00:00
If you're old enough to remember when phones had cords and the only thing that went viral was a cold, then you're in the right place. Welcome to the Big Six-O with Kaylee Harris and Guy Rawlison. Because who better to discuss life's second act than two people who still think mature is a type of cheese.

00:35
Well, welcome to the Big Six podcast. It's great to have your company. And if you're joining us for the first time, welcome and a big hello also to our regular listeners. We really appreciate your support as always.  Now joining us this week.

00:47
on the podcast is Warren Davies, has the title, The Unbreakable Farmer. Now, Warren is a father of five. He's a grandfather as well, and he's a mental health advocate, particularly for rural communities. But his message resonates across all geographics and all demographics, which is why we wanted to have a chat to him as well today. Warren grew up in Melbourne. I'm going to give you a bit of his background. He grew up in Melbourne and then in his mid teens, his parents moved to a farm in regional Victoria.

01:17
Warren wasn't doing too well at school, so in year nine, following a discussion with the teachers, it was decided that it was best for Warren to leave school  and he went into farming, which is amazing, coming from a city boy growing up in a milk bar in Melbourne to a farm out in a regional area.  And then that culminated in the purchase of his first farm.

01:38
200 acres when he was about 22. Now I've just crammed a whole lot of your life in there.  But I just wanted to sort of paint a bit of a picture. Warren, hello. G'day, how are you?  Thank you so much for being with us.  The story that I've just told about you growing up, is there anything you would like to  add to that? Because there was some really poignant moments in that  time when you talk about  you were bullied at school. Yeah. And  that point where you moved out to the farm.

02:08
to when you bought your first farm. Tell us about that. Well, was  growing up in Melbourne as  mum and dad were small business owners. So we moved around a fair bit.  I think one of the things in hindsight that I now realise is that  I struggled with my mental health from an early age.  And that was around self-esteem  and  anxiety, I suppose.

02:33
Did you realise at the time you were struggling with it though? Look,  now in hindsight I do but at the time though it just felt like it was,  you know, I wasn't, it wasn't something that stood out but I now realise when there's a few things that pop up in my mind where I can remember one day mum dropping me off at the post office to  post some letters for her and I got to the door of the post office, froze, turned around and went back to the car and said they haven't got any stamps today to mum.

03:02
because I was the, and that's the anxiety that was,  and that low self-esteem of not having, know, so that was  something that was present, didn't really acknowledge. And I think that forms a really,  underlying  theme to my story for the rest of my life is  probably not acknowledging, understanding or sticking my hand up and asking for help. So  that bullying at school really had an impact on my mental health and wellbeing and that low self-esteem and anxiety all just built up.  So when mum and dad moved,

03:32
from we moved from the city  it was like a way of reinventing myself  but I always had an attraction to agriculture because we had friends that were dairy farmers down in Gippsland in Victoria. Mum had an uncle who was a dairy farmer in Northern Victoria. We always spent time school holidays  you know and I spent a lot of time down there on weekends and school holidays. I love farming but farming to me at that stage was  more about slug guns tractors and motorbikes.

04:01
that wasn't about cows or anything like that.  But that ended up being one of the loves of my life. As a kid,  was it apparent to you that you had problems with anxiety? Or are these things that sort of came to you later in life and you look back and say, oh my gosh,  I didn't realise? Yeah, probably. I was always that odd kid out.  And that's one of the other things that I identified later on. And it was actually when I...

04:28
did my speaker course when we unpacked our stories and  now I look back and yeah, I was always that odd kid out but that was probably one of the things that was holding me back was that anxiety because I, you know, either didn't feel worthy or didn't, you know,  fit in with that group or whatever it was.  So it's something in hindsight I look back but definitely that anxiety, you know,  it's a perfect example of taking my  youngest daughter back to where I went to school.

04:57
During COVID, we had a  break in a lockdown, so we  snuck down to Melbourne to see two of our other kids and we did a bit of a tour where I grew up. And  I went to the school and I had, we walked up to the gates of this quadrangle at the school and I had  a physical reaction. It was like someone had stuck a handful of rusty nails in my mouth. It was like a metallic taste in my mouth because it was,  I hadn't been back there since I'd left that school.

05:25
And just walking up to those gates was enough to go,  oh yeah, this is the place kind of thing. it was,  and so now realizing all those things, was a pretty challenging time and  moving to the country was fantastic though. It was a  way of reinventing myself, but yeah, as you said, I was struggling at school.  So you moved to the country, life is good.  You're living on a farm with your folks, playing in the local footy team.  You managed to get some friends around you and a girlfriend.

