Colin Parsons
Paternal Leave Forced Him to Question Everything
Colin stopped bending himself to fit others' moulds and discovered that authenticity is the foundation for genuine connection.
Hear this story
Kintsugi Studio
Colin Parsons
Colin stopped bending himself to fit others' moulds and discovered that authenticity is the foundation for genuine connection.
Hear this story
Colin Parsons spent nineteen years in banking before moving to Luxembourg for a relationship. When that move left him angry and frustrated in a new job, his girlfriend suggested he see a therapist. What followed was six years of weekly sessions that fundamentally changed how he saw himself. He learned to catch the harsh voice in his head, the one that called him stupid, and replace it with something gentler, something playful. That one word change, from stupid to silly, transformed how he moved through his day. It sounds small. It was everything.
When Colin stopped trying to bend himself to fit what employers wanted, better things happened. In an interview for a consultant role he didn't need, he showed up without desperation and was offered the job. He built a career as a Chief Happiness Officer, connecting genuinely with people rather than solving problems or handing out stress toys. But the real breaking point came when a relationship began while he was still married. The divorce that followed cost him friendships, created deep shame, and forced him to face years of people-pleasing and self-punishment. It took him two years to stop accepting the label others had given him and to stop punishing himself for being human.
Today Colin does something that feels natural to him: he brings people to life on camera. His LinkedIn Lives are unscripted conversations with people around the world. He doesn't charge for them. He simply asks genuine questions and listens, and something shifts in the people he talks to. They come alive. They share what matters. He discovered this gift by accident, but it flows directly from the person he has become: someone who knows himself well enough to be fully present with others. Authenticity, he understands now, is the foundation for real connection.
“For every interview I've ever done before in my life it was always I need this job how am I going to bend myself to fit into what they want. But I went to this thing and I was just there to listen. I didn't have that internal pressure to bend myself.”
“I realized that I'd wasted a lot of my life trying to people please for no reason because as soon as you don't fit into the mold that someone else wants you in then they just cut you out.”
“If I messed up you go oh that's stupid. And then I went, 'Oh, that's silly.' Something happened. It changed my the way everything was because it was playful.”
The hero, today
When Colin stopped trying to bend himself to fit what employers wanted and showed up without desperation, the right opportunities opened up naturally. Colin's biggest shift came from changing the internal language he used to judge himself, replacing harsh words like stupid with playful ones like silly, which fundamentally changed how he moved through his day. Colin realised he had wasted years trying to people-please and fit into moulds others created for him, and only stopped when he chose to be kinder to himself than to anyone else's comfort. Colin discovered his gift for bringing people to life on camera by being genuinely curious about them rather than trying to extract a story or create perfect content. Colin no longer wishes to be someone else; instead, he understands he is the sum of all his experiences, the painful ones included, and that acceptance allows him to show up more fully.
Yes. Colin Parsons is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
When Colin stopped trying to bend himself to fit what employers wanted and showed up without desperation, the right opportunities opened up naturally.
Colin's biggest shift came from changing the internal language he used to judge himself, replacing harsh words like stupid with playful ones like silly, which fundamentally changed how he moved through his day.
Colin realised he had wasted years trying to people-please and fit into moulds others created for him, and only stopped when he chose to be kinder to himself than to anyone else's comfort.
John Milham (Host) · 00:05
Welcome back to Kintsugi Heroes, helping people tell the stories they need to share so you can find the stories that you need to hear. Ah, ladies and gentlemen, uh, listeners on Kintsugi Heroes, the few out there that are waiting for this to drop and the Welcome to all the guests that wander onto Contiki Heroes podcasting. This is Stories That Matter and today we're going to wander around topics unknown as yet, but no doubt interesting with a wonderful guest, a conversationalist, right? And somebody who does this now with intention, right? Has deep conversations. Hopefully, Colin, I don't let you down by being too shallow today. Hopefully we can get deep. Colin Parsons, welcome to Kintsugi Heroes.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 01:05
Thank you very much for having me, John. Yeah, yeah, we can go any way, every way, go deep, go shallow, wherever we go. I think that's, for me, it's the best route because I think I found that through the things that I do is, you know, if we find something that you want to dig on, we let's go because I think oftentimes that's the best place to find the gold.
John Milham (Host) · 01:29
I love that. Go deep or go home is now my— I think that's a function of being an old bloke, right? Because I don't have the time to waste on sort of positioning myself, shall I? So let's get into it. There is, for want of a bio, right? Because there's a long history of you doing really impressive things, but there's a couple of things that pop up. The first is you have recorded in LinkedIn that you had a career break, which is an unusual kind of approach. I love that because in many ways men hide that fact that you were taking some time off to connect with family or raise your kids or, you know, spend some time getting it, you know, reconnecting with what's important, having values break, all of those kind of things are often hidden. So was that, was that, is that you? Are we seeing your identity or was that like an intention saying I'm making a statement?
More stories
This site is part of Kintsugi Heroes. Visit the main site for the full podcast. If any of these stories hit close to home, support is out there, you don't have to sit with it alone.
Read how we handle these stories ↗
Kintsugi Heroes · Registered Australian not-for-profit · kintsugiheroes.com.au ↗
Colin discovered his gift for bringing people to life on camera by being genuinely curious about them rather than trying to extract a story or create perfect content.
This conversation includes welcome to the conversation, taking parental leave in luxembourg, the chief happiness officer role, from banking to consultancy, the interview where he didn't need the job and moving to luxembourg and finding therapy.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 02:32
So I know I don't think I ever do anything really to make a statement. I think it came about naturally in terms of, so on LinkedIn you always kind of want to show where you've been doing things and you know, I think historically people look at your, uh, your history, and if they see any gaps, they want to know why. And, um, but I, I've taken a few different pauses. The two maybe that you're referring to are when, um, so I'm, uh, divorced now, but we had, uh, I was married and we had two young children, and I live in Luxembourg in Europe for those of you, uh, people listening don't know where it is. It's a very small country in between France, Germany, and Belgium. Um, and here they're, they're very supportive in terms of family, and especially for dads that want to, uh, take parental leave. So I think you can take it up until the kids are 6 or something like that. Um, yeah, and you get 6 months and at a pretty decent um, like, right, you're not going to get your full salary that you were on, but it's— it really does work well. Um, and I think when I've spoken to other people in other countries, that the reason they don't do that is financial aspect. Um, but yeah, oh man, it was— it's the best thing to, to do. So, um, we had two little girls, um, so I think when my ex-wife went back to work. It was about 9 months in, so then I took over. And, um, yeah, it sort of set the scene for just very deep bonds. Um, I think it had many benefits. It was about connecting with your child, um, realizing, holy shit, I, I'm in charge of this little alien. And I, I've always said about my kids, like, people sell this story of, um, you know, when the baby came out, it was like, uh, you know you know, like The Lion King, you know, this amazing thing. For me, it wasn't— kids grew on me. I just realized I had a responsibility. And so there was cleaning up, wiping nappies and stuff like that. And after about a year or two years, you go, oh, oh, you know, this, this thing's going to stick around. I've, I've invested in it. I kind of love it now.
