Rhys Paddick is a Noongar/Scots-Irish Australian who walks two worlds — and who has built a business teaching people how to get off scripts and speak from somewhere truer.

We talk about the strange afterlife of Australia's "acknowledgment of country" ritual, what "country" means when you capitalize the C, and why every performative ritual eventually collapses unless authenticity is at the center of it.

This one stretched me. I came in with my Westernized brain trying to wrestle indigenous wisdom into the shape of a concept I could hold, and Rhys, very gently, kept handing me back something I had to feel instead. By the end I was a little tired, a little eager, and weirdly grateful — which Rhys then named for me as a thing I'd remember.

What We Discuss

The acknowledgment of country, and how a good thing got hollowed out

In Australia, "acknowledgment of country" started around 2005 as a way to honor the traditional custodians of a place. Twenty years later it's at the bottom of every email and the top of every 9am Thursday meeting.

Rhys's take: the words are fine. The problem is that nobody is given any context for the concepts behind them, so people perform the script and quietly worry about getting it wrong.

Country with a capital C

In the Western sense, country is geography plus political borders. In the Aboriginal sense, country is geography plus political borders plus a spirit — alive, conscious, holding law and story, doing the teaching and the healing. Often imaged as a mother. You don't have to be in the bush to be on country. You're on country right now.

Why I keep asking the wrong questions

I confess to Rhys that whenever I encounter indigenous wisdom, I have the sense of asking questions built on broken assumptions — like asking someone to describe the taste of a pear when I've never eaten fruit. He offers me the concept of liyan — spirit, the thing that magnetizes you toward something, the thing that knows before the mind catches up.

Knowledge = head + feet

The Noongar word for knowledge, understanding, and experience all translates roughly as Kaatidjiny — head, together-with, feet. Knowledge isn't a thing you store in your skull. It's something that has to travel from brain to fingers to feet to expression. A whole epistemology in three syllables.

Ditch fear

This is the heart of Rhys's work, and I think it's the heart of this episode. Most acknowledgments of country happen out of fear — fear of offense, fear of saying the wrong thing, fear of the binary right/wrong frame people impose on themselves.

Rhys's intention isn't to give people a better script. It's to name the fear, talk about it honestly, and help people locate their own courage to speak from the heart instead of the head.

White guilt — does it serve you?

I asked Rhys, awkwardly and honestly, what to do with the white progressive guilt of having benefited from historical atrocities. His answer surprised me with its directness: yes, you can choose to identify as white, liberal, ally, footy supporter, whatever serves you in the moment.

But the real question is does this guilt serve you right now? If it does, keep it. If it doesn't — and for most people it doesn't — ask instead: who am I now, and how do I show up?

Come as you are

Rhys says Aboriginal people tend to be interested in you first, before they're interested in the labels you bring. The "ally" identity, with its performance checklist, often gets in the way of just being a person showing up with intention.

Success is a feeling

Rhys doesn't run his business on KPIs and conversion rates. His measure of a successful workshop is whether the room — and he — feel good at the end. He invokes the Maya Angelou line: people don't remember what you taught them, they remember how you made them feel. A useful corrective for any of us in the thought leader business.

The journey from acting to acknowledgment

Rhys grew up in suburban Perth — Sega Mega Drive, glasses, musical theater. He studied Aboriginal performing arts at WAPA (where Hugh Jackman went, which Australians like to flex), worked as an Aboriginal Islander Educational Officer at his old high school, did university mentoring, and eventually partnered with a change strategist to build "Acknowledge This" — which he later rebranded to Modern Custodian.

Custodian as posture, not title

The word "custodian" carries responsibility, presence, and agency. Rhys reframes it: it's not something you're appointed to, it's something you choose to embody right now. For your emotions. For your household. For your moment. We're all modern custodians, if we want to be.

Go Slowly, Be Present — Yeyi!

I asked how to stay in touch, and Rhys taught me a Noongar farewell — Dabakarn koorliny-yay — which translates loosely as "go slowly present." As in: take it easy. Which immediately put The Eagles in my head. ("Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.")

