In an effort to show some appreciation I thought I would write a letter to a friend, only to realise that in thanking my nearest and dearest for being so amazing, I was writing out a whole list of things that I aspire to be in return.

So I thought I would publish it here.

A Letter To A Friend.

​Thank you.

Thank you for being present.

Thank you for being a hand on my shoulder when I have no words.

Thank you for being a shoulder, when I have only tears.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for telling me you agree with me, so I know I’m not crazy.

Thank you for telling me when you don’t agree with me so I know when I might be.

Thank you for telling me she wasn’t good enough, so that I don’t feel like I’m missing out, and thank you for telling me when she was good enough so that I won’t make the same mistakes again.

Thank you for knowing that I care. For excusing the absences, the delayed text replies and the “I’ll call you right back’s” that take a day to return.

Thank you for understanding that while I can be absent minded, my heart is always present.

Thank you for rolling up your sleeves, to help when things need doing.

Thank you for understanding, when I don’t have the words, and for putting the words in my mouth when I’m lost for them.

Thank you for asking the right questions, and thank you for sometimes not asking questions.

Thank you for your genuine enjoyment and celebrations when I have a win, and for pulling me up again after the losses.

Thank you for the hope you give me, that in all the world there would be nothing humans could not achieve if everyone had one of you in their lives.

Thank you for calling me on bullshit and for jumping in on the bullshit when it’s called for too.

Thank you for looking after my family, and for making me a part of yours.

Thank you for understanding that my bad jokes don’t make me a bad person.

Thank you for the portable alibi.

Thank you for calling me when you need help, for trusting me to look after you when you need it.

Thank you for the laughs, the private messages of things that we wouldn’t want the world to know we laugh about.

Thank you for the song recommendations, the book recommendations, the long conversations over a drink late into the night.

Thank you for feeding me when I was hungry. For picking up the tab when I was short.

Thank you for letting me pick up the tab when things are going well.

Thank you for not keeping count of how many times that happens, I don’t think I could deal with keeping lifelong tabs on $10 here and there!

Thank you for the crazy times.

Thank you for the drunken singalongs.

Thank you for the terrible dance battles, even if it’s mostly watching me engage strangers in those dance battles.

Thank you for looking interested in the funny bits of movies I show you, even when I can tell you don’t think it’s as funny as I do.

Thank you for listening to my music recommendations, and for putting me onto new tunes.

Thank you for the sensible times, where we are grownups that act our age (or at least pretend to).

Thank you for thinking about things, for being open to discussion and debate, even when we don’t agree.

Thank you for being the friend that I hope to be for you.

Thank you, and even though I might not say it enough, I love you.

​-Josh Reid Jones

             We use language in interesting ways. We use it to gloss over problems, overstate impacts, diminish responsibility. We use language to promote and sell, to obstruct and impede.
                Language is everywhere, used and abused, contained and unrestrained and it colours our whole world in shades of grey, black, purple and orange. Our language, our history, our future, they are intertwined all across the world. For instance, I’ve heard stories of indigenous tribes that have no word for ‘surrender’. Surely living in a context where surrender is literally not an option impacts the way that you see the world. If you live somewhere without a word for ‘thank you’ is it because you are an ingrate? Or that you live in an environment where it is a foregone conclusion that what is for one, is for everyone. A society of unparalleled sharing and appreciation of one another.

                I can’t help but notice every day, the language that we use informs the way we treat each other, and I thought, what if we could change the language. Even the internal language among ourselves.

                What if we changed the way we speak about people in need, from being language around their problems to being language around our responsibilities.

                People are no longer ‘homeless’, as in, being without a home.

                They are In Harm’s Way.

                We are no longer talking about victims of domestic violence.

                We are talking about people who are In Harm’s Way.

             When we are talking about people who are uneducated, unemployable and of poor mental health. We are talking about people that have been left In Harm’s Way.

            Leaving people in harm’s way. Shifting the language from what disadvantaged haven’t got, or haven’t done, to what we haven’t done, or what we do by leaving them unassisted might start to humanise the problems, to change the understanding and empathy of others.

            We are not simply ignoring ‘illegal immigrants’, we are leaving them In Harm’s Way.

           Think to your family, think of yourself. Think of people you know and people you don’t. Do you see any reason to leave people in harm’s way? It’s not about handouts, queue jumping, dole bludging, it’s about recognising a basic need for us to recognise harm and remove people from its influence

                Over the coming weeks, every time you see an article or hear someone refer to a ‘refugee’, ‘asylum seeker’, ‘homeless person’, ‘drug addict’ consider not only their problems, or the cause of their problems, but their situation as it is right now.

​         Regardless of fault, before we consider whether or not we are bestowing outrageous and gratuitous privilege on people, before we get upset on the impact of the most disadvantaged people on the rest of the world, we need to first ask ourselves;
 
               Are we leaving them in harm’s way?
 
             Changing attitudes is a long path, battling against a long history of language that speaks down to people in need, but by changing the language of responsibility and taking some of it on board for ourselves, surely we can start the slow journey to a real equality of opportunity.
 
