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, where 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 me on this collective journey towards self-improvement. Through open dialogues and shared life lessons, I 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
Episode 2 - Culture is Everything: How This Space Real Estate is Changing Property Management
Growing up with mentally ill parents created an unpredictable childhood that forged exceptional resilience and determination. This journey from housing commission to success demonstrates how adversity, with the right mindset and support, can transform limitations into stepping stones for achievement.
• Both parents diagnosed with schizophrenic, though father managed his condition effectively while maintaining full-time employment
• Father's unwavering commitment—visiting daily even after separation—provided a powerful model of responsibility
• Moving out at 15 after Child Protective Services intervened when mother was hospitalized
• Sister delivered crucial tough love message: "You can either fix it and move on or be the victim forever"
• Childhood hardships developed extraordinary resilience that translated into professional work ethic
• Finding community through unexpected sources like netball provided connection with positive people
• Learning that seeing someone else's success can create belief in your own potential
If you never try, you will never know
Well, let's get into it. Tell me about yourself, Eamon.
Speaker 2:Yes, God, goodness me. Well, I grew up with a pretty rough background. I don't want to give you the whole sort of sob story about it. But yeah, I grew up with a bit of a rough background just in housing. Both of my parents are mentally ill, both beautiful, lovely people and they get through it pretty well. But yeah, but that was quite a lot of a struggle and goodness I don't know, I went off the rails pretty hard, Sorry.
Speaker 1:when you say mentally ill, what do you mean?
Speaker 2:Mum and dad are both schizophrenic, so both diagnosed schizophrenic and treated. So as a general synopsis, my mum is quite challenging.
Speaker 2:She's a beautiful soul, soul, but she's quite challenging for a lot of reasons a big trauma, background and the mental illness yeah but my dad is, has the same mental illness but has a lot different approach to it, which has really opened my eyes a lot to to mental illness in a lot of ways. He understands he's got it, he agrees that he's got it, he accepts that he's got a, an ailment and he treats it and he doesn't. He just gets through it and you would never know that he's mentally ill at all. He's definitely had his moments, but through life, but nothing you know terribly consistent, so much. So he's got through life and he's worked a full-time job his whole life and he's a huge, huge inspiration to me and always has been. He was the guy, he was the reason. I mean I probably would have anyway, but I stuck around when I had a child at 17. So 18, I was just turning 18.
Speaker 2:I turned 18 a month after she was born. You know, I remember when she was born I wasn't young and I was still very, very off the rails at that point, let me tell you. But I remember having this thing inside me that was like I'm not leaving for a second. Not for a second, because my dad didn't leave me and he never did, and so my mum and dad, to rewind it a little bit. My mum and dad broke up when I was two, primarily because my mum's very challenging to, like I said, to deal with and be with and he, yeah, they sort of broke up, but my dad stuck around as a dad every single night, not romantically, not really, not overly emotionally, not not in a relationship sense, but more of a friend to my mum and dad, to me, and he was there every night of my whole life and I remember when I got to about 18 I thought shit like why is he here? As in like I know he's still here, but he's still here every day looking after me, looking after my mum, and he could have ran away at any point. The second I turned 15, see, I moved out at 15 years old. I was living on my own. There was no reason then to, as such, to look after my mum and he still does right. I'm just about to turn 30 and he still looks after my mum every other night and he's got his own situation. He's not overly wealthy, he's got his own struggles. He's 71 and he's still just there. So big inspiration of my life and a very hardworking man. He works six days a week. He pretty much is his whole life still just about. So he can stick along, and part of this space real estate was actually to hopefully fund his retirement or his semi-retirement, because I'll never get into full retirement, I think. But yeah, so he owns five percent of the business and that was strategically done so that he can sell it out one day and be able to sort of retire and hopefully see how we go. But that's it, mum sort of in and out of north side a lot.
Speaker 2:We grew up in housing and it was quite challenging. I was living with my mom full-time until 15. Towards the end of it she was in north side. So if you was whatever don't know that's, it's a mental ward at the hospital and I remember I was at home on my own for a couple of weeks, which, believe it or not, wasn wasn't odd to me. I'd done it lots of times. So I was home for two weeks straight just at 15. Yeah, and in this housing I just had parties and drank and smoked.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I was visiting her at Northside after school one day and a counsellor, I was still well off the rails and she said, oh, do you want to go have some lunch? I thought, yeah, absolutely, that's fine, that'd be great. We and she said, oh, do you want to go have some lunch? I thought, yeah, absolutely, that's fine, that'd be great. We had a bit of a chat and she sort of just asked a few questions and I didn't think a lot of it. Really. I thought free lunch, bit of a chat, why not? Yeah? And she said, hey, look, there's this place called Tyne House. Her words. She said I think you'd be better off living on your own than living with mum. I think you're struggling a lot with the stuff that comes with mum. I've agreed and yeah, and that sort of was the start of that.