Resources

Find Rhys

• Website: moderncustodian.com.au — and bring a beverage; the newsletter is unlike anything else you'll find online
• LinkedIn: Rhys Paddick

Concepts & Thinkers Referenced

• Matt Church — Rhys's and my business mentor
• Tyson Yunkaporta — author of Sand Talk and Right Story, Wrong Story; previous guest on this podcast (PYP 494, 439, 436) and the person who first short-circuited my Western brain in the same way Rhys did
• Bill Plotkin — referenced obliquely through the soul/initiation framing (PYP 455)
• The Salamander Room — a children's book by Anne Mazer, about a kid whose bedroom turns into a forest. Came to mind when Rhys described his studio filling up with propagated Devil's Ivy
• Tupac Shakur — poet, Shakespeare student, and (in Rhys's office) source of the quote "Real eyes realize real lies."
• Emma Gibbens — Rhys's biz partner in creating "Acknowledge This," and excellent thought leader in her own right
• Condom Man — an Australian 1990s safe-sex superhero I had never heard of. Motto: Don't be shame, be game. Strong contender for a tattoo or a workshop title
• The Eagles, "Take It Easy" — for reasons that will become clear

Thank you so much Howie. Lovely to be here.

Great. So you, uh, well, tell us about you. I, I could, I, I could do a bad job, but I think you could do a good job.

You know, I can, I'm a bit of a green thumb at the moment. Um, there's a lot

Ooh,

who I am, but essentially that's what I, what I do. And that's a little bit about, you know, um, how I fit into this space.

great. So I think that gives us a, a, a good starting point, and I hope we'll get into, you know, dance and gardening and, uh, and singing because, um, I guess, I mean, the thing that first drew me to, to wanting to talk to you was that one, one of the commercial offerings you, uh, you take to the world is, um, a different way to do acknowledgement of country.

I think in Australia it's much more, uh, integrated into sort of mainstream society. Can you just talk about in general, like what that is?

And in this case, what, or to a different place it would, that would insert that clan name there. And it was sort of this established as this, uh, like a pocket ritual, like this little thing that we did to honor the, the, the custodians and the people of that place. So on the outside, you know, that's, that's a respectful thing.

What's really important is how you as the individual connect to the concepts that lie behind the words, so that you can speak from a place of authenticity. That's if you want to, just bringing it back to, know, the original intention of what it's supposed to be. So there's a, that's a bit of a, um, I guess overview of like the cultural climate around the acknowledgement, at least in Australia.

bush.

agricultural town. Yeah, the, well, the bush in Australia.

Right. So, but when you talk, like, when you write about country in your diary, which you often publish as a newsletter, you talk about country capital C as something alive, something that informs you something, something you're in relationship with. Can you talk a little about that?

So it's, it's alive and it's conscious, and it's aware and it holds, law, LORE. It holds story, and it's also like the, the country is the thing that teaches, and it's the thing that heals. So it's often depicted as like a mother figure, and this is outside of Aboriginal culture as well. You know, a lot of, a lot of the hippie women, white women like to call it Gaia, for example.

You know, it's, it's, it's the, the mother earth, right? So when I refer to country, the capital C is referring to the spirit of that country, right? Not the, not just the geographical space, but the, the heart and the, the, the soul of that space.

He is like, well, don't, do you have a river near you? Go ask the river. And like, I don't know, I, I'm talking to you. I don't understand. What do you mean? Or it's like, like, you know, like, have you asked the plants in your garden what they think of that? Um, you know, it, it's taking a long time for, for that, um, for that rain to, to percolate through the soil of my, my westernized mind.

Um, do you have some sort of a personal examples of like what it means to be informed by spirit of country, by Gaia, by, uh, by a living consciousness.

It's, we, we are built into systems. And these systems say to us. Here is language. These, this language is, is sils and the the glyphs and the, the spelling. This is why we call it spelling. Okay. And, and what happens is, like our mind is constantly fixated on the next thing. It's the next thing, it's the next thing or, or it's considering the previous thing.

Hmm.

I explain that,

Yeah. What, well, what came, what came to me is like the, all the obstacles for me to really understand that. So I think it, it makes sense and my mind is, is like, well, but like I'm, I, I'm an individual and there's some, there's something you're talking about that undermines that my perception of myself as like really separate.

are you talking about like how. How we see ourselves in systems or how we see ourselves as individuals or,

Well, I guess the system makes me feel like an individual. So like that, that, uh, cartoon of the Buddha,

hmm.

right. Like to, to be here. Let me see, let me, let me see if what I have to, what I'm trying to say is worth saying. Um. That there, that, that me, that the way I have been brought up to think of myself as a real, as a, as an individual in a, in an unconscious wor a random world where there is no consciousness, um, dooms me in a way to Right.

