How to Stop Feeling Stuck | Tim Thomas | 213

What if the most important work you'll ever do... is the work no one else can see?

In this inspiring episode of Manders Mindset, host Amanda Russo welcomes back former Australian Special Forces commando, speaker, and founder of Breathwork In Bed, Tim Thomas, for a thought-provoking conversation about the invisible habits that shape our lives, the power of taking imperfect action, and why true transformation always begins from within.

Building on themes from Tim's first appearance, Amanda and Tim explore how the challenges you've overcome often become the greatest gift you can offer someone else. Together, they discuss why so many people feel stuck, how isolation quietly impacts mental health, and why reconnecting with yourself is often the first step toward creating meaningful change.

Throughout the conversation, Tim shares lessons from overcoming PTSD, explains the different personality archetypes that influence how we show up in the world, discusses the concept of becoming an "energetic millionaire," and reveals why the habits no one else sees are often the ones that determine every visible result. Amanda also reflects on her experiences traveling to Bali, embracing imperfect action, and learning that growth isn't about having everything figured out...it's about continuing to move forward.

💡 In this episode, listeners will learn:
💜 Why taking imperfect action creates more growth than waiting for the perfect moment.
🧠 How the invisible habits you practice every day shape the life you experience.
🌱 Why connection... to yourself and to others is one of the greatest foundations for healing.
✨ How understanding your natural tendencies can help you break old patterns and grow into the best version of yourself.
🤍 Why your greatest struggles may become the exact thing that helps someone else feel less alone.
🌬️ How breathwork can help create greater clarity, resilience, and inner peace.
🚀 Why investing in yourself first allows you to show up more fully in every area of your life.

⏰ Timeline Summary:
[1:15] Amanda shares why taking imperfect action has become one of the biggest lessons shaping both her life and podcast.
[4:00] Amanda reflects on traveling to Bali, embracing uncertainty, and discovering the value of imperfect action.
[9:00] Tim introduces personality archetypes and explains how understanding them can reveal the patterns that keep us stuck.
[21:00] The conversation explores PTSD, isolation, human connection, and why feeling understood is often where healing begins.
[33:30] Tim shares the life-changing question that transformed his perspective and inspired his life's work.
[44:30] Becoming an "energetic millionaire," investing in yourself daily, and using Breathwork to reconnect with your inner resources.
[56:45] Why performance is a visible result of an invisible process and how unseen habits create the results everyone notices.

To Connect with Amanda:

Schedule a 1:1 Virtual Breathwork Session HERE

📸 Instagram: @thebreathinggoddess

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These links are for those people who want immediate and natural sleep improvement; They’re for Tim’s -  ‘Breathwork in Bed’ app.

The app will guide you to sleep with peace, and out of bed with power. Enjoy it for 28 days of great sleep for free. 

Apple link: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6575362285?pt=127061224&ct=BIB50K&mt=8  

Google Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.breathworkinbed.bibsleepapp20&hl=en

Transcript

Welcome And The Intention

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Manders and Mindset podcast. So you'll find this model interview of entrepreneurs, field artists, and of a variety of other people.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

I'm your host, Amanda Vusso, and I am so excited to be joined again with Tim Thomas. He was with us for episode 144, and he is back joining me today. If you don't know, he's a former special forces commander, and he is the founder of Breathwork and Bed. Thank you so much for joining me again, Tim.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

Amanda, thanks so much for having me back. So, what do you want to talk about today, Amanda?

SPEAKER_01 1:21

So this is making me laugh because we chatted very deeply about intentions, my intentions

Bali And Taking The Leap

SPEAKER_01 1:30

for the podcast, my intentions for life, you could say. And an intention of mine with the podcast and within general in my life is I'm looking to help myself as well and other people be able to take imperfect actions to move forward. And if possible, in less time than it took me. So with that, Tim, it's been about a year since we've last connected.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

Yes. I have very much enjoyed your posts when you're when you went to Bali. That's kind of in my area. And I would love to hear what you got from those. You went there twice, yes?

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 2:30

You liked it so much you went back again?

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Yes. And that's why I'm gonna go back a third.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

So what happens when you go to Bali, Amanda? I'm interested.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

What happens when I go to Bali?

SPEAKER_03 2:42

Yeah, talk me through the you know, the invisible realm that Bali opens up because you know, you don't live in Bali. You go to Bali to do something there, and it does something for you. I'm genuinely interested in the unseen parts of a person when they change physical localities, they go to a different culture, something happens there. I'd love you to share that with me and and uh those who are listening.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Well, uh, both times were very different, I will say that. I went in 2024, then I went again in 2025, and the first time I went, I did no research whatsoever. I booked a flight. I had a passport, I booked a flight, and that that was that. Oh, you have some comments.

SPEAKER_03 3:35

No, no, no. I'm just I thought it I thought you might have had some agenda or you went over there with friends.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

I went on a retreat. I was going on a retreat, but I flew by myself. It came about very last minute because a friend of mine was supposed to go on this retreat, then she wasn't able to, and it would make her feel better about missing it if I went. So I dropped everything, I quit a job, and I I booked a flight to Bali to go on this retreat. And there's even something called Bali Belly that I didn't know until I got to Bali. I found out about that in Bali. They were like, You didn't look it up on the internet, and I was like, No, I didn't look it up on the internet, I didn't look up anything.

SPEAKER_03 4:25

And so, how is that transition from you know, one geographic physical location to another, and you're discovering all these shocking assumptions that you've made were completely wrong?

SPEAKER_01 4:41

It was interesting. Like, even as far as I only brought one credit card with me, it got eaten at an ATM in Bali. I fortunately had some very nice women on said retreat that helped me and I Venmoed them and I made things work and we figure things out. But I was faced with a lot of things that like it showed me planning, a little bit of planning, even if you don't overplan, makes a difference. But also at the same time, it gives me stories to tell two years later.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

Well I think you just embodied a principle that you were trying to encourage other people to do. Take imperfect actions forward.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

That's true.

