilla, mindful mindfulness. Is that something that you've trademarked or it's your thought of adaptation through your business?

Unknown: 35:56

Yeah. So it's something that I talk a lot about with, with the various people that I'm in front of. And it's it's not trademarked. As such, you know, for me, it was the attempt to address tactically, what do we do when we're the action oriented person that's in a moment of pressure in the middle of a full on day where the to do list is threatening to kill us, we need to get clear present focus right now. Because while mindfulness practice somewhere in our day is a really useful and good thing to do so much research backing that up now, and growing daily, pretty much. If you haven't done it already, do it kind of thing is, is the message there. But it doesn't help us in that moment of pressure. So it was really a response to that, you know, how can we tactically deal with those moments when we're not able to be representing the best of ourselves in a moment of pressure? I

Sonia Nolan: 36:49

think there's a lot of sort of stoic understanding in that as well, in the sense of, you know, just deal with the issue. I love the stoics as well. You know, just understand where you're at, understand where you are, and what you want to be in that moment and move on, when it comes to all of that. That's right. And I just wondered, looking at social media, and the next generation coming through who've got access to expressing their emotions pretty quickly, and being able to spiral in the moment with a whole bunch of friends sort of asking them, how does it feel and empathising and being on their side, I just wonder how important that mindfulness and that stoic perhaps approach is going to be more into the future to build that resilience where we can very easily shoot a message across to get sympathy rather than taking a moment to be mindful and finding the resilience and depth within ourselves to handle things

Unknown: 37:46

the tools that we use to do that have changed but I don't know that that human desire has changed. When a lot of a lot of conversations over tables are exactly like that you won't believe what happened. Have a good whinge about what happened at work or that person down the street that did something in our neighbourhood that wasn't appropriate or and you know, we we do that we gather little tribes of supporters that are happy to Pat us on our back and there you go that yeah, you should feel pitstop.

Sonia Nolan: 38:17

Oh, dear though, yeah, we've got the language

Unknown: 38:20

completely unfair. Right about that. And I think social media just makes that a little bit quicker. Yeah. I think it's been unfair to say that we haven't always done that. Right. The key for me is there's there's a really fine line between how much is useful indulgence, I think we can really easily get ourselves into a state where we're living a reality based on a reaction to something rather than living a reality, where we have some sense of control. And there's some comfort in being a victim. One of the things I often talk about is what what's in what's actually in my control is actually a pretty small bucket, how I feel what to do next, my reactions to a degree, as long as it's outside of fight or flight, where I put my effort, how I show up in company with others, you know, they're the things that are in my control. It's pretty small bucket, and that simultaneously liberating because it's a small bucket, and terrifying because it's so that's it, that's all I have control over for me that that victim state, which we can all get into from time to time, where everything feels as though it's happening to me and none of it's my fault. It's so I am the victim of the circumstances or the people or the actions of others, is kind of an easy state to be in because I don't have to be responsible. And you know, if we flip that back out into the survival scenario, the people that typically don't do well, whether it's lost or stranded in the outback prisoners of war, people who've got horrible medical diagnosis that where they're unlikely to be living for long, major family or business break app's bankruptcies, though, you know, these big moments in our lives that that come and impact us? The people that do better are the ones that go, Okay, well, that's happened. Let's just accept that that's happened now what's within my control? And what am I going to do about it? On the flip side, the people who tend to be more in a victim state and go you, it's unbelievable that all this horrible stuff that's happening to me, let me tell you how bad it is. And I've got no control over any of it, they tend to just go into a downward spiral that often equals their demise is another beat in the unshakable book where I said, you know, this is this is something we've got to be careful with, because at one level, our capacity to choose our response to the circumstances where it is one of the most powerful capabilities a human has, to a very large degree, our reality is crafted by our intentional or otherwise response, the risk of that thought is that when people are in their darkest hour, if we make it 100% about, well, Sonya, you just have to change your mind about that. Get over yourself and take effective action, then that puts a huge weight of responsibility on a single individual that I don't think is always appropriate or even reasonable. There used to be that saying, harden up, you know, go down to Bunnings, buy a couple of bags. That's me. That's right. And that philosophy at one level was very, very useful. You know, there are times where you pull you pull yourself up by the bootstraps, carry on. Yep, keep calm carry on, is a great thought. But it's not useful if there's zero empathy in it. And if we are not also wrapping people in support,

Sonia Nolan: 41:40

I look, I believe that you are allowed to wallow a little bit, of course, and I had a friend who used to say, yeah, you can visit but you can't camp there. So I always found that really useful. It's just like giving you permission to go and you know, have your little wallow and have your little poor me moment. Yeah. But then yet, like, you know, get get yourself by your bootstraps and move on. Like, yep, yep, it happened. Yep. It's really annoying. Yep. Perhaps you didn't deserve it. But you know, okay, you've wallowed now move on,

