Paul de Gelder: No Time For Fear. How a Shark Attack Survivor Beat the Odds

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Paul de Gelder is one inspirational guy! From rebel, drug dealer and strip club worker to adventurer, soldier, fitness enthusiast, Navy diver, shark attack survivor, top motivational speaker with a best selling book and mentor to schoolkids across Australia, Paul de Gelder is an exceptional person to say the least.

Full Interview

Audio Version

In this episode we talk about:- 

• Paul’s rebel childhood to joining the forces
• That almost fatal morning when he was attacked by a Bull Shark in Sydney Harbour
• How the incident has changed his life for the better
• How he handles the ‘tough’ days
• Why the greatest gift in life is to give back
• And much more…
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Get more of Paul de Gelder

Buy the book: No Time For Fear – How a shark attack survivor beat the odds
Website: PauldeGelder.com

Paul de Gelder Transcript

Guy Lawrence: Hey, this is Guy Lawrence of 180 Nutrition, and welcome to the podcast, episode number 22.

I have to say, if there’s one episode I’ve been pretty excited about, it’s this one. Our special guest today is Mr. Paul de Gelder.

Now, if you’re not sure who Paul is, a quick summary would be: He’s lived a very exceptional, exciting life, to say the least.

He started life early as a bit of a rebel drug dealer, ended up working in the strip clubs of Sydney, and went on to join the forces and became a clearance diver. And back in 2009 he was attacked by a bull shark, losing his hand and having to have his leg amputated.

You know, when you meet this guy, he’s; you know, he exudes life. He makes the most out of it. He’s gone on to become a fantastic public speaker. You know, he’s featuring now on the TV and he’s also written a fantastic book, “No Time for Fear,” which I’d certainly recommend as well.

And once thing is clear when you hang out with Paul, you know, you want to make the most out of each day, because he’s that kind of guy. And, yeah, it’s just awesome to have him on. So, I have no doubt you’re going to get a lot out of this and enjoy it.

As always, if you could leave a review on iTunes for us, that would be amazing. It basically helps our rankings; helps us get the word out there and we can reach more people.

And of course, if you enjoy the show, drop us an email. Let us know. We always like to hear back.

Anyway, until the next one, enjoy.

Guy Lawrence: All right. Let’s get into it, eh?

Stuart Cooke: I’m ready when you are, if you’re happy.

Guy Lawrence: You’re looking good, Stewie, this morning. So, I think let’s strike while the iron is hot, eh?

Stuart Cooke: It’s about as good as it gets on a Monday.

Guy Lawrence: All right. OK. So, hey, this is Guy Lawrence, and I am joined today, as always, with Mr. Stuart Cooke. Welcome, Stewie. Good to see you for a Monday morning.

And our very special guest today is Mr. Paul de Gelder. Paul, welcome. Thanks for coming on, mate.

Paul de Gelder: Thanks, mate. Good morning.

Guy Lawrence: So, just chatting with Stu, you know, especially after meeting up with you for a cup of coffee last time, I think hands down is probably the most inspirational story I’ve ever heard, and your journey, mate.

So, yeah, let’s start from the beginning, eh? For everyone that doesn’t know who Paul de Gelder is and what you’ve been through and achieved, we’d love to hear the story and for our listeners as well that would be amazing.

Paul de Gelder: The thing that people hear most is that it’s a shark attack story. And it really is a lot more than that, and that’s why I ended up putting out the book because it started way back when I was a kid and I was just really, really bad. And I was doing horrible things: fighting and stealing and drug dealing. Smoking drugs and taking drugs and I had to try and recover from that and try and be a part of the world and change my lifestyle for the better.

So I ended up moving away from home and starting a new life. And then I tried to start again and I got caught in this environment of working in a strip club and working in the music industry. So, you know, not a lot changed.

The view was a lot better, but three years in and I was just repeating the same things that I had done before.