John Milham (Host) · 04:52
So yeah, there's not much— I can't dispose of it in any meaningful way.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 04:56
So no, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So I might as well enjoy this now. So, uh, yeah. And, um, but when you look back and you go, yeah, and it's very informative, especially— I don't know how it is, uh, in Australia, but, um, you know, I think it's becoming more balanced, but oftentimes it's the, the women that take care of the children. And I think there is this strange thing. I think dads would like to get more involved. Um, I think, I think, you know, there's many different scenarios, but I think there are men that definitely want to get involved in their child's upbringing. But often, if it's left to the mums, sometimes they take over and have it their way. But for me, I had this opportunity. I spent the time with the kids. I also had an appreciation what it meant for my ex-wife to go through and look after a baby, because when you when you just go, oh well, yeah, you're at home looking after the baby, you think it's easy. When you actually do it yourself, you go, oh, hang on a second, there's a, there's a lot more to it. So, but I, I also think that it gives you appreciation for other people doing the same thing. There's a lot that goes into it. And, um, I've often said that the, the children have made me understand a lot more about myself. It wasn't about understanding them. And very early on in that, I, uh, I always thought I was going to tell the kids what to do and they were going to do it. And then I realized very quickly that they actually mirrored my behavior. So anything that I was doing wasn't great, they were actually mirroring. So I realized that if I want my kids to be a certain way, I need to change my own behavior. And that was a big thing. So there's a big learning in that, and I tie that back to say I think if more people put that into their, you know, history of what they've been doing, then it's a good talking point because it's always a good thing to understand what people learned from that if they did take that moment.
John Milham (Host) · 06:55
I think that's absolutely correct. And I was fascinated because the job that was listed, you know, a little bit later was, which it sounds to me like one of what, you know, I'm incredibly envious was a happiness officer or manager, right? So you were in charge of what, global happiness or just, just the happiness of that particular organization, right?
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 07:21
So no, so I'll give you just a quick context for it. So I worked for this small consultancy company that basically had consultants that were helping banks and financial institutions, and I used to work in there and I used to be outsourced and I used to work in projects. I got very dispassionate about being a consultant in that way, because you would go out to these banks, institutions, and they'd hire you for these because they go, "Oh, you've got this great resume," etc. And you go there, and then they just told you what you needed to do, and I was just like, it's the same thing regurgitated over and over. So after the second child, and I'd had that parental leave, I didn't want to do that job anymore. Didn't, didn't want to face the same stuff. So I, I said to the manager of the company at the time, I'd like to, uh, maybe do something different. My ex-wife kind of sort of said, oh, well, don't, don't just leave the company, see if you can help them. So I said, look, I'd like to just connect with the, the other consultants and see what's going on for them. Um, and so the label didn't come straight away. It came afterwards, and it's quite an Americanized term. It's called Chief Happiness Officer, and I liked it and loathed it in equal measure because it's a talking point. People don't know what it is. Some people think I'm either handing out drugs or I'm handing out stress toys, but it wasn't that. It was more about connecting with people, seeing what's going on, the good, the bad, the ugly, but connecting in a human way. I wasn't there to solve people's problems. I never saw myself as that. But often people just want to talk about something, just want to share something. And I would just check in with these people, not in a way that felt— I didn't go, "Right, every month I'm going to see you." It just felt natural. And if I heard in the company, "Oh, someone's not doing well," I'd go and try and see that person, take them out for lunch. They get a free lunch, okay, maybe have a beer or something like that. We talk about all sorts, and I would just connect with that person, and then I would understand, is something going on? Without an ulterior motive. If they didn't want to talk about something, I never, never pushed them on it. But I think through natural conversation, people share a lot, and you can— I have a very good skill of understanding, you know, if someone's just trying to present or perform and there's often something behind that. And they'll give the clues away, it's like a little breadcrumb trail, and you could kind of go, okay, you've mentioned that. So they'll say something and there's like a little thing at the end, you go, oh, what's that? And you can do it in a— it sounds a very manipulative way, and I don't mean it that way, but I think oftentimes we want to talk about a subject and we, we drop a little crumb into the conversation. And so I'd often speak to people about something, and it could be that they're just having a bad day, and by allowing them to talk, they— like, that boiling pot has like calmed down and they can get on with the thing, or they've got a better perspective of their day or their work. And I did that, and I, I absolutely loved it. It was really, um, it's a very intangible thing that doesn't sit on a spreadsheet well, um, you can't really explain it. There's no metrics to justify why it is. It comes under kind of the wellbeing HR space, but I saw it as much more powerful than that. So yeah, that was a long explanation.
John Milham (Host) · 11:01
So yeah, it's fascinating because it comes from maybe the evolution of the coaching world., right? You know, where we have the human element, you know, we're actually inviting human back into the commercial space, right? And, you know, for many years that's kind of been treated as unproductive or unprofessional, right? So I love that it's back on the table and that you've been the third party influence, which probably gave them space to have that experience. Which they couldn't do with their managers or in the lunchroom or whatever because the stigma is still too big.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 11:45
Yeah. And I also realized so why I thought it never sat under HR because HR historically are around performance pay rises and stuff like that. I also— there was, there was this moment where the manager kind of wanted to understand a bit what was going on with people, and I never broke that trust. Um, and because when I had the conversations, no one was performing, no one was trying to pretend that they're really great, because I had no— I had no influence, I had no knowledge of what they earned or what they didn't earn or whatever. And so we had a genuine conversation. And I think when you speak to people in HR or managers and stuff like that, you don't actually share the whole truth. You perform, you kind of— you feel that it's not okay unless unless you've got an amazing manager who's very human. And, um, so my conversations were very genuine, um, and so I had a lot of knowledge, uh, about people in such a good way. Because when you take a step back, and because I wasn't in the day-to-day things, you could come and you could see, like, people would get very caught up in the very sort of, uh, detailed tasks. Yeah, everyone's having a bad day, or something's not quite right. And then when I would show up, I would kind of— because I wasn't in the office every day, I was, I was just a bit higher up, and not, not in hierarchy, but just I wasn't caught in the details. I would come in and just go, oh yeah, but it's not that, it's that, we need to look at that. So it might be, oh, everyone thinks this person's not doing okay, but it's not that, it's that they've been given the wrong position or something like that. So yeah, I felt very fortunate to be able to, to do that.
John Milham (Host) · 13:38
It's a great opportunity and it seems to be valued these days in some sort of commercially relevant way because I'm sure it has a big ROI. The term consultant though carries kind of almost two aspects, right? There's that positive engagement opportunity, that personal development kind of side, but consultants also have often been the harbingers of gloom and, you know, being, you know, cuts and leanness and so on. How did you become a consultant, right? Was that your vision for your career?