SPEAKER_04 5:37

Isn't that funny?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

I guess that was an in imperfect action that I took forward.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

And it sounded like you had such a good time. I mean, if you stayed home thinking, oh, I've got to do this, I've got to do that, that planning is important, yes, but often you can be stuck in, you know, analysis, paralysis, thinking about things too much, and then you don't end up doing anything. I've always sort of lent towards more action, less planning gets you more results than less action, more planning. And of course, there is a balance, you know, but I think it does depend on your personality types. Creative types are often the magician where they can, you know, make things

Planning Versus Action That Works

SPEAKER_03 6:20

happen on the spur of the moment. But on the other side, there's the king energy where done right, the kingdom flourishes, done wrong, it becomes tyrannical. No, you've got to do it this way, this way, this way, this way. And everything sort of shrinks as a result. So the idea being that the magician who can make stuff happen needs to integrate some of the king energy, some of the planning, some of the processes, some of the awareness of how this is gonna affect everyone else. And the king has to then take on the magician energy. Well, what is it like to not plan everything for everybody and actually just have fun in this moment? And it's so easy to say, but to actually do that from a personality type is super, super hard. So, me, I and the way it's been taught to me is people have a primary archetype and a secondary. So, my primary is warrior, secondary magician. So I like to get stuff done, be on a mission, and I don't like it when someone interrupts my planning or they want to express too much emotion. To me, that occurs as weakness. But the very thing I don't want to do as a warrior, feel emotion, because to me, feeling emotion isn't feeling emotion, it's dropping, taking my armor off. And if my armor comes off, then I'll be vulnerable. But the thing about if I stay in the warrior realm only, my armor stays on and no one can get to me, no one can actually get to know who I am. I can't really feel connection to others. Every archetype, every personality often has this thing that you don't want to do, but that's your path to liberation and freedom. You know?

SPEAKER_01 8:26

So what you don't want to do is your path to liberation and freedom.

SPEAKER_03 8:31

Yeah. So and just in my example as a warrior, I didn't want to drop my guard and feel stuff. So so my opposite is lover energy. And but it's mature lover energy. There's an immature form of any sort of archetype, you know, but then there's the mature form. And it's funny, but you can literally have a conversation in your head that once you know yourself, I can say, what would the mature warrior in me say about this? What would the mature lover in me say about this? And for me, breath is a great way to dial into the mature version of yourself because you get to remove the low-end blockages to access that, you know, and I'm no expert in di in reading others and what they have. But if I was to guess with what I know about you, Amanda, you are a magician energy, possibly uh lover as well. Meaning that you like creativity, but if anyone says, Hey Amanda, you have to sit a certain way and do what I tell you, you'd be like, Well, you, man. You know, like there's no part of you that wants any kind of control, or you know, if someone says, Hey, you've got to say the sky's blue, you're like, the hell it is, I'll say what I want it is. You know, there's this, I do not want to be trapped, captured, or cornered in any way, shape, or form. And lover energy loves connection, and they hate it when people withdraw from them because they want connection. So that the worst thing you can do to someone with who's a lover is withdraw or cut them off. So I'll just use the example of a lover because that's my way to healing. Me as a warrior, I have to embody the love the mature lover energy, not the immature one. Like the immature lover is if I was to sort of stereotype it, it's the ones with multicolored hair screaming how you have to act a certain way around them. Because they've disconnected, they've felt disconnected, now they're getting aggressive in trying to control the outside world because that's perceived that pain has come in from the outside world, so they have to control the outside world for them to control their pain, you know. So that's the immature form. The mature form is accepting, can see you know, loving, can see the connection, can play the long game. So just the example of the thing that each per each archetype does, and we don't know we're doing it is a lover, if they feel they've been done wrong by, will withdraw. The very thing they don't like other people doing, they'll see as acceptable. Okay, as a warrior, I have no problem speaking my voice, pushing my weight around, saying what I want to say. Okay, but if someone pushes them onto me, if someone even appears slightly bullying like, I'm like, it's freaking on, no way on my watch. It's like, it's just like I can do it to others, that's no problem. But if someone tries to do that to me, it is like declaration of war, you know, and each archetype has the thing that they do naturally, but there's no way they would let someone else do it. Have you ever had somebody that you know or in the workplace of, they put signs on everything saying clean up after your dishes, you know, put these books away. Even in the toilet, they're like, oh, do this and do that. They have signs freaking everywhere. So that's king energy wanting to organize everything. They've got their best intentions in mind, but they can't see they're being tyrannical. All right. Because if you went to their home and had and said to them, hey, if someone put signs up about things to do in your home, how would you react? And they'll be like, no way, that's my place. You know, well, why do you put signs for everybody else and think it's acceptable? Do you see how there's these things that happen we don't even know we're doing it, and we can spend our lives avoiding going to the one place we don't want to go. I could have spent my life being fully armored up as a warrior. I'm a big tough warrior, I'll never put away my sword, but I'd never get the connection I'm looking for. I'll never have people feeling safe. Because my my goal as a warrior is to have everyone feeling safe. But the immature version of a warrior will be the very thing that they're trying to avoid. If I kept my armor on, if I kept swinging my sword, I would make people feel unsafe, the very thing that I didn't want to have happen. How does that land over there, Amanda?

SPEAKER_01 13:46

It makes sense. I get what you're saying. I've never heard of these archetypes before, like the magician, the king.