So, I decided once again I needed to change my life if I was gonna have any sort of fulfilling lifestyle and be, you know, someone who gives to the world; doesn’t just keep taking and taking and taking. And to have a fulfilling life, you have to give.

And I was just; it was all about me. I was just taking, and it was all about number one.

So, I took drastic measures and I joined the Army and I went off to become a paratrooper for five years and then chasing adventure. I changed over to the Navy clearance divers, and, you know, that period of my life was just incredible. It taught me how to be a man. It taught me how to be a valuable part of society. It taught me how to give back and all about serving my country and my people.

And then after five years as a clearance diver, we were doing an exercise in Sydney Harbour and I got hit by a shark. And the shark grabbed me by the back of the leg and my right hand all in the same bite and just started thrashing around. And it ended up ripping off my hand and ripping out my hamstring.

And my buddies in the safety boat came and they grabbed me and did first aid on me and got me to the wharf to await paramedics. And then they took me off to St. Vincent’s, which was luckily not too far away from the Navy base where we were working.

And I ended up keeping my leg for a week, but I ended up having to make the decision myself to have it removed or keep it and I decided to have it removed. So, the past five and a half years now has been recovery, rehab, and just trying to push the boundaries on what I can do in this body with one hand and one leg.

I got back to work after; well, I got back in the water after three months. I got back to work after six months. And now I’ve actually built a whole new and, I would consider it and even better dream life than I had before.

Guy Lawrence: Fantastic.

Stuart Cooke: So what; your breakthrough moment, when your mindset changed, when do you think that was?

Paul de Gelder: When my mindset changed from what?

Stuart Cooke: Changed from realizing that, you know, your body now is very different than what it was and you could take it one of two ways. You could, you know, you could go to pieces or you could go, “Right now, I’m going to make the best out of this.”

Paul de Gelder: That’s a really good way to put it one of two ways, because that’s exactly what I was thinking. I was laying in my hospital bed, it was after I’d just had my leg removed, and I was looking down at myself and I’m just thinking, you know, I had this dream life before. How am I gonna do all of these crazy, amazing things like jumping out of planes and helicopters and diving and shooting guns and blowing stuff up when I only have one leg and one hand?

And it was a really complicated situation that I was in, but, like you said, it is so much easier if you simplify those complicated choices. What did I want? Did I want a good life, or did I want a shit life? That’s what I was thinking. OK? What do I want? And it was at that moment then when I realized that it was my personal choice as to how my life was gonna turn out.

Guy Lawrence: From your days as a clearance diver, from my understanding as well, it’s pretty intensive; just this massive achievement just to even to get that, you know. Because I’ve got your book here, I’ve been reading it away, and one thing that’s interesting, you know you talk about mindset, and especially to become a clearance diver. If, let’s say we went on a; you’d got bitten by the shark under different circumstances and you hadn’t had that background behind you first. Do you think you would have responded differently, like, did all that sort of foundation help you as well?

Paul de Gelder: I would definitely say that the life that I’d led up until that point really helped me deal with the situation. One of the things that I was worried about was losing my job and not being able to be a clearance diver anymore, because I love my job.

But I was lucky enough that that the Chief of Navy said that as long as I wanted a job in the Navy, I would have one. So, that took a lot of the stress and pressure off. I didn’t have to worry about not being able to work.

But the fact that I was fit, I was strong, my body was used to operating on lowered amounts of oxygen. All of that stuff helped to keep me alive.

And then you incorporate the amazing first aid and medical training that we get and the guys had used on me. The fact that we get trained to stay calm under pressure, to not panic. You know, that helped me immensely. I’d just had my hand ripped off and my hamstring ripped out and I’m swimming back to the boat with my arm out of my water so that I; I realized that I had to keep the wound above my heart. And they got me into the boat, there was no one tourniqueting my hand, so I’m tourniqueting the end of my arm with my own hand.

So, all of these things come into play, and it was just a really great equation of things that kept me alive.

Guy Lawrence: I struggle to imagine what you’ve been through, mate. Especially the pain of that as well on that day.

