CLG Collective Podcast – Shark Attack with Paul de Gelder
Episode 004 - Paul de Gelder
In this episode of the Carl Gould Collective Podcast, Carl Gould interviews Paul de Gelder, a former paratrooper in the Royal Australian Army and Navy clearance diver. Paul shares his journey from being a peacekeeper in East Timor to become a member of the elite dive team. He also talks about the varied and exciting roles he played as a clearance diver, including underwater battle damage repair and land-based EOD.
Here are the top three takeaways from the podcast:
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Embrace challenges: Paul talks about how he faced numerous challenges in his life, from being kicked out of his home at 17 to having his deployment to Iraq revoked. Despite these setbacks, he remained determined to find his dream job and poured his heart and soul into becoming a Navy clearance diver. His message to listeners is to embrace challenges and use them as an opportunity for growth.
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Pursue your passion: Paul discovered his passion for diving and used it as a way to move up in his career. He says that finding your passion is crucial to achieving success in life. He advises listeners to try new things and explore different interests to find what truly excites them.
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Be adaptable: As a clearance diver, Paul had to be adaptable and prepared for any situation. He talks about the varied roles he played as a diver, from doing underwater battle damage repair to land-based EOD. He advises listeners to be open-minded and adaptable, as it will help them navigate any situation they may face in their personal or professional life.
Overall, Paul’s story is one of perseverance, determination, and embracing new challenges. His message to listeners is to find their passion, embrace challenges, and be adaptable to achieve their goals.
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Carl Gould Collective Podcast – Shark Attack with Paul de Gelder – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yGatOAfpYQTranscript:
(00:00) welcome to the Carl Gould Collective the podcast that offers you the top subject matter experts every episode we bring you guests who will help you reach your next level as a business leader I’m your host Carl Gould and today we have uh Paul the Gilder so Paul you jump you you joined the Royal Australian Army as a power Trooper what were you about 23 years old at the time yeah exactly yeah um joined uh just before my 24th birthday right and now you were doing that as a peacekeeper is that right well that’s
(00:33) that was one of the jobs we get employed to do um so as a infantry Soldier you get employed for many roles mostly War but um the the the deployment that I had the year after I joined was as a UN peacekeeper in a a small island nation called East Timor where the Indonesians had been invading and killing these people for decades and so a multinational Force went in there to protect the East teameries and I spent six months patrolling the Border making sure that um these people were safe with my battalion oh right on yeah my it’s funny my son uh
(01:11) so rewind a few years we we go on a trip to Hawaii and I say to my son hey let’s go parasailing and he’s like Dad you know you know I don’t like heights I don’t want to do that right so a year later he said he announces I want to go in the army and I said oh yeah well done I said what do you want to do he’s like I want to be a paratrooper oh uh you want to go parasailing a year ago so my son is a paratrooper right now oh that’s amazing good on him yeah he loves it he loves it and um and that was funny if
(01:40) not for covid he had a a joint training exercise uh scheduled for uh Australia they were going to do a whole Asia tour and um the Australian force was one of the ones they were going to train with oh that’s cool as hell yeah we love it when the Americans come in and we get to mix it up and uh hang out we’ll go and show him a good time take him out on the beers so you see how good see if they can compete with the Australian drink well maybe jumping out of a plane but drinking beers no shot you guys got that
(02:10) there’s no way there’s no way well you know when he was doing air School in Fort Benning in um in Georgia he said there are a number of other countries getting trained as well and there were a number of Australians there he said yeah yeah I’m sure it’s that’s the great thing about being part of this uh Allied Force we get to mix it up with a bunch of other countries we have exchange programs with the UK with America with Canada um so I was actually supposed to go on a three-month exchange with the UK but
(02:39) then uh something kind of drastic happened in my life and I didn’t end up going on that right right so so you go from the air you’re a paratrooper then you go then you then you get into diving right you’re on the Navy clearance Navy clearance um yeah divers right and so so you get onto the dive team why why why the switch from I’m a paratrooper but now I want to get onto the dive team um it’s a really long story about getting asked to go to Iraq to uh bolster security detachments with a small team and that getting revoked
(03:15) after four days and I’m sorry four days before we left and becoming disenfranchised with you know not being at a Deployable unit and uh all that stuff but eventually you know what I just got sick of being dirty and smelly and running around the bush right right doing that for four years can wear thin and so I was just looking for something else to do and uh I didn’t have much to fall back on you know I didn’t do well in high school uh I didn’t have really a home you know I got kicked out of home
(03:48) at 17 because I was about a bit of a bad kid um and so I didn’t want to leave the military I just figured there’s a lot of other jobs you know I can I can move laterally into something else but I didn’t want to go down I wanted to go up and so the really the only way to go up is either go special forces in the Army joined the Commandos or the SAS or go into clearance divers and so I thought you know what I’m down for something different and a new test and it’s it’s very very hard to get into
(04:19) um has a very high attrition rate but I thought you know what I’m just going to pour my heart and soul into it and fortunately I did pass probably by the skin of my teeth but I discovered my dream job and um I really really loved what I was doing it was such a varied job everything from you know a very Navy SEAL type stuff traditional Frogman type stuff like um Maritime tactical operations pure oxygen rebreathers diving into enemy territory under cover of Darkness on pure oxygen rebreather strapped to your chest that