SPEAKER_03 13:53

There's different ways of, you know, splitting personality tests and all that sort of stuff. These archetypes have occurred through history, and certain imagery has followed that. So you may have seen the image of a dragon in front of a cave of gold. Because nobody wants to mess with a dragon, that thing will burn you each uh in one breath. But behind that thing that you think is gonna kill you is your richest reward. So I would tell myself as a warrior that if I drop my guard, something bad's gonna happen, it's gonna be my fault. If I put my sword away for a second, something bad's gonna happen, it's gonna be my fault. So my my my dragon in front of the cave of gold

Archetypes And Growing Past Your Edge

SPEAKER_03 14:45

was to actually do the unthinkable. Take my armor off, let other people penetrate into my world, feel what other people are feeling. Now, lovers they do that quite naturally. They want to feel, they want to let people in. So lovers have trouble speaking up, saying what they actually want, because they want to other people to be happy, and they want to please other people, and they want them to have, they want them to feel accepted, and they want to feel accepted themselves. So, within that, though, they often have trouble doing the things that warriors do very naturally, say what they want to say. And so, for a lover to actually speak into existence what they actually want and say it when it's needed, it feels like the world's gonna end. It's like a whole nervous system happening that you're you're going against. Well, you will always be your primary and secondary archetype. The idea is to become a mature version of it. You know, the there's a version of us, of everybody who's centered, sovereign, mature, and can take decisions from a higher perspective. But then there's the immature version of us that it's usually all about us, how it's impacted us, and we have expectations of the unrealistic expectations of the external world, and we try and control the world by saying, Hey, I just want to help the world. It's actually a quite a dangerous thing saying I want to help others because often it's just your idea of what you think is right and you want to prove it in the external world. And this actually is why when you're trying to find healing, it's hard to find a good healer because a lot of them, not all, but a lot, they have the intention of wanting to help others, but they're really just trying to enforce a way they think works, not what actually works. But people who are hurting, needing healing, they're in a vulnerable position. So it's hard to sort of challenge that, and people end up blaming themselves. For six years, that's how long it took me to find a good psychologist, right? When I was going through my own PDSD, most of them would just try and give me what they think I should be doing and what should work for me. Nobody ever actually had something that worked and they were applying in a way that could meet me where I was. I saw a pattern that no one else saw, and I set up programs around it, and it enabled me to achieve a lifetime goal of saving 40 veteran lives from suicide within a year. And that was simply this. Us humans, whether we admit it or not, we are built for connection. Our peace, confidence, quality of sleep, quality of thoughts, quality of presence is relative to how connected we feel. And it wasn't the pain we couldn't handle. What we couldn't handle was the pain would get to a certain duration or intensity where it would transform without us even knowing it into loneliness and isolation. And as humans, we're not built to be disconnected. And I've noticed that there's no holding ground. Disconnected energy seeks to disconnect more and more and more. Connected energy seems to want to connect more and more and more, right? And so what I did was I'm so glad I wasn't formally trained in this because formal training has an idea someone had might have worked for them, but then they push it into the world. What I saw was that once you broke someone's isolation, once you created a rapport, once you had just one or two people around that person that they could feel safe around, safe enough to speak their truth, because these people that are hurting, they want to say certain things, they don't feel safe enough to say it. And these unspoken words become like rocks around your heart. And the world we live in loves pouring what I call dopamine over dysfunction. So as much as there was a bunch of unspoken words around my heart, I could drink a bunch of alcohol, dopamine over dysfunction. I could pour alcohol over those rocks and I could be okay for a moment. Or I could take pills, or I could take all these other things. It wasn't until I could hear somebody else say the words that I wanted to say, they actually dissolved those rocks around my heart. And then I'm like, fuck, I thought I was the only one. And that was that would be my two signs of achievement. When guys would say, fuck, I thought I was the only one, that was the first sign that the healing process had begun. Because until you break that isolation, you can pour all these millions and billions of dollars of resources into that person. It's largely water off a duck's back. When they're in isolation, if they don't know who to trust, they're not letting anything in. Breath work for me is the quickest

Connection, Isolation, And Breathwork

SPEAKER_03 20:40

way to create that state of safety, connection, removal of blockages, so then you can connect to yourself. Powerful connections inside of yourself have a higher likelihood of powerful connections outside of ourselves. Energy has a shelf life of 18 to 24 hours. So every day, if we don't choose to powerfully invest and connect in ourselves, I'm protecting myself because I'm not in abundance. Think of energy as like your energy like money, how you invest, it's how you get it back. Doesn't matter how much you start with, it's how you invest it. And every breath you breathe, that's like turning two cents into two dollars. Proper breath work increases energetic currency, increases connection to yourself, removes the blockages. And you go forward through your day in what I call an energetic millionaire. That's the goal for all of my clients is to be energetic millionaires. Because life occurs very differently when you're walking down the street with a million dollars in your back pocket than if you only got two cents. And the wise person knows if you don't choose to invest, connect inside and connect out, the choice gets made for you. You will automatically go into conservation mode and you won't even know it. All of a sudden, you know, other people are annoying. Shut up until I've had a coffee. I don't know why, but I have to drink six beers at the end of the day. Because there's an imbalance there. And I'm not against drinking, but I'm just saying anything that anything you use outside of yourself to create balance, you'll end up becoming dependent on because you've overlooked the resources inside of yourself to find balance. And I'm I was looking forward to this conversation with you today, Amanda, for a number of reasons, but one of which is what you talk about is giving access to resources that are underneath people's skin. And that's very rare. Most people, when they're wanting something, there's no shortage of people saying, Give me your money. There's not many people saying, Hey, you've actually got everything you need underneath your own skin. Here's how to access that. Because once you access that, all that crap outside of us becomes redundant really quickly. And there's no way the marketing world we live in wants to be made redundant. They want repeat sales. So they'll say, Yeah, we'll take care of it all for you. Just give us your money. What I like about what you're doing, you're getting people to go introspective and then take those imperfect actions forward.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Thank you. That everything you said makes a lot of sense. Isolation is a killer for humans as a whole. Feeling like we're the only one whose experience whatever the situation is so lonely. And it's hard to push through that.