Um,

Um, where I'm go, where I'm going or what it would be like. So I'm trying to conceptualize things that like, like, like we're having, like, it's almost like we're having a conversation and you're trying to explain to me what a pear tastes like, and I've never had a piece of fruit and I just keep wanting to, you know, give me more words, different words, better words.

And sometimes your mind, it's not, it's not about the mind, right? It's not about what you understand logically, um, or consider up here. It's more like, it's, they'll say the word Leon a lot, like, oh, my Leon bought me here, or that's the Leon connection where we overlap or, you know, so there, there's a concept there that I'm, I'm seeing is a bit similar to the way you're describing it.

That it doesn't ma, you know, the word, the script isn't the important thing. It's what you actually feel and think. So when, when you, when you're working with a, uh, a co, an organization that's, that's firmly rooted in sort of the, you know, a western, we're, we're here to, you know, to produce something to make money.

And we also. Have a heart and we want to be responsible, you know, compassionate citizens of the land. How, how, what, what, what do you want them to intend? Because it's not right. Like, like, like I would cynically say like, and you know, the land acknowledgements from North America where I'm from typically sounds something like, yeah, this is yours.

Yeah.

Right? Like, it's al it's almost like the, the acknowledgement is like, you know, you throw a, a coin into a, a beggar's cup so you don't have to deal with their humanity.

Yeah.

Um,

what Say you,

So what's, so like what the intention is behind, like what I do and what is the intention behind the work say context? So

And what's the, what's the in, what's the intention you want

yeah,

other people to have?

so the intention for a lot of my work is to ditch fear. There's a fear culture, which exists, and ironically, that's also the reason why there's a lot of acknowledgements of country are just there because, because people feel like they're obliged to, or they have to, or it's, you know, the most progressive thing to do.

And I go, well, let's just talk about fear. And, but then more importantly, how do we find our own sense of courage in overcoming it?

Hmm. What is the, what is the fear? Or what, what are the faces of the fear?

Fear of offense. Fear of offense is probably the biggest one. Um, everybody's scared of saying the wrong thing. Now they've got it in their minds that there's a right thing. When they think this binary right and wrong, they think, you know, but they are. This is, I just remind people, I go, well, you know, everybody has their preference with what words they want to hear.

How do you create some words for it do you talk about it?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So when you say like, there's no right or wrong, so when I, when I think sort of politically or socially like. I feel like there's a lot of right and wrong.

Yeah.

And like, it's all, you know, like a, a movie that I've been thinking about lately is the original avatar, right? Which has this, you know, these indigenous culture and then the, you know, the people come to mind it and, and with their machines of destruction and like, you know, that's a clear morality tale.

A land acknowledgement is, is almost like people, you know, white, white fellas. I, I think my, my audience might not be familiar with the, you know, black fellow white fella language as, so, as something that's not offensive, but simply, you know, of, of country. Um, like how, how do you, you know, how do you deal with, so let's say my white progressive guilt over being, uh, privileged, you know, having huge advantages because of these historical atrocities.

How do I deal with that personally?

Hmm.

if I, if I'm a ty, if I'm a typical participant in one of your things and I come in and I, and I, and I don't, and I don't want to give offense and I want to be on the right side, and I say things like, man, white people suck. I'm so sorry.

Yeah. Yep, yep,

I.

Okay. I, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So the white guilt thing, no. Okay. I, I like to be very clear when I talk about this 'cause it's a deep, it's a, this is a big subject and it's, it's got a lot to do with identity and it's got a lot to do with, you know, how people orient themselves to space. And I understand.

And I, and get it, it's political. My philosophy is pretty, pretty clear on this. I think that regardless of. How you label yourself and what privileges you do or do not have, who you are in the moment is the most important, right? And that's it. And here you are. You can choose to be in the moment you can.

Because if it serves you well, know, keep it. But if it doesn't serve you, which I think is probably for most people, I would then consider the question, well, who are you now? And how do you show up now?