(04:57) would kill you if you go below 15 meters to jumping out of uh helicopters and doing aerial mine disposals on Seabourn mines in the middle of the ocean underwater battle damage repair on hard hat diving on the the modern day diving helmets and using giant chainsaws Diamond tip chainsaws drills pneumatic guns welding broco cut cutting and then also you do land-based EOD so you know the stuff you see in the movie The Hurt Locker yeah and then you can you also can go and join the Special Forces as a tactical assault group owner basically
(05:33) the military SWAT team against terrorists so I loved the varied role every you never knew what was going to happen one day to the next and um it was just very exciting very interesting um and yeah I I you know I I felt like I’d moved up in the world and I I had achieved more in my life just by getting there than I ever thought possible well yeah and sometimes that’s the appeal of it because it’s so hard you know because not everyone can do it right yeah it makes you want to that makes you want it even more you know
(06:05) yeah well my younger brothers didn’t even think that I’d passed infantry selection so I had a lot of people to uh prove wrong and show that I could actually amount to something mostly my school teachers [Laughter] listen I remember uh you know I remember some you know people telling me like yeah yo yeah you little smart ass you’re never gonna do this you’re never gonna do that you know you almost you almost want to send it send it you know send an email back to them more like at a time although of all the stuff you actually
(06:36) did accomplish because you know based on what they told you you weren’t going to be able to do so yeah well fortunately I have to didn’t have to do that because I ended up on every News Channel and every newspaper anyway well yeah you you probably got there in a way that you didn’t think so yeah yes let’s talk about that you uh everyone knows you now you know from Shark Week and the conservation work that you’ve done and we’ll come back to that in a second but so then so there you are
(07:01) you’re in the uh you’re in that you’re in the force and um you have a life-changing event if I if I remember you were in the uh uh uh Sydney Harbor is that right on a uh on a clearing Mission so take us to what happened there um it was February 2009 uh so the end of summer in Australia the hottest month of the year and we were doing a counter-terrorism training exercise and it sounds way more badass than what it was it was actually really boring um the r d Department of the military wanted to test this new equipment that
(07:36) would be automated video and sonar that would detect attack swimmers with the video on the surface and detect attack divers underwater with the sonar and so me and three of my mates were acting as those attack swimmers and divers to um to see if it would work and so we’re like right alongside the Navy base in this very famous place of Sydney Harbor called willamalu we have a lot of very funny names in Australia um and I was in the water second I just pulled the new guy out to give him a break I jumped in the water and about five
(08:12) minutes later a bull shark a nine-foot bull shark came up from underneath me and grabbed me by the back of the leg and the right hand in the same bite and I was so I’m swimming on the surface on my back with just a wetsuit a pair of fins and his bull shark just comes up and grabs me and decides that it wants those limbs more than I do unfortunately and so I I was fighting for my life I tried to go for the eyeball like you hear on Discovery Channel uh but it had my hand and so I couldn’t really fight
(08:44) back I couldn’t reach it with my left hand and so it took me underwater and just tore me to pieces and I really thought that I was gonna die I remember thinking to myself you’re not going home today you’re gonna die right now and eventually you know the footage is on YouTube you can actually watch me getting eaten alive and I’ve seen it the the shark actually thrashes you about a bit Yeah it throws you back and forth oh yeah this is a you know an 800 pound animal made of pure muscle in its element and when you’re in its jaws you
(09:19) understand how out of your element you actually are and um So eventually its teeth rips through my limbs and it because it was probably swimming off swallowing part of my body and I wasn’t attached to it anymore my wetsuit made me buoyant so I popped to the surface realize that I’m still alive and start swimming back to the boat and then I see that my hands gone and so my medical training kicks in I keep that wound above my heart I’m not wearing my robot arm right now so you can see it um so I’m trying to stem the bleeding by
(09:53) keeping that above my heart can’t feel my right leg at all I don’t know how bad it is I just can’t feel it so I’m swimming back to my safety boat through a pool of my own blood with one hand and one leg and fortunately my three teammates were in the safety boat they came gunning over towards me grabbed me out of the water threw me in and started doing first aid and kept me alive until the paramedics came well you’re on this was all on video because I remember I’ve seen I’ve seen the video did they know
(10:21) what was going on did they realize you were attacked or was it until you started swimming back that they realized what was going on no they they saw the fins in the water thrashing around because its tail was flapping around thrashing water as well yeah so they instantly got on the radio comms to my chief who was on The Wharf so and we’ve got a shark attack we’ve got a shark attack right right right so um and this is the first shark attack in Sydney Harbor in 60 years um no clearance dive has ever been
(10:49) attacked by a shark so this is such a rare occurrence I can’t even imagine what was going through their head right right right yeah well because you hear about it I mean it’s funny the uh the movie Jaws is based on a a shark that got caught in New Jersey Waters as a matter of fact where it got it got stuck in one of the rivers down near South Jersey and uh but since then you know there’s always been this fear of the animal the fear of that you know that sharks are everywhere but it’s actually
(11:16) the attacks are actually pretty rare you know worldwide but um so um now I remember when when you and I first met and you were telling me about the experience you there was a time in your so you’re now you’re in the hospital and there’s a time when the doctors are saying or you know you have to make a choice about amputation or not right so what was what was that all about what was that like well the good thing was the surgeon had worked with a lot of Special Forces guys and a lot of high and military people in