SPEAKER_03 24:24

Well, I would only offer there's one question that changed everything for me. This question didn't come to me very lightly, Amanda. And just to preface this,

The Question That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_03 24:38

if you can understand and answer this question honestly, moving forward from here will occur very differently. So I came to this golden question, which I'll share with you when I was at Rock Bottom. It was early 2011. And I'm literally about to kill a man. My time in the special forces had ended. The government wasn't paying me. This would have been murder. My life was falling apart, as was my family. And conventional wisdom said, Tim, you need to see a psychologist. At the time that made no sense because I don't know this guy, I don't trust this guy, I don't like talking about this sort of stuff. Why the hell would I want to do that? But I'm like, Tim, everything's falling apart. Maybe you're the problem. And so it was very difficult for me to go into that psychologist's office. And I discovered that the one time I actually dropped my guard and asked for help, it was for a person that wasn't just incompetent, he was completely apathetic. He was kind of looking at the ceiling as I was sharing my deepest thoughts. He had this cup of whatever, and he would slurp it like. Now, in that moment, as much as I had not gone anywhere physically, I'd broken my isolation by asking that question, how many other people do you think are in the same situation? I didn't, I gave it a number. To me, I was I'm thinking at least six million. All right, so that's three million on my right, three million on my left. And I said, it doesn't matter if it takes me a week, a month, a year to make progress when you first start your healing journey can be so hard. It seemed like forever just to make an inch. How many other people are stuck up against what you're up against? Because that inch for me wasn't just one inch, it was six million inches. I was moving forward for six million people. And with my isolation now connected, I was connected to a bunch of people, that most of which I hadn't met yet. But I had a sense that at some point in the future they're gonna go, you know what, Tim, we're so glad that back in 2011 you didn't kill that guy. Because you're moving forward and your forward progress has helped us get through. The thing that took you 10 years to do, you've helped us do in far less time. This is where people have to understand that the thing that makes you feel stuck, the thing that you don't want to do from the perspective of other people, that is the most valuable thing you can do for them. It's not what we do so much, it's what we've come through. From the perspective of others, our value is what we've come through. Because only you are qualified to break the rocks around someone else's heart. You know?

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Why do you say only you are qualified to break the rocks and around someone's heart?

SPEAKER_03 30:32

Let's break it down. So I'm qualified to break the isolation of other veterans. If you're up against cancer, if you're up against a relationship problem, if you're up against a shitty boss, if you're up against a whatever problem that is, once you ask the question, how many other people are stuck in that situation, then you're qualified to break their isolation. You've got to have that skin in the game. Because whether they like you or not, this is the great thing. It's actually better if people don't like you, if they can see that you've shown them it's possible, then they're like, huh, I can't ignore that. Anyone listening, what are you up against right now? And then ask the question: how many other people are in that same situation? And don't just say a lot, give it a real number. And the more you can see their faces, the more you can sense that they're willing you on, the more that you know that every inch you make, you're making that times however many people. So sometimes when I'm breathing, I'm breathing for me, but sometimes when I'm doing my breath work, I'm doing it for all those other people moving through.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

I really like that about how many people are going through what I'm going through. And I like the specific number with it, like not just saying a lot. It helps us visualize almost, you know, even if we were to say a lower number, but it still helps us that connection of even if it's a thousand people, a thousand people is a lot of people that are.

SPEAKER_03 32:23

And the more you can see them connect with them, and you're actually feeling their pain, it's funny how we can more willingly do for others what we wouldn't do for ourselves. There's no way I would like my friends to experience the pain I'm going through. So why do we think it's acceptable for us? And so just know that you know, self-care, self-healing, self-investment isn't selfish. It's where generosity starts. Generously investing in yourself, connecting with yourself leads to these generous connections outside of yourself without any attachments. Okay, you can generously give to others knowing that you can fill yourself up. What nobody knew was that every six or seven weeks I'd have to write myself up drunk for about three days. Why? Because I was still being highly effective, but I was giving of myself, I wasn't giving of my abundance. So what I would do is if, you know, I was 100%, and if I had to give 10% to somebody, there'd be a part of me saying, hey, I'm down to 90%, you better do something with that 10%. But these days, what I say is I don't give of myself anymore. I give of my abundance. Because what I noticed, if I create 500% more than what I actually need, I can give away 20% every day. I can do that every day, and I'm completely not attached to whether people love it, hate it, it does what it's supposed to do, or people tell me to F off. The point is, I'm in touch with something so much greater, and whatever is taken, I can put it back in. And, you know, one thing I know about this world is you will have things not work out, you will have things take from you, but it occurs very differently if I've only got 20 cents and someone takes 10 cents, right? That's a massive withdrawal. I get to revenge that shit. And I've been that guy that tried to get 10 cents back for years, completely forgetting the fact that I could have been an energetic millionaire the next day. The fact that this world takes so much, or can be perceived to have taken that takes so much, lends itself to the fact that we need to be in abundance. There's no other options. Being adequate is

Energy As Currency And Morning Habits

SPEAKER_03 35:03

just not enough. So, you know, what that looks like in real life, there's a saying. You hopefully heard this in the States. Have you heard the saying, clothes maketh the man?

SPEAKER_01 35:17

It's just something that I haven't heard.