Stuart Cooke: I’m interested in your training to remain calm under pressure as well, because, you know, a lot of people in kind of other situations get hugely stressed just in their daily lives. What kind of training did you do to handle that?

Paul de Gelder: Just the selection course to get into the clearance divers embeds that into you fundamentally, because you’re doing ten days of very little sleep, woken up in the middle of the night to go swimming for Mosman to Manly and back. That takes five hours. And it’s the middle of the night, and you know there’s sharks there.

And then you’ve had maybe three, four hours sleep and you’re running 22 kilometers to Manly and stretcher carries, first aid stands, pack marches, pulling the boats through the harbour by ropes.

So, things like that build up your defense to stress. Putting yourself in stressful situations and learning how to deal with that is going to help you in everyday life.

And people just, I think, deal with it better. They know how to process their stress and anxiety fundamentally.

When I was eight years old, I got bitten on the face by a dog and my nose was hanging off my face and I had 88 stitches in my nose and my mum said that she was screaming and crying on the way to the hospital, but I was telling her, “It’s all right, mum. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine,” and trying to calm her down instead of worrying about myself.

So, I think naturally some people just have that ability to stay calm. But training definitely helps.

Guy Lawrence: Yeah. I always think of stress just like another muscle. The same as you would go to the gym, you know? If you can only bench press 60 kilos, you’d want to rack it up to a hundred and try and put yourself… but you do 62 and a half and then you just, you know, build the strength over time and that gets you to more stressful situations.

Paul de Gelder: Very much so. I think some of the most relaxed and compassionate people out there in the world are the ones that have been through so much torment in their life, because they’ve learned how to deal with it.

Guy Lawrence: Yeah. What would your advice be, while we are talking about this, if somebody’s listening to this, and I’m sure they will be, that live a life through fear, may be in a darker place and they’re trying to get out of it. For somebody that’s been through something like yourself, what would your advice be to them?

Paul de Gelder: What I do to take myself away from when I’m feeling crap or I’m having a bad day or a bad moment is I’ve found my triggers. It’s all about finding your triggers: what makes you sad, what makes you happy, anxious, feeling fulfilled.

So, I know for a fact, especially after the attack, that I couldn’t drink as much as I used to. You know, being Army, being Navy, you get on the tins a lot with the boys and I discovered that I couldn’t do that. For starters, I didn’t have as much blood in my body as I used to. Plus, I found that it took me to a place where my mind was too ingrained into the past, and it made me feel pretty crappy for the next few days. So, I cut down on all the drinking that I used to do. So, I don’t do that much anymore.

So, that’s one trigger I’ve taken away. Fear and sadness. And then I find what makes me happy. So, fitness makes me happy. Going to the beach. Going for a swim. Being around the water; animals. It’s all about finding what makes you happy, identifying those key factors in your life, and then just surrounding yourself in them.

Guy Lawrence: Yeah, that’s a good answer.

Stuart Cooke: It does make sense, doesn’t it? Absolutely.

We have; obviously, we’ve pushed out this interview to our social media audience as well. We’ve got a few Facebook questions. So, I’m just going to run a couple of those by you as well.

I’ve got one from Sarah Brown, who asks, “Before the shark attack, what did you fear most, and has this now changed?”

Paul de Gelder: I was petrified of sharks.

Guy Lawrence: I thought you said sharks, yeah.

Paul de Gelder: The guys at work thought it was pretty hilarious that out of everyone in the clearance diving branch, I was the one that got attacked by a shark, because everyone knew that I was petrified of them.[ebook]

Now, I’m not. Basically, I have no fear of anything anymore. I think you can go one of two ways when you come that close to death. You can either curl up in a ball and feel like everything’s out to get you and be afraid of everything, or you can realize that there’s just nothing left to be afraid of anymore.

And once you feel that way, it sort of releases you and frees you from clinging to that mortal coil and it allows you to push the boundaries on what even you think you can do.

So, I’m not really afraid of anything anymore.