            Take the time to change your inner monologue, take the time to change the words you use to the people you know, and as always, just be nice.

     Today was a sad day in my opinion. It was the day Barack Obama made his final speech as the President of the United States. Without commenting too much on what the future holds or what it might look like under the incoming administration, I can’t help but feel that the world is going to be down one wonderful leader as of today.

​    Barack to me has always embodied so many things that I respect in a leader and a man. Intelligent, well presented, well rounded, active, funny, self-depreciating but confident, a family man, kind and understanding, a great mixture of real world experience and brains. The divides that run through the United States run deep, but there is no doubt in my mind that Barack is one of the rare, special kinds of leaders. It is a shame that in the field of ‘world leading’ (as in leading the world), we don’t have dozens of heads of state to look up to, but apparently it is difficult to be the person you want to be the whole way to the top without pandering to party lines, popularity contests and special interests.

    Facing a hostile congress for 8 years, watching Barack stay strong on his message and do everything in his power to improve the equality of opportunity for Americans was inspiring, and I certainly hope that one day I will have the opportunity to tell him so to his face.

    I can’t speak to how hard that must have been, being the most powerful man in the world but being hamstrung at every turn by people who seem to defy science and logic. Trying to improve the lives of others but being slammed by people with overt special external interests, and conflicting ideologies of what it means to help people. I have often wondered aloud what it must have been like, getting into bed at night with Michelle, and talking about what crazy counter-argument was brought into congress during the day to knock down a bill.

    Which brings me to one of the real standouts about the life of Barack Obama. 

    The way he looks at Michelle.

    Michelle Obama, in her own right, is an amazing woman. Smart, composed, stately, friendly with an air of accessibility and no airs of superiority about her at all. Clearly a beautiful woman Barack has joked that she appears to have not aged a day in the last two terms, while his hair has changed from the full black hair of a young president to the salt and pepper bristle of the older statesman.

    For 8 years, the world has watched the most powerful man in the world, and his unwavering loving gaze toward his wife.

    I’m not insane, I am sure that they have disagreements and all the fun things that go along with relationships of any kind. I do, however, know one thing. That if you are looking at someone the way Barack looks at Michelle, and Michelle looks at Barack, you need to understand that you are in the middle of something very special.

    I can’t think of too many more stressful situations than all the lifestyle demands that are put on the President and First Lady, and yet to handle themselves so well together is inspiring.

    Now in this case, I am not even going to pretend to know how this happens! I don’t know what the steps to this kind of relationship are, I don’t know what goes into keeping a love like that so visible… I mean, it is possible that they were hamming it up for the cameras, but really, I don’t believe that to be the case. 

    To see a couple who are so gracious, generous in their support for one another and so adoring of each other is a wonderful thing to see anywhere. Let alone the President of the United States and the First Lady.

    Barack has shown that it is possible to remain human and full of heart while juggling the most stressful and demanding job on the planet, which surely can give hope to all of us who are ‘too busy’ to find someone like that in their own lives. Rather than take anything away, the two of them are greater than the sum of their parts, and I think that is something that remains inspiring long after the dust settles on his tenure.

    As much as Barack has inspired me as man, Michelle has inspired so many women to see that with the right person, supporting your partners goals is not a passive activity that requires you to give up your own potential. By allowing each other to become the best versions of themselves, the Obamas have been the ultimate celebrity couple, for all the reasons that we usually ignore.

    So cheers to Barack, cheers to Michelle, and cheers to one of the good guys getting ahead. Here’s to the good examples, the ones who stick to their guns, the men big enough to accept the love and give it back, the women amazing enough to keep kicking ass and getting amongst it even when their husbands are the President. Here is to the strong women, the family men, the good mothers, fathers, husbands and wives. Because if the Obamas can do it, surely there is some hope for the rest of us!
Really this blog was just to say that if I am ever fortunate enough to be looking at someone like that, someone let me know that I’m on a winner. I don’t know how that comes to pass, but I feel like we spend too much time pouring over divorces and celebrity disasters and not enough time celebrating those who do it for each other. Because it’s just bloody nice.

-Josh Reid Jones

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
Six Ways To Make People Like You.
How To Win People To Your Way Of Thinking
Be A Leader: How To Change People Without Giving Offence Or Arousing Resentment.

    Each section is concluded with a great conclusion of the key points called “In A Nutshell”. These are just dot points of each of the detailed and practical series of advice.

    I gave this book to a friend to read also, who had concerns that perhaps the book encourages people to be disingenuous. So I think that it is important to note that simply following instructions about going through the motions of caring is not something that works in the long term. Pretending to care is one of the great blockers to long term success, so either don’t care and take that path, or work on developing real empathy and understanding of others.

    For me the book isn’t simply a collection of steps that you can pantomime on your way to success, influence and getting people to like you, but more of an insight into human nature so that you can best give people what they want, in the way that means the most to them.

    I may be guilty of the occasional ‘rant’ from time to time, and I can get carried away with passion when I talk about things that are important to me. Likewise, I have always had a hard time with patience when it comes to explaining things to people more than two times at work, so it’s a good reminder to be patient and see things from the perspective of the other party.