05:55
then I love how you say this, Mother Nature, your silent business partner, intervenes  and I'm sure everyone on the land can agree with what you say there and things turn sour, what happened? Yeah, so Mother Nature threw me a few curve balls, wasn't expecting that. So as  a naive 22 year old going into a farming business with mum and dad, know,  family businesses can have their ups and downs.  Yeah, went into

06:23
business with the bank as well because they lent me the money. But obviously my silent business partner as I say is Mother Nature and I didn't really pay her enough respect or understood the full ramifications of her  curve balls that she could throw. So  when those curve balls started coming at me that underlying theme to my story started to appear. Well the first  actual occasion was a flood and

06:49
the way I described that is everything that I dealt with as a kid or didn't deal with as a kid all just literally come flooding back. And it created like this cloud above my head. And  then that underlying theme of not asking for help started to appear. So I didn't ask for help. I just thought, well, I'm a farmer, I'm a male,  I'm tough. I've got to just pick myself up and dust myself off  and show true resilience.

07:17
And I've really got a bad relationship with that word, resilience. And we might be able to talk about that  a bit later. But so I just kept forging forward. And then we ended up having a family bust up on the farm, which had a massive impact on me because  family's my number one value. So when my mom and dad's and my relationship completely broke down, that had a massive impact on me.  And that cloud that was following me burst.

07:44
and it turned into a spiral and I fell into that spiral and didn't have tools and strategies in my toolbox that I've got now and had no way of grabbing hold of that edge of that spiral and I just started to slowly fall into it. And then obviously Mother Nature from there, we set out on a 10 year plan of how to buy mum and dad out of the farm and thrive in business, which we were doing, but then Mother Nature threw me another curve ball and that was a drought.

08:13
and that was like that broke me.  Emotionally, physically,  emotionally,  financially, the whole bit, like I was broken.  you know, it was something that once again didn't stick my hand up and ask for help. now I look back at my flood recovery plan, my 10 year plan, my plan through my drought.  I did what I was meant to do as a bloke, particularly, and I was tarred with the brush twice, I suppose.

08:43
I'm a bloke and a farmer. So I did what I was meant to do. I picked myself up, I dusted myself off  and kept moving forward. But nothing in those plans, the recovery from the flood or the 10 year business plan had anything built in about the number one asset in my business and in my family and that was me. And that was my biggest downfall. And  so I hit rock bottom from there and you know, I was broken.  The  concept is you say you're a bloke.

09:12
You're a farmer.  And we were probably, we're of a similar  age.  And we were probably all brought up with that whole, you don't eat your dirty laundry.  Everyone else has got problems as well.  And that sticks with you. It's  something that we probably find hard to come and speak to someone about.  At what point do you say to yourself, I've got to do something, but I'm not sure what I've got to do, but I've got to speak to someone.

09:42
At what point do you say  I need help or I need to speak to someone? So my situation was probably,  it would be no different to anyone else that was in  a similar situation in business like I was. So my business was failing and I'd moved,  I had three years of drought built into my 10 year plan and I'd into, I'd just moved into the sixth year of that drought. So it's no different to any other business that's facing any other challenges. And so my thing was I had to work harder and longer.

10:11
to try and overcome that challenge. And so you couple that with this spiralling out of control mental health condition. It's like tipping petrol on a fire and eventually it's gonna explode. And that's what it did for me. So why I do what I do now is because I don't want anyone to tip petrol on that fire and get it to explode because I had to hit rock bottom to be able to realise that I need help here. And that was something that...

10:40
I realised that I was too busy just trying to make ends meet and  I believed  going through that drought I  had three things that I had to achieve  that would be  achieving my goal. So if I looked after my cows, looked after my farm, that would help me and enable me to look after my family. And by the time I'd got to that six year of that drought...

11:05
I couldn't do any of those three things and I felt like a failure and there's a lot of shame and guilt around that.  And look, I talk to many people around Australia and you don't necessarily need to be a farmer, you can just be in business and you get to that stage and like you said, Guy, we're from that age group where  you don't go and who do you go and talk to?  And you don't want to show that sign of weakness and I think that's one of the things that, know, the biggest learnings from my...