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 14:20
No, it was, so I basically, so most of my career has been in finance, banking, etc. So I worked, I was an employee, my first job was with the company for like 19 years. I worked for a big bank, um, and I worked my way across, sort of zigzagged, changed every couple of years. Um, I always, uh, so then what happened, I worked in the operations or the day-to-day side of things. Then my job was outsourced to India, um, and I took my job out there. Amazing, amazing experience, um, really, um impressed by the guys in India. There was obviously— there was often sort of some racial, uh, stereotyping that, um, the guys in India weren't very clever, and that was just so not the truth. They were super intelligent. Um, I just don't think they had— culturally they were allowed to sort of stray outside of the, the borders, but if they did, I think they would be definitely a superpower in terms of knowledge and the way that they work and the way that they learn and Um, so anyway, um, I took my job out there, and when I came back, my job was no longer in existence. But prior to taking my job out to India, um, I worked on a project to upgrade a system, um, and that system was being put through the company globally. And they said, oh, well, you've done that for this area, can you come and do it for others? So I joined the project world, and the project world often has consultants coming in because projects last 6 months, a year, whatever, um, you know, you don't want to add that to your headcount in terms of a company. So they, they, they look at it more as a money resource rather than a headcount resource. So they would hire consultants at like very good, healthy day rates so that you would get paid for your expertise, um, for a short period of time. You come in, do your job, you didn't have to do all the other stuff that employees would normally have to sort sort of sit with, um, and I was quite envious of them because you go, oh, they get to do all this stuff, take quite a lot of money away, and they don't have to deal with all the crap that I do. And, uh, so I always wanted to do it, but I never found the, the bravery or the courage to do it. I always sort of sat in there being an employee, um, just felt more safe. So I moved to Luxembourg because I met my girlfriend and we moved here. Then I worked for a company and worked there for 2 and a half years and just didn't fit. The people were nice, company's good, I just didn't fit. So I actually just quit without having another job. Um, and I was like, okay, I got to a point where I couldn't do anything anymore. And then basically I fell into the consultancy world because someone that I'd worked with said, oh, there's this person that we met for drinks, they've got a job. And I went for this interview, did not want this interview. I wanted just to have a bit of a career break, 6 months off, build my own business, something like that. Went for this interview and I showed up really not blasé, but I was like, yeah, I don't want this interview.
John Milham (Host) · 17:36
Lack of need.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 17:37
Yeah, really. And it was amazing because for every interview I've ever done before in my life, it was always, I need this job, how am I going to bend myself to fit into what they want? And it's almost like this acceptance of, I need to be everything they want. And, uh, I went to this thing and I was like, no, I not— I didn't say I didn't care, but I was just— I was there to listen. Uh, I didn't actively talk myself out of the job but I was just— I just didn't have that internal pressure to bend, uh, myself. And so the conversation was going, I was like, yeah, this is not going too well. And then they said something, and it basically— it was all my knowledge that I'd ever done in projects before, and I just vomited out what they needed. And they went, all right, we need this guy. And, um, and then they said, oh, um, they at the time, they didn't really know if they needed an employee or a consultant. And then they looked at each other and said, ah, yeah, we want this role to be a consultant. And then I was like, okay. And then the guy that I worked with, the one where I was doing the Chief Happiness Officer, like I gave his name 'cause he was a friend of my ex-wife's. And I rung him in the car park afterwards 'cause they asked who I was working with. And I rung him and I said, I'm really sorry, I've dropped your name, like, and I don't work for you, but is that okay? And he was super happy 'cause it was a new client for him. And he's like, yeah, go. And then I kind of fell into the consultancy side from there.
John Milham (Host) · 19:09
So you joined his team, right? I love that idea that it's when we learn that, you know, young people have the term thirsty, which I think is really, you know, really descriptive, perhaps less professional, but really descriptive, right? That sense of need that drives, you know, compromise maybe, right? You know, like fear, it's kind of a fear-based and I think that's not the best place to sort of present yourself, right? I love that you, because you didn't need the role or were ambiguous about it, you presented with this sort of blasé, you know, blasé fair approach, right? A little, I don't need this, so, you know, let's chat, you know, I love that.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 19:55
And I, I think things would be a lot better. I don't know, I think it's like this scarcity mindset that we have, or it's just this thing needs to be the thing because I need to earn money. And I, I'm a big, uh, believer about, you know, money drives too many of our decisions. And if we took that from the equation or made it less of a priority, we would actually maybe make not smarter decisions but more things that were aligned to us. Because I, I genuinely believe the money comes afterwards. Wards, but we put it as almost the primary goal.
John Milham (Host) · 20:29
So many men have it as a value when it's a borrowed value. It's not their true value. You know, it's one of those things that we decide whether we'll spend time with our family or go to work. And, you know, of course money drives that.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 20:44
And I think what I'm learning, I think our system is broken in many ways because we think that— so I've carried this belief for a long time that I can't have it all, you know. If you want that, you know, balance of, oh, I see my family, then I can't earn a lot of money. But that belief has shifted. I'm not quite there yet, but I started to build this, uh, business, these LinkedIn Lives, and I call it a business, and it is a business, but it's not generating any money. But I think I think we, we have to— we say, okay, like, if I earn money, then there's going to have to be other sacrifices. I, I need to give all of my life to this company. I won't see my family. That's the sacrifice. And I think sometimes we hide behind that because we actually want it. Um, we justify to our wife and kids that that's— I'm doing this, you know what I'm suffering. Yeah, exactly. But, um, I think the reality is, um you can have it all. You just need to be a bit more intentional about it. And just, I think, be aware of what's actually going on. And I think we set these goals and, you know, and it works often from the other perspective. You know, we have these companies that we go and work for and they dangle this big carrot. But I think if, if we can take a moment just to, to be a bit more intentional— and I think, I think now that we share so much information easily I think people will start to understand, okay, you can build something on your own. I'm not saying it's easy, I'm not saying it's straightforward, but you— if you can do things intentionally and you understand, okay, you know, working for a company isn't a safe thing, it isn't a sure bet, you know. And I've, I've seen this throughout my career, like, people, um, people give their lives to a company, and that's great if you love it and you enjoy it. Absolutely. I'm not saying there's any wrong or right way of doing things. But people think that their job is safe and secure, but one day someone will look at a spreadsheet, don't know you, doesn't know you, doesn't care, hasn't seen your history, and they will make you redundant for just— not because of who you are, it's just because you don't figure on that spreadsheet or something's changed. And you could have given all of your life, all of, all of your hours, you could have sacrificed so much, that's not going to show up on the spreadsheet, no one's going to care. You can be brilliant at it and then you've lost it. So I think, I think being a bit more intentional about who you are, what you want in your life, um, can you find that balance? What is that balance for you? Digging into that side of things, you know, if you want to go for— go to work and work for a company and say, look, I clock in, I clock out— not necessarily clocking in and clocking out, but going in and just saying, yeah, that means that I don't have to think about it. I just do what is asked of me. I don't want to give any more. That means I get to spend time with my partner, family, kids, whatever. If that suits you, absolutely great. I, I think, but if you take a step back and ask, is that actually what you want? How do you want to do it? Then, you know, you can maybe make some other choices. And I think the why I say all of that is that we often put money as top of that. And I know I've done that. So I, I know I'm doing a lot of talking, but, um, I, I'm very bad at setting goals. And so, and I also think on the internet there's many A-type people that go, yeah, I'm smashing like £100,000 a month in my company, it's amazing. And I signed up for all of that, and you just go, oh yeah, I'd love to be like that, I'd like to be that type person. But I think understanding who you are and how you are allows you to set more realistic goals. And that, that doesn't mean you can't be— you can't have all of that stuff, but do you really want all of that? So at some stage, I was convincing myself that I wanted to make a million pounds a month. Based on what? Yeah, based on what? Like, I've never— I would never earn that a month. And I'm like, Why do I want that? What, what comes with that? And so, but that was my primary goal. And it was just because I was looking around at other people and they were saying it's absolutely achievable that I made that my goal. But I don't want that. I want to be around for my kids. I want to be able to do something that I love doing, to earn money. I'm not saying money is not important because it is. It, you know, having money just opens up a lot of doors, makes life a lot easier. But you don't need a million pounds a month to do that. And, um, so I signed up for that, and I— so, and then I've taken that out of the equation. And you start with intention, you start to sort of say, what would I like to build? What, what feels good? Yeah, and I don't want to sit on the sofa and watch TV all day, you know. Yes, I want to build that into my day and be able to relax, but I think most people want to do something. They want to feel useful or of service or feel that they're adding some value. Not just money. And yes, some people want to make money, that's their primary goal, that's absolutely okay. But being a bit more intentional about what you want and putting that in some sort of priority order and then building out from there, I think. And that doesn't mean you need to quit your job. It can be— you can build it slowly, you can build it quickly, you can try, you can experiment. There's a whole load of things within that realm that people can get into.
