The thing that surprised me the most, and I didn't see it coming, One Point

Health. A big allied health company in Sydney, they do all sorts

of allied health stuff, podiatry, physio. Every year they

run an event called Boys' Night In, and they said, hey, we want you to

come down, speak at this event. There was another bloke there that you might have

put on the spot a little bit. John. You know, he's not a well-known BA character

Welcome to the Better Bloke Podcast. I'm Matty. I'm Rob. And

we're just a pair of average blokes on a mission to try and be a

We're going to speak about all things highs and lows of what it feels like to be a bloke,

plus speak to some legends along the way about what it takes to be a better bloke. Let's

It's been three months of the Better Bloke Project and we've done all sorts of

events. We've done an awful lot of podcasts already. We're finding our

feet as being charity people,

Finding our feet is a little bit far for

me, I still think. We're tripping with success, I

think is a good way to put it. The ball is rolling. It's definitely rolling. It's

snowballing, I would almost say. Yeah. There's been a

lot of little successes lately. Do you want to talk or

actually before we talk on that, how are you finding it?

How am I finding it? Yeah. I think expectation on

what was going to happen was hard. And we spoke about that in the very first episode.

Obviously we have Bloke's advice. Yep. So we knew we

weren't going in cold to this. There's a really big audience and

we know they care about this kind of stuff we're doing with the men's health. They

care about community. They care about pretty much everything

that the Better Bloke project was going to embody. But

it's a new thing. It's, it's an awful lot of people to try and educate

on what this new thing is. And it's different. So

Yeah. I didn't want to be like, Oh, great. We're going to have a hundred thousand followers in

a month because it's so different. That wasn't going to happen. So

I guess I tried to tame my expectations of what

was going to happen and seeing the organic sort of

growth and the translation of the blokes advice people into,

you know, followers and people engaging with better bloke has

probably been better than I thought. Like it's

not blowing up. It's not the biggest thing in the world, but it's consistent and

there's enough people understanding the mission of

Yeah, it feels really good. And I think what, what

I sort of went into it with is exactly like you. So we both really spoke

about this in depth a lot before doing it, as

you do when you're planning, um, that we

weren't even sure with expectations as to what we sort of wanted to slow progression

through this. So we could find our feet, you know, build

it as we were going, because it is such a new space for us, but it

it's, the amount of support that we've had sort of exceeding my expectation, which

makes me happy that we are on the right track. But I don't

know. It's just a, it's, it's a funny thing

to be fumbling our way through. I almost say

fumbling because we are doing very well and we're, I would say we're

I think we are educated. Yeah. We've come off the back of eight years

of doing bloke stuff. We know the

space, like we're not experts in the sense of being a

psychologist or being a, you know, professional, whatever. But

eight years is more than a bachelor's degree. Would you say we're blokeologists? Blokeologists?

I mean, yeah, look, local blokes in your area might

Blokes Advice on Google actually ranks for blokes on blokes. Does

it? Yeah. So if you Google blokes on blokes, we will be in those. And

they're going to get a shock because it's not what they're looking for. I mean,

it might be. Could be. The

thing that's probably surprised me the most, and I didn't see it coming, was

the outreach from some people. Not a lot, but

people I didn't expect. So we're

putting out our story, our mission. The podcast is

a main way of getting that out, and we're sharing stuff into Blokes

Advice. We're doing the stories that are coming out

of blokes helping blokes. But then there's been

a few random people that have reached out and said, hey, we're doing this

thing, or we want to get you involved in this. We love what you're

doing. We'd love to somehow get you

and the community involved. And every time that happens, like

I had a phone call with a girl this week, say girl like

she's in her 50s, she's been through a hell of a lot of stuff herself, she's

involved with some motorcycle groups and I mean

they do charity stuff, they do rides, they do community get-togethers. She's

like how can we get you involved? They're over in Perth or Rockingham. I'm

like How did someone like that get

to us so quickly? And I think that's the bit that's most

No, I think we're still just warming up. We haven't actually knocked it

into gear yet, and it's already reaching these people. And that demographic there

is exactly, I think we spoke about it early on in the piece, that

that's who we want to reach. They're these groups of people

that... I guess most people looking from

the outside in would go, You know, we're not going to worry about them having

to talk or everyone goes through shit, man. So it's

unreal that we're, we've reaching sort of,

I don't know, like motorcycle clubs. Like, you know, they

want to reach out to us and go, Hey, we're going to do this. We want to support what you're doing. They're

obviously open to talking about shit and they've been through some shit that's

essentially hitting the nail on the head with who we're trying to target. And it's, it's

working. So I'm. I'm stoked that we're hitting those people.