Guy Lawrence: What shark was it? Was it a bull shark?

Paul de Gelder: It was. It was; it was a, they said, a 2.7- to a 3-metre bull shark.

Guy Lawrence: Jesus Christ, that’s huge.

I remember seeing something somewhere that you dived with the bull sharks after the attack as well, didn’t you? Is that right?

Paul de Gelder: Yeah. Yeah. We went to Fiji as part of a 60 Minutes story and dove with wild bull sharks and reef sharks, and it was intense. There was probably 50 sharks in the water with us, just totally surrounding us, and huge bull sharks coming through, and I was even silly enough to feed one by hand.

Guy Lawrence: Wow. How long after the attack was that?

Paul de Gelder: I think that was about three years.

Guy Lawrence: That’s amazing. How did you feel going back down to that and…

Paul de Gelder: It is a really amazing experience. Once the; I think the biggest fear you have of sharks is when you’re on the surface and you can’t see them. But it’s a totally different experience when you’re under the water. You can see them. They can see you. And it’s almost like an interaction.

You really find out that they’re not out to get you. It’s like watching this amazing, beautiful orchestra of all these diverse animals swimming around in front of you, and you’re almost a part of it but you’re not quite, and it’s just something you can only really experience if you go and do it.

So, I would highly recommend it. Go down to Suva and go dive with the bull sharks.

Guy Lawrence: I’ll put it on the bucket list.

Another Facebook question from Carolyn Lovery. Where do you draw inspiration from on the really tough days? I guess we kind of covered that a little bit, didn’t we?

Paul de Gelder: Yeah. It’s always changed. It’s always developed depending on the environment that I’m in. So, back in my bad kid days when I was acting up, my people that I drew inspiration from were, like, Snoop Dogg, and, you know. I was smoking a lot of weed though.

But, um, when I was a clearance diver in the Army, it was always the guys that were the best soldiers and the best clearance divers. And now, it didn’t change that much afterwards. Now that I’ve moved out of the clearance diving realm and I only do that as a reserve diver now, and I’m moving into public speaking and I’ve just filmed two TV shows, I’m more looking at the people that excel in that industry.

People like Bear Grylls, David Attenborough, those are the people that I look up to. And, to tell you the truth, and to be specific on the “hard day” inspiration, I don’t really have hard days. I don’t know why. I don’t have flashbacks. I don’t have PTSD. I don’t have nightmares.

I have days where it’s hard to get motivated, just like anyone else, and those are the days where I might get on my Apple TV and watch a couple of YouTube motivation clips. And they are fantastic for that.

But if I need some motivation and some inspiration, I go train and that gets my blood pumping. It gets my endorphins going. It makes me feel fantastic. And then that pumps me up for whatever else I need to do.

Stuart Cooke: Yeah, that’s a… We have a saying that “motion equals emotion.” Is that right, Guy?

Guy Lawrence: That’s right, yeah.

Stuart Cooke: It just works, right? You’re feeling flat, get out and walk around the block, do something, and you feel better for it.

Paul de Gelder: The harder the better.

Guy Lawrence: Yeah. I’ve never once done a workout and gone, “Oh, shit. I really regretted that.”

Paul de Gelder: Yeah, exactly.

I’ve just started doing hill sprints. I’ve got a running blade now, and they are not designed for running up hills because you don’t have the quadricep, you don’t have the hamstring, the calf, nothing to push you off up the hill further.

So, I’ve decided I’m going to go teach myself how to do hill sprints, of course.

And they’re so hard; so hard. Run out of steam. Like, my girlfriend beats me on every single one. It’s that toughness, it’s that trying to push past the boundaries. At the end of the exercise you feel like, “Yeah, that was awesome, that was amazing, now I can conquer anything else.”

Stuart Cooke: Yeah, we can kinda relate to that because we’ve got a little sprint section in Coogee called the; is it the Coogee Stairs?

Guy Lawrence: Well, they call them the stairs, but that’s something…

Stuart Cooke: They go up and up and up and up from the coastline all the way up to the top road.