    I don’t want to give the book away, and it is the kind of resource that is good to go back to and re-read from time to time, mine looks pretty worn by now. I will give my favourite “In a nutshell” tips from each chapter;

FUNDAMENTAL TECHNIQUES IN HANDLING PEOPLE.
My favourite tip: Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.
Ok, so I said its my favourite tip, and not something I do all the time! We are all prone to criticizing, condemning and complaining, but I certainly enjoy the reminder to reduce the amount of time we spend doing any of these.

SIX WAYS TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE YOU.
My Favourite tip: Become genuinely interested in other people.
Oh how I believe this one so! Not just interested for personal gain, but genuine interest in other people. Period. Imagine a world where everyone was genuinely interested in other people, people who don’t all look like you, live where you live, do what you do etc. The world would become a much better place, when misunderstanding, or a lack of understanding underpins so much fear and anger in the world, I believe that the more people that make this change the better the world would be.

HOW TO WIN PEOPLE TO YOUR WAY OF THINKING.
There are 12 tips in this one, so picking one was hard. Especially since this one is packed with stuff I have to use ALL THE TIME! So;
My Favourite Tip: Try Honestly to see things from the others point of view. 
I have always said that it is important to try to speak the language of the person who’s mind you are hoping to change, to do this you really need to see things from their point of view to start with!

BE A LEADER: HOW TO CHANGE PEOPLE WITHOUT GIVING OFFENCE OR AROUSING RESENTMENT.
My Favourite Tip: Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
If you show belief in people and set the ‘belief bar’ high often they will do better than if you set those same expectations lower. There is a saying that its more dangerous to set small goals and achieve them, than to set big ones and not quite get there. I don’t know if that’s 100% true, but I know from having been an apprentice, and having had apprentices, that when you instil a belief in them to do a task, they certainly ask less questions and usually do a better job afterwards.

    All in all, for one of the enduring ‘self help’ type books, this one is a classic, and really shows that no matter how innovative or revolutionary someone claims to be, the basic principles of adding value and paying attention to people around you in order to be successful in business, leadership and other ventures hasn’t really changed in nearly 100 years (even longer as we read through ancient texts).

    This book retails for not much in most good book shops, and I’m sure there is an audiobook of it somewhere. I think this is one that benefits particularly from hard copy, especially seeing as it is recommended that you make notes and highlight passages that matter to you as you go. 

     As a side note, my friend who borrowed this prior to some difficult work conversations did an awesome job after reading this and resolved multiple issues without any conflict with her employees, so in practice it is as good as in theory!

Enjoy your reading, enjoy the first fortnight of 2017, pay attention to those around you, and as always, Just Be Nice.

- J

     A very dear friend of mine is a widow. Despite our best efforts, so far we have not found a better word for this antiquated description of a woman whose husband has passed away (we are looking though). To me, and to others the title comes with a kind of preconceived notion of an older woman, and yet my friend is only young, as was her husband when he passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, leaving a widow and two children behind.
    
    Having been through this experience, many others in similar tragic circumstances have reached out or been connected to her for advice, and advice for people helping others going through the death of a loved one.

    The best advice that I have heard, from my friend, and from others?

     Don’t ask. Just help.

    Nothing to do with the scale of the help, just take into account what your friend/family member/person in need requires, and just fill the gap. Take over a few meals, so they don’t have to prepare them when they are grieving. Go over and just wash some clothes, take the kids for a few hours, and give them some space.

    It is important, in conversations about mental health, to encourage people to open up. To talk about their feelings, to ask for help. It’s so important to create environments where people feel that they can open up, but sometimes feelings of being overwhelmed, sad or out of sorts is so foreign that it becomes very difficult to articulate these feelings.

    I myself have been one of these people.

   Several years ago, I was going through a tough time. But like many others, when anyone asked me how I was going, “I’m going ok” was my answer. “I just need to….”, “Soon everything will be alright”, “I’m just sorting it all out, but in a little while it will all be ok”.

    At that time, after a long period of success, I met some very serious challenges. Financially, personally, emotionally I was going through a rough patch. Even physically! My stomach was permanently upset from the stress. I’m an entrepreneur, and have been my whole adult life. I believed that there was no time to waste on fixing the problems that I was facing, and so there was no point talking like times were tough. I was still here, I still had a roof over my head…. So I was ok. I had also spent my whole life hellbent on independence, building a life where I was free from financial, and the bulk of emotional stress…until that point.

    One day during this period I got an email from my sister who was living in the UK at the time. We didn’t speak all the time, so it was a little unusual to hear from her, and I hadn’t spoken to her for some time. The email wasn’t particularly long and the gist was, word on the street is you’re having a rough patch, I hope this helps.

    It was 10pm at night, and I was still in the office. The email had a $100 woolies gift card attached.

     I burst into tears. 

    It wasn’t because it was from my sister, it wasn’t anything to do with the value of the voucher, It wasn’t even because it was a really nice act. It was because, for the second time in my life at that point, I needed it.

     I just needed it.