It's unreal. It's so sick, man. So obviously, we've had that we've had country

pubs, speaking to a guy that does like a, like

a putting green competition every year on his lawn, like that

there's so many cool people doing cool things, because they

care. They understand everyone goes through a shit time, like

we're all trying to live a good life. But you

know, there is cancer, there is divorce, there

is family problems, there is losing your

job. There's so many monumental things that can just shake

So, you know, we're all doing a tough, but we're doing a tough together and

enough people in that boat where they're trying to band together to do it.

And one of the people that reached out was one point health. Yep.

So a big, uh, allied health company in Sydney, they

do pretty much all sorts of allied health staff, podiatry,

physio, all that stuff. And every

year they run an event called boys night in, which is essentially a

get together of boys to talk about man stuff. They do a female one

as well. It's all around breast cancer and that sort of stuff. And,

you know, they found us and they said, Hey, we want you to come down

and speak at this event. keynote

We were not. And now we are. How did

that feel to happen so quickly to be like, all right, we're flying interstate.

We're talking on men's health, something that you probably don't

Definitely not. So I definitely do not call myself an expert in

that space. And we'll We'll

sort of talk about how we feel it went, because we spoke about

it. And I feel

like we worked together very well.

You obviously are a very good speaker in that setting. I'm

very good at engaging people. So I think between the

I think the playoff was good. Like you said, your crowd

work was awesome. And we got a lot of, like

the company itself was like, that was sick. We've never seen that in all these

years. The crowds never got so involved. And that really opened

up connection between them. But yeah,

I talked my shit on some of my topics that I go

off on and you chimed in with your points

No, no, no. We like, we crushed it. I think.

Yeah. Well, everyone was happy and it was really good. Obviously like, you know,

as we do this more, we'll get better and better. But the response that

we got from the boys was almost

unexpected because you imagine we do everything online. Like

we do podcasts, we talk to guys in the inbox, we post on

our social media pages. But to

have this face to face, like I remember there was one guy and

I was just looking at him the whole time. He was getting teary

eyed and I'm talking on my staff and I'm like, oh,

this is, this hits different. And then them coming up afterwards

That, that was what I loved. like that, speaking with the boys

in person and actually, I don't

know, you get to have yarns face to face. That

definitely hits different. Sitting up in front of people, speaking

to a room full of boys, that's

going to take some getting used to. I'm not a bad speaker, but

I don't know, I definitely The

boys that spoke before us, some very, very impressive

men, very impressive men with impressive stories. And

then we got up and I somewhat

felt like an imposter. I know what we're

doing is unreal, but like, I haven't done shit. So

like, what, what do we, I don't know. How did you feel getting up there?

I think it's natural to have that imposter syndrome to

a degree. I pretty much am

very aware of what we're doing here. And I knew like who was going to

be speaking, like there's lawyers, there's psychologists. There

was this one bloke who is like the performance coach

for the all Blacks, like been doing it for 40 years, resume

on him like you wouldn't believe, won the New Zealand bravery medal of

honor. Like this dude had a resume. and

he spoke well, his whole thing is getting in

front of the toughest men on the planet and putting them in

the right mindset. I

saw him, I'm like, oh shit, like this is going to

be tough. But then I reflected on, okay, what are we

doing here? Because while you and I may

not have a personal list of achievements and goals that

can compete with 40 years of being at the top of a certain industry, what

we're doing is it has merit. Blokes

Advice itself running that, that's, it's

a big thing. And we saw that in the Q and A after, we can get into that.

But I think we need to take some

pride and acknowledge what we have done to

Which we definitely have done some unreal things. There's

no denying that. And what we're doing now, I

feel like we're trying to build something that many people

are going to look back on and go, shit, that's impressive. Like these

boys did that. But to have such

an experience so early on made me just go, oh

shit, this is cool. But

not so much, are we ready? Cause we obviously were ready. spoke

about it a lot. And we know what our delivery is. We know how

to talk to people. We know how to do all that. But

I think, yeah, just hearing, hearing everyone else's stories that

made me go like, Oh, should

we be standing up here talking with this? And I think the, the engagement that

we had afterwards sort of, it sort of made me feel better going,

okay, shit, like these boys in this room have

just listened to us do this. And everyone got up and, you know, they

were getting engaged afterwards and doing their thing, that

made me sort of, I don't know, wind it back and go, okay,

Yeah. We're supposed to be here. And that was something that I got from the event because

like we, we don't get a lot of acknowledgement for it really. Like

we, we sort of put out our clips and you know, there'll be some comments on

whatever we're talking about, but no one's telling

you, Hey, what you're doing is good. But not that

often anyway. No. So it was good

to have that and be like, okay, shit, I think we're on the right track here. But

it's just going to snowball and get bigger and bigger. And we just got to stand

strong in that we do have authority because we have been doing this for so long.