Paul de Gelder: We’ve run them to train for clearance diving.

Stuart Cooke: Oh, did you?

Paul de Gelder: Yeah.

Stuart Cooke: Oh, well then you know them well. Because it was about three months ago I went there with Guy and we thought, well, we’re gonna do about four or five sets of these. And I had never done them before, so we thought, “Right, go.”

So I shot up there at the top and then kind of came back down and then we decided that we’d just do the one set.

Paul de Gelder: Time for a coffee.

Stuart Cooke: Exactly.

I’ve got another question from Matt Fitzgerald. He says, “Many people who have life-changing events state that they are a better and a stronger person for it. Does this apply to you?”

Paul de Gelder: Very much so. Very much so. I loved the fact that when I was in the military full-time, I was serving my country. But the simple fact is, I did it mostly for me, because I loved the lifestyle. And I’ve really learned over the past five years how to give back. I have the opportunity to do charity work and volunteer work and give back to people and try to help others.

And, to be honest, that’s where I find the greatest reward. Out of everything I do. I love traveling the world and getting paid the big bucks to do corporate speaking, but I get very much reward from giving back. And that makes me feel like a much better person.

Stuart Cooke: Yeah, I get that completely.[ebook]

Guy Lawrence: Talking about giving, what was the support like after everything happened?

Paul de Gelder: It was good. There was; everyone asks if the Navy was good and they were in some aspects and they were bad in other aspects. But as a whole, it was fantastic. My friends, my family, even people from around the world, wrote to me and encouraged me.

And I had a young boy, Loki Smits, his name was; I think he was about 12, maybe. And he send me his $50 Christmas money.

Stuart Cooke: Oh, wow.

Paul de Gelder: I don’t know. To help me along, so I took his $50 and bought him a whole bunch of clearance diving stuff and sent it back to him.

But it got to the point where not only did I not want to let myself down, but I didn’t want to let everyone else down either. So, that was another driving force in just recovering and getting stronger and fitter and better.

Guy Lawrence: Yeah, fair enough. Fantastic.

We’ve got one more Facebook question here from Scott Kennedy. It says, “Because you have faced the ultimate fear in being attacked by a shark…” (I’m assuming he’s scared of sharks, too), “…do you feel fear isn’t an option in your life now?

Paul de Gelder: Um. I have yet to encounter anything now that I need to be afraid of. So, I’ve just returned from filming an anti-poaching documentary in Africa. And I was handling a black mamba. I was given probably a three-minute introduction to how to handle a black mamba and then I’m holding this deadly snake.

So, it’s not a fear. There’s no fear. It’s just as long as you know what you’re doing, as long as you know how to handle anxiety and stress and remain calm, fear really isn’t an option. I guess we all feel it in very, very dangerous situations. I’m not gonna say if I got in a gunfight while I was other there, with some poachers, I wouldn’t be scared. I would be.

But it’s all about how you deal with that fear. How you handle it. And, you know, we have lots of little things that you don’t think of like combat breathing. Whenever I get into a very stressful environment, I find myself doing combat breathing. And that’s about a three or four count out, a three or four count in.

And I just do it automatically these days. I don’t even know I do it. It just totally calms your whole body and your mind and allows you to think straighter and stronger.

Stuart Cooke: Wow. That’s a great tip.

Guy Lawrence: I remember watching a guy speaking on fear, because you actually have alluded to public speaking, because you said that’s obviously one of the biggest fears for most people, which terrifies me every time I do it; I know that much.

But, yeah, he was saying that, you know, it’s almost not pretending the fear isn’t there but it’s acknowledging it and then you can work with it as opposed to just trying to beat it.

How did you go with the public speaking? Was that a fear?

Paul de Gelder: Yeah. I was absolutely terrified of it to begin with. I’m not gonna lie to you. The first time I did it was for a charity job for CanTeen, for kids with cancer, and I was terrified. And I went from that first job with 30 kids to my second job at my old school in Canberra to 1200 kids.