    When people need help, sometimes they don’t know what they need. When someone passes away suddenly, unprepared families seldom know what they need, it’s all foreign. When stubborn, driven people need help, they often can’t recognise it in themselves, let alone ask for help. Sometimes people see those who complain about small, insignificant problems, and they think that their problems are barely more significant, why complain, when you have a roof over your head, a job, some people who care…. Being down without realising it can be a lonely place to be, because if you don’t think your feelings or problems are worth mentioning, how do you bring it up?

    In these cases, and in many others, it is better to just do something to help, without asking.

    Observe, pay attention, and if someone is doing it tough, jump in and just help. Don’t wait to be asked.

        “How are you doing?”

        Because most likely the response will be: “I’m Ok”

    Sometimes it’s true, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes ask a few more questions, sometimes just observe a little bit more. These times can be when it matters the most that someone cares. Not every cry for help comes before the help. My crying happened afterwards, before, I didn’t even know I needed it. As a result, finding my vulnerability, hitting that point as an adult, feeling those feelings and learning to cry again, helped me to go on to bigger and better things, and I cannot thank my sister enough for that. The tears of kindness might have been the most powerful tears I have cried, and this was after me going through a decade of deciding that crying wasn’t for me, and that I didn’t have time for it.

         “A friend in need, is a friend indeed”

      Be the friend. You don’t need to solve the problems, you don’t need to define the problems, you don’t need to do any more than you can do. But do something, help. Help simply, help with love, and be there in action, not just in thought, spirit or sympathy to those closest to you. You might just be the answer in the end.

        Pay attention, look after each other, and as always, Just Be Nice.

-J

Find your purpose. Find your why. Find your passion. Find your opportunity. Find the ‘place where it all comes from’. If it isn’t these kinds of conversations, its, 7-steps to wealth, 30 days to fitness, 4 hot tips to wellness, 9 incredible steps to lead a life you love, fake it til you make it.

    These are all goals and paths that I see being spruiked and talked about every day.
In the same days, I see people chasing empty dreams, people feeling unhappy with what they are doing, transient jobs, transient goals, and ever changing focus. Chasing the faster way to achieve some kind of goal external to oneself, money, body fat percentage etc.

    To anyone looking for what to do next, I say, Start with WHO.

    Start with who you want to be. Don’t worry about your why, don’t worry about your purpose until you know the kind of person that you want to be. How can you control an outcome external to you, without being the master of your own perception of self. How can you advance yourself and your happiness in any meaningful way without knowing the kind of person you are and the kind of person you want to be?

    Who you are is with you in every moment, of everyday. It informs every decision, it is with you in the darkest hours and the brightest moments…. Do you know who that person is?

    Your who will affect your why, it will affect your purpose, it will affect how you approach each day, each problem and each success. ‘Who’ you are is something that you are always in control of, so you have it with you in the good times, in the public eye and when you are on your own.

    I believe that the reason that so many people are unhappy in a time of unparalleled opportunity and luxury for so many, is that many people have lost connection to who they are. If you don’t know who you are, you rely on external factors to fulfil you. If you don’t know who you are, and have standards to which you hold yourself accountable, then you can find yourself deep into a life that makes you miserable.

    I am all about practical, so let’s have a look at how you can get to your who.

      First, cut out the bullshit. Stop bullshitting yourself, stop bullshitting others. Don’t try and force your ‘Who’ to come from any particular place, or fit some kind of external circumstance, or look like something that presents well when you talk about it to others. If you bullshit yourself in early days, you will never find your actual ‘who’ and will never find the consonance you need between your mind and your actions to be truly happy.

    Before you jump to it, ‘Being happy’ is not a Who, it is a result of being your who, and working towards being the best version of yourself.

    Second, every ‘who’ has pro’s and cons. So embrace your real ‘who’ and then assess the pros and cons of what that means. Your ‘who’ might include that you have very high standards, that you demand the best out of yourself at all times. A pro of this kind of ‘who’ can be that you might do some really great work, a ‘con’ of the same trait might be that you might never be truly satisfied with your outcomes, believing you can always do better, or that you might be isolated because your high standards make it hard for you to accept less.

    It doesn’t matter what your who is, it only matters that you recognise it and own it. Sometimes the hardest part of finding your who is admitting that some of the things aren’t what we’d like them to be. You might be trying to find happiness, but you are naturally cynical, by denying your natural cynicism you might be actually making it harder to be happy. Instead, once you have found your who, you can work on using who you are to find real happiness. Sometimes the path is not easy, but I will discuss that at a later date.

    Thirdly, you ‘Who’ shouldn’t be made up of a bunch of words.

    Values as words are dangerous. Words can have different meanings, words can be interpreted differently. Your who should be made up of a couple of questions, or filters. Questions you can ask yourself in every situation. Filters you can use on all of your actions, goals and why’s. 

    Perhaps part of your who is ‘to look after your family’. A pro of this ‘who’ can be that you are an attentive and loving family member. A con could be that you act in a manner that is to the detriment of others in order to look after your family. Plenty of organised crime is committed under the guise of looking after ‘the family’. The ‘Who question’ in this instance might be “Am I doing the best thing for my family?”