Hmm. So what, so in, in a, you know, in a system in which, um, these inequalities and injustices have been enshrined, um, how, how, how should, how should allies show up?

Should, is probably not one of your favorite words,

It is

uh,

I

but.

Hmm. Yeah, I think that was my first introduction. On your website, you said, so choose your own adventure. Do you wanna, you know, the, uh, the, my mo my mob wants to know about personal stuff and, uh, my corporate white audience wants to know about my LinkedIn bio.

Yeah. Yeah.

Um, so what, what happens when you, when you lead a, a workshop, you do work with a, with a client and it's, and, and you're happy with it. Like what, what's, what ends up, uh, being different in, in that organization or in the people and, you know, how, how, how, how does that contribute to like the, the, your vision of the, of the world you're building?

Is it like, what does, what does success feel like, or what does it feel like to do a

Yeah. Yeah. Because like, you know, for, for a lot of us who are in the thought leader business success would be like, oh, they've, you know, tripled their this or they've opened new this.

Yeah.

Right? You're not, you're not promising, uh, you know, business, direct business, economic outcome. You're, you're, you're after something larger, more intangible, I, I would argue more crucial for our survival as a species.

I'm curious what that is.

I didn't go to uni or anything like that. So. Uh, I, I, the, the, the thing that is a success for me is when people feel good. And that's, and that's also an important thing to remember when you're dealing with the market, is that people forget that the feeling is what, uh, it matters. It's what, that's what people remember.

So yeah, it's a feeling for me.

I am fascinated that you didn't go to uni and I'm, I'm, I'm thinking like, how, how did you get, how did you get into this? I really, I would love to hear your, the trajectory of

Yeah. I'll tell you.

you know, what did, what did you, what did you wanna be when you were nine years old? And, and, and how did this happen?

I'll give you all of the law and it's on the website as well. I, I think I put it in seasons. I was like, here's season 1, 2, 3. We are currently in season five. Like doesn't mean anything, but yeah, this is, this is season we're in, so this is, so, okay, I'll, I'll tell you. Uh, let's do that. Hang on, let just back up.

It was my job to support the Aborigines at the school, and that was easy job for me. 'cause half of them I was already related to. Right. So it was cool. Now, once, once I did this for four years, this was my introduction to Aboriginal education and this is when I just started to build myself up and go, well, like, you know, I, I know what I'm good at.

And at that point I would, I was sort of outgrown the school. moved off into a university then, so now I'm working with university students where I'm a part of a program which brings Aboriginal kids onto the campus and then we. Recruit and train student volunteers from the campus and pair them up, mentor mentee relationships.

So I would work at, as a aboriginal consultancy organization, I would work sort of, I was, I went out into this like there's a bush land, a local bush land, and there was an organization which um, they did like bush walks and I was like their token aboriginal that, that walked through the bush and taught them traditional ways of hunting and, and, and fishing and all that kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If I could, if I could, if I could trade the, the contents of my education for the money I spent on it, I think I take the money now.

Yeah. Hex debt is what we call it, and it's a, it's a motherfucker.

So I'm, I'm curious how, so how, sort of how you grew up, if you're, you know, you're sort of laughingly saying like, I'm the, uh, I was the token aboriginal showing people how to like, survive in the bush. Like did you grow up like with, with those skills?

And, and in, in your, in your growing up, did like having, you know, a white Australian father, like Scottish, Irish, um, heritage, um, like what? What did you learn about yourself? Like who were you confused about who you were, was like, I, I read a lot about sort of like, I was living in two different worlds and I wasn't fully accepted in one or the other.

Uh, it's, it, it sounds it sounds like there was sort of less drama in, in your origin story,

It's

or, or was there,

That's just who we are.

yeah.

that's mom and that's dad. you know, it's not like I had to grow. It wasn't like I grew up confused or like, who am I, you know, because my family was already that support for me anyway. Um, that doesn't mean that, say that it wasn't for everyone, but yeah, I, I've got, I had a blessed, you know, growing up, um, childhood.

Were, were there, were there a lot of other kids, like, like you with sort of a dual, the dual heritage, or were you sort of like floating between different groups?