Unknown: 42:05

move on. Yeah, I've got a friend in New Zealand, it's quite similar. She She says, give yourself a deadline, give yourself a total pity party till eight o'clock tomorrow morning. And then I'm done with that. I don't think it's a useful thought. Because, you know, we can't help but we started the conversation almost at that same point where if there's incomplete information, if we don't know how the story ends, we tend to create some narrative about it, it's often not positive, it's a human disposition to get into that Whirlpool. And so to indulge that for a while and acknowledge that it is what it is, I think, is quite healthy as well. And for me, I reckon one of the big keys to this is certainly a lesson I've learned over time is the less critical or judgmental I can be of myself, when I'm in that state, you know, for just accept it is what it is, you know, I don't know how many times I go to remedial school for lessons that I thought I'd learned years ago, and it's like, Ah, here I go, again, still learning this. And as I can laugh a little bit and kind of go, Okay, well, that's, that's novel and entertaining. Let's see, if we make a bit of a go at this time, it, it's way more effective than if I'm going, you know, you're stupid, you're no good. You know, he's 10 years ago, we can be really harsh on ourselves, and I think more harsh on ourselves than others. But we can be pretty harsh on others as well. Having some of that kind of empathy and regard for people I think makes the appreciation of the power of choosing your response to the circumstances soft in the way that it needs to be rather than just that kind of hardened up philosophy.

Sonia Nolan: 43:44

You also talk a lot about thriving and adapting, yeah, I've got this saying on my whiteboard, every now and then when I hear something that I just think is amazing. I'll just write it on my whiteboard in my office. And so this one was there, and it made me think of you're thriving and adapting. So it's evolution is to know how to survive, it's not advancement. Genius, is the ability to adapt and survive in social, environmental, cultural and economic circumstances. Genius. And intelligence is the ability to be flexible and find solutions in new circumstances and challenges. I like it, I liked it a lot as well, which is why I you know, sort of took the time to pop it on my whiteboard, and every now and then I look at it and I think, okay, so are we thinking about? Is this just evolution and it's going to happen? And you know, so but it's not, you know, get all excited about it? Or is it really genius or intelligence?

Mike House: 44:38

I would agree wholeheartedly with that the Thrive and adapt stuff is really about survival. It's not enough. The best frame we have for that in Australia is you know, the stuff we're used to teach is what we call modern survival. So you are unintentionally stuck outdoors somewhere and you've got to extend your survivability beyond that usual 24 hours. is where people die into the 48 to 72 hours that it typically takes for you to be rescued. Or for you to find a solution stretching out the time, there's a two day gap there, right? Where, you know, if you can, if you can guarantee that you're going to be around in three days, four days, five days, the odds of you surviving that very much greater than if you've got no idea how to get through that first 24 hours, compared to our 60 plus 1000 year old indigenous culture here in Australia, where they did way more than survive, you know, they are living in harmony with the land in a really sustainable way over a timeframe that terms of human civilization is mind boggling. You know, most other civilizations have crashed and burned in periods way, way, way shorter, you know, that's a totally different game. You know, that's, that's thriving, adapt, you know, over 60 plus 1000 years. Were there times where things were hard. I bet there were Were there times where things changed dramatically. I bet there were Were there times where subgroups of people had radically different ideas about what the best way forward were, I bet there were. And somehow, those people managed to navigate that full complexity of life and experience of humans. And for me, one of the great hopes that I have of Australia going forward is that we actually end up in a position where we, we genuinely start to understand and embrace some of the deep insights that we could get from our indigenous people, and genuinely start to weave that into the fabric of our community. Because I reckon there's so much to learn from that.

Sonia Nolan: 46:38

I totally agree, totally agree, there is an enormous amount of depth and understanding of the land and, and ourselves, you know, that whole understanding of the human condition in order to survive.

Mike House: 46:52

And it's beyond survival, you know, that thrive, adapt, as you say, it's really about, you know, the circumstances will be the circumstances survival is I just get by, you know, I often think of a cat on a fly while sort of hanging on by my fingernails, and I'll stick it for as long as I need to. And then I hope I can make the landing, you know, versus this is what it is, how do we actually make the best of it? What can we learn from this? How can we adapt? How can we go forward, both as individuals, people in community with each other, whether that's a family unit all or a work unit, or more broadly, in our community or society, and what does that create going forward is way more masterful when just survival?