11:33
my journey is around that communication and connection. Don't isolate yourself and you need to talk and I didn't do any of those things and that's that underlying theme  that started back when I was that kid where I didn't stick my hand up when I was bullying. I didn't tell mum and dad. I didn't  confide in anyone, teachers or anyone. I just accepted that that was part of it and  that bullying now, it's something that I've done a lot of work on that but every time I talk about

12:02
right back at the age of seven when I started at a new school when those kids were, when I was  asked to go out the front of the room to do a math sum and I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. And I still don't realise why there's X and Ys in mathematical sums anyway, I don't understand that stuff. I can remember, I can still clearly, and  like as I'm saying this now and I talk about this, you know, multiple times a week I get goosebumps.

12:30
It was like  the kids were throwing seeds  from the back of the room. And it was, you know, you're a dumb kid, you're the dumb new kid, you're this, you're... And I'd grown up  in Cockatoo, up in the hills in the Downingongs around Melbourne, so they'd call me Hillbilly and all this. And those seeds planted in the back of my head. And even today, like, and even with my toolbox now, those seeds sometimes germinate, you know,  sitting, you know...

12:58
walking onto a stage, doing a talk at the moment.  I've  got strategies in place to be able to get me onto that stage because  all of a sudden my internal dialogue will start saying,  what are doing, Warren? Who are you to think you should be standing in front of these people? And so those seeds start to germinate. So I've got to have tools to be able to deal with those.  And all that stems from way back at that kid and it still goes through today. And a lot of people that I talk to have similar stories.

13:28
because we were from that age group, we don't get to talk,  don't talk about it, just suck it up and don't talk.  And look, and that's a real male thing, but it's also females as well. I  talk to a lot of ladies in the same thing. Well, I was just told to,  I was dealing with this, but I was just told to sit there and be quiet kind of thing  coming from that age group. Now  we need to talk about that stuff.

13:56
You talk about, you've mentioned a couple of times now about hitting rock bottom. What did rock bottom look like for you when you got there?  it's  a very scary place,  a dark, scary place which  I got to a stage where I believed that the world was better off without me and that was,  no, that's,  I suppose that's the thing that really drives my mission today is that  being in that dark, scary place where you think your only option is not to be here,

14:27
It's really life changing and I call  that moment in my life my two feet of perspective where that change in a moment in time really changed my life because it gave me a whole new perspective on life and  actually life gave me two choices that day. was either continue this spiral out of control or  I  could choose to be better and I chose to be better that day. And that was, you know...

14:56
It's still, and I talk to so many people that have been in a similar situation. know, I'm fortunate I'm here to tell that story.  But it's something that really drives my mission because so many people have been in that position and whether that's through  a loss of a business, whether it's a loss of a partner, or that's just loss of identity in general,  or just, you know, those challenges that we all face in life, it's something that, you know, we really...

15:26
We don't talk about enough and we can get ourselves into that spiral and into that dark place where we feel there's no other option. We mentioned just prior to coming on air, that sense of isolation, whether you're on the land or as you say, you may have lost a partner, you may have lost your identity through the loss of a job or business. What does isolation do to a person? And you mentioned resilience.

15:54
What does resilience mean?  How do you work through that? I'll go to the loneliness bit first,  Someone actually said to me at an event the other night, like I see people in the office all day, say, get over it. You can be surrounded by people and still be isolated. And  now looking back, as a kid, that's  what I was. I was surrounded by people.

16:18
I had a lot of people really paying a lot of attention to me at lunchtime some days.  It wasn't pleasant.  So I was surrounded. I wasn't isolated.  So there's loneliness  and you could choose to be alone too. Some people, as a part of their toolbox, is just some alone time, whether it's going to sit in a quiet room or whether that's going out the bush for a few days just to  totally disconnect. That can be a  strategy in your toolbox.

16:47
Loneliness, like isolation  is totally different where you just feel like there's a barrier around you.  And the best way to describe that, it's like you're walking around in this bubble and  no one can come in and you can't get out type of thing.  it's a really challenging thing for lots of people.  And then obviously from rural, regional and remote communities,  that I do a lot of my work in is there's that physical isolation or that the isolation.

17:17
you know, by kilometres as well, which  is another challenge. We talk about resilience, so  I've got a really shitty relationship with resilience and I've  written some words around that just recently.  So resilience is about, you know, bouncing back from challenges  and doing what you're meant to do.  one of the words that gets bandied around a lot is resilience. And a lot of people that I talk to now are over that word, particularly in

17:47
communities have been impacted by disasters and  you're resilient. And it feels like a pat on the back just as, so the people that were  patting you on the back feel better.  So I talk a lot more about building capacity now and having that toolbox.  Resilience to me is not so much  a character trait. It's just  a, it's an action that's born out of lack of other  options.  And that's what happened to me.  Family flood.