SPEAKER_03 35:20

Who knows? But yeah, clothes maketh the man, right? And I'm sure that's a one way retail outlets try and sell you clothes, right? But I disagree. Clothes don't make it the man, mornings maketh the man. You show me a man's morning, and I'll show you the man. So when we wake up every day, we need to put the best of us back into ourselves because every cent you invest in yourself, you're gonna get two dollars back. And breath work is the easiest access to self-investment. So every time I take a good breath, like a good breath, not just a, you know, I'm thinking I'm banking $200, and it's giving me that abundant state. And it's funny how one small imperfect action leads to the next imperfect action, next step forward. The goal I have for all my clients is to move through their day, their life as an energetic millionaire, and have them understanding that their energy is like money, and they they're a unique energy signature. Okay, so they've got a unique energy investment portfolio. So just consider this for a second. If you had a uh uh investment portfolio and three of the shares, whatever dollar you put in, you got a thousand dollars back, you're like, yeah, that's what I want to do. But let's say you had three other investments that every $100 you put in, you got a dollar back, you'd be like, huh. Right? Now let's divide up your life to the things that you do that you invest energy into that you get a really good return from. There's things that you do, there's people you interact with, there's food that you eat that return to you an incredible amount, quite quite unique to you because you've got a unique energy signature. No one can figure that out for you. You've got to kind of journey with that one. Okay, but let's flip the coin for a second. There are things that you do that drain your energy, there's people you interact with that drain your energy. There's habits that we have that drain our energy. So, if you can map it out, you could literally spreadsheet this stuff. To me, destiny isn't mystical. It is literally a spreadsheet, if I could be so clinical, just to draw out the clarity around your unique energy signature, gives a unique return. No one else can see how much return you get from that, at least not in the initial stages. When you get into an abundant state, everyone's like, oh wow, that's awesome. How did you do that? Well, guess what? I've been investing in this thing that no one else saw. I had to see it before anyone else saw it. And then when you reach this place of abundance and mastery, it's like, oh, then it becomes obvious. So what I'm trying to say here, you know, Amanda, is if you can create a morning routine where the best of you gets invested in you and you're powerfully connected inside of yourself, you kind of double your energy. Every time you connect outside of your own skin, it feels good to invest in you, but it feels amazing to invest in other people. This is why humans, we talk, we listen. There's those energetic exchanges. And knowing that I was talking to you this morning, I wanted to set myself up powerfully. You know? So I did my breath work, I did my physicality, I did my barefoot walking, I gave my dog a big massage. You know, these things bring me so much joy. I did my prayers to the universal intelligence. These sorts of things allow me to then have the joy of interacting, investing, getting that energetic return. And no one can see it, but it just shows up in everything you do.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

That's true. It's something that that people can't see, but it's stuff that happens they don't see it doing it. But what's that quote?

SPEAKER_03 39:36

Remember you said, explain to me that quote. You wrote it down. You said it back to me. It's actually one of mine. About piss about piss? About performance. Oh. Where did your mind go? That's hilarious. But but we're talking about accessing an unseen part of you and how how it impacts performance. Do you remember that one?

SPEAKER_01 40:06

Yes, performance is a visible result of an invisible process.

SPEAKER_03 40:11

Yeah. And once people understand that it's only us that can access that invisible part of us, and we've got to, you know, value that the idea of self-love. And love without actions is dead. You gotta take those imperfect actions to in to show how much you value this thing that you have, and then connections naturally lead to more and more. And everyone will see your performance, but no one will see the invisible process behind that. And that's that's the thing that we can take a joyful responsibility of because that is us.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

That is very true. Tim, I'm curious how you came about understanding this about performance.

SPEAKER_03 41:06

So you can drink all you want during the daytime, which Amanda does a pretty good job of doing, but it's nighttime that your body hydrates. And so the saying we had in the army was P weight, ready to fight.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

It cracked me up. I've never heard it in my life. So I'd love to know if any of y'all listening have heard Tim's quote. Feel free to find me on social media and let me know.

SPEAKER_03 41:33

You'll find out how many Australian fans you've got, I think.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

Oh, it does come up when I type it in on Google.

SPEAKER_03 41:41

You must be real then, huh? You you're not talking to an AI.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Oh, Tim. You know, I also looked up clothes make the man. And it mentioned about how the outward appearance dictates first impression. You know, I do think outward appearance is even important for how we show up, though, as well. I think we show up, I believe we show up differently. If we feel better with how we look, I believe we show up differently.

SPEAKER_03 42:17

Well, it does lend itself to the idea that it takes energy to connect. And it does take a certain amount of energy to invest in your appearance. But I would also say that the same actions can be done from a very different state. Okay, so let's say I'm putting clothes on a certain way because I value myself. And I also want to connect with myself, but I also want to connect with others. I want them to feel like they can connect with me, and I'm not gonna have my clothes, you know, get in the way of that. But then there's somebody saying, Well, I don't feel valuable, I've got to cover myself in something valuable, and then when I look at others, that tells me I'm more valuable than them. And I can compare myself, I can give myself a false sense of value because I'm dressed better. So I'm just trying to say, again, this is where performance is a visible result of an invisible process. It's the invisible process, the state we're in, before we take those actions that make all the difference. Let's say two people are going to the gym. One person's going, you know what? I want to be an energetic millionaire. I want to, I value this thing that I have. I want to invest in it. And every time I, every rep, every step is an affirmation I value this. And every single rep I'm doing is improving me, and therefore it's improving everyone else. But it's got to start with me. I'm feeling more connection to myself, and the more connected I am to myself, the more connected I'm going to be to others. The other person is going, I don't like the look of me. I don't like the way my bum is. And I'm feeling like I can't connect to others. So then Go into the gym, every single step they take is them saying, Oh, I'm not happy with my bum. Oh, I'm not feeling adequate. And so the same action, same actions taken from a very different state, can have a very different outcome. So it's easy to get lost in the visible. It's rarer to hear people talk about the invisible process behind that. Because for years I did it wrong. I did all the actions, but I didn't have the right state. I had I could create a physical discipline of you know exercising regularly, but I still felt insufficient. I still felt inadequate. Because I wasn't actually doing it to affirm my worth. I was doing it because I felt like I needed, I still needed something. I wasn't doing it to celebrate life. I was doing it because I'd felt like I'd lost something and I had to get it back. But here's the thing: I've usually found we attract

Performance Comes From The Invisible

SPEAKER_03 45:28

people that agree with our sense of self-worth. So a fun little exercise I used to do with high school girls was say, guess what? I can tell you who you're gonna marry. They're like, Really? I'm like, Yeah. Think of something you care about, something you really care about. And I'd ask the group, and often I got this one girl saying, Oh, my iPad. She cares about her iPad. And I said, Okay, you really value that. She says, Yeah. And I said, So if someone just grabbed that and threw it on the ground and treated it disrespectfully, what would and they're inside your house, what would you say to them? Well, you would say, get out. Yeah, that's what she said, right? I'd tell them to get out. They're not supposed to be in my house disrespecting the stuff that I respect. And I said, Okay, let's say you had people in your house and they saw you disrespecting your iPad, throwing it on the ground. What would that give them permission to do? Well, it would give them permission to treat the things you care about with disrespect. Now, you were not saying anything when you're treating your iPad poorly, but everyone's picking up on that. And you are going to fill your house full of people that agree with how you treat your stuff. And also understanding that it is perfectly fine to put a boundary in because people who don't treat your stuff with the same respect you do, they don't belong in your house. But if people see you disrespecting your stuff, your house is going to be filled with people that do what you do, think what you think, agree with your sense of self-worth. And I said, it's out of that group of people that you're going to find the man you're going to marry. People are always watching us and seeing how we respect us, ourselves. One way we can do that is how we dress, how we carry ourselves, what we eat.