And I was crapping my pants. It felt like all of my joints were rusty and I was moving like the Tin Man.

But the more I did it, the less fear you feel. And it becomes, instead of fear, it becomes excitement. And you get that adrenaline rush and you’re not shaking out of fear; you’re shaking out of excitement. And I’ve done so many times now that I know what works, what doesn’t, and I know the impact that it has on people because they come up to me afterwards and they tell me and they write to me.

And so ever though I’m a bit afraid of doing this public speaking, you know, I’d rather go diffuse a bomb, I know how much it helps, so I put myself in that uncomfortable situation so that I can give that.

Guy Lawrence: Fantastic.

Stuart Cooke: I think you’d do quite well on the Fear Factor show. I think you’d probably come out with the grand prize.

Paul de Gelder: I’d rather host it instead.

Stuart Cooke: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

We’d like to talk a little bit about diet and exercise. It sounds like something now that you’re obviously super drilled into. What were the exercise routines like in the defence force? Now, I’m guessing that they were just “ultimate,” if that’s the word that you can describe these routines.

Paul de Gelder: Yeah. They’re pretty full-on, both with the Army and the Navy, it’s very much focused on endurance and lifting; being able to lift your own body weight. There’s a lot of running. Before every meal, you’ve got to do 20 chin-ups; overgrasp chin-ups; full-extension, chin over the bar. Whatever you don’t get out of that 20, you’ve got to go to the back of the line and do double.

Every morning before our morning meeting call, both watches, you do 50 pushups to a cadence, and then you go do PT. So, it’s all about endurance. It’s all about being able to last longer than, I guess, the enemy.

It’s drilled into you that you can go further than you think you can, because as you guys well know, the first thing that gives in is your mind. It’s not your body. So, they train you to realize that you can push your body to its absolute limit.

Guy Lawrence: Do you ever get people complain to you at all, or anything? Like, if they’re feeling a bit lazy or unmotivated. I bet surely that can happen.

Paul de Gelder: Quite a lot. A lot of people say, “Oh, I know this isn’t comparative to what you went through but…” I hear a lot of that. Everyone’s got their stories and everyone’s got their problems and no one’s are bigger or better than anyone else’s. They’re just a little bit different, and I’ve learned some valuable tools that can help other people, so I’m happy to listen to people’s gripes on occasion.

Stuart Cooke: Is there something that you want to let off there, Guy?

Guy Lawrence: No, no complaints here. No complaints.

Stuart Cooke: Right. OK.

What’s your training look like nowadays then? Is it still 50 pull-ups before breakfast?

Paul de Gelder: Not so much, no. I’ll get up and I’ll have my breakfast smoothie and I’ll go straight off to the gym. I do a lot of weight-lifting now. Now that it’s getting a little bit colder, I’m not doing as much swimming, but I know that’s a big goal and I should keep it up anyway.

But it’s a mix of everything. It’s just everything that I’ve done and learned through the defence force. Now that I don’t need to rely on my cardio as much, I lift weights a lot more, so I’m allowed to; I’m a hard gainer. I don’t put on muscle very easily. So, I do a lot of heavy weights these days mixed in with sprinting, high-intensity interval-type training, so that my body will keep on the muscle instead of being this lean, soldier, you know?

There’s photos of me when I was in the Army where I looked like a prisoner of war. I could go forever, but I couldn’t lift 50 kilos above my head.

Guy Lawrence: How did the limbs go up under the stress of the heavy weights? Obviously well.

Paul de Gelder: I have specifically designed weight-lifting limbs for weight-lifting, so my robot hand that I have that’s worth $90,000 would not cope with lifting weights. So I had to get some stuff made. And I actually put; I had so many writing to me on Facebook asking me about them that I ended up making a little video clip and putting in on YouTube to explain, you know, what they are, how to get them, how to make them, and how to use them.

Guy Lawrence: Yeah, right. You wouldn’t want to break a $90,000 arm, would you?

