The Hope Initiative

“I've been on this big journey of the small steps lately. I love sharing the small steps. I know sometimes for some people they might look insignificant, but for me they're huge. So everybody's got different levels that they're at. If you set yourself up with smaller steps, you are more likely not to fail. If we have these massive goals and we go, we've got this goal and it looks so far out of rea...

“Being on the tools is actually quite liberating. And I've gone from the beautiful suit and the tie and the whole business look, walking in and getting, ‘yes sir, no sir, three bags full’. Now I'm a filthy tradie. And people talk to you like you're stupid. And it's quite funny, you know, so they have no idea of you. And that's I guess a lesson in life - not to judge the old book by the cover. Plen...

“Something that I'm struggling with at the moment is telling the difference between demons and ambition. The difference between pushing myself to achieve things at my own detriment because I feel like I deserve to be punished instead of doing things becauseI want to achieve more. Because I want better for myself…” Episode #118 of The Hope Initiative with Zoe Grist.

David Goggins is an American ultramarathon runner, ultra-distance cyclist, triathlete, public speaker, and author. He is a retired United States Navy SEAL member who served in the Iraq War. His first memoir, Can't Hurt Me, was released in 2019 and a sequel Never Finished in 2022. This past week he spoke in Melbourne and I was in attendance, and decided to record the Q&A which was by far the best p...

“Some people need that soft inner voice, like ‘you can do it, you got this’, small victories… Some people just like to wake up and be like, ‘Don't be a bitch today. Let's go to the gym. Let's get shit done!’ We function different and I like reading David Goggin's books. I've never gone into the military, I don't have any family in the military. But I'm always drawn to t...

“I would read those articles about the lives of those players and what route that they took to get to their famous lives. I could just see myself, you know, when I would read them, I would read those stories and I would place myself into those stories. Some of the information I took in, it was talking about nutrition and keeping your body clean and staying away from drugs and alcohol and also the...

“I can remember looking outside and just thinking those exact things, you know, “How is the sun shining? How's the rain falling? How are those people just walking normally? How can they walk normally? You know, those are little memories I would have when I was 16 years old, just because I was in such shock. My dad had tubes coming out of him in every direction and the doctors were saying his brain...

“I built up a growth mindset. I was working out hard. I had a higher position in the cleaning company as a supervisor in just 12 months of being there… It seems like it all started with that decision though. Can you distill what that decision was in your mind? If you can articulate it? So, as I said, it was just thinking about where do you wanna go? Do you wanna keep drinking alcohol? Do you wanna...

“It’s ok to communicate. People want to communicate!” Episode #112 of The Hope Initiative Podcast: 2022 in Review A compilation episode recapping the year that was! The best year yet for the podcast. And we’re only just getting starting! Thanks to all of the guests this year and previously that have made the podcast what it is. And thank you to everyone who has listened wherever you been around th...

“I think the inspiration is kind of what I was just explaining before, that feeling of creating something that causes a reaction in me, an emotional response. It's chasing that feeling. And yeah, that's like what I think for any people who really love music, they'll have favourite bands and favourite songs and favourite albums, like of course you love the songs cuz they're catchy and because the l...

“I think like contribution is probably one of my strongest values that I try to live by now and incorporate. It's kind of self-explanatory with the Hope Manifesto, what I'm trying to do there. I'm always curious as to how I've impacted other people, but I think that's also a part of life that you're not supposed to have all those answers. And need to sit in the unknown, and it kind of forces you a...

“To be my friend, you must be a worthy opponent. So I think that's what we all bring to the table here. You know, you're not gonna be around someone that doesn't provide any value or competition to your life because then you're just gonna plateau or you're just gonna get comfortable. I think all of us, specifically in our circle here, bring something really, really unique to the table. Whether it'...