SPEAKER_01 47:38

I like that that example of the high school girls. How did you come up with that?

SPEAKER_03 47:46

Well, like I said, as a dyslexic, I see patterns, and I just saw something of high value in that space would be a relationship because it was an all-girl school that I was working with, right? And I was trying to have them, you know, do exercise with me, but do it in a healthy way. Don't do it because, oh, I'm unhappy with my bum, so I have to run up and down these steps. No, every step I take, I'm showing how much I value this body. And every step I take, everything I really want is coming closer to me. Because guess what? What I'm doing in the invisible is going to show up in the external world. I'm going to have people in my life that value me. But I have to affirm that. I have to prove that to myself. And that was one way I thought, well, high value thing, ah, relationship. How do I glue that into physical activity? How do I have the idea of body image? You can have the best of emotional and physical experiences. Doing it because I love this, doing it because every cent I invest in myself, I get $2 back. Doing it because my future is getting better with every single step. And we also talked about how completely useless it was to compare yourself to others. And that was a whole other process. This is where you get in charge of you. You water your own roots, you water your own soil. And the other side of it was academia. Because this it wasn't, it was an academic girls' school. So I really had to, my goal was to put as many powerful horses in front of the cart. Okay, so one was relationship, and we spoke about the person you're going to marry. They're going to agree with your sense of self-worth. One way we can show we we truly care about each other is investing in ourselves in a physical way. So know that going just because you got a you want to change the way your bum looks isn't actually creating a better future. Once your body starts moving, the muscles release oxygen and glucose. And that crosses your blood-brain barrier. And that oxygen and glucose coats your neural pathways and you function 25% better. Research shows that 20 minutes of cardiovascular in the morning improves your output by 25%. I think that's an underestimation, but that's still pretty good. Like if you think of doing a 10-hour day, you can do everything you want to do in what, 7.5 hours. All right. But also, there's something else that gets released when we exercise. Something called BDNF, brain-derived neurotropic factor. It's basically fertilizer for your brain. And so consider you might not know what your destiny is, but every time you work out, you're putting, you know, fertilizer into your soil so these dormant seeds can flourish. You might not know what you want to do, but every every drop of sweat that comes out of your body, you're pushing that which you truly are closer to the surface. And so it wasn't doing exercise for the sake of trying to fit in with everybody else, and everyone trying to be like the Queen Bee girl who's got the prettiest whatever. It was about laying hold, I would call it invisible architecture, but they would see, oh, if I really want these really cool things in my life, I want a really good relationship, I want a really good relationship with myself, my body, my mind, if I want to, you know, nourish all those dormant seeds of greatness, then if all I had to do was put one foot in front of the other, would I do it?

SPEAKER_01 52:14

As I tell my now 20-year-old daughter, it will all woke out if you just woke out. Have you always said that to her?

SPEAKER_03 52:26

Yeah. For me, the best legacy you can give your kids, and again, this is just Tim's perspective, you don't have to own any of it, is a healthy physical body. And I know that seems obvious, but there's so many things pulling it your time that that don't prioritize physical movement. And the world we live in, it's like our ancestors did too good a job. There's now no physically demanding things that we have to do anymore. You know, the new adventure sport is ordering Uber Eats. Right? So I know my kids aren't gonna do what I tell them necessarily, but they're gonna really take on what I do. So kids aren't inheriting just money, they're inheriting a nervous system. And I turned 53 this year, right? Just last month. And each year I do a version of the special forces selection test, which is, you know, there are certain fitness tests you need to, you know, do to be able to apply. And I always try and do a little measurement. And this year I invited my 21-year-old son and my 20-year-old daughter to do it with me. The good thing about adult kids is they don't have to spend time with you. So when they do, it's because they choose to. Right? And so my daughter, my son, we all took turns in doing the two-minute push-ups challenge, like how many push-ups you can do in two minutes to military standard. You had to lower your chest to about the height of a fist and then back up. And if you broke your position, if you lifted a hand or moved your feet, that was the end of the test. You had to stay in that sort of prone position, and you did as many as you could in two minutes, right? And there was push-ups, chin-ups, flexibility tests, like how far you can reach past your toes, and there was the beat test as well. It's like a how many times you can run back and forth in a set sort of cadence. And my kids got to see that what was actually possible at 53. And if I'm being if I without sort of blowing my own trumpet, my scores were actually higher than what they were when I was in the special forces. On the testing day of my 53rd birthday, they won't let you sleep the night before. They'll make you do a big workout before the test, and then they'll run these tests one after the other, one after the other, one after. So you're completely fatigued. So the minimum to get into special forces is 60 push-ups in two minutes, right? But if you couldn't do 85 push-ups in two minutes, the pre-fatigue they would give you wouldn't allow you to do 60. Does that make sense? Like the testing day was very different to, you know, when you could take time and have a rest in between. My son and daughter got to see what was possible as as a human in the world at 53. And the promise I've made to my unborn grandkids is that I'm not going to give them a bunch of money they didn't earn. I'm going to be their play equipment. They're going to know that before I go around their house, that Grandpa Tim is the guy that gets on the ground and plays with them. You know, that that's my next 25-year plan for physical investment. In a world where it's super hard to have a physical discipline, and the people that are promoting physical discipline out there are often putting all the negative horses in front of people's carts. You know, you've got to lose weight, you've got a certain type of bum. You can't be happy the way you are. How can you be happy the way you are? So it's not just the comfortable world we're in, it's the people that are in health and fitness. It's more like health and beauty. It's all visible stuff. No one's going into the invisible motor, which is like a thousand times more powerful than anything visible. And I will leave you just on the area of physicality, I'll leave you with this. So today is as young as you're ever gonna be. All right. Today is as young as we are ever gonna be. And should we let other people say what we can and can't do at a particular age? Because for me, my experience of aging as a 53-year-old man is there seems to be a group hypnosis on what is possible at a particular age, and people accept it without challenging it. I say, fuck you very much, I'm doing it my own way,