Speaker 2:And then I moved out away, I went. I later have come to realise that I'm about I've never actually confirmed, but I'm about 98% sure that was actually Child Protective Services, not a counsellor. So yeah, so I'm pretty sure that Child Protective Services saw me coming in, realised I was at home alone, mum was in Northside, I didn't really have Dad. Like Dad was there, but not officially. So I think they were sort of like what do we do with this kid? And that was the next best thing.
Speaker 2:And then the next three years was wasted. It was a big help and a big eye-opener. But I was too young, too naive, too off the rails. Still, I just partied and went down a pretty deep, dark hole and then, at about some time, my sister is probably the last chapter of all this.
Speaker 2:So my sister, who was taken off my mum when she was four she's seven years older than me. She was taken off my mum when she was four and she lived with my auntie in Hobart and what happened was she kept in touch with me. She kept really close to me from afar, even though she was in Hobart. She made sure she was there, bearing in mind that she was taken off my mum three years before I was born. She made a really good life for herself, despite her own struggles and troubles you can imagine, and stayed close to me and made sure that I was okay, made sure I was all right from afar and made sure I had her. But the biggest thing that she did I don't know if she was deliberately doing this or not, but she set an example and she set an inspiration and something different that I'd seen At about 16, 17, two major things happened for me.
Speaker 2:Firstly, I went and visited her and I remember seeing she had this modern unit at the time it was nothing crazy flash. Now that I've got a different perspective. But to me I've been living in this dirty housing, trust house and mum would smoke in every day and it was messy and dirty and I was and I saw this and I was like, oh my god, this is wow. Look at, look at the life that my sister. I was like she's like. I remember I went back to my friends and I was like, oh, my sister's rich. I think she was just renting a nice place?
Speaker 1:I don't even know.
Speaker 2:But that was one big thing. I was like, okay, I've seen shit and I've seen good and I'm going to choose that. And I was like, okay, I'm going to do more, right, I'm going to live like this. And so that started me growing. The other big thing that happened was also my sister, and she called me up one day and I spent a lot of time between the age of about 13 and 15 16.
Speaker 2:Do you remember myspace, when myspace sort of started? That was about then. Facebook was just kicking off and I got on there a lot and I was, oh, poor me, poor me. I've got mentally ill parents, I've got a rough childhood. And people started giving a lot of sympathy and I loved it because I mean, deep, deep down, I would say that's very much because I was just looking for acceptance. There's a trauma response, but at that point I just felt good about it. I was like, oh, this is awesome. I've got all these friends right, all these people that one of you are like. I became a bit infamous and stuff, and that's where I went down down the hole and all these mates were drinking and smoking and I've got all these likes on myspace and stuff and facebook and I thought it was so cool.
Speaker 2:My sister called me up somewhere around that age and she said Naaman, look, I'm going to give you the real truth. She was like okay, you've got a reason to be upset or to feel sorry for yourself because you have gone through a lot of shit. Right, but I'm going to be dead honest with you. No one gives a fuck as in. They're going to tell you they do right and they might for a little bit, but I can tell you that they're not going to change anything ever.
Speaker 2:Okay, all of the sympathy in the world is not going to change anything. So you've got a choice. You can either fix it and move on with your life or not and just be the victim forever. And you've got to make a choice in that. And she drilled that into me. I rebelled against that for a long time, but I eventually listened and I think it's dead right. I think you should be sympathetic to people that are going through a lot, but I really think that the biggest amount of support that you can give someone struggling is to help them understand that it's up to them to change it, and that's pretty hard to do. I think that's good. When I was at school.
Speaker 1:My teacher bless you. I hope you see this one day. Mrs Gracie, I wasn't necessarily drinking and things like that, but I was a class clown joking. I loved the attention because look at me, I'm funny and we're in drama class and I was meant to learn a script.
Speaker 1:So I didn't learn the script at all and I went on the front of my peers thinking I'm king, I'm there just reading it off, and she sat there looked at me. We finished, the bell went and everyone left and this was I think this was the end of the term and she pulled me aside and I will never forget this conversation. She pretty much the same as with your sister, david. You are funny, you can keep doing this. That's fine. There's perspective. You have to look at. You disrespected your classmates in not memorizing because you they put their time and effort into it you can keep being the class family all you want, or you can actually put in effort.
Speaker 1:You do have natural skill in acting and things people do like you. You can take this serious and get something out of it, or you can keep playing if you're going to keep trying, don't come to the drama. Yeah, because I'm here to encourage, to teach and I went away and I had my holidays and it resonated really deeply.
Speaker 1:It's interesting she was not expecting to me to see me the next semester. She thought she scared me away and I said no, you actually would. That was what I needed. Yeah, everyone looks at, we see the results, but we don't see the cause or what's happening. Yeah, correct you see me acting, you see this and stuff, but a lot of people don't step back and work it. Why is that happening? We're so focused on on the outside.