    If your who is a question then before you do anything at all, you can ask yourself, Am I doing this in line with x? Am I following my who? Am I improving on the person that I want to be? When the answer is yes more often than no, then you will find yourself being happier. Regardless of your external circumstances.

    Your who is not all you are. It is a goal, an outcome and a prescription for yourself about how to conduct your life. You will have times where you drift from it, but when you have a who, you can work back towards being the person that you want to be. BEING the PERSON you want to BE. Not having the things you want to have, looking the way you want to look, saying the things you want to say…. It’s about being the person you want to be. It provides a centre for you to return to, a path to look towards and a measuring stick by which to gauge your progress as a person.

    I don’t believe that in life you regret missed chances for external gain. I believe that you regret opportunities to act as the person you believe you should be. In the end we regret the times that we acted contrary to our nature, contrary to the kind of person we want to be.

    So, in action. How does this work?

    Well personally, my ‘Who’, the who that  I aspire to be and maintain. The questions I ask myself every day to remain close to my ‘who’ are as follows.

“Am I working as hard as I can possibly work?”

“Am I being nice and helping others?”

“Am I doing more than I am talking about?”

“Am I doing this the right way, not necessarily the easy way?”

“Am I practicing what I preach?”

“Am I being empirically good at what I am doing?”

    These are my main who questions. They help keep me focused. 

    Who am I? I hope to be a hard worker. I take the question “Am I working as hard as I can possibly work?” and I refuse to fail as a result of my work ethic. I might fail at something due to lack of talent, but to maintain my who it will never be for lack of trying. When I don’t work that hard for some reason…. I feel shitty, and I know the only way to properly fix it is to get back on the grind. On the downside, I have trouble sometimes deciding when some time away from work would actually be beneficial to how much work I can do. Every who has pros and cons. I have many questions, and twice as many pros and cons, more than I can write here. They are for me, and they are mine. But across all my questions, and all my pros and cons I try to keep a standard to which I can hold myself.

     I stray, certainly. Some days I come home from work, and I haven’t worked as hard as I can possibly work. Some days I don’t train as hard as I can possibly train. Some days I tell people to do things (i.e. eat clean) that I haven’t been doing.
​
     It is those moments, that I feel my worst, when there is dissonance between the person WHO I want to be and the person that I am being. I have carried these WHO questions through the many different things I have done in my life so far. I encourage you to cut the bullshit and find yours, and find it for no one else but you.

     I'd love to hear how you go. Thanks for taking the time to read and share the beginning of working on your Who. Be real, be you, and as always Just Be Nice.

-J

    Well today I didn’t see that coming. Honestly I thought it was terrifying enough that Trump had become 50% of the presidential candidates with a shot at the United States Presidency. It’s not even because he had been sexist, racist and xenophobic. In Australia we have had heads of state that share similar sentiments, we regularly hear about people wanting to ‘Stop the Boats’ here, which is our equivalent of wanting to build a wall I suppose.

    The problem for me was that he just wasn’t good enough. Hardly presidential, completely uninformed, unprepared, easily upset. A name calling, impatient and at time childish fully grown man, with a very wonky grasp on facts ranging from mistruths to outright lies on a scale that boggled my mind coming from a man that is making speeches in public and running for the office termed ‘leader of the free world’.

    Then, today, Donald Trump won.

    Upon reflection, I can see how this has come to pass. Taking a look around at the kinds of things I see every day it’s not hard to see how often we laud and support and let Trump-like things in our own society. 

    We have become a society that applauds average. We applaud fraud. We applaud small doses of even criminal activity, depending on who does it. No longer is it important to BE an expert, you simply have to SAY you are an expert. People attend university less to acquire knowledge, and more to acquire ‘a piece of paper’. You can be paid simply for what your Instagram looks like, rather than the things you are doing. We have business coaches that don’t know how to run businesses promising 7-figure profits, fitness experts promising expedited results to get a certain body type, everything quicker, easier, simpler. People often want to hear your ‘pitch’ they don’t want to know what you are up to.

    We are forgetting the art of mastery. We are spending so much time and energy looking like something, that we are forgetting to actually BE that something.

    We now have the biggest scale outcome possible from this environment where substance no longer matters. Truth no longer matters. Hype matters. Saying things matters, even if they aren’t true. Pitch matters. We are electing slogans and not actions. The time you have put into actually developing yourself doesn’t matter.

         It is the same environment that allows equal amounts of media coverage to climate change denial as it does for the actual facts that human-induced climate change is really happening, right now. Expertise counts less now than it ever did. with volume counting for more than truth. The loudest voice in the room wins, not the person who is actually speaking truth.

      Trump has pitched the world’s biggest and best, ‘Get Rich Quick’ scheme to millions of disaffected Americans, and they have responded according to the environment they are accustomed to. Like all good ‘Quick’ schemes, it is low on the details, and high on emotion and ‘Huge, Tremendous’ claims… believe me.
​
       We are chasing celebrity, appearances and a façade of success and happiness over intelligence and integrity in every other aspect of our lives, so now I can see how we have ended up with a President of the USA that ticks those boxes. Who can offer us a body in a two week challenge, six figure incomes within a month and who can fix our country in ten simple steps that will be enacted within a week of taking office?