Self-Worth, Boundaries, And Who You Attract

SPEAKER_03 57:38

and I'll get people that agree with me, and I'll get keep people to hold me to that account. Because time and time again, Amanda, when my life was a shitstorm, it all worked out when it just worked out in so many ways, it was the only thing that made sense, and when I strayed from that sort of self-medication inside my own skin, I would medicate outside of my own skin. And and the consumer world we live in wants us to think that all the answers are outside of our own skin. Because once you discover how amazing we're built, once we discover it's not a set of lungs we have, it's a medicine cabinet with a lot of different shelves. That's when all that shit becomes redundant.

SPEAKER_01 58:29

Thank you, Tim. This was absolutely great. But I'm gonna ask you these again. I'm so curious if your answers have changed. Remember the Jay Shetty questions? You don't? Oh, you do? It's okay if you don't. Jay Shetty ends his podcast on purpose with two segments, and I have bowed them, and we end Meander's mindset with them. First segment is the many sides to us. Five questions, and they need to be answered in one word each.

SPEAKER_03 59:04

Okay, so just give me a second, I'm gonna reset my body because I've been sitting.

SPEAKER_04 59:08

I want to bring everything. Actually, getting a bit hot in here. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 59:19

Did your tank top say breath work in bed? Yes, it does. That is cool. Love the branding. First question, and it can be answered in one word. What is one word someone who was meeting you for the first time would use to describe you as?

SPEAKER_04 59:41

Loud.

SPEAKER_01 59:43

What is one word someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you as? What is one word you'd use to describe yourself?

SPEAKER_04 59:57

Happy.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:16

Second segment is the final five, and they can be answered in a sentence. What is the best advice you've heard or received?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:27

If you can control your breath, you can control everything.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:31

Why is that the best?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:34

Because it's true. And it's so easily accessed.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

What is the worst advice you've heard or received?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:44

I've done this a few times, like take more actions. It occurs like this. Take more unaligned actions. Do this course, do this program, buy this product. To fix a problem, you've got to do more, do more. I've done that so much thinking, oh, uh that makes sense to me. I've, you know, if I want more, I've got to do more. But they're just unaligned actions. No one actually went on the inside and did the invisible work and then said, okay, let's take action once you're in line with it. It's more a case of how do you climb that ladder? Let's do a ladder climbing course, you know, but the ladder's leading up against the wrong wall. Yeah, it doesn't matter the actions that are taken, if they're not aligned, it's a matter of time before it all just falls over. Or you simply just don't get what you intended, you know. So that's come in a lot of different forms. I've wasted a lot of time, a lot of money on courses, on sets of actions that no one simply asked the question: Is this deeply aligned with everything that Tim is?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:00

What is something that you used to value that you no longer value?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:06

I had a trophy room full of surprise, surprise trophies from my fight career. And I got rid of them all. I kept like these big trophies, and I'd have like little badges on them. I took the badge off. So a whole trophy room, all the badges fit in an envelope. So I kept the envelope, but I didn't need the trophies because I saw that it wasn't the best thing about that event wasn't the trophy, wasn't winning the tournament. The best thing about that event was having a goal that I could aim for that improved all these parts of me. You know, and it was easy for me to create a bit of a comfort zone by looking at those trophies, going, yeah, Tim, you used to be a contender, you know. So yeah, I've literally thrown out all these trophies, all those sort of awards, they're no longer a thing. I've seen too many people, they've lost their edge or their self-investment, and they just look at this trophy going, yeah, look at that. I was awesome once. The amount of people that tell me, yeah, I used to be fit, and I'm like people saying that is like a a moldy piece of bread saying, I used to be fresh, and it doesn't have to be as hard as it used to be, you know, and you can do something that's easy, effortless, and comfortable a lot longer than you can do something that's hard, effortful, and uncomfortable. And so if anyone's listening to this and they're thinking of getting active, the best advice I can give you is think about what you want to do physically. Let's just say, for example, you wanted to walk two kilometers every morning. Well, whatever that is, or it could be five, ten, whatever, cut it in half and take 20% off. So the point is, every time you do a workout, you leave it thinking, man, I could have done more. Because that creates momentum for the next workout. And it's not about doing 10 workouts at 100%, it's about doing a thousand workouts at 60%. Because the hardest thing about working out isn't the workout, it's organizing your life so you can actually do it. And if you're doing something that's hard, effortful, uncomfortable, then before you even do it, you're like, oh, I'm not sure if I want to do this. You know what? I'm busy, I'll do that. Okay, we talk ourselves out of something that's hard, uncomfortable. But if you start easy, effortless, and oh, that was so easy. I should, I feel like I should have done more. If you can leave each workout for the first three or four months thinking, you know, I can bleed from the eyeballs in six months, but I'm just gonna take it super easy now. That is how we get to the six months. That's how we get to the 12 months, that's how we how you know it becomes a thing, and it can enroll others into that space with you. Don't expect them, like you do it for you, and you'll be surprised. Once you do it for you, other people see that connection and they'll join you. But it's shown that if you can work out with somebody else or do a physical discipline with somebody else, then the amount of dopamine you get is doubled. So it's like double the reward with less effort. And if you can get these investments where oh, I've given $20, but I've got $2,000 back, huh? There's something in that. You know? So I just I wanted to share that so you're not hearing some jock who's giving experience from fitness that is unattainable. I lifted up my shirt right now, you would see strapping around my back. I don't have a lot of cartilage. So chronic pain was one of those things that I've had to physically work through. I could have very easily, you know, been a guy that was very unfit, not moving. All the doctor says you're Running days are over, right? And I'm like, bullshit. And I just found a way to gently, easily, and effortlessly move forward. So if anyone's thinking of a physical discipline, easy and effortless. But just keep turning it up. Because that that workout will never will always incrementally, you know, increase.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:49