and that we're doing the right thing. Like this is coming from a

good place. Like what we're doing is, is

having more of a positive impact than anything

else that we've done. And I fucking love that.

Yeah. I feel like it's sort of, well, you and I spoke about it afterwards

and the amount of purpose

that it gives, well, I know both of us, but

like myself particularly, cause I can feel it. It's just, it's

this driving force that, makes all

the extra hours of everything that we're doing so much worth it.

But I don't know, it's, there's

something else, something else there that I just, I don't know, you don't really do this for,

you know, no one giving you merit behind this or, you know, like, Oh, you're doing a great job,

boys. It's, it's something in here that

Yeah, I can't speak for you, but for myself, a

large driving factor of why I'm doing this is

the responsibility on my shoulders from having

blokes advice, having so many men needing something.

And this came up in the Q&A. After we

spoke, we got all these questions on, oh, you

know, you have all these people, why don't you do it this way? Or why can't you do this?

And why can't you do this? And they were genuinely like,

you have such a good thing going. How

can you do it better? And I'm like, that's

what better bloke is. I'm trying, like, we're just a couple guys behind

computer screens at the moment. Like, it's not like we can suddenly

No. And that, that's the big thing is that. Like

we don't have an endless supply of money to be able to go

bang, bang, bang. Let's, let's go do this now. Let's go

do this now. Like we, we're,

we're just a couple of guys trying to make a change. And I

feel like there's, I

don't want to say pressure, but sort

of is pressure. Or maybe not pressure, an expectation may

I think it's, we are slowly building to it, but the thing is we can't

build too quickly or else it, like

what we can do quickly becomes too

much. And that, that was something we spoke about earlier on. We don't want that

at all. We want to be able to go in a hundred percent, do as much as we can

in our own capacity, but. Yeah,

Yeah. And it's hard for them because they don't quite gauge where we're at.

And I think like we can just be honest about sort of where we're

at, is that this whole situation is

pretty much funded from us or from BA. But

like, people might have the wrong idea about how

much money's coming in there. Like they, they

think it's not, they think it's this crazy, crazy

thing, but it's literally like a dude packing in a garage. Um,

and then we, we joked the other day on the finance episode about like, we're

good for donations, but we haven't asked for any donations. We

really want to get this thing up and running and show you

what we're capable of doing before going out to

the boys or to whoever it is. Lucky One Point

Health did chip in. We've obviously just done the tinny giveaway

as well, which got a little bit more in. And a pub

down in South Australia was nice enough to help us out with a little

raffle thing they did. And really those funds, all

it's being spent on is getting you and I to an event. There's

Barbecues, like all, all that weird. I think that's the biggest thing

where when, when

you're putting on barbecues and, you know, creating a space

for boys to talk and, you know, like bring their families along.

Cause obviously we want this to be like a full family situation

with Better Bloke because, you know, part of being a better bloke is involving

everyone around you that loves you. Um, like

shit costs money, man. So like. When

you buy in a bunch of snags and some, you know, soft drinks and water for the boys, it

adds up quick. So I think that's the,

it's good that, you know, we've got like

all those guys that you mentioned jumping on early and we haven't asked just yet, but.

Like there's only so much we can do when, you know, we're

funding it ourselves along with some help from some unreal communities.

Yeah. So we're working our ass off on it, but between

these events that have already happened and you would have seen them all on

the socials, there's going to be a shitload more. Like the next six months,

we really are going to put the gas down. And at

some point, yeah, like we're going to need to, raise a

bit of funds to do it. But at this stage, man, we're just grinding. And

I think, I think that's the way to do it. Like, I want people

to see, like, we're in it for the right reasons and we're doing the right stuff. So.