         Forget the fact that science, evidence and truth will all indicate that these things are impossible, the fact is we buy these pitches every, single, day. It was only a matter of time before the will and actions of the people filtered up to their representatives.

       As long as we make celebrities out of actors and athletes who’s behaviour would make us cringe, as long as the only barrier to entry into claiming to be an expert in a certain field is the number of characters you are allowed to use in an Instagram bio, and as long as we keep failing to demand the best out of ourselves and others, the leadership of countries that stand for nothing, will continue to represent the people.

         Thank you for taking the time to read this, be better, demand better and as always, Just Be Nice.

- J

The last time was not the first time.

Our kitchen and dining room was tiled, at the back of the house, and there was an island bench in the middle of the rooms running between the sink and kitchen bench and the large glass sliding doors to the back yard.

Only one door into the kitchen from the hallway.

We had a cheap old table, and cheap green chairs, small metal legs with little rubber ends on them, chairs made out of plastic moulds which I think now I haven’t seen for decades since.

The tiled floor is significant; Mum was in the kitchen making cordial for us, so when she was thrown to the floor by my father, the cordial was spilled everywhere. The tiled floor was wet, slightly sticky. The messy liquid was spread across the floor into the dining room as she was dragged around the island bench. Screaming to stop, kicking, thrashing around in an attempt to free her arms. I heard the screams and ran down the hallway to find my father trying to do what I assumed was break both Mums arms off, and slam her face into the floor.

It’s strange what you remember when you reflect on these moments. I remember the wet floor, I remember thinking that I should grab a knife so once mum had been dragged around the kitchen on the floor I could run past and grab a knife and jam it into my fathers back… But I thought he could take it off me and use it on Mum, or me… After all, I’m just a kid.

I’m yelling, Mum’s yelling. Paul's* eyes are black.

You don’t forget that look. I had seen it before, picked up by the throat and slammed into a wall, before being slapped across the wall by the face. I had seen it before. Sitting on my parents bed once before, I saw the blackness as I got an open hand across the face that sent me flying off the bed and into the doorway of the bedroom in one go. I saw the blackness as my father choked my mum in the same bed after she yelled at him for trying to knock my head off. I had seen it before many times. The blackness of the normally brown eyes is firmly etched into my brain, and will be forever I have no doubt.

The black eyes didn’t even barely look at me as he swatted me away the first time I went in to help mum. I didn’t get close. My father was a strong and powerful man in his right mind, let alone in the middle of a rage. So I did the only thing I could think to do after that, and I jumped on his back, trying to choke or pull him off or something. I was only 9 or something, so he pulled me off his back and threw me towards the large glass rear doors. I remember grabbing the chair to stop from flying through the window. I remember sliding in the liquid on the tiled floor. I remember seeing mum still on the floor, and as I hit the window, slowed by the chair, Paul opened the sliding door and threw Mum out.

I wanted to tell him he was a f*#king idiot. To tell him to f*#k off, to yell and scream, but I was terrified that something would happen, all I could manage was to yell at him that he was an idiot.

I remember all of that with such clarity, that it seems odd that I don’t remember how we all got out. I remember running down the hallway and getting my younger brother and sister to go out, and I remember being in our shitty little car ready to go, before mum went in to grab our dressing gowns because it was after dinner time and we were in our pyjamas.

If I go back into my mind’s eye for that time however, there are some details I left out. While I am deciding what to do, whether I will grab a knife, or jump on my fathers back, or scream or yell… My little brother and sister are in the doorway to the kitchen, crying and screaming. My baby brothers little face, chubby, crying, yelling. My little sisters little curls wild and all over her red, wet face, wild bits sticking to her face..
They are both being held back by a man.
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Two of my father’s friends were there that night.

I don’t remember their names now, maybe one was Steve, maybe one wasn’t. But there were two of them. Two of Paul's latest drinking buddies. The drinking buddies changed fairly regularly, Paul liked the adulation of hangers on, and so he changed them regularly. I remember that that night they had brought a large, odd shaped bottle of a yellow liquor. I think now, upon reflection that it was some kind of home brew.
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I remember the bottle, because one of the men was holding onto it, keeping it out of the way, as he stood in the kitchen just saying something like “Paul, Paul”. I remember he grabbed the bottle so it wouldn’t get knocked off the table during the violence.

I remember the other man taking my little brother and sister to the front of the house where the lounge room was. Away from the beating that was going on in the kitchen.
There were two men in my house that night.

Grown men, who watched someone try to beat my mother up. Grown men who watched another grown man attempt to throw his son through a window.
 
Often times, when we recount these stories or hear about them, the comment threads encourage people to ‘bash these weak bastards’ or ‘this guy should have his arms broken off’, things of that nature. Violence, for me, is not the answer to undo violence. I have come to a place of peace, by letting go any notion that a beating in any direction, to anybody, will undo the beating that I witnessed.

I think that perhaps in the macho-talk about how we should beat these guys up we miss the message that we should just do something. I don’t know anyone who thinks that what happened is ok, under any circumstance. There might be people who don’t know how to deal with it.