Paul de Gelder: No. I did leave it on the back of the truck the other day, though.

Stuart Cooke: Oh, crikey!

What do you eat throughout the day, now that you’re training heavy as well? I guess that’s changed a little bit.

Paul de Gelder: Yeah. First things first, every day is a smoothie. I don’t like a lot of vegetables, so I discovered the best way to deal with that is to drink them. So, you know, tomatoes, cucumber, sweet potatoes, spinach, all that sort of stuff, it’s my breakfast smoothie. Sweeten it up with some pineapple and apples and all that garbage and smash about a liter and a half of that down in the morning and then train.

But it’s all… I’m lucky. I can eat whatever the hell I want. I love nothing more than going over to Kirribilli and having batch burgers, which is the best burger I’ve ever had. My American girlfriend said it’s the best burger she’s ever had. They’re good.

But I eat a lot of; some of my meals are delivered, so during the day I don’t have to keep cooking all the time. I get it from Body Composition Meals. It’s chicken, it’s lean beef, it’s broccoli, it’s sweet potato. So, a lot of meats, a lot of high-protein, but also high complex carbohydrates as well.

Because I’m getting a little older now, my body gets pushed really hard because I have this imbalance in one leg and one hand. But I really, really need to make sure that my whole, my body as a whole, is functioning well. So, I have give it lots and lots of good nutrients and keep it ticking over.

So, I’ve been very cognizant of what I put into my body. But that’s not to say I don’t love a margarita or three.

Stuart Cooke: Absolutely.

Did they give you any nutritional training in the forces at all?

Paul de Gelder: No. Nothing at all. Besides the fact that when you’re in the Army it’s eat as much as physically possible when you can, because you don’t know when your next meal’s gonna be.

Stuart Cooke: Yeah, right. Survival.

Guy Lawrence: I do find, as well, in nutrition or, like, when you generally eat well and you look after yourself, you think a lot better and everything’s; you know.

Paul de Gelder: You’re more motivated.

Guy Lawrence: Yeah. Everything’s clear. You’re more motivated to do the things you want to do, and it’s just when you slowly unravel it all it becomes a pain in the ass after awhile.

Paul de Gelder: Yeah, people find it very hard to do. And I understand why, because you aren’t; it’s one of those things that you just aren’t taught more of. There’s not a class for it in school. Or, there might be, now. But the fact is the information is so readily available now in this technological age. All you have to do is get online and look for healthy, nutritious meals. Look for effective training programs. It’s all there. We have such great access to it. There really is no excuse.

Guy Lawrence: Yeah. It’s funny because, obviously, doing what we do running the 180 company and blogging and podcasting and we’ve put so much great information out every week, but we still get people coming to us every week saying, “I don’t get it. I’m confused. What do I do?”

Stuart Cooke: Yeah. “I don’t know what to eat.”

Guy Lawrence: It’s almost like people want the quick fix, you know.

Paul de Gelder: They want the pill. They want the magic that’s gonna solve everything. And unfortunately that’s just not the way it is. It takes time. It’s not a diet. You know? It’s not a fad diet. It’s not a fad workout. It’s a lifestyle choice.

And the sooner you make it a lifestyle instead of a short fad, the easier it’s gonna be. Because you just incorporate it into your life.

Guy Lawrence: And the benefits and the way you feel, like, it’s, “God! Did I really used to do that before? I was missing out on all this and now it’s just so much better.”

But anyway.

Paul de Gelder: Tell me you’re very passionate about this.

Stuart Cooke: Yeah. Could you tell?

Guy Lawrence: We’ve got a question we ask everyone on the podcast, and it can pretty much be about anything. But what’s the single best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Paul de Gelder: One of my best friends that I grew up with in Canberra, when we were talking after my accident, I was in hospital and he knew that I’d probably have some tough times, if not some really, really tough times.