John Milham (Host) · 26:17
Yeah, no, it's fantastic and it's a lot of questions. First of all, was that personal development, right? Would you, you know, you talk about coming into these, you know, I realized I sort of unlocked or I began to think, you know, was that an, you know, and we talk about intentionality. Was that intentional? Were you growing like with an intention? Were you seeking information and expansion, right?
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 26:46
Um, I, I've always been curious about things, and I've always been quite introspective. Um, I've often, um, been in a fantasy world, so I often lived in the future, and I always thought, oh, when I have this, then I will be this sort of way. Um, which is great, but then when you actually bounce back to reality, it's a bit painful. And so oftentimes I would, you know, go, oh well, I could be this if I had this sort of money, etc. But a couple of things along the way changed for me. So I'm from the UK, like I said. I live in Luxembourg, and that decision to move was mine based around, um, being with my girlfriend. And I moved out here, and I— that turned my world upside down because I'd never lived out of the town that I lived in my whole life. My parents lived 2 minutes down the road from me. My brother lived 5 minutes away from me. I had routine, I had exercise, I had a job that paid well, I had more than enough money, had my own house, loved it. And then I basically decided to move to another country, and, um, and pretty much I didn't speak the language, didn't know anything about it. I relied heavily on my girlfriend at the time to sort of make things easier. I started this new job in this new company. Like I said, I didn't feel like I fitted. They were amazing people, but it was very different than working in London. It wasn't— in London, it's kind of cutthroat, you know. Not that sounds harsher, but you had to really be good to sort of stand out. And then I came here and everything was a bit more— not lazy, but a bit more relaxed.. And so I was going home every day and I was getting a bit frustrated and angry and not physically violent, but I was just like, oh Jesus, I don't like this, oh fucking hell. And what happened was my girlfriend at the time, she said, oh, you're being quite angry, like maybe you should go and see someone. So I ended up going and seeing a therapist. So I looked up because I didn't know anything about therapy. I just, um, uh, you know, there's all different types of therapy, and I just— what, randomly, I, I looked up 3 people, uh, one was fully booked, the other one didn't answer my message, and I ended up speaking to this other lady, and she said, oh look, I just do a 45-minute intro call to see if what I do could help you, and it was for free. It was like a discovery call. Best thing I've ever done. And I saw her pretty much every week for about 6 years, and it was the best thing I've ever done because it set me on this path of discovery of myself, what I want, who I am. And not in a negative way. I think, I think we have all these experiences as kids, you know, traumas. And I don't mean abuse, you know. I know there are people with abuse. I'm not that's saying that. But I think oftentimes we see something, you know, even if we were bullied as kids, you know, in a little way, you know, we hold on to that trauma, or we see events through a kid's eyes, and we carry that even though we look like an adult on the outside. Our brain is still seeing things through a kid's eyes, and we often get busy or we avoid looking at those because they were painful events. Um, and they hold us back in certain situations. They create our beliefs. We see the world through that lens. And on that journey, I realized that it's actually a brave thing to do. I, at some point when I was talking to my therapist, I said, oh, there's this stigma, especially around men. I don't know how it is in Australia, but for like men sort of just have this bravado, oh no, I'll get on with it. It's like this macho thing. We don't really talk about anything. Even with my friends, if you say— if you try and show a bit of vulnerability, it's, uh, it's a bit like, oh yeah, we'll just go and have a pint and we'll talk about it. We don't talk about it.
John Milham (Host) · 30:57
We have a pint, then we have another point, then we talk about the footy, right? Or, um, you know, something you saw on telly. Or we, we talk, but it's not at, uh, that kind of release anything level.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 31:09
No. And that's, that's the sad thing, because nothing gets resolved other than you, you But the alcohol does this thing where you, you don't take yourself as seriously, so you feel like you've done something but you haven't. You've just delayed dealing with it. And if you've had too many, you feel a bit crap the next day, so it actually makes it worse. But you don't actually talk about it with your mates. And I think the stigma around it, I think there's a lot going on for a lot of people. And I don't want to just say for men because I know it exists for women and But I think men don't feel that they can share what's going on. Um, and I, I've always been an advocate of therapy. I think it's such a good— I think there's many ways of dealing with things, different types of therapy, but it doesn't make you weak. It doesn't make you—
John Milham (Host) · 31:59
well, you're not broken because you, you, because you're in therapy, right? You know, it's a, it's a perfectly reasonable response to a difficult time, right? You know, You, you know, if you dig in a trench, you know, two blokes with shovels are better than one, right?
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 32:13
So yeah, yeah. But I think even like, I think about my mum and dad's era. So like, they're in their 80s now, you know, they just got on with life. They didn't have all of the access to this stuff. So I explained to my mum and dad that I was going to therapy, and I, I, well, I didn't really explain to my dad. I talked to my mum. I have— my mum and dad are great, but I have a deeper connection with my mum. And I explained that I was going to therapy, and she said, oh, did I do something wrong to mess you up? And I was like, oh, and it wasn't that. It's— that's how she, she, she interpreted it.
John Milham (Host) · 32:48
And, um, and the, the interesting thing—
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 32:51
do you—
John Milham (Host) · 32:51
don't you think the interesting thing there is probably, but it's not your fault, right? We're not blaming you. It's just the way the, the world was structured at the time, you know?