18:16
family bust up, hitting rock bottom, drought, all those things, I just picked myself up and dusted myself off. So  the true  sense of resilience, particularly as a farmer, just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, keep moving forward. But unless you couple that with tools and strategies in your toolbox, eventually you'll run out of dust and you've got no dust to dust off yourself and you end up hitting rock bottom.  And  so that's why I like to talk now and...

18:44
know, resilience, persistence and determination are three of my key words. So resilience is still part of my story.  But  we need to flip that narrative around that word because it's an overused word like a lot of words these days get overused and start talking about building capacity. So  we can build tools in our toolbox now,  whatever challenge that we're facing, but it'll also equip  us  to  face the next challenge that we  might.

19:13
face which is inevitable,  better and stronger because we've got those tools already. Going back to  the farm for a second and please forgive my naivety as a as city dweller but  flood, drought, bushfires all those sorts of things.  Don't farmers know that is part of life on the land? Look it is,  farming's the purest. I mean that I'm not trying to...

19:41
Farming is the purest form of gambling.  It really  is.  But  the thing is you do face these things  from time to time and we know that they're coming. But it's  the way everything, like everyone's, everything's so much fast paced now.  You've got to  get bigger  in business. A lot of farms are bigger.

20:10
know, employ people, so the pressures are greater. So everyone knows that these things are coming and you are prepared. But as I said, in my 10-year plan, you know, I had three years built into my 10-year plan of drought because I knew drought was gonna be a part of that. And as an irrigated dairy farmer from Northern Victoria, three years was plenty. I was the most, probably one of the most secure farmers on the planet. But as I said, it moved into the sixth year.

20:39
and you can't plan for that stuff.  And  regardless, like it's at the moment, like in South Australia and in parts of New South Wales and Victoria, where there's no food, you can't access any food for your animals and it's dry and, you know, rain's been spasmodic and  all these challenges.  one of the things, and, you know, I'm into  this, you know, everything  moves in cycles, in  circles, you know.

21:07
we can go back into history and see droughts and floods and all that.  And  this is just one of those cycles, but they are getting more severe. Like you only have to go into central South Australia to see that, or in the river land of South Australia to see  how devastating it is. And  I think this, pressures, the financial pressures of getting bigger,  where farms,  I  was out of field days yesterday and there was a...

21:36
there was a piece of machinery there and it was worth $1.2 million. It's just like big dollars.  And that piece of machinery you use for six weeks of every year and then it gets parked in the shed. So it's big dollars involved. So that pressure and that, so even though they are expecting them, the decisions that you have to make around them can be different for everybody. But  I think one of the things that impacts

22:03
you know, particularly when a drought's really severe or a bushfire or anything like that,  is that  the emotional impact that it has, like you can just feel driving in, or like I've done work in Lismore in northern New South Wales around the floods and  bushfire working out, you know, you can just feel the impact that those things have, even though they  were kind of expected. Some of the disasters that we've had in the last six years are, you know,

22:30
They're the first time anyone's experienced that stuff, like to that magnitude.  Bushfires, for example, there's been bushfires in Australia just as big as, the Black Summer bushfires, but the population growth  means it impacts a lot more people. So that makes it a bigger disaster than it was back then.  Whether it's a $1.2 million  piece of machinery at a field day or...

22:58
whether it's a young couple that's  just making their way in the world, you know, and they want their kids to have the next big plasma TV or whatever they are because next  there's a degree of stress  and a whole lot of  personal issues that go along with that. In spite of Australia as a community  being more open to mental health challenges, there's still a stigma though, isn't there, to be  in the real stakes, isn't

23:25
Yeah, and that pressure's real. So to touch on that, I was having a conversation with someone yesterday and  I don't know what you were like, Guy, but like for us, like we built a house on the farm. We never had curtains for 12 months. We had sheets hanging up on the windows. But now, as you said, we've got to have the plasma tally and  the realisation when you've been through a challenge like I have, you know, that could  all change tomorrow if you were rocking to work and they say your job's no longer here.

23:55
and all of a sudden you're all geared up for, which I was, I was geared up. I  have total responsibility for that.  I was  fairly highly geared in my business because I had to be because I bought mum and dad out of the farm.  A lot of younger people these days are really highly geared as well. So it only takes  that conversation when you rock up to work tomorrow morning to say your job's no longer there to flip your world on its head.

24:24
You know, that's a challenge, but talking,  and then the impact that that has on mental health and wellbeing is huge. And as you said,  you know, we are open to talking about it.  And I talk about it now, my mission's in three parts. It's about creating awareness and education around mental health and wellbeing. But I've realised now, particularly in the last 15 months, that there's plenty of awareness. We all know about it. Like there's all the days, you know, the...