(11:48) the past and so he knew that what he had to do was give me the information so that I could process it make the decision myself and so he came in and he broke it down for me and he said look the Paul the the shark has taken your entire hamstring and also 25 centimeters of your sciatic nerve so not only will you not be able to move your leg again you’ll never be able to feel it again now we can save the leg we can cover it up with a skin graft but that chunk will always be missing and you’ll walk with a
(12:20) limp you’ll never run again your Fitness will suffer your happiness will suffer you’ll it could literally Catch Fire and you wouldn’t even know alternatively we can remove the leg and have you walking possibly running on a prosthetic within 12 months um and I was on a lot of drugs I was on morphine I was on ketamine and so I looked in in square in the face and just said doc you can take my leg and turn me into a Terminator is that what you thought is that what you’re talking about yeah yeah verbatim
(12:51) because I was like I said I was on a lot of drivers right right right I was 100 serious I had like RoboCop running through my head I’ve seen that movie yeah I’d do that Wolverine me up doc I just like the movie it’ll be perfect so looking back to you you feel you made the right choice oh yeah absolutely yeah right because it sounds like you get your Mobility back you have a chance to you you get you get a life by choice now rather than being handled yeah well look I just I didn’t want to have my my
(13:25) motivation suffer and my happiness suffer and carry this unfeeling lump of wood around with me I just wanted to get on with life and so if by removing the leg is the fastest track for me to get on with life and start recovering then that’s what I’m gonna do um I didn’t know much about the prosthetic situation at that point uh that did that knowledge didn’t come until later and so um once I started studying all of the available Prosthetics what was our what was coming in the future that you know
(13:54) knowledge dispels fear and so the more research I did into the Prosthetics into looking at videos of paralympic athletes and you know there was videos of men climbing mountains with no no legs they’re climbing this mountain on their hands and so I I realized if these people can do it there’s no reason that I can’t do it there’s no reason to we can’t do it you know that let these other people set the example for us to follow we don’t have to recreate the wheel anymore that we have this
(14:24) incredible thing called the internet where we have the wealth of the world’s knowledge within a few keystrokes so why not learn from people that have already been through it because there are very few things in this world that we’re going to come across that someone else hasn’t already been through so why not learn from them and and we can even better their successes as we move forward so that that was one of the driving motivating factors for me to recover as quickly as I did right right on so you now you’re still in the Navy
(14:55) technically so do you get is there any special prosthetic or anything that that you got as being a a member of the military or you know as far as the treatment or um you know was it a standard prosthetic was it something the Navy had been working on that was super secret nobody knew about like what how did you choose because I’ve seen I’ve seen all different types of Prosthetics you know and they come in different styles and all that so what was um how did you end up with the ones that you got was there
(15:28) anything special about it well it kind of very fortunate and unfortunate time um because it was in the midst of an actual war and so many American soldiers were coming home missing limbs because of IEDs the American government had thrown billions of dollars into research and funding for these prosthetic companies and so there was this huge spike in technology uh around the time that I got I got attacked and so I ended up getting the best technology in the world that was also available to all the American Military
(16:04) um and so you know that initially when I was in hospital they came with claws and like these robot clippers from like Lost in Space and I was getting really scared until I started doing my own research and going no no no this is the one I won um and so yeah this stuff is available to everyone the only problem is it because it the technology is in it if was in its infancy it was it was and is still very very expensive so the normal person can’t afford that um but fortunately the military can and so I got the best technology in the
(16:41) world does that continue now that you’re a vet oh yeah yeah so uh the because in the paperwork that the military gave me they claimed a responsibility for what happened to me because I was at work they they stated that they have a responsibility to get me as close to my former life as possible so I use that statement to get me anything I want for example I was a motorcycle rider I never even owned a car I rode motorcycles and so I used that statement to get the veteran affairs to modify a motorcycle for me so I could ride again
(17:21) oh right on right on Yeah so basically anything I want I can find a way to get it I’m very fortunate a lot of people even people in the military you know I know a guy that was uh riding his motorbike home from work one day he stopped at a friend’s house uh and then went home from his friend’s house and he got hit by a car and because he stopped at his friend’s house they wouldn’t cover him so he’s on personal time not working exactly exactly so if he was just traveling directly home it would have
(17:51) been fine but because he stopped somewhere first you know there’s these loopholes and you know sometimes these these government organizations are going to try and get out of anything they can right well it sounds like they did the right thing by you either way but I think you would be given where your life has gone now you they would want to promote what they’ve what they’ve done for you and with you and as far as you know I mean with all the with all the Adventure lifestyle you still have and the fact that you’re able to do it at
(18:19) that level with these Prosthetics I would think they would you know they would use you as a bit of a poster child for it yeah but you know what man it’s you know the the great technology is amazing but it’s not the technology alone it’s what you do with it like think about what Arnold Schwarzenegger and his buddies had to work with when they were becoming the best bodybuilders in the world compared to what we have right now it was basic stuff but they used it the right way and so even if you don’t have the best technology in the