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 33:00
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, um But I went through this stage of trying to find answers for stuff, trying to find reasons. I thought, not that I was broken, but I didn't fit in. So you kind of think that you're broken, or you're trying to find reasons or excuses. I did go through moments of blaming my parents, sort of saying, oh well, my mum didn't give me this confidence, or whatever. And then I think, coming full circle, as a parent yourself, you realize that that's just not possible. You you can be the, the best parent you could possibly be, which I don't believe there is. You just, you know, if you're present for your kids and, you know, you show them that they're human and you're human, that you lose your rag sometimes, you can be unreasonable, you can have lack of sleep, everything. And the best thing is just to accept yourself with non-judgment. I think that's successful. But then you realize that You know, circumstances in your life are out of your control. Doesn't mean you're broken. You can just look at it with some distance and go, oh, that doesn't define me. And just take the things that you like, the things that you think are holding you back. Maybe they are for the right reasons or different reasons. You can maybe let go of those or find different ways. But it can be super fun, really, like understanding who I am and how I am. Has been such joy to me. I'm so fascinated by myself, but it also allows me to be fascinated by other people. Okay, well, why is that? How's that? And I, I never try to fix anyone. I'm just curious about people, just like, okay. And it can be the simplest thing that we have in our mind, to set a belief that makes us act a certain way, and you can go, oh, that's interesting. And you don't need to fix it if you don't want to fix it, but all of these things bring an awareness about you, like what triggers you, what, what makes you happy, why does that make you happy. And it, it doesn't need to be painful, it can just be fun. And the more you're aware of yourself— and I keep saying this when I have conversations— for me, awareness is like a superpower, because things are either serving you or not serving you. And make you— and we don't pay attention. We're quite reactive to things around us, our environment, whatever is going on. But if you can just take a microsecond to pause and go, what's driving that? Maybe you can change the reaction or the outcome, or you can just go, oh, just that's the way I am. That's cool.
John Milham (Host) · 35:35
So that's an amazing insight there, mate. The, um, What do you think is the key to shift you from that reactive space to that curious or internally curious, right? You know, asking yourself, being reflective, going, you know, what's the, you know, I've made a, you know, I've got hold of a view or a belief. What's the evidence for that?
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 35:58
So I'm going to say meditation really helped me. And I know there's going to be loads of people listening go, I can't meditate. Um, and there's loads of different ways to meditate. You can even meditate through journaling and, um, whatever just creates that small pause just to sort of go, okay. Um, and it can be that you reflect after, you can, you know, journaling, you can write at the end of the day or after an event and you can start being curious. And if you get curious about yourself, it can be fun. And when it's fun, You go, oh, and it becomes playful, and you go, okay. And one of the things I don't really— I— you come across people that understand this and other people that don't. So we have like this critic in our head, this voice in our head. Sometimes that's our voice, sometimes it's the voice of our parents, you know, going, oh, you— oh, bloody hell, you should have done this. And we often internalize that, and because it's our voice, we think it's a thought. But oftentimes that doesn't serve us, or it's beating us up, or we're judging ourselves, and then we judge other people. And one of the biggest shifts recently for me was just trying to pay attention to what that voice is saying. And, um, a simple way to, to change this— and you just have to catch yourself, you like, you can get caught in stuff and you go, oh, but your, your mind is playing this voice, this this critic that's going on, but it's the language that that voice is using. So I say this because this example, because it's easy for people to follow. Like, if I messed up, you go, oh, that's stupid. The word stupid, that doesn't seem that harsh, but it is. And then I did this, like, oh, I went, oh, that's— and I went, silly. And I went, silly, something happened. It changed my— the way everything was because it was playful. It was like, oh, that's silly. And you go, yeah, I'm not beating myself up, I'm not spiraling into I'm shit, I'm worthless, etc. I'm the worst dad in the whole world and gone down a big rabbit hole. I've gone, oh, that's silly. And you go, yeah. And then I just got on with life. And yeah, but we don't like We either don't share what's going on in our head because it's crazy town, or we don't want to dig into it, or it's scary, or we don't want people to know that we're having these thoughts. But we're not our thoughts. But oftentimes it drives a lot of our behavior, how we beat ourselves up. And I think changing this, changing the language— and we, we had this thing in the world where we want to hack ourselves and everything's got to be perfect. Tomorrow. But making the smallest changes, like that one word— if I could just change that one word, that changed the outcome for the next half an hour or the next half of my day. So try and look for the smallest things. Don't try and change everything all at once. Don't look at other people and say, they've mastered it, I want to be like them. Find what works for you and just see, okay. But be curious about it because I think that curiosity is such a playful way to be. And I, I realized, especially having kids, the happiest time that I have is by being playful. Playful with my kids, playful with myself, having fun, laughing, just doing something silly. Like, we take ourselves too seriously. When you do that, your— my mind opens up and go, oh, maybe I'm going to experiment with this. I'm going to be curious. What happens if I did say that to myself? Or what happens if I did do that? Or Maybe I skipped down the road. So I skipped with my kids. And, um, I know it seems silly, but something you used to do as a kid, but life beats that out of you. Say, oh, that's not, you know, especially if you're a guy, you know, you're skipping, that's a bit weird, that's a bit sissy, whatever. But actually, go and skip. I, I defy anyone to go and skip along, like skip with a rope or skip along, and not have a smile on your face. It just brings this play to you, and then things just start to be much more enjoyable and life should be as enjoyable as possible.
John Milham (Host) · 40:17
I have a beautiful vision just popped into my head of the company you're consulting with and you come back after a month and all the apparatchiks are skipping down through the hallways there. So yeah, they come in and say you've transformed us, right? So Brilliant work. It was interesting, you know, you talked about silly, that lightness. I remember someone once helping me through. I was really struggling part of the journey of sort of being, you know, introducing more regulation, more awareness into my world through managing my road rage, right? Like it was emblematic of my you know, flaws, right, that I got angry in the car and I was really struggling with how to sort of interrupt myself. Someone said, start saying the dialogue in your head out loud, but with a frivolous accent like Mickey Mouse or something, right? And it's amazing how hard it is to remain angry at these cars that were trying to kill you a moment ago when you're, you know, talking in a funny accent about, you know, saying, you know, well, where'd you get your license? In a, you know, breakfast cereal box or whatever. So it's just that smallest change, as you mentioned.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 41:46
Yeah, but I've heard this saying before, the little things are the big things, but we often want to change the big things, but it's the little things that have the biggest impact. And I think there's so many different ways, like I said, like meditation, you know, catching yourself, giving yourself a pause. And I've gone away from giving people advice because I think you just need to find the thing that works for you, the thing that's going to move something and just, it's fun. And you know, there's a ton of books out there. You can get buried in, um, you know, too much of this, you know, there's always a book coming out. That's the latest one. It's got the most research in it, but I think finding the thing that works for you. That you can fit into your day or can just transform something. And like you said, that dialogue in just a funny Mickey Mouse voice, like, you, you think it's a bit strange, but once you do something like that, like, you go, wow, like, it has a massive impact and it, it changes everything. And you go on. And I think there's so many tools, tricks that you can use. And if you've got these in your locker, you you can use them, and some work in certain situations, some don't. And, um, but yeah, I think, I think if when we view ourselves with less judgment, I think we then can portray that outside. So I, I definitely found in my own life I'm my worst critic. I'm very judgmental of myself, and I am, and I, I think I, I try not to be judgmental of other people, but inside I am. And, uh, I went through a divorce a couple of years ago, and it was horrific. So I started a relationship with a new person in my life, and I, I didn't, uh, end my