24:51
mental health days, footy rounds, they have mental health rounds, all  that stuff. But the thing is we're still not talking enough about it.  And the statistics tell us that we're not talking enough about it.  know, the suicide statistics in our country aren't going down,  even though there's all this money. So we have to change the way we're doing things.  So like,  yeah, and how we deliver those messages  and how we try and encourage people to talk more because we need to have those tough conversations.

25:21
And it's like even  talking to someone and you say,  g'day, and  you don't even have the time to stop to get the answer. You're normally already gone.  Where  we need to stop and have real conversations,  sit down and actually talk,  or stand there and give that person some time, particularly if you think they're struggling, just so they can either have the opportunity to share or just to say, no, I'm okay.

25:49
And  we talked before about droughts and floods and bushfires and all of those and natural, I guess, things that happen to farmers. But these days, farmers are dealing with so much more  than I guess your parents  would have dealt with or farmers 50 years ago when we've got environmental issues, we've got companies wanting to stick wind turbines up on farms,  we've got animal rights people coming on and telling you what to do. And even just the technology around running a farm. You mentioned about

26:19
Farms are a lot bigger, they're huge businesses now. But the technology in running a farm these days, you could argue, does help save money and time for farmers. But it's a completely different world than it was as a farmer now in 2025 than it was in 1965. And I think that you can say that about farming or anything, any business. Technology and the layers of pressure are so huge now.

26:49
the expectations,  whether that's just as simple as that, expectations of thinking, well, do these next door neighbour have got a flash in your car, I'm feeling the pressure kind of thing,  or just those pressures and all those things like  government policies, there's,  as you said, one of the biggest things in rural communities at the moment, whether people want to talk about it or not, which is another whole, one of these conversations is that...

27:15
the impact that renewables projects are having within our communities are ripping them apart. Like I've got an example of at a local footy club in Victoria where a few of the players won't even get changed in the club rooms, they get changed in their cars because the footy club's sponsored by a renewables project. And that's just ripping those communities apart.

27:43
generational neighbours aren't talking to each other. Because some people will take the wind turbine option and that's okay. And I understand that.  I've sold cows to China and I've sold water down the river. I know the things that you have to do to stay in business. Putting  a renewables project on your farm, like a solar farm or turbines, is a business decision. But it shouldn't become personal and rip communities apart.

28:10
One of the things I'm really working hard at at the moment is in those communities is to just get people,  one we need more kindness in our world and we need conversation and  don't just, know,  because  it doesn't matter if it's in a rural community or  in an urban community, one little  story that starts here can be big by the time it gets over there and there's no truth to the  story over here. It's a matter of, you know, we need to sit down and have robust conversations with.

28:39
all the stakeholders to find out where they sit  and have a greater understanding of everyone's challenge because  the renewables projects have got  challenges,  the people that are agreeing to put them on their farms have got challenges and so have the other people and it's just  no one wants to talk.  A lot of those things creep up on you as well don't they?  That drip feed sort of thing,  you're living  in the bush or you're  in the burbs.

29:07
What are some of the signs that you should be aware of yourself to say,  because by the time you're thinking, I can't cope, I don't know what to do, it's almost too late, isn't it? Yeah. And I think it's just that feeling,  I suppose, feeling of dread. But when things start to build up and you can feel that pressure, well, you need to talk to someone then  and not just let it keep snowballing.  And that's what I did. Like I should have been talking about  how I was feeling or the impact that that was.

29:36
you know,  whether it was the flood, which was a massive thing, because I'd never experienced anything like that before, or whether it was the family bust up or the drought, I needed to be talking to people about it.  And it is, like you say, it's just like a slow dripping tap and  all of a sudden your bucket's full.  And  I think it's  having tools in your toolbox to have that realisation, oh, my bucket's quarter of the way full now.

30:04
I need to implement some of my strategies to keep it there and not let it get any fuller. So that's probably a good analogy, that drip one, because by the time you realise your bucket's full and it's overflowing, that's where you don't want to get to. So I think it's just having a range of tools that suit you. And one of those tools is that tool of recognition and understanding, well, this is not how I, you know. And then the people around you also having those tools like,

30:32
one of the  analogies that I use in a  talk,  if you expected your neighbour or your best friend or someone from the community to be here tonight and they're not, how come? And there could be a thousand reasons why they're not there, but that should be enough of a seed planted in your mind to say, maybe I should just give them a call tomorrow and say g'day and how you going? And that's one of the arts, I think, because we're so...