It's not what we do. Like people aren't going, you know how people, people might ask you like, how much aboriginal are you? But aboriginal people won't ever ask that other Aboriginal people. Like, how much are you? So that's the other thing as well, which is kind of worth mentioning here, is like everybody sort of have their own connection to country and identity and place.

And did, did you grow up speaking any Aboriginal languages?

And Kaya is the word for Hello Kaya. welcome. They're singing it now. So there's a bit of a revival of the, the language, um, the local language here. that being said, it's interesting as well because the amount of fluent Noongar speakers here, I could maybe count on my hand, you know what I mean? It's not a first language here, like it is for like, let's say other mob, you might, you go up north, you go up north to the Kimberleys and they go hundreds of clans there with hundreds of different, um, languages.

so, um, I guess, you know, I'm hearing about your, your bio and some of the things you were doing sort of like. Encouraging and supporting and providing confidence to aboriginal kids to, to enter higher education, which is, which is, you know, so like I, you know, opportunities and leveling up. Um, and, but also like some part of my brain is hearing like it's, um, potentially diluting or erasing cultural heritage, right?

Wisdom traditions to help me navigate and like, uh, like, so like what I'm interested in is like, not how you, how we can, how I can help you, but how you can help me.

So is it like how to reconcile the modern systems with the traditional systems? Like what, what that looks like.

Mm

Calamities

mm.

and like, can, can, can we be saved? Can, are there, are there elements of aboriginal wisdom that are just desperately needed? So it's not just, okay, we're gonna help you go to school and become, you know, to have a nice house in the suburbs like we do, but can, right?

So if, like, if you're doing acknowledgement of country, if you're, if you're going, if you're bringing, uh, indigenous culture into settler, uh, venues is, you know, is there, is there like a positive virus that can get transmitted, that can, that can help us just get along as humans?

Yeah. Yeah. No, I love it. Um, so a lot, most people listen to this rather than watching it on YouTube, but I do want to ask you about your, the background. Uh, so you've got, it looks like a Tupac, a Tupac poster.

Yes, sir. Tupac. So in Aboriginal culture, Tupac is, is our Messiah. No. Tupac is just, no. Well, I like, I actually really, I really do like Tupac, um, because he was a poet, you know, and he was a really good poet and he studied Shakespeare. And like a lot of people see him as the gangster. And anyway, but I also really like the way that he uses words here.

Condo man.

a condom man. Condom man, you know, safe sex.

Oh, condom man. I, I'm,

man.

I'm, I'm thinking of housing. Okay.

I know. Yeah. So it's Condom man and Condom man is, you know, make sure you have safe sex. But he was an aboriginal bloke, superhero, so it's just a bit of a soldier there. Very

Uh, okay. And, and look, and I love the motto, which I did, I did, I did not attach to condoms when I was sort of glancing over your shoulder was, it's don't, don't be shame, be game.

Shame. Big game. Very important. Yep.

Which I, that's, that sounds like it could be like the motto for your workshops.

Hmm. Nice. You mentioned green thumb, so you're, uh, what, what are you growing

You know, I am really, I'm strangely obsessed with like the Devil's Ivy at the moment. So I am just taking cuttings of Devil's Ivy and I'm putting them in bottles and I have maybe 30 bottles at the moment with all of these propagating Devil's Ivy,

I,

which,

I don't, I don't know that term, so.

Ah, ah, okay. You know, it is just one of those things that doesn't require soil, and that's why I like it, because you can just cut

Hmm.

put it in water, and it just thrives in

Okay.

had them up there for months and now I'm starting and they just, they creep so they vine and they just can grow infinitely, apparently. So my mind,

Huh.

studio's gonna be like a, a little fairy kingdom when you come inside at some point. Yeah.

Yeah.

so I get, I, I, I get the aesthetic.

Hmm. Yeah. Like a, like a sage, like a modern sage, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. Um, so, um, I'm curious about your, the rebranding to authenticity. What, um, what, what can you teach us? What, what can you share about authenticity and, and how, how to get there. 'cause I feel like even in this conversation, like I'm, I'm really curious and I feel like a part of me is being performative for your benefit, for my readers, for my listeners, for myself.