Sonia Nolan: 47:37

I'd like to talk about surviving, in the sense of eating in the bush, okay, and some of your campfire recipe and some of the work that you do in that space, because I think that's a joy for you, isn't it is yeah, tell me about

Mike House: 47:54

that. So really interestingly, when we ran those 10 Day survival exercises, most people would come into it, assuming that it was going to be physically challenging and the lack of food was going to be one of the biggest challenges. That was certainly how I approached it. The first time I was a participant food is way less important than then we think, you know, the medically we can do 30 days with zero calorie intake. And there are no long term health impacts of that will be pretty shabby at the end of 30 days, but get back on the good nutrition and everything straightens out what I came to deeply appreciate. The first time I did that 10 day walk as a participant was that I more often than not, I ate because I'm bored or I'm emotional, not because I'm hungry.

Sonia Nolan: 48:38

And sadly, I can second that motion here. I certainly can consume.

Mike House: 48:42

I remember a moment it was about day three or day four into a 10 day exercise. We had a guy who who was a participant along with us, who was a professional chef ran out ran a really top notch restaurant. And he cooked a couple of fish that we'd caught just on the open fire on the coals and he made the point you know, we're all just had so good you know, we literally haven't eaten for three days. And we're into this tiny little bit of fish. Talk about mindful eating, you know, every morsel you know, we sucked every bit of sustenance that we could get off the flavour Yes. And the flavour was incredible and you know, he said there's the best source the best seasoning is hunger and saw Wow, isn't that true? Isn't it just isn't that true? And you know, the whole lot the anticipation the smell of it, even the catching all that and slight we're hungry and we're kind of in a rush to get it to cooked but you can't make that go any quicker than it goes. We still got to build a fire and I really like slow food. I don't often make the time to do it. But you know, I've had I've dabbled with baking sourdoughs and I love the moment I'm sort of in a bit of a deep dive around around smoking and it's Local stuffing barbecue, and I love the, you know you, you come from an Italian background as does my wife and those slow sauces where you start with a great stock pot and you end up with a teaspoon full of fantastic stuff. And there's no quick way to it. And I think the beauty of that sort of food, you know the richness and complexity of flavours that you get that there's something sort of raw and authentic about it, however you come up that kind of stuff, whether it's a ground oven or straight on a campfire, or, you know, in a crock pot in grandma's oven or, you know, traditional earthen ware oven in Turkey or something like that, there's something that gets imparted by that kind of cooking. And, you know, some of it's undoubtedly love and community, there's the the magic of the fire, you know, being around around the fire. And from a survival point of view, you know, if a group is under pressure and feeling fragmented, someone wants to walk off, one of the best things you can do is light a fire and straightaway creates a hub in a centre. Yes, gathers around. And you know, we've done that for aeons around the centre of our tribe, village kitchen, gather around the fire, you know, we lean on the kitchen benchtop even now while someone's doing something and they talk about life in ways that is not necessarily direct and harsh in or transactional. It's just got to kind of ebb and flow to it. It's really cool. And some of that sort of slow, low smoky campfire II kind of cooking, I think really lends itself to that something primal. We've we've done that for a lot of centuries. It gathers us in a way that faster food does not say yeah, I kind of like those excursions.

Sonia Nolan: 51:42

Mike, it's been an absolute pleasure having you at my warm table today, you've given me a lot to think about. And I've thoroughly enjoyed hearing about your survival. Well, the fact you survived as a starting point in those hairy moments, but also what you've learned about yourself and what you're now imparting to other leaders, in that really deep understanding we all need to understand in our humaneness, but also what we're capable of doing so that we can thrive and adapt.

Mike House: 52:08

Totally agree. Sonia I reckon we are so much more capable than we often think that we are. And, and pressure is one of those things that shows us that whether it's expected or not, we we get to see ourselves rise above in ways that were unexpected and unanticipated. And that's pretty cool. Thanks so much for the invite. And for some of your questions, too. We've covered a lot of ground down a few rabbit holes that I haven't really thought about before. So thank you. It's been a pleasure to be here.

Sonia Nolan: 52:38

How wonderful. Thanks, Mike. You've been listening to my warm table with Sonia Nolan. In Italian, a tavola calda is a warm and welcoming table where you can share big ideas, friendship, laughter and life. So much happens around the kitchen table, and I wanted to amplify it here in this podcast. My aim is to feed your mind and soul through smart conversations with heart. No topic is off limits, but good table manners rule. I hope you'll join us each week as we set the table for my extraordinary guests who will let you feast on a deep knowledge, life experiences and wise insights. Let's keep the conversation flowing. Please subscribe to the my warm table podcast and share it with your friends and networks. Perhaps if they're new to podcasting, take a moment to show them how to download and subscribe so they don't miss an episode either. I'd also love you to join our community on Facebook. You'll find the group at my warm table podcast. Your support is very much appreciated. So that together we can eat, think and be merry