30:57
full on it  in life these days, whether it's  got to get that done because we've got to be here or there or  we don't have that  thought process of we just need to slow down and have a real conversation. How are going? I'm already in  the car and driving away before you've said, actually  I'm not going any good.  So we need to...

31:21
Slow that, slow everything down. Everything's so fast paced at the moment. Do you think technology and social media,  and we hear the stories, are they bringing us together or they tearing us apart a little bit more?  So,  once again, I've got two views on that. I wouldn't have a business without social media because that's how I built the Unbreakable Farmer on Facebook, basically.  So, for me, it's a good thing,  but we're more connected than ever before, but we're so disconnected at the same time.

31:51
So social media is, you know, I watch, and this is no disrespect to younger people because my kids, I've got five kids of my own, where, you know, they'll communicate by text message. Or I was talking to someone the other day, said, oh, where'd you bump into him? Oh no, it was just over a Facebook message. Well, that's not talking. you know, I'm a bit of a, not a handshaker, I'm a bit of a hugger. So, you know, nothing like a good hug. And we can't do that through, you know.

32:19
or you can do a virtual emoji or whatever. Like I'm getting old, I'm really old, because I don't even know how to do that stuff. You can do an emoji or something like that to say that you're hugging, but that's not the same. Me and a couple of my mates, one of my mates in particular, I don't think we've ever shook hands. And all my friends that meet him go, God, he gives good hugs. We're just huggers. there's no...

32:49
There's nothing that beats that and you can't replicate that on social media.  And it's the same thing as you, you've got to, I'm lucky I've got a good ground,  people that keep me grounded. So my five kids and my wife keep me pretty grounded.  Don't get ahead of yourself kind of thing. And just because you've been doing this or doing that, or  everyone knows who you are or whatever it is and  it's hard to handle as well. It's a whole different podcast, I think. But.

33:17
But they keep me grounded. So,  you know, to think that you've got all these friends in the world,  haven't, you  know, having all these friends on Facebook doesn't necessarily,  like,  I use  my weeding process now in Facebook.  If  I see someone down the street and I haven't got the time to say g'day, I generally, when I get back to my phone or back to my computer, I delete that person.

33:46
regardless if you've known them for years because if they haven't got the time to cross the street or or say get 80 in the street well they're not worth it they don't need to see the anything that I put up on social media not that I use it too much these days personally it's all about business but yeah you've they're not real friends like you know they're often like postage stamps yeah I relate them to postage stamps and you know as you say unless you're prepared to come across the street

34:16
say good day and that's another thing too. You hear the stories of we didn't know they were having problems  or  we would never have been able to tell.  How do you surmount that and how do you start those conversations because as I say  there's still a stigma regardless of how much we talk about it, how much is in the media, whether footy  weekends are devoted to it. How do you start those conversations with your mates  or your loved ones?

34:44
So one of the things, and this is getting pretty deep, the thing that I dislike, I shouldn't use that word, hate, but I dislike hearing is you go into a community and there's been a death by suicide and it's the biggest funeral that that town, everyone says it's the biggest funeral we've ever seen. What's gone wrong? Why, if that person was so loved, what's gone wrong? And then you sit down and, know, and

35:14
talk, know, say it's in a rural community, I get the privilege of being called in to sit down and talk with those people are at posts like a suicide and you sit there and you talk and they go, we didn't see it coming. But then they start talking about those subtle things that we need to look for. So, you know, we talk about what are the signs of to look for when someone's struggling and it's, you know,

35:42
change of behavior, change of  whatever that is.  So they're angry, sad, frustrated, they start to isolate themselves. They're all these big things.  And then you start talking and then I go, actually, about three weeks ago, stopped coming to footy training on a Tuesday night and that was out of character. But we didn't think anything of it because he's busy at the moment.  Or.

36:06
hadn't seen him at this event or the same thing, you know, or he'd usually the first person that's cooking the barbie and now not cooking the barbie.  you know,  what's going on? Yeah.  So instead of just saying,  that's okay, we need to have the courage to have those conversations and intervene and stick our nose in. Because  one of the things that my speaking mentor, he actually poked fun at me one day on

36:36
a Zoom call that I did for another group that he was mentoring and I was talking about the two friends and one friend sees his friend, might be struggling a little bit, but doesn't want to stick his nose in because he doesn't want to upset him because he might run the risk of him never talking to him again. And then the other friend sees the same friend struggling and he goes, actually this is life threatening.