(18:50) world and I know people that don’t as long as you use it the right way you make the most of it you can do I could do the same things that I’m doing now with lesser technology right right on right I’m just fortunate that I do have it to have it that you have it right so so after all this happened so how long did it take for you between rehab learn you know getting fitted for the prosthetic getting the prosthetic where you were back to some sort of normal functioning after after the attack uh so there was no rehab uh
(19:21) so I I did it all myself um I had no counseling um it’s amazing that I turned out as well balanced as I as I am um they they tried to give me a counselor at my bedside in the hospital and it became very clear that this woman had no idea how to talk to someone uh from you know my background and so I was like thank you ma’am but I really don’t need your help um and then they wanted to send the neighbor wanted to send me off to a rehabilitation hospital but we didn’t have the bulk load of soldiers coming
(19:54) back from war to Warrant of military rehab hospital and so they wanted to send me off to an old person’s home and so I said thank you but yeah no thank you I’m gonna I’m gonna go home I spent nine weeks in hospital I started you know two days after my leg was chopped off the surgeon came into my room and found me doing one arm pull-ups on the bar above my bed because I I did not want to lay there overthinking the situation I knew that I had this goal of going back to work as a Navy clearance diver and laying around thinking about
(20:26) how sorry I should feel for myself wasn’t going to work and so sometimes you need to take action you got to put the thinking aside and just think about what you can do to move forward and so I looked around I found that bar I started doing that I got my friends to come in we tied elastic bands to the bars around my bed so I could work even you know just the smallest amount of progression at a time was all that mattered just to feel like I was doing something and moving in the right direction so um I went home after nine weeks in
(20:56) hospital and and started training at the Army gym I had a very very very good friend of mine move in with me and look after me you know do all the cooking and cleaning driving me to the army base when I couldn’t do those things so very once again very very lucky and fortunate and I did all my rehab myself oh right right on did you go back into the uh maybe after that did you go back into the military yeah I went back after six months how for how long were you in three years I uh I ended up yeah I ended up at the um I applied to
(21:29) be at the Navy dive school to uh teach the new up-and-coming recruits and uh Inspire them and pass on the knowledge that the Navy had given to me so I was a Navy diving instructor three years after that oh right on right on and then so when you retired how many years in the military did you have uh I did 12 Years all right well okay yeah for some reason I thought you had um you had left right after that but I didn’t realize you stayed in for three more years no I I used uh you know fear can be a very powerful motivator uh if you if you use
(22:02) it the right way and my fear was right yeah um my fear was like I said earlier I didn’t have much to fall back on and so I used that fear as a very powerful motivator to show the Navy that I could still do my job up to the standard you know I couldn’t go back to the dive teams because I wasn’t Deployable for war but what I could do is work at the dive school and you know there’s this amazing movie called Men of Honor with Robert De Niro and Cuba Gooding Jr yeah you know he he loses his leg he gets
(22:33) back to work and that’s a Navy diver staple and so I used that movie as my inspiration um and it ended up pulling it off within six months and taught Navy divers for three years after that he’s chose to have his leg amputated as well yeah yeah yeah that movie was unbelievable yeah it’s a really great one it’s a classic when you think of the times and how heavy that suit was and how he had to walk on land through that courtroom to prove he was fit I was unbelievable scene yeah you got have you ever met Cuba Gooding by
(23:06) chance have you guys are already actually uh anyone should do with that movie I haven’t I haven’t met Cuba Gooding uh after my attack um my my dive Branch got together and did a little fundraiser for me and they were going to get the actual guy Kyle Brashear to come and fly him out but he’d actually passed they were going to get his son but he wasn’t available um but yeah it’s it’s an amazing story anyone that hasn’t seen that movie Men of Honor go and get it it’s very uh inspirational
(23:34) oh you talk about somebody who wanted something in their life and went for it yeah and paid every price to get it that was unbelievable yeah yeah so after so after the after the Navy you know you know a lot of people when they haven’t experience they’re like all right I’ve picked that box I’m done you know you’ve had you had the you know the attack from the shark the last thing I think most people would have thought was that you would go back to or at least getting involved in sharks but now you know
(24:02) um you’re you’re you you promote shark conservation as well right and and education so so how did um how did Shark Week happen and you know how did you and why did you decide to get back into actually protecting sharks um it happened incrementally uh you know the the only thing I was more afraid of than sharks was public speaking and which is hilarious because now I’m literally a shark diving public speaker yeah um but yeah but there’s a great message in there you know that you can turn your your greatest fears into your
(24:37) greatest strengths if you’re willing to face them head on um yeah there’s nothing wrong with being scared and doing it anyway and so uh because my shark attack was so widely publicized in the media anytime there was another shark interaction the media would ask me for an opinion and so out of the desire to not look like a dumbass on television I’d realize that I’d have to learn about sharks so I started doing all my own research and I discovered that really the sharks have a lot more to fear from us than we do of them you
(25:12) know worldwide on average is about seven shark deaths as opposed to over a hundred million sharks killed a year by humans so really who should be afraid of who who’s really the monster here um and so you’re listening to the Carl Gould Collective podcast when was the last time you took a deep dive into your business get a free business analysis and find out how you can accelerate and sustain your business growth never miss another episode subscribe at coralwood.