Well look, you, I love, thank you for the question, Howie, and the revelation because, and really, because, you know, in, just in that moment, for example, you displayed a sense of authenticity through vulnerability. Okay? You're like, oh, and vulnerability is courage in disguise, right? So, so I'll give, first, I'll give you some context behind like why I'm extremely interested in this word, authenticity and, and, and what I'm doing with it. It came from Acknowledge this. So acknowledge this originally of course, was just the workshop, which intended to teach you how to do an acknowledgement of country. That's how it started. But what it's evolved to, because what you realize after years of doing this is you, you go, you understand that people aren't interested in doing how to do an acknowledgement of country.

Here's the other thing as well, is that like it's important to mention, I don't know if you ever arrive at the point. You know, where you go. I am now authentic because of course we have masks, like of course we have social masks. That's how we, you know, that's how we, um, um, communicate and operate and, you know, it's, it's, that's very normal. So it's not about, you know, doing the Ioas trip and becoming one with nature and God and everyone in the universe straight away. know, it is just about going, understanding, you know, um, your culture and where you sit, understanding that you are the culture. Yeah. Like the, you are never separate from it.

I, how, how do I begin to separate like the authentic me from the culturally, um, you know, controlled me.

The most important thing to do, Howie? Hmm.

Let's, I'll drink to that.

yourself first before you take care of anybody else. Sorry. Reckon.

I'm having a great time, Howie. I'm in no rush. Just so you know. Um,

okay. Okay.

yeah, it's mid here. It's uh, I've still got

Oh, okay. Right,

until the, until the evening, but yeah. But this

right.

I'm appreciative of you, Howie. I've just gotta say it's really, it's really an honor to be seen and be spoken to, um, because, um, yeah, it's, uh, it's not often that people reach out to me, so I appreciate this conversation, mate. I.

Yeah, and I'm, uh, I'm, I'm being watered by it. Um, one, one of the things you said that sort of stuck in my mind around loving to perform and to see and be seen, like, I had that too, and I always repressed it like, as like, I, I, you know, I would allow myself to be on stage for very brief moments and, but it was always like, oh, guilty pleasure, right?

And so to, you know, to be able to hear like, okay, so for me, wanting to perform, wanting to make people laugh, um, you know, wanting to entertain, like there's, there's, there's value in virtue in that. And I really, you know, I, from, from just spending an hour on your website this morning, just really enjoying the energy of like, let's, let's, let's not make anybody wrong.

Thank you. Yeah, it's um, it's an ongoing journey. It's important is to have fun in the moment as well. That's another thing. A lot of people forget how he is. Making time to enjoy this. The moment, you know, making time, know, everybody says that like, they go, oh, I don't have the time. I don't have the time. I, ah, I reckon that's the story you're telling yourself, mate. You know?

I'll, I'll, uh, I'll turn that lens on myself

Yeah.

soon, as soon as we get off the call. I think there's something for me,

your, are you having fun with your practice? Are you enjoying it, mate?

And I'm like, well that doesn't sound like fun.

Yeah, yeah,

So, uh, I think, you know, I think it's also important to kind of expand the idea of fun beyond like, you know, the pleasure hit of the moment into like, putting together a spreadsheet of 20 people to, to reach out to, uh, can lead to like, can lead to fun, even though it might not be intrinsically like making me jump for joy.

So that's what I put

Hmm.

on. I put my candles on, like, I change it up, you know, I sit differently I, and my, my mind is like, I don't wanna do this, but I don't know, the spirit kind of goes Yeah. Like, again, country, right? This is, this is

Uh, Leon.

there's a bit of balance there.

Hmm. I like that. Yeah. I think, uh, I think I have opportunities to. To tweak environment. It's funny, I just, um, pub published an interview with a trauma therapist who, um, and, you know, sort of the history of trauma therapy is that it's pretty traumatizing stuff for like, you sit and you like relive the worst moments of your life over and over again with a stranger.

Interesting.

like pizza coming out of the oven. He says like, your, your brain only changes and learns in a positive way when it's having fun.

Yeah. Yeah. Great. I love that. Yep. Yep. Yeah, that's clever.

all right. So I'm, yeah. So more, more fun. I've, I've, I've, I've, I've written a lot of notes and various font sizes. I think fun is gonna be the, the largest word on this page,

If you were to, if I was to ask you to stop right now, Howie and. Consider the feeling, like, what's the feeling? What, what would the word or words be to describe that feeling?