marriage. And because of— there was a whole load of things. There was loyalty, there was— I had the two kids, I, I, yeah, and, um And I knew it wasn't right, but I felt something for this new person. And I've often called her my soulmate, and that sometimes feels, you know, think people think that's cheesy. I even think sometimes it's cheesy, but who, who this person is to me is something amazing. And I, I'd already built this life and I didn't know where, um, where to, how to, because I didn't want to upset my wife, I didn't want to not have my kids in my life, and it was big deal for me. And, um, I'm not saying the way that I did it was the right thing, but I kind of— I know subconsciously I needed to blow up everything in order to, to, to move on. But through that, I lost, I lost a lot of, uh, friends. People wrote me off very quickly, very easily, um, without even understanding me. And, and I took that with me, and I, I had a lot of shame around that, the way that I showed up I thought about myself even in moments of happiness with my new partner. I would instantly feel guilty and shameful and say, well, how can I do that when I've caused a lot of pain to other people? But a lot of people ruled me out, and I was a— not a born people pleaser, but people pleasing was a big thing for me. And I always put these people— I always tried to make sure everyone was happy so that they weren't angry at me, and I bent over backwards just trying to fit in. What I realized was I'd done all of this and these people didn't even give me the time of day. I tried to reach out to them, they didn't ask me any questions, didn't want to know, understand who I was, why, why this was, with any curiosity. They just literally wrote me off. And then I realized that I, I'd wasted a lot of my life trying to people-please for no reason, because as soon as you don't fit into the mold that someone else wants you in, then they just cut you out. And then what happened was I, I realized that I don't need to people-please anymore. And so I started looking at myself. I got rid of the shame and the guilt. It took me a long time. It took me about 2 years. I had to go and see people just to sort of reframe it in my mind. But I care less about what other people think, and I'm much more kinder to myself. And I say all of that because, uh, I think because I'm now kinder to myself, I still— there's still moments where it pops up and I feel a bit guilty. But seeing yourself and how you are and who you truly are, rather than beating yourself up, allows you to be much better and much clearer for other people. And if they don't get it, that's also okay. I don't, I don't really harbor a lot of resentment for those people. I did for a while, but I'm just No, if that's not their thing, that's okay. I'm okay with who I am. And I think to be successful in this world is not, not about money, about status. It's about being comfortable with who you are and being okay with that and trying to live your life in accordance and alignment with who you are. And the world isn't designed for that because it often wants to put you in buckets or put you into, you know, different ways of being because it makes other people comfortable. But if you can find a way to be comfortable with yourself and understand, um, not be lazy and not do things, but just really go, oh no, I am this, I, I like who I am as this type of person. And I'm not defining what that is, that's for every individual. But life moves a lot easier and you find your crowd, you find your people, you can help people but you're good to yourself. And once you're good to yourself, you can be so much better for the people around you. And I think that was a big shift for me.
John Milham (Host) · 47:46
That's, you know, like it's, you know, a statement like that was a big shift. Of course, it's monumental in terms of the ecology of your life, right? You know, like, you know, moving, you know, you've got family, your ex-wife's environment, your new partner's environment, the kids moving from one to other and of course work adjustment and all the people you talk to, you've lost a whole circle of friends and so on. So in that letting that go, how did you manage acceptance and surrender? Right. You're like, normally men fight tooth and nail to hang on to those things or get resentful when they can't.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 48:27
Yeah. So I, Luckily, I've had shared custody of the children, which is really important. And I know that my situation is quite unique. Not everyone gets to have that. Um, uh, and for a long time, I, I think I beat myself up, and I think I wanted to do it. I wanted to cause myself pain because I felt that I'd given pain to others. And I was very cautious of how that affected the kids. They were only young, so they're only 7 and 6 at the moment. So this is nearly 3 years ago, so, you know, they were a lot younger. But kids are quite adaptable. Um, and the, the— I should have dealt with my, um, marriage in a different way. I understand that. But, uh, oh, I could have. I don't like the word should because there's reasons, subconsciously, consciously, etc.
John Milham (Host) · 49:23
You make the best decisions you can at the time sometimes.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 49:27
Yeah. And it— and I just realized that I'm human and I was trying to be everything to everyone. And so I, I— we have, um, my girlfriend's got this, um, friend who's a sophrologue. She sort of deals with energy and thoughts and everything like that. And I had to go and see her because this guilt was carrying a lot with me. And we did, um, we did a few different techniques. There's like tapping techniques. I don't know if you know about that. And it's a way to— yeah, exactly. And a way to reprocess thoughts and feelings and stuff like that. And that, that shifted something. And sometimes it— we expect, like, this— again, to wake up and you're completely different. But the, the, this shift was subtle. And so, um, I think I was using those stories of the past— oh, I'm this, I'm a guy that went off with someone else. And I— and also the language that I use. So for a long time, I— it's easy to take other people's narrative of who you are. So the narrative was that I'd had an affair, and I was trying to explain ever since, you know, the person that I met, my new partner, she was much more than that. I tried to explain this and said, this isn't a girl that I went to a nightclub with and slept with. This is not that. This is something else. And I felt ashamed of that because I was married and I felt I had that responsibility and loyalty. But with that comes the word affair, and everyone goes, oh, we had an affair, which sounds like you've just gone off and done something. And I carried that word with me. And my, my partner said to me, I thought, we're still together now, you know, that's been, you know, 3 years. And, um, I think the language that we use for ourselves to beat ourselves up You know, it's easy to carry these terms or these labels, and even if we're trying to be kinder, if we're carrying those labels and there's like this negative stereotype against it, or it makes other people comfortable to say that, yeah, I'm not trying to have a go about my ex-wife because she had to go through a lot of pain and I caused her, caused a lot of that. But it was easier for me to be the villain in that story, you know, to explained to the neighbors, oh yeah, he's gone off and had an affair. And, and, and once you start to realize, okay, stop beating yourself up, stop, you know, I think time is one of those things that you go, okay. And I felt like I put myself in prison deliberately, and I was uncomfortable but comfortable. I felt that I needed to, to do that, to kind of serve my time for what I did. But you don't, you don't. But after a while, I was like, ah, this isn't, this isn't who I am. I don't want to live my life this way with this label on who I am. And once I made that shift, you know, seeing this, um, person that helped me, having a lot of conversations with my girlfriend, and you get bored of this old narrative and you go, that's not who I am, that's not who I want to be. And then I started going No, I am this good person. You know, people are going to have their opinions about me. People that don't know me have not even asked one question about it. And oftentimes we make this assumption about what other people think about us, but it's actually a reflection of how we see ourselves. And when you actually change the way that you think about yourself, strange, the universe actually sort of reacts, and people go, no, they don't really care. They don't They're not harboring all these ill feelings, etc., that you think they are. That was actually just you projecting out to the world, and then it's a mirror back to yourself. So if you want to move past that, start being kinder to yourself. You know, don't, don't say, oh, I didn't do it, or lie that you didn't do it. I've never once said that. But just go, yeah, that's okay, I'm human, you know, um, I understand why. And yeah, dig into it, be curious Um, see, was there reasons? You know, if that type of event came up, would you do it differently? Could you do it differently? Not should have. Don't beat yourself up. Don't say, oh yeah, I wish I'd have done it, because wishing isn't an answer for things. You've got to move on. You know, wishing something was different, it just keeps you stuck. You're not moving forward.
John Milham (Host) · 53:47
I think there's so much in what you're saying. The idea of acceptance isn't Denying, you know, it's not lying. There's a candor needed, but the candor starts with you, you know, where you say, hey, I did make a mistake, but that's okay. Right. You know, I, you know, that's the process of learning. Is that how it feels like you, you taught yourself to move on and accept yourself?