I am glad that I don’t have to walk around as one of the Unpolished men. These two men did nothing to get in the way, nothing to stop what was happening. They might not have been able to beat Paul into a pulp, or follow through on the tough talk that I see on the internet… but I can’t help but feel that they could have done something.

​If you are going to be a polished man, if you are going to raise awareness, make sure that you are ready to raise a polished hand in the event that circumstances call on you to do it. Awareness is nothing without being able to speak up, call people out or get in the way of violence against children.

Don’t stand idly by.

Don’t walk around knowing that you should have stepped in, that you should have done more.

Don’t leave a child with the memory of your indifferent observation.

If you see the situation, help first, worry about what happens after.

Help.
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Not be a hero. Not go in with the intention of beating a ‘child basher’ or a ‘woman basher’, and teaching them a lesson. Just get the people who need help away. Bravery is about doing the right thing, not the big thing. You don’t need to serve ‘justice’ on the spot, you simply need to help. In some way. In whatever capacity you can, depending on the situation and the circumstance.

It’s ok to be scared. The black eyes of a man in a rage are terrifying to everyone. You don’t have to confront them in a way that goes over and above removing the person who needs help from harm’s way. Just do the removing.

Be a Polished Man. Be a Good Man, and always, always Just Be Nice.
 
 *name has been changed

Edit* Thank you to all who donated to my Polished Man Campaign page to raise awareness and funds to prevent violence against children.

For further information on how you can help if you witness or suspect domestic violence, visit www.dvrc.org.au

Please don't hesitate to share this blog if you feel like some people you know might get something out of a conversation like this, and thank you in advance.

              Talking, writing, recording, filming. All of these acts put you directly into the brain of the people consuming your content. As you read this, I am making you speak in your head in your voice, the words and thoughts that have come out of my brain.

                When you write, you become the inner dialogue in someone else’s head. When you speak, it goes in through the ears, directly to the brain. When you make a video, it’s a multi-sensory invasion of people’s consciousness, though the eyes and the ears, through multiple camera angles, music and dialogue.

                When we discuss physical health, we are conscious of what we put into our bodies in order to maintain health. For our brains, it is much the same. Be careful what you put in there, careful what you keep in there and be careful about what other people put in there.

                I believe mental health is more complex than just the digestive system. It is more like a combination of the digestive system and the immune system.         

             You need nourishment, you need to feed your mind with quality nutrients, variation, things that keep you operating in good health. What you allow your brain to take in is responsible for feeding your outlook on life, your happiness, your appreciation for things, your knowledge. Feeding your brain with quality can help your focus, and like a good diet, allow you to operate without cloudy judgement. Variety keeps your synapses fresh and your brain young, like a fresh diet keeps you in good physical health.

                For your immune system to function properly however, you need to introduce pathogens from time to time. Your immune system needs to build up defence to pathogens the way that your brain needs a chance to build resilience. Like your body, you should start to develop your immunity early on. If you get to your teen years without having acquired any immunity to the negative thoughts that can affect your brain, you might find that you get affected very seriously.

                If you build your immunity from a young age, then you can find yourself immune from community based infections. In a mental sense, you arrive to your teen and adult years with a strong sense of self, self-confidence, independence, compassion and empathy. If you are sheltered from any negative or contrary mental influence, and only experience it as a teen or young adult, you are ill-equipped to get through it without significant trauma that can leave lasting scars.

                At the same time, there is a level of infection that no-one can beat off on their own. In those cases, we need antibiotics. For mental infection, the antibiotic substitute can come in the form of supportive friends, love, familial connection, purpose and feelings of belonging. Combined with your own internal immunity, generally we can get through these incidents…. Sometimes, tragically, people don’t.

                The point being, we do need to experience negativity to build our immunity to it. You will come across it in the broader community, either at home, or when you travel or change work or school environments. It is unavoidable. We build immunity by small, regular, varied and relevant exposure to these elements, for as long as possible. We build our antidotes by building strong, aware, present, caring and empathetic communities together to support people in times of mental illness.

                Being exposed to the measles vaccine is not the same as having measles, and in that way we can look at certain things we consider negative mentally. Being exposed to mild bullying, such as you might find among siblings, might actually make you more resilient later in life to the small (and even large) ribbings that you might get in school or in the workplace. If a child with no siblings is never exposed to these things, then the transition to kinder, school or work might be more traumatic.

          Like a virus, or bacterial infection, no matter how strong the antibiotic, there is always an evolution, as we attack one form or incarnation of mental illness, another one will evolve. There will always be new ways for people to spread hate, self-loathing or bullying. As environmental factors change, different strains of stress, anxiety, depression, sadness, pressure will adapt to the new surroundings. Sometimes, rather than just seek stronger antibiotics, it is better to expose people to these factors earlier on, with regular antibiotics on hand and allow individual immunity to develop.

              Be mindful of spreading poor mental health, be mindful of ingesting too much ‘fast food’ for your brain. A bit of course won’t hurt, in the same way the occasional burger and chips is fine. Don’t feed the bad mental food to those around you, or those in your care. Feed your mind with positivity and appreciation, work it out by using it, train it by making it work.