(25:42) com getting comfortable in front of the camera telling these things making these stat you know standing up the Sharks and I I really saw it as a transfer of my military service here what do you do in the military really you’re standing up for people and protecting people that can’t stand up and protect themselves and so now that transfer was just on to another species that is being absolutely decimated and can’t speak up for itself and so it was a nice transfer of what I was doing in the military and then I started doing a
(26:10) little bit of public speaking as well and I just became more and more comfortable in front of people and all of a sudden Discovery Channel came and asked me to co-host on a show and I was like oh sure yeah all right I’ll go on check out some sharks and I work with an amazing crew a very you know one of my great friends now Andy Casa Grande is one of the the world great ocean cinematographers and Matt tomachesky who’s a wonderful producer they’ve made me feel very comfortable until we saw our first great white shark and Andy put
(26:43) on his wetsuit and got in the water with it off the coast of Australia and I was just like what are you doing no one gets in the water with great white sharks are you insane and he he taught me over the years working with him how to do it how to do it safely how little they really are uh interested in us as a food source as long as they can see us you know there’s there’s certain ways to dive with sharks that make it much safer than others and you don’t want to be doing it in murky water like I was doing when uh
(27:16) I got attacked right I remember when we did a we did this excursion in Durban where we were swimming with Oceanic blue tips and they said you know you know uh yeah no shiny objects because you know sharks will are curious with their teeth that’s what they do they they explore with their mouths and yeah they’re just so powerful so don’t have one of your arms hanging out if you have a watch take it off so the reflection of the light is nothing shiny if you have a camera you know uh you know tuck it
(27:44) inside cross your arms when you swim out you know they gave us some point keep everything you need you don’t want to lose exactly exactly and what was pretty wild at one point I’m with my whole family my my wife my daughter and son and a couple of sharks came right to uh towards us and they rubbed their whole torso right down our sides to kind of see what we were all about and um and you and you realize like you like you said how little in your element you are and and I remember thinking like At first I’m like wow beautiful animals on
(28:15) all that and I said all these sharks have to do is make make one turn at me and and and decide they wanted something different it wasn’t that damn thing I could do about it yeah exactly because you’re you’re in their element you’re in their home and it’s the funniest thing you know I I meet these people that are deathly afraid of sharks and I’ve worked with some some huge celebrities that are terrified of sharks and then all of a sudden you get those people in the water and all they want to be is close to the
(28:42) Sharks because they they realize they’re not interested and the sharks are swimming away from them they’re like why are they going away I want them closer I’m like oh and you were afraid like five minutes ago on the boat terrified now you want to be close to the Sharks and that’s you know it’s a really life-changing and perspective changing experience that you cannot replicate in any other way yeah I’ll tell you it was uh that was a life moment I’ll never forget my my kids still talk about we talk about it as a
(29:12) family it was one of the it was it was just an amazing experience because you you know once you get to know something a little bit more you don’t need to fear it as much you might respect it more you might want to you know how to be careful but the fear goes away when there’s some familiarity like I said knowledge dispels fee yeah right on right on so now um so you’ve done you’ve done some additional TV work as well right so you’ve done you’ve done Shark Week you but you also there was another show that
(29:43) you were on right wasn’t it where um you were part of a um uh what was it you you were part of another group uh poaching team that’s it the anti-proaching team yeah I remember that yeah what was that yeah um so I’ve done like 18 shows for Shark Week now um and a couple of years back Xbox uh gave me a whole bunch of money to shoot a pilot for a a show that we were going to call fearless and I was gonna embed uh in this series with um different groups and different people all around the world that were risking their lives
(30:16) to make the world a better place and so we went and shot the pilot in Africa with my very good friend Damian Mando who is an Australian Navy clearance diver as well um you know a special forces sniper 12 tours of Iraq private military contractor who transferred all those skills into building a group to protect the wildlife of Zimbabwe and so I went out there and spent a bunch of weeks with him and his Rangers learning about what they did you know they gave me a five minute lesson on how to handle a snake and then gave me a debt black
(30:49) mamba which which was terrifying but incredible experience I didn’t want to leave Africa to see the work that these guys were doing risking literally risking their lives and now he’s um Damon’s actually running the only all-female anti-poaching unit in Africa it’s called Uh akashinga and there’s a very very good documentary everyone should watch it it’s called akashinga which means the brave ones and these women are from you know tribes that have expelled them because of rape or because
(31:22) of domestic abuse or children out of wedlock and they’ve been beaten and raped and like horrendous conditions and Damien’s brought these incredible women together to stand together as a team and protect the wildlife of Africa and so yeah it’s it’s really quite amazing no doubt so you were on the anti-poaching team in Zimbabwe is that where this group is from as well yeah yeah so I spent a couple of weeks out there um I’m not so much a part of the anti-poaching team I was there to document it I went I went through their
(31:52) weapons training their unarmed combat training handling the deadly animals went out on patrols with them um but you know that in my condition with uh my missing leg and robot arm there’s no way that I could do long term what they do or even even short-term to the degree that they do it like they’ll go out there in the middle of the night and they would come back and say oh yeah we got attacked by a lion now I was just thinking well what do you do when you get attacked by a lion like we just have to hold our ground because it was it was
(32:22) it wanted to eat us and so we have to be the bigger batter predator right yeah meet force with Force right oh yes I was never more concerned about my life is when I needed to go to the toilet and the toilet was just across that dark spot in the driveway in and out house and I was thinking to myself how badly do I need to piss right now because everything he wants to eat me I know that’s how they spend their day you know it’s they’ve got you know their kill or be killed eater eat you know yeah exactly we were we were on a safari