And he said, “It’s OK to feel bad. It’s OK to be down and feel depressed and feel; have crap times. It’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. But don’t let it destroy your whole week, your whole month, or your whole life.” Feel crap. You know, identify that you’re feeling bad, you’re having a tough time, but then let it go. Go and do something else that makes you happy and let that anger and anxiety and stress go. Because it’s not going to accomplish anything in your life.

So, it’s OK to feel shit. But don’t hold onto it. Let it go and go and find something that makes you happy. So, that’s what I do.

Stuart Cooke: That’s good advice.

Guy Lawrence: That’s great advice, mate. For sure.

Mate, what have you got coming up in the pipeline, then? You mentioned you held a snake that could have killed you instantly recently.

Paul de Gelder: Yes. Two TV shows. I’ve got my first hosting job for a Discovery Channel Shark Week show called Great White Matrix coming up in Shark Week. It will be out in L.A. in August, and probably not until a little later in the year in Australia.

And then a pilot for my own TV show through Xbox Live, which is called Fearless. And the first episode is going to Africa to meet Damien Mander and Steven Dean. You might have heard of them. Two ex-Australian clearance divers and special forces guys who started the International Anti-poaching Foundation.

So, the premise of the show is to go and meet these people that are embracing and confronting some people’s worst fears to make the world a better place. Learning how they deal with that fear.

And then I go along with them and I do what they do and go though their training. So I went through the ranger training. Ranger PT and unarmed combat with a running blade on and one hand. And they pulled my leg off.

Just taking people on this journey to show them that even though we deal with fear on a regular basis, you can still achieve amazing things, just like those people.

So, it’s gonna be a great show. I’m really looking forward to it coming out.

Guy Lawrence: That sounds awesome.

Stuart Cooke: You are busy, aren’t you?

Paul de Gelder: It’s good. I like being busy.

Stuart Cooke: That’s fantastic.

Guy Lawrence: And, of course, like I mentioned earlier, you can get ahold of the book as well. No Time For Fear. I’m thoroughly enjoying it, mate.

Stuart Cooke: If we did want to purchase that book, by the way, and our readers as well, where could they get that from?

Paul de Gelder: They could go to any good bookstore, and if they don’t have it on the shelves, they just ask them to order it in and they’ll do that free of charge. Alternatively, you could go to the Penguin Australia website and order it directly from the publisher.

Stuart Cooke: Fantastic. All right. We’ll get those links on the website as well.

Guy Lawrence: Awesome. That is excellent.

Stuart Cooke: Yeah. Well, mate, thank you so much for giving us a little bit of your time. You just; it sounds like you’re in short supply, but thanks. Very much appreciated. And hopefully we’ll get to bump into you in the future sometime.

Paul de Gelder: Yeah, that would be great. We’ll go out for a training session.

Guy Lawrence: Definitely. I’d love to

Stuart Cooke: Yeah, we’re into a bit of old-school training at the moment ourselves, aren’t we, Guy?

Guy Lawrence: We are. By the way, because I’m still trying to get Stu to come to the Yen Yoga, mate, and I know you’ve done that. So…

Paul de Gelder: Yeah. Yen yoga’s fantastic.

Guy Lawrence: See. There you go. I’m not the only person out saying that.

Paul de Gelder: I was gonna go tonight, but it’s not on the roster, so I’ll go do some Power Vinyasa instead. Proof, mate, you’re getting any younger.

Stuart Cooke: I’m not getting any younger. Crikey. You should see the rings underneath my eyes. I’m getting older day by day. Photoshop. We’ll get rid of it before it goes to air; don’t worry.

That’s awesome.

All right, mate. Well, thank you again.

Paul de Gelder: No worries.

Stuart Cooke: We might hit you up in the near future for that training session, because I’d love that, too.

Paul de Gelder: Definitely. Sounds good.

Guy Lawrence: A hundred percent. Some sprints.

Paul de Gelder: Take it easy.

Stuart Cooke: Thank you, mate.

Guy Lawrence: Cheers, Paul. Thank you.

Paul de Gelder: Cheers.