37:04
and he called the emergency services to  do  a welfare check on him. But this friend also knew that by doing that, that friend's never gonna talk to him again. But I know which friend I'd rather be, because this friend's gotta live with, if something drastic happened, he's gotta live with  that forever. So I think we've gotta have the courage.  We get told not to stick our nose in other people's businesses, but  if you're...

37:31
close to someone or you work with someone and you've got a bit of a relationship and you notice something going wrong, it's only just an act of kindness to ask how they're going and not that you want to stick their nose in but just to let them know that they've got someone there to support them because  and whether that's you know as we've said  that's not just farming that's in everyday life  and particularly  when there's been a massive change in someone's life as well  we need to

38:00
be a bit more aware of those little things that could be impacting people.  If you had your life over again, would you do anything differently? Great question.  In regards to farming, no. Because I wouldn't be here talking to you today.  Would I have liked to have not faced the challenges that I've faced? Yeah, that would be good.  Losing everything that you've got  financially is not

38:30
very pleasant.  But one of the things that always often gets told to me about my kids is that they've got a great work ethic.  They're great people. I was born out of being kids on a farm and I would never change that. And the opportunity that I had, and I see my son who's managing a farm now has with his kids where they're out.

38:59
out in the paddock  or sitting in the tractor  or doing whatever with him and  that time that you get to enjoy with your kids that no other other people in other to privilege as a farmer to do that  wouldn't change any of that. There's lots of things that I'd love to change but  I'd do it all over again.  But who would have thought that I'd be a professional speaker when I thought I'd be still a dairy farmer. So  that's probably  one of the messages that are from my

39:29
from my journey is that there's always hope, there's a way of reinventing yourself as well. So that's  one of the things I don't really pay much attention to, but when I think about it, I  was a kid that dropped out of school, started farming, didn't think that would amount to anything, ended up running a fairly  successful business,  faced a couple of challenges that just tipped that over the edge.

39:54
But was I will then reinvent myself and do what I do now. It's just kind of, but hang on, you're brushing over that. Cause you were, you jumped into financial broking. did a whole bunch. did whatever you needed to do. So you were able to turn your hand to whatever needed to be done to support your family. And I think I've heard you describe yourself as not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I think you really undersell yourself.  I think  the fact that you're here today and you got through all of that is amazing testimony to who you are.

40:21
But I think that, and I'm glad you touched on that because all those little things that I did, and I make fun of them in my talk, like I did finance breaking, but the kids got sick of eating baked beans because I was no good at it. But the things that I learnt through that and then doing real estate for three years, it was a challenging time to do real estate. And I wasn't really successful at it, but it was probably just timing again, timings everything, know, in farming, in life. But then I used to sit around tables with

40:50
people that were making critical decisions in their life because the kids had gone away to uni and they didn't want to come back to the farm and they had to sell their farm, which was their identity, not just their farm. And I was used to sit there and take my hat off basically as a real estate agent, become a counsellor. And that's planted some of the seeds to what I did. So everything that I've done has built to what I am today. so that's why anyone...

41:19
You know, you always, I think you will always have  some semblance of regret in your life, but  everything you do builds you to where you are today. And as long as you're taking the good things out of it and you can use them to be positive and move forward, well, that's part of the story as well.  What would you say to someone who may be listening or watching, who's not ready to talk yet, but they're prepared to listen?  Yeah.  And I have that.

41:48
You know, I have one of the interesting things  sharing my story now, which is part of that mission, inspiring conversations by sharing mine, hopefully gives you the permission to  share yours.  Part of my mission is that I'll have people sitting in an audience, they won't come up and talk. And then they might not message you next week or the week after, but then all of a sudden a random message,  which I got this week, which just blew me away from a lady, which is a perfect example of that.

42:18
and just telling you the impact that your talk had on them and  how it made the decision,  gave them,  I suppose, the mindset and decision-making process to go and seek some help.  And that's okay as long as those people are listening. And  you've got to be open. So the  old adage, you can't lead a horse to water and make it drink.  you've got to...

42:45
You've just got to keep planting the seeds and that's what I see, you know, because  sometimes doing what I do now as a speaker can be very unrewarded. It's very rewarding, don't get me wrong, but it be unrewarding because you can just look out at an audience and think,  and this is my internal dialogue going off as well, I'm part of my mental health challenge that I've got.  Are they listening? But then all of a sudden out of the blue you'll get a message from a bloke  or a lady in the audience and they'll go, yeah, I heard that.