(32:59) in um schlui in in South Africa and we were going around we’ve been doing safaris we did a walking Safari which was unbelievable and and then we did a number of driving safaris and on the last day we hadn’t seen uh a cheetah yet and we we saw a lion from way across and uh sorry leopard and um and the uh and we said uh yeah we’d love to see a lion um that said you’re not gonna see a lion today I said why not like how do you know where they are they say look up on that Hill you notice there’s no animals
(33:28) up there look over over there see where all the animals are you look over there see where all the animals are top of the hill there’s none well that’s where the lions are everyone knows where the lions are there’s no question where they are it’s just a question of are you gonna get to where they are right so yeah we’re telling you you’re not gonna see them because we can’t get to where that is but uh just a amazing animals it’s it’s amazing to see them in the wild and we were when we went
(33:54) um the night we got there there were actually six rhinos poached the night we got there and so there were Rangers everywhere and they had you know areas of the reserve on lockdown that was terrible it was terrible and just like just like just like the Sharks it’s all driven by the Asian trade you know I I I I’d say it but Asia is just literally destroying our planet it’s um I lost you because my my phone’s running out about you yeah um yeah for the for the mythical medicine trade for the the status of
(34:28) shark fin soup they’re literally destroying the planet yeah I mean as long as there’s demand it’s there’s always going to be a problem you take away the demand you take away the problem um so years ago I used to work out at Gold’s Gym then it went away yeah it went away it’s still there it went like well there’s a number of them that close down they Consolidated but they’re relaunching are they not aren’t you are are you involved in that at all well the the Gold’s Gym that I go to the the
(34:56) famous One the mecca has been there for I I don’t know how long decades I guess um but yeah I I love it you know when I first moved out to America four years ago I’d turn up to the gym and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s there every morning and because I’m there every morning as well you know he gets comfortable with people and he starts saying hello to me and I’m just thinking I got the Terminator saying hello to me every morning like uh it was it’s amazing I I that place has really become a bit of a home for me
(35:25) because I’ve I’ve been going there so much and met so many of the locals and the regulars and the trainers it’s it’s very comfortable and I love it everyone thinks it’s this big buff bodybuilding gym but it it’s really not it’s an incredible cross-section of human life you know one of my friends is a 72 year old ex celebrity bodyguard who’s got tattoos all down it’s a big like six one black dude and he had a stroke and he can barely move between the machines but he’s there every morning and there’s old
(35:54) women fat people skinny people young people it’s great I really love going there that’s cool yeah we had we the gym that the Gold’s Gym that I had gone to out here in Riverdale New Jersey where I’m from um had closed down and there was apparently some consolidation of the of the brand but um yeah the whole company’s been bought now it’s been built by the the biggest uh Jim chain in Germany actually uh and then it’s great because they’re really great people I you know I’m one of the new faces of the
(36:25) the Gold’s Gym relaunch which is very very strange um I turn up to the photo shoot and it’s Kim Kardashian’s trainer um uh Karina L who’s a famous instagrammer beautiful Amazonian woman a giant German Viking bearded tattooed man and a a giant jacked black opera singer and then there’s 43 year old double amputee little Australian pull together and I’m like I’m out of my league yeah right on well yeah but you so one of the things I remember when we first met you told me was you the physicality
(37:02) the physicality of coming back from your attack was what kind of got you through or at least put you on a path to get through what you’re what you’re going through so and and I get what you’re saying because you go to the gym and there’s all shapes and sizes there and there’s all and there’s all reasons to be there but you know physical fitness is one of the few things you can do or physical activities one of the few things that you can do where it pushes pushes your mind body and spirit at the
(37:31) same time and it makes you it it’s at some point makes you say either I quit or I’m gonna keep going right you’ve got to make that choice almost every time so everyone in the gym is there pushing themselves a little bit so so if somebody if someone’s listening to this and saying okay I’m inspired by what you said I didn’t go through what you did but all right physicality was one of the ways out where would you suggest someone gets started oh you can get started anyway um it just depends on the level of
(38:01) Fitness that you’re at the level of comfortability that you’re at uh you know I was very very self-conscious after the shark attack having missed two limbs you know I came from an industry where I could I I was employed because I could physically do anything that the military asked me to do and all of a sudden I can’t even walk and so I had to build everything from the ground up again and so it is it can be daunting and it can be scary and people you might feel like people are looking at you but
(38:35) in that that physicality and that training was one of the biggest parts of my therapy and one of the reasons that I don’t have PTSD I I don’t have depression I don’t have nightmares I don’t have flashbacks I’m 100 okay and sometimes I think that there’s something wrong with me just for the fact that I’m okay when I maybe I should yeah but but the getting into the gym and going out for a run you know if you can’t if you can’t run yet take a walk build up the speed of your walk maybe run between the
(39:08) light posts or the bins uh in a small jog build up slowly if you don’t like lifting weights then join a CrossFit Club I you know I love what CrossFit has done for bringing people that you know especially women who might never have lifted weights in their life into a social club and taught them how to be fit and strong and powerful and so physicality is something that I I would absolutely recommend to everyone um no matter what level you’re at just start somewhere because the more you do it the better you get at it and that’s
(39:44) the thing you can actually see your progression and that inspires you to do more makes you feel better you get to live a healthier better life you’re less inclined to get covered which is you know a big thing right now so there’s no reason not to do it right right on and you’ve since gone vegan recently yeah well four years ago so four years ago um not not really that recently it actually started in Africa with Damian um I I hadn’t really known anything about it but you know I saw him eating
(40:17) from a separate pot to his Rangers and I’m thinking oh this this cheeky bugger is saving the good meat for himself and giving the Rangers the crap and so I cockly asked him about he’s like well I don’t eat meat and that I was like what he’s like six two he’s a man Mountain he’s like Search and Destroy tattoo across his chest from his old days and then I was what do you mean you don’t eat meat he’s like well I’m vegan I’m like what’s that and he says well look I was out here trying to protect these
