Start of Nothing Special Podcast
Imagine a space where men can openly express their thoughts, share their experiences, and support one another. Envision candid discussions where vulnerability is considered a strength, and each shared story provides insight and encouragement to others.
Welcome to my channel, Start of Nothing Special (SONS). My name is David, and I am pleased to introduce you to this new platform created for men from all walks of life to come together and discuss their personal journeys.
Join me as I lay the groundwork for a platform that goes beyond being just a channel—it is a movement. Tune in as I articulate my vision and invite you to join us on this collective journey towards self-improvement. Through open dialogues and shared life lessons, we aim to build a community rooted in mutual growth and understanding.
Welcome to the beginning of something truly significant.
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Start of Nothing Special Podcast
Building Fulfillment Through Self-Work
Reflecting on the trials of the past year, David shares profound lessons about trust, self-discovery, and the importance of showing up for one another. Emphasizing personal growth above seeking a perfect partner, he encourages listeners to embrace their storms and continuously work on themselves.
• Exploring the significance of trust in friendships
• Understanding the impact of unmet expectations on relationships
• Emphasising the importance of embracing life’s storms for personal growth
• Challenging conventional notions of seeking a partner and advocating self-growth
• Valuing the power of small victories in daily life
• Highlighting the necessity of showing up for others
• Practicing commitment in parenting and real-life responsibilities
• Encouraging audience engagement and storytelling
Please get involved, communicate, let me know your thoughts, and tell me any stories you have of when someone showed up for you and when it was important.
If you never try, you will never know
Good afternoon, good evening, good morning, wherever it is you are. My name is David, and welcome to another episode of Start of Nothing Special podcast. I thought it would be fitting, seeing as we just started a brand new year, to talk about what I learned from my last year. Now, there was a lot of things I learned, and it has been difficult to write it all down, but I've got a few pointers that I'd like to briefly go over just to share with you all, because I understand there will be someone out there that will see value in this and will hopefully take it on board and use it moving forward.
Speaker 1:2024 was a difficult year for me. The whole year was a learning journey. I learnt a lot about trust. I learnt a lot about friendship. I learnt a lot about relationship and I learnt a lot about trust. I learnt a lot about friendship. I learnt a lot about relationship and I learnt a lot about the idea of what, getting normalising, the idea of seeing someone for who they are, not what I expect them to be or what I hope for them to be.
Speaker 1:I have this tendency where I get into relationship with people and I get very caught up, I get very excited and I imagine what the relationship could be, what we could be. So I'll look at a person and I'll see that they've got this skill. Then I'll roll with that. I'll go okay, because they're good at this is a terrible example. But because they're very good at, say, dealing with people, customer service, making people feel at ease, and they're good at preparing meal, then in my head I go oh, you could be a very good business owner, a restaurant, or you can open up a coffee shop where you can make small snacks and just because of your people, nature and the fact that people seem to be drawn towards you, that could be something you can monopolize and create a business from that.
Speaker 1:Now, that's not saying it's a bad thing. I do go too far one way, just over expecting someone to be what I would do in that position and that's my biggest downfall and that's something I learned as life goes on. But I learned a lot last year that I need to stop imagining myself in people's shoe, in the sense that just because if I was in their shoe I would do something different doesn't mean that people are capable, and that's what people would do if they were given the situation or they were given put in that same position. A lot of times I go well, if I was in your position or in your shoe, I would never betray you, I would never speak ill of you, I would never attack you, I would never do do this, I would never do that. But that's me, that's how I was raised, that's my own values and morals. That's not to say that's the next person's set of beliefs.
Speaker 1:Now that's something that has been very difficult for me and, as a result, it was one of the biggest learning curve for me, leaving a friendship and a relationship really poorly and sourly. Because, yeah, in that relationship I saw the potential of someone. I saw what I wanted them to be. I saw them through a filter of what I would do in their position and when push come to shove and when everyone's cards had to be drawn or shown, their cards was quite telling. Who they are. At the core of their being was very much not something that I would, given the choice, choose to be a part of.
Speaker 1:I learned a lot. There was a huge betrayal there that I am still healing from and I won't shy away from. I'm still healing from that because I considered this person a very close friend. I consider this person pretty much the closest you could ever get to a friendship or to family. Should this person was considered, I consider them to be my family above my family. So in a lot of cases they saw me through a lot of difficult times and I think that's also further emphasized the struggle that I'm having with how much it hurts because this person sat through my stepfather calling police on me, my stepfather looking me blatantly in the eyes and denying every promise he made to me. This person saw me through an abusive relationship. This person saw me at my lowest, when I was wielding from that defect, saw me through panic attacks. Saw me through pain, anger, suffering. This person saw me through all that, yet they actually became probably the one that instilled the most telling blow to me. In the end, they're the one that right now my life is where it is, where I suppose I'm learning a lot from that experience. That's one aspect of what I learned of 2024.