Speaker 2:So she saw that and saw the inside and said I know you're a good kid it's opportunity as well, like if you see, if you actually see something that makes you believe that you can be more. Believe, that's the key word. Actually believe that you can be more than where you're at. Then you'll taste it.
Speaker 2:A lot of people don't, especially who I grew up with and other people that don't have the hope, like they don't believe that they could deep down inside. They never talk about it. You know there's a lot of people that they're the way that they are because they feel like deep down inside they can't get anywhere else and they don't even know it, though right, they don't even know that. It was like it's showing me If she can do it. She's been through a lot of shit, so I was like, if she can do that, I can do that. And it wasn't just money or anything like that. She is a nurse, she's been promoted more times than I can imagine, she's got three beautiful kids, she's got a beautiful husband, a beautiful family, a beautiful life, and on paper like myself you shouldn't people will be like there's no way you'd get to that sort of point and it's just yeah, so you can change the narrative of your own life if you've got the opportunity.
Speaker 1:What do you do for fun?
Speaker 2:What are your hobbies? Oh, I've got two kids. They're, yeah. Not so much hobbies, mate, just parenting. Yeah, I play netball. I played basketball for about five, six years when I was younger and I loved it. And then a good friend and ex-staff member came into work one day a few years back and she said, oh, can you fill in netball? And she said, oh, can you fill in netball? I've never watched a game of netball. I've no idea how to play. I don't even know. I had to go because, a, she's my friend and she needed me, but, b, because she's my staff member and I ask a lot of them, I'm going to do something for her. I was like, okay, so I went there and seven seconds before the game I was taught how to play, and that was about two years ago now.
Speaker 1:Oh good.
Speaker 2:So do that. What's your favourite position? I play centre Centre.
Speaker 1:They put me on centre.
Speaker 2:You've got to get the goals Centre's important. I'm five foot seven. I'm not going to get any goals, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:I like centre too. Yeah, yeah, it's good fun. The people, though. I love the people that I play with, and I think that if you find sports or situations or environments where find good people I don't know, it might be something, I might be crucified for saying this, but like a reader's book club or something right, or like I don't know, a forum for something or an investment, like whatever right You're going to get there, there's going to be people there that are feeling just like you, like oh I don't know if I want to go, but then you get there and you realize there's some brilliant people, because it brings them together, yes, whereas when you're just out in the open environment, like in the world, you're pretty few and far between to find really good quality people, I think, which I don't mean is kind of a product of the world, but not so much them, but the product of what surrounds us and what's on our phones and things. But yeah.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, netball. Outside of that, I work Kids netball, work A gym. I go to the gym a fair bit Less than I would like to at the moment. I've had to sacrifice a bit for the business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pretty much it With your background and everything that's happened to you. Has that had an influence on your values and your beliefs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's made me. It's interesting. It's a really hot topic in my mind at the moment. Actually, I've found that because so who I am as a person is I can stand in the face of something really tough but and be fine. So it takes a lot of pressure for me to feel like I'm cracking at the side a little bit or a little bit shaky, and it takes a lot for me to crack or to break under pressure. And that's because I lived in such a volatile area in my childhood and I got so used to looking after myself and getting used to this trauma and this, this situation.
Speaker 2:I would get up late, put on clothes that weren't really school clothes and they'll hand me down stuff. So I get bullied for those. I'd red hair, my name's Naaman. I, pushing uphill the street that I was in, used to throw bottles and stuff at me and mouth off to me and stuff when I was going to school. I'd catch the bus, get to school, be late. Teacher wouldn't really like me half the time because I was a misfit. Then I'd finish up and I'd go. I'd walk home. Everyone else got picked up. I'd walk home. I'd get back home.
Speaker 2:Then the neighborhood it all be saying stuff again. They're like, oh no, this and that. And then I'd get back to mum who was talking absolutely no sense at all. It was just like screaming and yelling, and then I wouldn't even get into bed until like 10, 11 o'clock I'm only 12, 13 at this time, or younger and then she'd be yelling and like telling me all sorts of it wasn't lucid, it was all sorts of stuff, and it kept me up all night saying all sorts of things that would just scare me and confuse me and I didn't understand as a little. It was just my mum to me, so it was like a normal, but it's not normal.
Speaker 2:So what I'm getting at is that that made me really tough and I can credit a lot of the success so far in my career and in my life because I haven't ever given up. I've always said to my clients I might not be the smartest person, I might not be the smartest person, I might not be the most experienced, but I'll work harder than anyone. I promise you that. I promise you that If something needs doing, I'll stay up until 1am and fix it. If I need to, I'll get it done, no matter what it is, because I've had to my whole life and yeah, but the bad side of that, the negative side of that, is that I've lacked quite a lot of empathy and I've realized that as I'm.