(40:49) animals and then at night I was going home and I was eating the animals and I felt like a hypocrite and you can see Damien he’s at the the end of the game changers movie yeah I was gonna say I remember him from that and he said yeah I’m tired of feeling full of yeah and you know and I’m being a hypocrite so he did something exactly and so that that rung a bell with me that hypocrite word because I’d worked with a lot of very poor leaders and they were all Hypocrites they were all do as I say not
(41:17) do as I do that didn’t lead by example and I always strive to not be one of those people I always want to be leading by example setting the example and so I went home with that on my brain and I decided to go vegan and I failed in two days and so I got put on the back burner for a while and but it just kept popping up like other inspirational people or friends that I knew that I respected had gone vegan and and so I’m a firm believer that when something continuously pops up in your world it’s the universe speaking to you and it’s
(41:56) for a good reason so you need to listen and you’re ready for it too yeah it’s probably been around you for a while I remember I went vegan 30 years ago um and uh you know I had allergies and it was the you know I I heard the message at the right time for me but sounds like that was the same for you yeah yeah absolutely you know I I I I love it I 100 love it I would never go back I feel you know I haven’t had us I haven’t had a a lingering injury since the day I started and I used to get all the injuries I spent so much time in the
(42:36) um in the what do they call them the physiotherapist office with like bad tendonitis in my elbows from cocking machine guns 100 times climbing ropes with packs on and all that garbage all went away I’m good to go and you know what the best thing is I feel good in my soul because nothing is directly dying for me to survive which is it’s needless anyway once you learn you know so the second time around I thought you know I’m gonna do this smart I’m going to cancel things out slowly so I stopped
(43:06) eating kangaroo first which I you know I loved eating kangaroo very rich very low in cholesterol very you know you think about what a cow looks like just a big fat grass eating thing to a big jacked kangaroo I’m like I want to be that big red kangaroo cut that out you know slowly incrementally did it over a couple of months and by the and every time I I cut something away I’d add something more in and I actually get way more nutrients now because I’m not just eating chicken breasts and broccoli yeah right on well yeah and you’re and
(43:38) now that you’re burying it your body can reuse protein and and um it’s a it adapts so much better to that uh you know to that food source you know and um yeah you get uh so when I when I turned vegan in 1990 um you know it must have been a pariah man it was the funniest thing was I go I had a construction company at the time and there’s a deli we used to go into all the time and uh one day we go in and all the guys order their regular sandwiches and I ordered a lettuce and tomato sandwich because that’s all you
(44:12) at the time what no Pastrani exactly so so I go up to pay and he goes I got this i got this and I’m like that’s fine it’s funny he goes no no dude you’re having a tough time he he thought I didn’t order a sandwich because I didn’t have the money right you’re having a rough time I got this one and I’m like and I was like all right thanks you know that’s okay I went back to him later you know so a couple times later I said you know I’m actually I don’t eat meat anymore and uh or
(44:43) animal products and he says oh gosh I got you guys they didn’t have a word for it back then did they no no yeah it was called you’re you’re a you lost your mind like what was your motivation for doing it so far back then when it wasn’t even a thing well I um I had really bad allergies and I had somebody I went through this nutritional seminar and I had somebody challenge me and the lady says to me I bet you it’s the animal products that are in your diet your body’s responding to I’m like wait a minute I go to an
(45:16) allergist I get shots every week I got tested for food allergies he told me I don’t have any and she’s like listen you didn’t hear from me and I’m not a doctor but give me 30 days drink water and eat green vegetables for 30 days no medicines no plant uh no no uh animal products of any sort and she goes see how you feel after uh after 30 days she goes how old he is I’m 23 years old she goes well listen for 23 years you did it this way for 30 days do it my way and if we’re done go back if you
(45:47) don’t like it go back to the way you work so that was 31 years ago now you know 54 and I’m I’ve been I’ve been vegan or now plant-based as you as the new the new name is but yeah within a month my allergies were gone my my went my energy went through the roof and I have not had any medication of any sort but not I haven’t needed it in 31 years like I haven’t amazing oh yeah I haven’t had an aspirin I haven’t had cold medicine I haven’t That’s The Power of it man and that’s why that’s why
(46:21) everyone’s trying to stifle it because you know big Pharma doesn’t want people knowing this because they’re making literal billions and trillions of dollars off everyone being sick when you can cure all of your your illnesses and allergies and auto most autoimmunes I’m not going to blanket everything you can cure everything but look you can cure a lot of stuff just by stop stopping eating these animal proteins and dairy we are not baby cows when there is no other animal on the planet that sucks
(46:54) the milk from another animal it’s ridiculous yeah so what are we doing it for right yeah yeah so I find I mean for me it was funny because I was a I ate meat twice a day you know five days a week and when I announce to my friends oh yeah you know I don’t I don’t eat meat anymore they’re like what but you know one day just spilled into the next to the next to the next one let me think about it anymore yeah same it’s just natural like I I love it and you know what I I like breaking the mold as well
(47:25) um you know I’m not the first person to do it I have a bunch of friends a lot of the guys from the game changers are friends of mine like near my Delgado the bodybuilder Patrick verubian you know um but I don’t I don’t I don’t really rant and Rave about it I kind of let just people assume and then if they get to know me they finally discover that I I don’t need any of that and you know I’m I’m a fit healthy strong dude and I’m 40 nearly 44 years old I I don’t feel like I look that old I have a lot
(47:56) of energy and so I kind of like to break the preconceptions with a bit of surprise and let them know that you can be strong you can be fit you can have muscles and and all that stuff um that you might think you couldn’t have because I thought I couldn’t have that too I thought I was going to turn into a skinny little tree hug and smelly hippie right right right and yeah exactly and and so um uh you know but when people realize that you know your body just kind of settles into its own yeah kind of center of gravity and where
(48:27) it where it was designed to be anyway and then with the with the workout you do and the other regimens you do you build it into whatever whatever optimizes it for you you know like I am by far the healthiest vegan in the world I I yeah I think as long as you exercise you you do your cardio you lift heavy weights you and you can eat almost anything you want I’ve got two buckets of dairy-free um Haagen-Dazs in my freezer right now that I’m probably gonna smash both of them tonight I ate a pizza last night I