So, which is, and it's sort of, I don't know if

it's too early to talk on this or not, but like, we've had, had a

few guys reach out to us saying, Hey, you know, like we, we

want to donate, we've tried donating money to, you know, like all these other mobs

and they're getting turned away from it. Yeah. That's wild. And

these are big mobs that they're doing unreal shit,

but they're turning away donations. Like,

fuck, come on. I'm definitely

not going to do that. We've seen how much stuff costs and how much we can do small

This happened a few years ago with Bloke's Advice. We raised a bunch of

money and tried to give over $20,000 or

$25,000 to one of the big charities. And it won't say who they are,

but they said, we're not taking it. We can't do the affiliation with

you. So they said no to $20,000. Like

Like that's a big donation. So yeah, it just,

it blows my mind. And back then I was like, oh, when they

did that, I was a little bit filthy because everyone, Everyone still

speaks about these guys. And it,

I don't know, it sort of makes you, it puts it into perspective that

how big they may be. And like, obviously they're doing great things. There's no denying

the good shit that a lot of these other people are doing. But to be turning

away donations, just, I

don't know how the fuck they're doing it. Yeah, it's strange. Especially

when someone's gone out of their way to raise those funds. It's

not an easy feat, raising funds, and usually it comes with people doing some

incredible shit to do that, to then be told, no,

That's probably enough donation chat. I just wanted to go over that because after

those guys asking those questions, If anyone's thinking

like, Oh, why aren't you doing more? Like we just got jobs. Like

there's so much to it. It's a building process, but we're

trying our fucking hardest to get this thing going. And

we will, we will get a moving in the next couple of months. It's a marathon, not

a sprint. Yeah. All right. What else? So, other

events we got on. So, you mentioned the barbecue thing already. Yep. So, that's

happening in a couple days time. By the time this comes out, it will have already

happened. Yes. We ran our first mental health event maybe

two months ago now and it was a pretty heavy one.

It was on mental health pathways. We got a psychologist in and

It was a heavy time, to be honest. Um, it was cool. It was

powerful for the boys that came, but it wasn't appealing to

everyone. So we're going on the other side of the spectrum and

going off the Sydney event. We want to get people off the screens to

meet in real life. Maybe you meet some new mates, maybe you have some chats

you wouldn't have had. That's the goal of this

Look, I won't take all the credit for that. You can. I

can, but that, this was definitely something that like

the, the missus brought this to me, the bit like, you know, getting the family involved in that

where usually I would have just been like, Oh, let's just get a bunch of boys together. We'll have

a barbecue, kick the footy around. And then. The

missus and I were talking about it and she was like, Oh, look, why don't

you make it a family event? Like, you know, it's a weekend guys have been at work all

week. Maybe they don't want to be away from their kids and all that. And I

went, fuck. Yeah, that's it. That's a great idea. So

hence the family friendly event. And

like we've said so many times, like we're not against

women getting around us. Like the more women that get around us,

the more partners, the more wives, all that, like it only

helps our message go along that much

further. So family event, get some boys together,

get some kids together, get the missus talking, do

all that. creating a community out in the real

It's going to be sick. And stay tuned to the Facebook page. That's where

all the events go up and also on the email list. Because by the

time this comes out, the next ones will be up. And every time we do it,

we get messages saying, oh, I wish I knew about this or when are you

doing one in Sydney or Melbourne or Adelaide, whatever. So we're

Stay tuned to the pages and we'll do our best to make sure everyone finds

out beforehand. Alright, what else can we

I want to jump back to One Point Health and

just speak about that night where

a friend of the show and a friend of Blokes Advice got

a speaking gig there, Mr. Dane, he was

on a couple of weeks ago, and That

was his first time, other than sitting down with us, having a chat

that he got up in front of a crowded room full of people and had

Yeah. So Dane came on a few, few weeks ago. He's

a guy that lost 154 kilos, massive player

in the BA scene. Like he puts up his progression shots. Everyone knows

And watching him inspire a room full of boys in

person. something special, like that was something else.

And speaking to him beforehand, like he was nervous

as shit, which I mean, everyone,

when you're getting up for the first time of speaking, I mean, you can get up a thousand times and

still be nervous, which is good because it means that, you

know, it means it means something to you if you're feeling nerves. The second you're not

feeling nerves, you're like, eh, you're just going through the motions. But he

got up and I thought we were at

a Magic Mike gig. He ripped his shirt

And he didn't know he was going to do that. No. So that wasn't in the

plan. I think his missus was at the back of the room going like, holy shit.