“I do a lot of just like deciding, “Okay, what's gonna happen this week?” Like what do I want to happen this week or this month? And how could I create that? I'll think about it and put it out into the universe and then I'll do my work and like flow things in that direction and then things come outta nowhere. And I have learned that you need to create in the universe in those directions. At first...

“I'm a big advocate for intense personal responsibility. You only you can save you. And listen to my life, if I was waiting around for someone else to save me, I'll tell you right now, I wouldn't be sitting in front of you. I live a very different life and I see a lot of learned helplessness in clients and in the public these days. A lot of, “Oh, there's nothing I can do. I just feel like this…” T...

Episode summary to comeWelcome to episode 102 which comes off the back of my time in Waco, Texas for the Ironman weekend! I personally competed in the 70.3 event which encompassed a swim (1.2mile / 1.9km) ride (56mile / 90km) and run (13.1mile / 21.1km) along with many of the other guests on this episode. On Thursday the 13th of October I travelled a total of 33 hours from Melbourne, Australia to...

“I was still very self-conscious about it and was very hyper aware all the time of what people were thinking of me. I felt like I was just not comfortable in it. And then came the showtime. And that first night when I was on stage in front of the audience, I felt this feeling of being exactly where I was meant to be. That was the moment where everything shifted. And so I owe everything to that sin...

“I believe that's kind of where we've gotten to this idea of risk and failure are such a negative thing, but unfortunately you have to take risks to grow. The idea of overcoming something or having something get in your way and you're able to work through that, just gives us that feedback I think specifically as men to teach us how to continue to build ourselves. So I think that's a big piece of i...

“I don't want my suffering to be meaningless. I think that's not honouring the parts of me that had to survive that shit. You know, the five year old Kayla that survived being raped, it's not right for me to not honour her and use that experience and give it meaning. I know there's that whole philosophical debate around, do we apply meaning or is there actual like an objective meaning to things? A...

“I admire people who can receive new information and then change their mind and form their own opinion or take things that they think work and leave out the others. That's how you grow too. When you get older and you change your mind and you have different experiences. I think if you're thinking the same way your whole life, you can be very narrow minded and not - you know, you're stuck in your wa...

"She is lonely and you know, I sit down with her and we've had some quite deep conversations and, she said this is it. This is my house. This is where I wanna be. I wanna stay here. Yeah. I wish Barry was still here, but he's not. So I've just gotta get on with it.” Episode #96 of The Hope Initiative with Ian Traynor.

“I saw this great quote the other day and it was, “Everyone will teach you something. You will learn something from everyone.” And sometimes you'll learn something opposite to what they think. Like someone will be cynical or critical and then you'll learn, oh, you know, I should avoid people like that. You still learn something. I really like that where even if you see a bad magician or someone wh...

“I think most important advice I got; three questions. If you ask yourself these questions, my father helped me with this when I was going really bad. Brett, he said, ‘Go and have a shower, hop out naked and look in the mirror and ask yourself three questions. [1.] Would you want you as a father? [2.] Would you want you as a friend and [3.] would you want you as a partner? And that's it. They're t...

“I realised how important it was to connect with people. Number one, physically in person and how important a genuine, authentic connection is to me, rather than just having lots of acquaintances. Cause with yachting and everything, I met so many awesome people all around the world, but it was kind of - it felt very surface level. Like that was something I really struggled with working on yachts,...

“I sometimes go and sit with an old friend, father John, who runs an ashram in Warburton. He's got seven acres on the riverbank and with a bench seat. We'll sit on that bench seat and just talk and it'll be whatever he wants to talk about. And it could be anything from, “Is there a God?” to, “Is there a future?” The climbing of the Hills around him, anything, or it might just be half an hour silen...

“Never be the one to say “no” to yourself. You're gonna face a ton of rejection in the world, but you don't have to be the one that rejects yourself from the get go. If you wanna start a project, maybe you don't have the experience or you don't have the qualifications or you don't have it figured out, but don't be the one that shuts that down. Don't be the one that says “No, I'm not good enough wo...