Speaker 1:Another thing I would say that I learned was there will always be hard times. There will always be a storm that everyone must face. There will always be a choice that we have. Storms come. I think it's not so much. You're sitting down, waiting through the storm. It's learning through the storm. So, whatever that storm is, we should learn to take a moment and fully embrace that storm and try and learn something from it, because it's something that we're meant to be learning when we're going through that particular storm. And that's something that I'm working on learning that I have had a lot of storms and each one of those storms has taught me more about myself.
Speaker 1:I've had a little bit of a glimpse of the sort of man that I am and where I'd like to be and where I want to be and who I would like to be. My storm doesn't make me. I make my storm, but I endeavour to learn. Each time I fall. I always say that if you're going to fall, that's fine, but don't take too long down there. But while you're down there, make sure you take a notepad and a pen and just learn and write as much as you can. There was a lot of moments I fell. I fell really hard and quite numerous times in 2024. It was a difficult year and I've learned a lot about myself. I'm very proud of myself. I can look at myself in the mirror and say that there is no part of me that I've pretended who I am not. I am the same David, and in every scenario of my life I'm learning to become more unapologetic about who I am, but I'm very proud of myself and where I've come and how I've handled those difficult moments.
Speaker 1:Another thing that I'd like to talk about was I think in this day and age, I think for a lot of people, for all of us, I think, what we've been taught through life is oh, you've got to find the right partner, you've got to find the right partner, and for me that's always seemed very one-sided, it seemed very selfish and not to, I suppose, alienate my female listeners. But I think a lot of females are taught find a good man, find the right man, this is how a man should do, this, so we should be, and stuff like that. And there's a lot of focus on what you can get from a man, what a man can provide for you. There's not a lot of focus put on a woman, on how to handle the right man to protect his peace, because the right man will sometimes come with baggage, will come with needs and wants, and a man doesn't want to go out battling the world and then come home and battle with his partner, his wife. For me, it's this learning, this idea of I'm not looking for the right one. That's not my interest. I don't think I'll ever find the right one because, put simply, I am not the right one, so therefore I will never find the right one. I think it's about you being the right one yourself, so working on yourself, learning, growing, developing.
Speaker 1:You don't do what a lot of I think a lot of new age therapists do these days with write a book and say, read this book, and this is your self-help book and you will be all right, this will help you read a bunch book. You write a few notes in your journal and all of a sudden you mean notes in your journal, and all of a sudden you're meant to know who you are and all of a sudden you're meant to be okay, go for walks on the beach, and you're okay, not to say there isn't a place for that. But I believe there's more to that. You've got to learn who you are. You've got to put yourself in positions that are out of your comfort zone so you can learn. See how you handle stress. See learn. See how you handle stress. See how you handle triggers. See how you handle conflict, you see how you handle your family members, see how you handle happy moments, sad moments, and that only comes from experiencing and putting yourself out and traveling and learning, reading a book that tells you that, oh, let everything, let it go, it's not important, it's not gonna fix all your problem. It is a start, it's a helper, but ultimately you've got to be the one that walk and you've got to be the one that do that soul searching for yourself and learn about you. It's very important to put yourself in positions you wouldn't expect yourself.
Speaker 1:Not every stress, not every hard moment is necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it can be a good thing, but sometimes it can just be a learning curve. That relationship that you left doesn't have to be boiled down to oh, he was shit, or she was shit, or she was crazy, or he was crazy. No, what did you learn about yourself? What do you now know? What do you accept? What do you like? What do you dislike? How will you allow? How will you learn from this? Moving forward, it's not just oh, yeah, they were so and that was it.
Speaker 1:So, learning through the storm, but yeah, and the idea of not looking for the right person, becoming the right person. Work on yourself, learn about your views on finances. How do you view your finances and how does that relate to who you are? How do you view your mental health, friendships and family Work on who you are? How do you view your mental health, friendships and family work on who you are, so that, when someone comes along and they are ready, then you both can be independently or individually as full as you can be as humans, so that you can both work together. The idea is never to find the perfect person and then boom, life is okay. Now it is each of us working through our own baggage, working through our demons, together with the support of our community and our family and our friends, towards betterment. None of us are perfect. None of us has it right. None of us is know exactly what, where we're going or what we want. And, yeah, just learning that you will never find the right person, that you know you should be the right person and the right person will come along when you work on yourself and you're the right person will come along. I also learned that the biggest thing as well is just the, the value of just showing up. I think a lot of us don't appreciate that in this day and age, just showing up is very important and one example and this might be a little bit far-fetched, but this is one example that comes to mind when I say showing up.