If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone was reading it, what would you want it to say?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:00

He helped me move forward.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:05

If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:17

That workplaces and governments were measured. The success of workplaces and governments was measured on the quality sleep of the people they govern. So governments can say, you know, I'm building roads, I'm balancing budget, but other people you govern sleeping peacefully in their beds at night. So I would have governance around quality of sleep within workplaces. Sleep is very measurable. You might be doing great things, but if your people aren't sleeping, then you are failing in your leadership role. So prioritizing sleep, I would have a law that people would do, and again, just saying a law, there's people that go, if it's a law, I wouldn't do it, right? But just imagine a country where everybody did five or ten minutes of breath work before sleep. What do you think would happen in that country? Well, that country would probably be sleeping a whole lot better, have far less pain in their bodies, breath work is anti-inflammatory. Their REM cycles would allow them to flush all the toxins out of their brain, so they're functioning so much better, they're living longer, they're more connected to themselves, they're more connected to others. There's more leptin in their system, so they're feeling satiated. They don't have as much gruelin, which is created when you're not sleeping well, which makes you eat more, makes you consume more. A good night's sleep creates sovereign boundaries. Conversely, if you're really tired and crappy, anything can piss you off. You know? But if you're rested, connected, someone can flick you off. That's them, that ain't me. So yeah. A country where everyone did five to ten minutes breathwork before sleep, they would have advantages that other countries wouldn't. In Australia alone, it's like a $70 billion problem. So just let me break this down. Sleep poor employees take nearly twice as many sick days. And it's not just absenteeism, it's presented. When you turn up to work, even if and you haven't slept well, you can be 30 to 40 percent less productive. Workplace accidents increase. People get tested for you know drugs and alcohol before they drive. But how many people are getting tested for fatigue? So there's a lot of metrics that do back up the need for quality sleep. But and that's great when I'm talking to corporates, but when it comes to people creating a new habit, usually it's driven by the pain of not being able to sleep well, waking up feeling crappy, the crappy feeling follows you around, you eat more, you drink more, you're harder to be around. Or if you're like me, it's the only thing that can give you peace in a war zone, and the idea that something inside of you can give you genuine peace, that's a very rare message in this world.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:02

I want to acknowledge everybody who listened all the way through.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:08

If there was something in you that was getting stirred, there's a reason for it, and I would ask you not to ignore that. And I would recommend perhaps listening or watching this again, and you might find the thing that you felt stirred

Final Five On Action And Sleep

SPEAKER_03 1:11:29

actually expanded upon. Not so much because of the words Amanda and I are saying, what Amanda and I are doing right now is we're having an authentic interaction, and that's so rare these days, there's no agendas here. And when humans become authentic, it's like this fire gets lit, and no matter what angle you're sitting on, you get some kind of warmth from it. It starts putting blood into places that really need it. So if you felt something stirred inside of you, take some time to let it in, and then listen again to the podcast, and you might find that place inside of you actually expanded even more. And just for the second time you watch it, have a pen and paper ready so you can jot down not just what comes to you, but the actions that you can take in the real world because it is about accessing the invisible, but then putting it into the visible.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:39

Seeds of greatness are great, but laying dormant, nobody sees them.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:47

So, what I'm hoping is that you know, this conversation has watered those seeds of greatness, and there's something in you that wants to push to the surface. And listening to this a second time with a notepad and pen will potentially give you a massive breakthrough.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:11

Thank you so much again, Tim. I truly appreciate your time. And thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Me and Does Mindset. Thank you so much for tuning in to that episode with Tim and I. This conversation really shifted me. And one thing that really stuck with me from this conversation was when Tim shared performance is a visible result of an invisible process. I'm gonna say that one more time. Performance is a visible result of an invisible process. The more I sat with that, the more I realized how true it is. We often look at someone's success, confidence, relationships, career, health, or happiness, and we only see the visible result. We don't see the early mornings, the difficult conversations, the therapy sessions, the breath work, the journaling, the tears, the setbacks, or the countless small decisions they made when no one was watching. The invisible process is where everything begins. This made me ask myself, what invisible investments am I making each day? Not because someone will notice them tomorrow, but because I know they'll shape who I become over time. Maybe for you that invisible investment is taking five minutes to breathe before your day begins. Maybe it's finally going for that walk you've been putting off. Maybe it's choosing to have the difficult conversation instead of avoiding it. Maybe it's asking for help. Or maybe it's simply taking one imperfect action forward. Because that's something else I loved about this conversation. Progress doesn't come from waiting until everything is perfectly figured out. It comes from taking the next step, even when it feels messy. And especially when it feels messy. So as you move through this week, instead of asking yourself how do I get better results, maybe ask yourself what invisible process am I investing in today? Because one day someone will see your confidence, your peace, your resilience, or your success, but they'll never fully see everything it took to get there. You will know. And that's enough. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Meander's Mindset. If this conversation resonated with you, I would love to hear what stood out for you the most. Feel free to send me a message on social media or share this episode with someone who could use the reminder that the small things we consistently do often become the biggest things that change our lives forever. Thanks guys. Until next time. Keep breathing, keep shifting, and remember, everything is figure-outable. In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you. I'm voting for you. And you got them. As always, if you enjoyed this stuff, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five style rating. Leave a review. And still with anyone who thinks is benefit from that. And don't do that. You are only one mindset left away. Until next time.