And I had a little bit of a tear because I'm like, This

man has come from having no self-esteem, no self-worth

to building himself up into like such

a fucking inspirational character to the point where he's

in front of a hundred people in a room and he ripped

his shirt off and hit bodybuilding poses. I'm like,

Yeah. It was, it was magic. And like, I just want to give a

big shout out today and look right down the barrel of the camera and

say, I am fucking proud of you. Cause that like, that

took some major balls from him to do that. And just

to, just to be along with him this journey.

And I mean, we, we're the Better Bloke Project. He

is embodying every single fucking thing of

the Better Bloke Project. And it's, I know it's so good

to sort of be able to help him, I don't know, get

his message out to the world, which obviously we're, we're doing, which makes me feel

like, fuck yeah. Like we're doing some cool shit too. So I.

Shout out's Dane. He's almost a bit of a poster boy

for BA and BB. So yeah, that's good. There was

another bloke there that you, you might've put on the spot a little bit. John.

He's not, you know, he's not a well-known BA character or

anything like that. Um, but he came along to that event and

So. Well, we got there and

then obviously John came up to us and he said, G'day and We met him,

had a bit of a chat and like unreal bloke, like such a nice bloke. And

obviously everyone spoke before us. And this sort of goes back to that bit of imposter syndrome

that, that I was definitely feeling up there, listening to

all these guys tell their stories that like, they've just done these magnificent things.

And I, I think I sort of hit you a bit, bit

randomly with it. Cause I think it wasn't something that we discussed, but I went, you

know, fuck it, I'm going to go out on a limb here. And I just looked out at the

crowd and I went. You know, we've heard some good stories. Everyone

up here's done some cool shit. I

didn't want everyone else in the crowd to feel like they hadn't, didn't

have a story to tell. So I just put it out to them. I went, who

out in the crowd has a story to tell? And it

Yep. And then. Our

mate put his hand up and he stood up in front of a

room of a hundred people and told his story. And

it was fucking incredible. Like it was powerful. It was so

powerful. And it, I

don't know, it just, it hit different with like, obviously

everyone's standing at the front of the room doing their thing, talking. It's sort of,

you expect that. But when someone from the

crowd gets up and tells their story, like, It hit

different and I just want to give him a big shout out

and say again how fucking proud I am and like the

Yeah, we won't repeat what he said, because obviously, personally, I

was in that space. But it was some heavy stuff,

and there was a lot of bravery in him getting up to do that on the spot. And

every single person in that room knew, right? And

it changed the tone of how the crowd was

interacting with each other, because they saw him take that

little leap of faith, man up, grow a

set, whatever you want to call it. He put

himself out there. He had a moment of vulnerability and

it was non-judgy. It was anything people were holding

him in high regard for doing so. See vulnerability, it's still such

a yuck word. There's power in vulnerability. Like

it's one of the words that might have a stigma against it.

No, I don't think it means you're weak. It's just. I

You're still dealing with toxic masculinity and Australian bloke culture.

Nah, look, we've had a great chat so far, let's not

get cancelled. With, you know, how the climate is at the moment in

No deflection, I just don't like the word vulnerability. It's as simple as

But, okay, so pretty much, yeah, his

His ability to be courageous and stand up and speak was

inspiring. Beautiful. Same thing,

And on that note, I think we can sign this one out. So all

these events, they're going to be on our Facebook page and they're going to go out by the email

newsletter. So don't miss any of the events we're doing. Make sure you're signed

up and you're checking that page, checking the stories. That's how you're going to find

out about them. We don't want to hear from anyone that you missed out because you didn't know

And with the events that we are posting, when we share

them, Hit interested so you're up to date, but

if you're definitely attending, please click going because

it makes it very, very hard with numbers if we don't have the exact

Yeah, the Brisbane event we're about to do, I think there's

20 people say they're going, but there's like 300 people

that says they're interested and we need to buy snags. So

Luckily it's local. There's a couple of good local boys that, you

know, we've, we've clued up and we're like, Hey, we may need to run back down

if need be. So we've, we've got our

bases covered there, but obviously once we start doing interstate stuff, we're

not going to have the networks that we have outside of our local area. We're

going to need to get some, some more specific numbers. And obviously, like,

like we said, we're, we're still learning all this. This

is a. not as new space for us now, but

it is somewhat new. So yeah, definitely get around the

socials, Facebook, Instagram, sign

up to the newsletter. That's probably the best way to do it actually, because that way then they're hearing

Yeah. We'll be back next week with guests for

the next couple of them. So the guest thing's been cool as well, and