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 54:10
Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's quite a hard thing, but it's, I think it's not just because of that event. I think I've changed how I see myself in the world. And that's— so I'm 47 now and I've never done that. I just— I, again, I was a people pleaser, so I bent and, um, and I, you know, just tried to mold and fit in so no one was angry or anywhere, you know. I used to have this thing where if I walked into a room, there's 20 people and one person was upset, I'd have to go and make sure that that person was not upset with me. And, um, now I just go No, I'm all right. Because when you— when you—
John Milham (Host) · 54:49
it's crazy, isn't it? Like, you know, yeah, like, like the most important thing becomes the, the thing that you've, you know, not even sure exists, right? Yeah, I better go and make sure someone's— they're all happy with me, right?
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 55:02
Yeah. And, and do, um— it's so— it's such a waste of energy, time, etc. And you just go actually put that energy inwards and that You know, it's often seen as a selfish thing when you think about yourself all the time, but you, you have to look inwards, like I've said before, just to kind of go, okay, what's going on? Is that serving me? Is that actually right? And sometimes it takes traumatic events like a divorce to kind of question a lot of these things, because you— we go along in autopilot. We're just that way. Our behavior is kind of a default way, and we don't— we know maybe it's not okay, but we need something sometimes to blow that up and go, oh shit, 'Yeah, I need to change this.' And, you know, I'm not saying you should do that, but just that's the way it's kind of worked for me. And being that way, being comfortable in who you are, just being curious and just being kind to yourself and just being okay with yourself, honestly, it's just like, okay. And then when those old thoughts creep in, 'Oh, is this person upset with me?' Just go, 'Yes, all right.' And there's a lightness to that, and you can just navigate this world so much easier. Don't take things so seriously. You have fun with it. You know, there's no stopping it. Thoughts are crazy. Things will pop up. There'll be triggers in different situations or scenarios, but it gets easier when you start doing it. And again, it doesn't happen overnight. There are people that will help you. You can help yourself. There's a ton of resources. Loads of different ways, but being okay with yourself, seeing you through kind eyes really shifts things for me.
John Milham (Host) · 56:43
Wow. I love the idea. It sounds like, and by all means, you know, tell me I'm wrong, but it sounds like you've, you know, you rebuilt your identity. And I find it hilarious that like so many men have to to get to a certain level of, you know, of downhill, if you will, of darkness or whatever things going wrong before they start sort of working out who they really are?
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 57:12
I think it has a lot to do with our environment, you know, the people that we're with. I think those events— again, I kind of blew up my marriage, and that's not to discredit the relationship I'm in. I didn't do that I didn't seek her out to blow up my marriage, but the way that I did it, I knew subconsciously it would lead to something drastic. Because along the way, I tried to sort of have quiet whispers with my wife to sort of say— my ex-wife— to say things weren't quite right, but couldn't bring myself to make that decision. And I think, you know, there's this thing that we, um, we, we go away, we run away from— we're either pushed away from pain, or we're running towards pleasure, some one of those things. And it's just trying to figure out which one that is. And I knew things weren't quite right in a lot of those things. But yeah, I think, you know, being around the, the people, you know, yeah, and there's this expectation, a lot of it is unspoken, the cultures that we live in, the environments, the people, our friends, the people that we work with. Often when we change, people around us don't like it because it makes them feel uncomfortable. So they will do everything that they can to keep you as, as you were for them, not for you. And I think understanding what, what you want to be— and it can be painful if you've got to let go of family, friends, or, you know, whoever. Um, and I think sometimes we have to create that dramatic thing to push those away because we can't quite find the way or the courage to do that ourselves. Does that make sense?
John Milham (Host) · 58:58
Yeah, it does. Totally. I often think that, you know, you cauterize a wound, you know, which— there's a lot of pain and sort of, you know, further damage, but it's to lock it off, right? And to, you know, to allow something new to come in. And heal.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 59:14
Right.
John Milham (Host) · 59:14
And I think we sometimes those events are sort of inevitable because they're cauterizing our emotional wounds out, you know, so that we can then be, you know, lock it off and start to work on healing in other areas.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 59:30
So yeah, yeah, yeah. And drawing, drawing that line under something is, I think, very therapeutic in a way. And you can go, it's almost like it's a milestone in your life. And, uh, yeah, it's a shame that you have to do that, but I, I see myself very much, uh, pre-divorce and then after divorce. It's kind of— I don't know if that's for everybody, but that's how I kind of define my life. But I've done that in other things as well, you know, when like a relationship or something has ended, I've kind of gone, oh, when I was single, or we define it that way. Um, and it's a way to draw, uh, a line under something and start Not always necessarily, necessarily a fresh— and we always think, oh, we need to redefine ourselves. And I don't think it's a complete redefinition of who we are. It's just, you know, let's say, you know, you've got the 50%, 80% there. It's the 20% or the 50% that you kind of want to work on. And it was that stuff that was out of misalignment, and you just need to try and find what that is through whatever means you can.
John Milham (Host) · 1:00:33
Well, that's an integration. You want to actually keep all the lessons. You don't want to have to repeat them. So you need to be more— would I call you now like Colin 2.0 or 3.0 or 4.0?
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 1:00:46
No, you just call me Colin. And I think I am the sum of my experiences. I don't— I'm very happy for my life. I'm very grateful for where I am. I'm grateful for what I've built recently, but I've built all of those things because of everything prior to that. So I don't, I don't wish to be a certain person. I spent a lot of my young years wanting to be someone else, you know, someone famous or someone good-looking or whatever.
John Milham (Host) · 1:01:16
You buy, buy your world.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 1:01:18
Yeah, exactly. And I, but I, I don't— I'm very comfortable with who I am, and that doesn't mean that I don't want to you know, keep myself a bit more fit and healthy and look in the mirror and see, you know, maybe a few more muscles or a bit more toned, which I think is good in terms of self-care and self-preservation, but not to a kind of vanity sort of way of being. But I am the product of my experiences, and all of those, good, bad, or anything, you know, at the time can be very, very painful. But when you can look back, you can connect the dots. There's often patterns to maybe changing your behavior going forward, or there's just things that you go, ah, okay. And, um, we often talk about confidence, you know, we want to wake up and be confident the next day. Confidence for me is not about thinking you're going to be confident. Confidence is when you don't have confidence. Confidence is built slowly, um, pretty much on a daily basis, and You just do a small action, you know, just, you know, go and say, like, if you don't like talking, just go and buy a coffee and say thank you to the person serving you, something like that. Then the next day, okay, you'll talk to the person behind you in the queue or say, ah, morning, or something. And confidence has grown slowly. And when it's rooted in a lot, uh, of evidence, it's a lot harder to shake. Doesn't mean that events won't come in your life. But you rebound very— a lot quicker than you would, like, when big events— when you think that your confidence and it's not rooted in any foundation, once you— once a big event happens, you, you pretty hit rock bottom pretty quick. Whereas I, I kind of had to build up from the ground in terms of confidence of how I thought myself. And now, yes, I know things are going to come up in my life 'But I'm, I'm okay.' I go, 'Yeah, that's fine, but I've got enough evidence in my locker to say, yeah, I can get, get back, and that's okay. I can have a down period, that's human, don't worry about that. But I've got enough evidence built over many years to say, yeah, I can get there.' Which brings us back to that original concept, right?