Speaker 1:My daytime work is in the field of fashion. I specialize more in weddings and things. The complaint from, say, the bride and groom or family members there, or most people that have been a part of the weddings, would say they're following that Weddings have lost their meaning and a lot of people now are making weddings about them. I don't mean the bride and groom and the family members. They're forgetting that. Hang on, this is not your wedding, this is my daughter's wedding. Or this is my friend's wedding, this is my family member's wedding, whatever it is. But a lot of people are forgetting that and they're making the wedding about them. For example, something as simple as they'll. They will have a something to say if they don't like the distance of the wedding, or they don't like a certain playlist, or they don't like a certain food choice. That's there or something they create. They, they forget that. Hang on, this is by two people that they've chosen to come together and go oh, this is what we would like at our wedding. This is what we want.
Speaker 1:And you are invited as a guest. Yes, you might be a family member. You're invited as a guest to join and celebrate with them. So your job as a friend is to go. Yep, how can I participate? Or how can I help you celebrate your special day? So, if it's out wherever, if I cannot make it, I will let you know in enough time. But if I'm going to make it, I make sure that I show up and I'm there and I celebrate with you and I don't carry on. I don't make it about me. I know it's a very weird example, but that's how I imagined it the idea of just showing up for you. Showing up, that's what life is for me, but that's how I imagined it. The idea of just showing up for you. Showing up, that's what life is for me. Sometimes it's difficult, sometimes it's hard. It's showing up Right now.
Speaker 1:I look at my life in the way of practicing. I've got a little girl, so every choice, everything I do, is I look at it as I'm practicing. So if I don't enjoy waking up early, that's my own thing to deal with. However, I chose to have my daughter, so when she needs me and when she needs something, I will wake up and help her and be there. If she needs me to walk her down to the toilet in the night because she had a nightmare, I will do that, showing up for her. I will do that because that's the choice I made when I chose to have her. She doesn't owe me anything at all. She's my daughter. She doesn't owe me anything. I chose to have her. I'm practicing doing all the not fun, inconvenient things now so that when she is older and she's at a party at 3 am and she's saying, dad, can you come and pick me up? I'm getting up, going. Oh, I've already been doing things like this, I've already been doing the practice. So, yep, I'm on my way. As much as I don't want to be out of bed, as much as I'm tired, no, no, I'm coming. Darling, where are you? I'm 10 minutes away. I'm 15 minutes away. So that's how I'm looking at a lot of my things now. So I'm practicing for when those moments come, when I really don't want to do something, I'm practicing so that it's half of life is repetition. So that's already embedded in me. It's in me Like going to the gym, the hardest part of going to the gym is not lifting the weights, it's not the burn, it's not the soreness no, it's that actual mental battle of far out.
Speaker 1:I really don't want to go today. It's that mental battle of going nah, I'm going to go to the gym because it's a discipline. It's a discipline, you get up, you go nah, I'm going to go to the gym and I'm going to work out, because you always feel better for it. But even even if you don't, it's just even the mental win and that's how you gain power over your brain as well. Especially for those of us that struggle with mental health and things like that, those little wins are so important.
Speaker 1:A lot of my counselors said to me David, just don't try and win everything, don't try and have these grand victories, just little wins. Waking up is a huge win, just waking up, walking to work, taking your shoes, putting them by the door in hopes that you might go for a walk later when you get home, even if you don't, but that you've done that. You put something proactively in place. Little wins yeah, it doesn't have to be something that's so huge where you're like yes, I definitely did this huge thing. I went for this big hike with my brother to Mount Amos or something. No, it's just little wins, because those little wins eventually will turn into repetitive patterns and then will eventually turn into something bigger and make it. You go. I've been doing the little things. It's our foundational work. That's the thing.
Speaker 1:All this ties into every part of our life. It's the same thing as when you're in a relationship. We're doing the little things. You know, everyone knows this. Women don't care about the big grand gestures. They don't want all those big. Yes, it's great, but it's those little moments when you do show up. That's what they remember. They don't remember that time you bought out a whole stadium for them or that time you sent a 12 dozen flowers to them. No, they remember all the times that you were there sitting with them doing something that was important to them. Just little new things. It ties into everything that we do in life. Just little wins. Yeah, for me, that's just how I'm looking at it. Just all ties into my life.