(49:05) ate I cooked tacos probably four nights a week I like I love food I love cooking I love eating and I love what the things that I can create with this plant-based like there’s so many cookbooks there’s so so many Instagram Pages like I eat non-stop because I know I can like I don’t have a six-pack but I’m not I don’t have a round belly either um I I and you know so there’s no limitations to what you can do on this plant-based diet except animal products you know there’s 22 000 plants you can
(49:34) eat as opposed to what four animals like what are you really missing out on yeah what are we really giving up here you know and now and now with the Beyond Burger and some of the other plant-based Meats they’ve got the sensation of a uh of a you know regular Animal product if you want to eat food then eat food but make it plant-based yeah that’s right I do it too I got I gotta shop at Costco I got a bunch of Beyond burgers in my freezer I chop that crap up and I put it in my tacos it’s got a good
(50:04) flavor yeah right on right on yeah so we I’m just getting your greens and you’re doing your juices and you’re doing all the good stuff as well every plate has two-thirds green and one-third whatever the hell else you want to make on it yeah 100 yeah right on right on so so you’ve I know you’ve so you’ve come full circle all the way through uh the military it became a public speaker you you know I’ve seen you speak and your your Keynotes are awesome I did I had your book no time for fear but you put
(50:32) out two other books yeah um I did the ebook um tough AF uh which is talking about all of the physical training that I went through uh tough as tough that’s what I thought um but I’m not talking about me I’m talking about the training that I went through yeah um everything from you know it’s [Laughter] um it’s everything from the basic training from the ground up the Basic Fitness assessments you know so I wanted to make it achievable for anyone to start from um so it’s a very basic Fitness
(51:12) assessments you can work up to to everything you go through in infantry school to the things that we did in the Airborne Battalion uh parachute Fitness course and then you know selection processes get into the clearance divers and then stuff that we did for that and you know that stuff turned me into a seriously an elite athlete I I ran races for the Navy up and down some of the biggest mountains in Tasmania over 135 kilometers and I didn’t even train for it and I beat everyone on my team who were like triathletes and um part of the
(51:41) running clubs you know just through doing this training every day um yeah and then this the second book is a revised version of no time for fear that you read um written by my very good friend Lorraine James who’s an incredible writer and a Welsh um Iraq and Afghanistan veteran as well uh so it’s a rehash of the first book with the last eight years included so all of this stuff you know that the first book finished in 2012 uh just before I I left the military and I’ve got all of these stories about learning
(52:16) to be a public speaker learning to deal with sharks learning to be in front of the camera all of the crazy that happens behind the scenes undocumentary shoots that you don’t hear about people nearly dying getting squashed by boats getting attacked by crocodiles all the crazy stuff that they don’t show you so all of that new stuff’s in there I’m pretty happy with it should be out by my birthday end of March it’s called uncaged uncaged uncaged love it love it so we’ll we’ll make sure that goes into
(52:44) show notes and and uh and we’ll we’ll make a big deal of that when it’s getting ready to come out and we’ll have you back on and talk about that some more so so Paul how was uh someone wants to hire hire you for speaking or they want to put you on their next show how do they get in touch for you oh that’s easy just um you know I’m I I use social media but I’m prevalent on Instagram you can just shoot me a DM on Instagram uh you can go to my website uh www.poldagelda.
(53:13) com um yeah I’m pretty easy to get a hold of so you know unfortunately I’m getting booked for live speaking jobs again I miss being on stage man like virtual is cool it’s it’s fine I’ve been doing it for the last year but there’s a little different standing in my lounge room talking to a camera laughing at my own jokes as to being on stage and feeling this energy from the audience and making them laugh making him cry teaching them about the lessons that I’ve learned through this period
(53:41) um you know there’s a big difference there so I’m excited to get back on stage yeah it’d be it’d be nice when um when when some of the uh when we’re all we can move around freely again you know yeah right right now it’s a bit of a bummer yeah I uh yeah I my movements are very limited I’ve done only a couple of Keynotes over the last year but it’s looking it’s looking good to for things to get back to normal so and you call California home now right yeah yeah I love it here I love my gym as we
(54:09) discussed um I I what I love is not just California but I love Living in America which you know they say traditionally is the land of opportunity and it really is and having lived out here for four years now it does make Australia seem very small uh I love my hometown of you know my all my family and my friends are there I miss the beaches um you go you guys are great but you cannot compete with Australian beaches not even close but um it really is I love the fact that it’s almost like a a a multi-country continent you go to
(54:47) different towns they have different accents you know you sound different to someone from Boston they sound different from someone from Wisconsin and you all have your own little um uh little one of the intricacies your little Customs I love I love traveling around the you know I got to go to Kansas City and speak and experience life there I’ve been out to Miami to Texas the Canada I know it’s not part of America but um yeah I love it I love living out here I love the experience I love the opportunity that everyone’s given me out
(55:18) here and frankly the the love that everyone gives me I don’t know if it’s because of my cool story uh or my accent or my veteran history but I get a lot of love out here and it’s very much appreciated well I think it it to be fair I think it’s what you’ve like you said what you’ve done with it you’ve been uh you know you you made things happen for yourself when you know the odds weren’t in your favor in a lot of ways and and you’ve made it happen so I think that’s part of what the
(55:45) inspiration is for sure thanks Mike you got it so everybody uh Paul the Gilder Paul thanks for coming on and we’ll uh we’ll catch up on the next one my pleasure mate see you soon yeah you got it thanks for joining us it’s been another great episode of the Carl Gould Collective where we bring you the best in subject matter experts CEOs celebrities and newsmakers sharing real life stories and expertise to help you succeed make sure you visit Coral ghoul.
(56:14) com where you can subscribe listen to past episodes and find out more about growing your business if you’re interested in personal business coaching send me a message join us next time for the Carl Gould Collective podcast