Yeah.

Oh,

I think there's two. I think they're, and they're, they're, they're in, they're in some sort of dynamic tension. There's, there's kind of an eagerness and there's kind of a weariness.

Um,

Eagerness. Weariness.

yeah,

The reason

when I, yeah, go ahead.

Um, I'm feeling, uh, gratitude and appreciation. A little bit of contentment as well. And I also feel like I wanna move my body a little bit. but yeah, I just thought I'd, you know, bring that up and, and mention it as well, because yeah, oftentimes, you know, oftentimes, especially after the workshop, right, the, the facilitators are always doing the thing where it's like, you know, um, or they'll hand out the, um, the review sheets, you know, and how did this, how did this do this and this and this? And it's like, um, it's a cool, it's a cool little thing just to people when, when you're, when you're with them in the moment and just go, Hey, like, there's a feeling here. 'cause then they'll go,

Mm-hmm.

what the word is. And then they'll remember it. yeah. Um, I'm, I'm excited for your eagerness is how I would respond.

Uh, but it feel, you know, it, it feels like it's the title of this episode.

Yeah. Cool.

Um, and it's just, it's, it's just, it's such a simple, powerful reminder. It's just like a little, you know, sigil, uh, of a sort of a, a psychic, um, tattoo. Like, just like, just look at my wrist to go ditch fear. Like, what do I do here?

Ditch fear, like, like 99.9% of the time. That's like a really good prescription.

yeah, yeah. I'm glad

Yeah.

yeah. I'm glad that's how it's reflected. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Cool.

Yeah. Um, how do people find you? Stay in touch with you, learn more?

man, you gotta send me a smoke signal.

Yeah.

I swear I'm not gonna do it. I won't

Hold that for two more weeks, then something else will be big.

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So,

Yeah.

Instagram or, or LinkedIn. Um, or you could just type in my name on, on LinkedIn as well. But, um, yeah, anything Modern Custodian is me.

Okay. And I, I definitely recommend that people, um, grab a mug of their favorite beverage when they check out your newsletter, which you can, they can find from in, in modern custodian. It's, uh, it's unlike any newsletter I have come across online and it's, it's, it's, it's worth, um, pausing and perusing over.

Okay. Would, uh, would those not from Oz find value in it?

Well, I think that if you want to understand. The economy of an acknowledgement of country, let's say from the Australian perspective, if you want like all of the context, how it works, operates in Australia, why it's there, how many, and if you want to more about this whole concept of fear, and this is the, the main thing, right?

It's, it's how we overcome fear of scripts then, then it

Hmm.

be palatable to your American market. Sure,

Custodian. A custodian is somebody who takes responsibility for something. Okay. So. Modern. Custodian. Modern is someone who is in the present, who is right now and has a responsibility for something. So it's not a title, it's a posture. Like you are a modern custodian, Howie, you know, we're all modern custodians. Um, but yeah, the custodian custodianship, sort of like a steward. Somebody who says, this is mine, I am responsible for it my emotions, could be my household, could be my family, could be anything. But that's

Hmm.

that's the custodian within all of us.

Gotcha, gotcha. So I hear, I hear twin themes of responsibility and agency in that word

Yes. And presence, being modern, being here, being now, then,

uhhuh.

Gotcha. All right. Thank you. Re Paddick. Thank you so much. It's been, um, as I, as I check in with my, the emotion around this connection, it's, it's definitely gratitude and a, uh, a sort of a rising, you know, it's, it's, it's getting to be spring here in the northern hemisphere. It's sort of feeling like they're, they're rising to meet it.

And you've given me some, some language and energy, um, with, which will help me do that.

Uh, okay, well, I'm gonna say yay. So is slowly, that's what it means. Slowly ing is going. So it's like you going slowly. And yay is the word, is the word for the, now. It's the word for presence, which I love. Yay. Yay.

Yay.

All right, so take it easy, Howie,

Okay, so I was just listening to the Eagles last night. Uh, so don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.

or cheers Howie. Um, anytime mate, reach out. Um, I'm excited to see

Awesome.

fits and yeah. Cheers mate. Appreciate you.

Well, I appreciate you too, Rhys. Thank you so much.

Bye.