Speaker 1:Showing up as a dad is very important because, yeah, that's what life is half the time Just showing up. Showing up is so important. Just showing up Doesn't matter how it is. Your friend may be going through a hard time. You don't have to have the answers, guys or girls, you don't have to have the answers. Just showing up, sitting in the car with them, sitting on the couch with them, sitting in the home with them. Just be there with them, just so they know you're there. That's it, that's. You just have to show up. That's all you got to do. Dads, especially dads, come on. You may have had a big day at work, you may have worked a long shift, but you know your daughters or your son's got to recital or got to show. You don't have to be the first one there, but just show up, even if it's for the last five minutes. Just show up, go there, just stand there, make it known that you're there. It's so important to your kids, whatever age they are, it doesn't matter, it's just showing up is vital and that's part of life. Just showing up and, yeah, that's pretty much what I've learned.
Speaker 1:So recap everything up, that is the first thing is there will always be storms. Don't try and rush through it. Sit down, let the they get wet in the storm, let it soak all through you. Really feel it deeply, dig your feet, your toes, into the sand and just feel that storm. Just weather it, but don't weather it arms crossed. No, weather it and look around you, grab a notepad and learn about yourself. Learn and see what the environment or whatever the storm is trying to teach you. Learn the growth that you're getting from this storm. That was the first thing that I learned in 2024.
Speaker 1:The other one is I have no interest in finding the perfect person, because I am not the perfect person, so I have no interest in finding the perfect person. However, I'm going to try and get there, work hard on myself and try and be the right person for someone, because when I work on me, then whether or not that person is there or not, it doesn't change who I am at my core. If I enjoy going to the gym and being active in a healthy lifestyle, a gym lifestyle, whether I'm with them or not with them, it doesn't change. That's who I am. If they enjoy, say, junk food and things like that, when they meet you, they might change and start working out with you. But as soon as you guys break out, guess what's going to happen? They're going to go back to eating junk food and that's very clear in all my relationship that every one of them, if I've. They've leveled up to a certain degree, leveled up to a way of life or a certain stage in life.
Speaker 1:But as soon as they don't have that influence on me there anymore, all of a sudden washing hands isn't so important to them anymore. Being hygienically clean, washing vegetables and things like that you get from the supermarket isn't important anymore. How you speak about people isn't important to them anymore. Are you controlling their tongue? Isn't important anymore. Who your friends are, it isn't important. Someone that's come to your workplace and yelled at you and embarrassed you at your workplace and been just, is not a good person. All of a sudden, now you're friends with them, because I'm not there to remind you or to show hate, that sort of thing. If you work on you, if you know who you are and you work on yourself, it doesn't matter whether someone's there or not there. You are you and you will always be and have your value and your core will remain the same.
Speaker 1:Most of life is showing up. Fathers, friends, daughters, sisters, mums, aunties. Showing up is so important in the littlest way. Stop making weddings about you if you're not the bride and groom. Showing up today is so important, being there for them. That person is important. You don't have to have the answers, you don't have to do anything grand, just little things, little wins, little things are important. Just show up in whatever capacity you can is very important to people. That's what they remember. Who was there when they were crying? Who was there holding their hands? Who was there when they were celebrating and rejoicing? Who was there? It's so important.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I hope that you can take some gems from that. As you can tell, I do apologize for the few sniffles I've done there. I'm not a hundred percent at the moment, I, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. I had something to say and I was like, hey, I hope you guys will forgive me, but welcome to 2025. There's a lot of things I'm working on with this podcast and I'm doing it in my own time because, again, I'm not going to put any pressure on myself because it's all on me. I dreamt of this idea and it's my baby now I'll run it how I see fit. So I do appreciate the little community that I do have people that do support, people that do message me and say good job, keep going. I do appreciate it and I do read it all, and it does mean a lot to me. 2025 will be great. I'll keep learning new things and I'll keep sharing it with you guys.
Speaker 1:And again, as I've said, I am not perfect. I don't have all the answers. All I do is ask the question and all I do is just be that channel anyone. Please get involved, guys. It's really important to me. Get involved, communicate, let me know your thoughts and tell me any stories you have of when someone showed up for you and when it was important. I really actually want to hear that. Or you've gone through a hard time. What have you learned through that? What has it taught you about who you are? Please get involved. It means a lot to me and, once again, this is Start of Nothing Special with David and this is 2025. This is the first episode of 2025. Welcome and please. You don't have to be perfect. You just have to at least try to learn and know who you are and live an authentic life. Thanks, guys, have a good one.