43:14
you know, I implemented that strategy or I decided to build my own toolbox or I had one guy and he's a perfect example. And I'm an in excess fan. So now we are showing our age. That's very appropriate. Michael Hutchins was like, know, if I could, as you can see, I haven't got Michael Hutchins type of hair, but I wish I did.

43:44
But one of the things, if you read anything about Michael Hutchins, he was kind of short-sighted in every concert that he did was why it was so good is because it was an intimate concert, even at Wembley to 70 or 80 odd thousand people, can only see so far out into the audience, so that's why he was so good. Well, that's why I believe he was so good as a front man.

44:09
I do the same thing and that's part of one of my coping  mechanisms on stage so I'll try and pick out four or five people in the audience.  Not that I'm ignoring everyone else but I'll have individual conversations that keeps me focused. Anyway this room, this guy was, I could see he was fidgeting, wondered what was going on. And I always say to people if he's struggling you can leave and I don't get offended  but just give me a thumbs down. Well he didn't give me anything and he walked out of the room.

44:38
and he didn't come back in. I just kind of tried to tell the people that were  the organizers to maybe go out and see him trying to gesture to him anyway.  As I walked out of the room afterwards, he was walking back towards me. And as he walked past me, he just said, thanks mate, just like that. And then he walked straight up to his manager and then he come back to me and I said, and he goes,

45:06
I want to talk to you now and I said yeah and he goes I was just listening to you talking about you know who should reach out so I've been estranged from my son  for about  five years and we haven't really talked and he's moved away and you just made me just twig something something that you said twigged something in me and I so I decided to ring him  and just so they haven't spoken for five years  but his partner

45:36
answered the phone  and  she said this is very time because he's just been rushed to hospital  and you know it's life-threatening. So while he was walking past me and only just said thanks mate he was going to his manager to say I'm leaving I've already booked a flight because he had to fly to Western Australia and I'm going now like and it was just a life-shaking like and he's messaged me since then and just

46:04
So I said something in one little word or one little phrase that just triggered that, I need to ring my son.  we're all capable of that, aren't we? Yeah, yeah. With people around us, you could just  reach out and just say one little thing you might say might just be. And I think that's why I share that little bit of that story is that  it only takes one word or  one gesture or even just that  silent sitting and holding space for someone to change their You don't have to fix it.

46:33
Sometimes it's just about listening, right? Yeah. And that's  one of the things that stops the conversation from happening because we all get a bit scared and we all think we've got to have advice and answers where we don't. Sometimes we just got to sit and listen and that's  part of this fast paced world where we just don't have that time to sit and listen anymore and we should  build that into our toolbox so we can. I refer to that as standing in the pain with someone. Yeah.

46:58
be with them and stand as uncomfortable as it is and you can't fix it because quite often there's nothing you can do. Just to stand with them in their pain and not say anything  is often a lot more valuable. And as you said, like all these things that I've done along the way were walking up a driveway after the Black Summer bushfires to a farmer who'd just lost everything, house, everything. The only thing that he was thankful for is they evacuated and he didn't lose his family, which was part of,  that's a good thing.

47:28
But to stand and watch a bloke who's covered in soot looking over his farm and everything's gone, Utes are parked next to us, they're all burnt out, everything's gone. What do you do? What can you do? And all I could do was just, put my hand on his shoulder and didn't say, we never even talked. And I just put my hand on his shoulder  and just, as you said, stood there in that pain with him because what else can you say? Everyone's carrying something. You don't need to be a mental health professional to help.

47:58
If people want to find out more about yourself, the Unbreakable Farmer,  where do they go?  What do they do? You can find me anywhere. Apparently you can.  My website's www.theunbreakablefarmer.com.au. I'm on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram. I like sharing what I do, just so people can see that  it only takes one of those little conversations to change someone's life.

48:26
Sometimes you just need to be human to care and importantly to notice, don't you? Yep, just notice but have that, you know, have that courage to start that conversation. Warren Davies, thanks so much for joining Kaylee and myself  on the Big 6O. Wish you all the very best. No, thanks for having  me. Pleasure.  The views and opinions expressed on the Big  6O are personal and reflect those of the hosts and guests.  They do not represent the views or positions of any affiliated organisations  or companies.

48:55
This podcast is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice. Please consult with a qualified professional for guidance on any personal matters.

49:08
Ah, and before we go,  let's give credit where credit is due.  Kaylee Harris and I came up with all the genius content for this week's episode.  Our producer,  Nick Abood,  well he keeps the lights on and makes sure we don't accidentally upload a cat video instead of a podcast. thanks for keeping us on track, Nick.  Nick?  Nick?