             At the same time, don’t avoid every mental ‘germ’ in the hopes of avoiding illness. The only way to truly develop your mental immunity is to expose yourself and others to the real world, which is full of amazing wonder and also terrifying sadness. Gently, regularly and with great variation, you must expose yourself and overcome these small thoughts and build an immune system and mental health that will see you in good stead through every situation you might find yourself in for your whole life. Don’t spread mental disease by overloading people’s eyes, ears and brains with negativity, doubt and deprecation. Build the immunity of yourself and everyone you know by balancing the negative with the antibiotic properties of purpose, gratitude, love and support.

Be real, be healthy and of course, Just Be Nice.

      Do you remember being a child, and getting something from your parents, only to swiftly be followed up with a “Say Thank You”.

       I remember always thinking… I was going to say it! Now it doesn’t mean anything, because you’ve told me to do it.

       Have you ever seen someone on the street rattling a tin for a charity, or trying to sign people up to some cause, and think, “I already do things for several other causes, but now I feel awkward saying I’m not interested because I already picked the things I help with”.

        That is how I feel about this trend of starting a hashtag, or a ‘tag some friends’ post that has to be a ‘call to action’ or that we have to share to ‘raise awareness’ and usually we have to post it with some kind of video of ourselves or something where we ask everyone else to do something whether or not we actually do the thing ourselves.
          
     There is a brilliant quote from Tolstoy that reads “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
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           To make change, you have to make change. Make, the verb. Making is a doing word. To make change, is not to tell everyone else to do something for someone else, it is to lead by example.

       You might not get as many likes on Facebook, you might not get as many encouraging comments on social media, but if you actually live your life by example, you will most certainly have a much bigger impact than simply asking everyone else to go and do something. “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself”, ask yourself, if I have just learned a thing today, am I really qualified to then tell everyone else to do it? If I have just lifted weights for the first time, should I then go out and tell everyone that they should now go out and lift weights?

     We see these things take off on social media based on inaccurate statistics sometimes. I understand that you would like to do some good, but if you can’t take the time to even check the facts of the cause you are talking about, how can you tell me to care about it as well? How much actual ‘care’ is involved in those instances.

        There are so many things that are worth discussing, many with equal merit. People have thousands of diseases that need cures, there are so many levels of disadvantage, homelessness, addiction, people who just struggle in day to day life, people have internal mental battles with depression and anxiety. Sometimes people just have shitty days.

         Starting with appreciating your own life, you can open up many opportunities to learn about the struggles of others. Once you are aware of the struggles, you can make a decision to DO something about the struggles you feel comfortable with helping.

          Exactly zero percent of the conversations that I have had in my life that have made a difference have come from a post with a hashtag in it. The conversations come from people who LIVE the lives of good and caring people all the time. The amazing thing about making a difference too is not in the questions we ask, but in the way that we listen. The real change in how we look at helping should come from listening, understanding and educating.

         Complexity and noise are barriers to understanding. Additional duplications of causes or outcomes create this barrier, in the same way that duplications of charities, create complexity and noise that hinder understanding.

          RUOK Day is a great example, and the original educational opportunity through social media, for understanding how to approach conversations with people struggling with mental health issues. #RUOK still exists, and the organisation exists to educate people on how to have effective conversations and listen to people who might need a friendly ear.

        For people who really care about improving the quality of that conversation, let’s not compete. Let’s not confuse the message. Let’s not create more unnecessary noise, rather enhance the message which already exists. Listen. Be there. Be there offline and online. Be there for people in any capacity you can.

      Look past awareness as the sole outcome of what you are trying to achieve, awareness is nothing without action that supports the people in need. With that in mind, make sure that you are taking the action that you are asking others to do. A great example of that is Jamie Milne, running to raise awareness for Alzheimers Australia, off the back of raising much needed funds for their research! Awareness becomes the by-product of the action that actually makes a difference.

            Educate people and allow them to make their own choices about where they would like to help, and what they are comfortable with. Some people will want to help animals, some will be passionate about race relations, others, particular diseases that have affected their families.

            Understand that effecting lasting change is a long term process, that doesn’t need something to go viral so that it is in everyone’s consciousness for a brief second only to disappear once we have shared a post. Give people space and information over time to learn to care about the things you care about.

            Try share more about what others are doing, rather than demand that they do the things you are doing. Focusing on the good work that other people do is a great way to encourage people to keep on doing it! Hashtags are a great way to spread information, but use them wisely. Take some care to care. Check the facts, do some investigation, make sure if you are going to ask people to do something, that you have at least made sure that you actually know why.

            Put some time in. Authority is built by expertise and effort. You might ‘care’ the same as someone who has been doing something a long time, but you will not have the same authority as they do. If you see an issue, educate yourself, put some time in.

            Ghandi said “Be the change you want to see in the world” – not “Make the hashtag that you want everyone to use when referring to a change that you’d like to see in the world”.

            Start with you. Start with your actions. Start by Just Being Nice.