John Milham (Host) · 1:03:31
The intentional practice of small things, right? To build up a library of that confidence so that the big things don't upset you, don't take you off the rails.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 1:03:42
Yeah, yeah, I think that's, I think that's one of the, the biggest things. And I speak to a lot of people and they sort of say, you know, we have these ideals of how we want to be and we set these audacious goals, um, and that works for some people. And, you know, like these moonshots they want to— the way they want to be or the what they want to build in their life. But for me, it's actually building from this part and not knowing where I want to go to, because I'm very— I think bad at setting inappropriate goals that don't align with me. Whereas when I've started to build from the bottom up, slowly but surely, without knowing where, but just knowing in that moment what I would like to be or how I'd like to show up in that moment, it builds this foundation. And it's a little thing It's not scary. Sometimes it feels a little bit out of your comfort zone, which I think is a good marker for actually you're doing something, you know, um, that pushes you a little bit. And then, and we always say about compounding interest on your bank account, the confidence works the same way. It's compounding. You know, you'll find yourself within a year, 6 months, 6 weeks, whatever, and you're, you can, if you take the time to look back and go Holy crap, like how far I've come. And that's important because we often look forward and up, but we should reflect back and just go, how far have I come? And that's important as well.
John Milham (Host) · 1:05:08
I love that metaphor, compounding interest on money, personal development, love, all of those things can be compounding interest, right? Just to touch on something you talked about, you mentioned your LinkedIn Live. Which is for context to the listeners, right? That's where you invite people to have a conversation live, you know, it's a business or, you know, but it's also a service.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 1:05:38
Yeah. So it basically came out of, so I was let go of my job, this Chief Happiness Officer, about 2 years ago because they wanted me to go back to being a consultant for working in projects. And I didn't want to do that, which is absolutely fine, um, because I wasn't aligned with what they wanted. I wanted something different, and the company— that was what their, their company was about. And so I got let go. Absolutely fine. I have no problem with that. And then I, I was made unemployed. I did unemployment here for— in Luxembourg, it's very good, they're very supportive— for a year. You get 80% of the last salary you're on. That's great.
John Milham (Host) · 1:06:18
Yeah, a great sense.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 1:06:19
Yeah, it really is. And, um, uh, and basically as part of that they said, oh, um, you know, they will help you set up your own business if you want to do that. Yeah. Now I think that's, um, a nice thing, but it also sells you a dream that is very different than most people want because everyone thinks, oh, I'm going to have freedom over my time, etc. I don't think most people should start their own business. I'm not even sure that I should be doing my own business. I'm not quite convinced yet, but I wanted to be a consultant to help leaders connect with their people because in companies I don't think they talk the same language and I think there's a big disconnect or a big—
John Milham (Host) · 1:06:53
well, quiet quitting is a thing now, isn't it?
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 1:06:55
Yeah, exactly. And people don't understand why, and I wanted to be that person that could help explain stuff because I see patterns in people, um, things that are going on. I, I didn't realize— I thought everyone saw them, but they don't. Anyway, no one was really buying what I was selling either. I wasn't selling it the correct way, or people are not interested in putting money into that. Anyway, at the time I started a marketing course, and there was a guy there who, um, who said, oh, um, to try and get your product or service noticed, you have a LinkedIn Live. So it's just about going live once a week at the same time. You show up and you just basically give some value, and then people start to see you visually and they know, like, and trust you, and that will probably build trust and they'll probably come and buy from you. And I was still trying to do it under the idea of trying to help leaders. At the same time, I had like this career life coach lady, All Things— I don't want to do a disservice because she was— she really helped me through a lot of the stuff. She was very much with me through the whole unemployment, and I leaned into She said, we did this sort of personality test and it was a very in-depth test. And my top 3 skills were, the first one was communication, second one was logic, and I can't remember what the third one is. But if you want to try and enjoy what you do, lean into those skills. And then what I found is the mix between these 2 things, like the marketing course and this communication, oftentimes they were at odds with each other, and I wasn't finding any generation in my business. And I went for a walk with my girlfriend, and I was so frustrated because I was trying to serve both of these ideas. And I said, you know what, fuck it, I'm just gonna go and do 2 LinkedIn Lives for a year and just see. And, um, I don't know where it came from, but it landed like this sort of feeling underneath my gut, like this intuition. I was like, Yeah, that feels good. And as part of that, that marketing course, there was a young girl, uh, on there, and she was from Italy and she lives in London, and she was a bit concerned about the way that she spoke with an Italian accent and maybe her English wasn't 100% correct. And I said, I don't think that matters. I said, I understand what you're talking about. I actually find it quite engaging. And she was nervous to be on camera and, um, I said to her, look, why don't we just do a live together? We'll do it for half an hour and I'll interview you. And it was strange because she was trying to raise her business and she was on the marketing course as well. And so she thought she was going to talk about her business and all the frameworks and everything. I actually spoke to her about her, who she was, etc. And she came alive, like her personality shone through, her insecurities were gone. We just had a great conversation for half an hour. Time went really quickly. She didn't feel vulnerable. And I realized that that was easy for me to do— beyond easy, it was just natural. And, um, and so that idea translated into doing these lives. And so I'm self-funded in terms of, uh, say— so I've been doing it for about 8 months now, these lives, and I was doing 2 a week, and then from the beginning of this year-ish, I realized there's a lot of demand for it. I've had 60, nearly 70 conversations, and I'm going to 3 conversations a week. And it is this mix of being able to put people on camera, make them feel very comfortable talking about subjects. There's no gotcha moments, there's no sensationalizing anything, there's no— I'm not looking to go viral, I'm not looking to convince the world or anything. I'm trying to have genuine conversations about people. And I said this to you before, you know, people that think that they're interesting often aren't. The people that think they're not interesting really are. They just don't know how to frame it or how to talk about it. Yeah, I seem to be able to see that in people. And so these conversations last for an hour, an hour and 10, and like people go, wow, it feels like 10 minutes. And but when you bring someone's personality out on camera, which is not an easy thing because people come with a ton of insecurities, and you allow them to be who they are and talk about themselves without feeling that's, um, wrong, you know, or boasting or anything, they come alive. They share so much, and it's, it's allowing all those layers of insecurity to come away and just have a genuine conversation. And they're not all— well, they're all unscripted. I know I have an idea of maybe ideas or things that I'd like to talk about. If we hit any of those, none of those, all of those, cool. But I don't tick them off. There's no questions. And I find through that natural path, you, you find gems, little nuggets of gold, things that people are thinking about. And that's all done live. It's streamed to LinkedIn, it's, uh, YouTube and Instagram. And then if someone's listening, if they just, you know, dial in for like 10 minutes and they find something great— I'm not there to dictate to anyone what they should or shouldn't do. I'm there to be curious about people, what's working, what they're doing, how they're doing, why they're doing it, anything. And it helps me change my mind. But it's made me connect with people around the world, people that I would not have come into contact in my normal day-to-day living in Luxembourg life. And so I speak to a lot of people in Australia, America, Romania, Europe, UK, everywhere, and I feel very blessed to do it, very blessed. It's— it is a business, like, there is a process, there's work behind it. I am You know, I'm refining that system to make sure that I can do 3 lives a week. There's no money behind it. I'm self-funding until middle of this year. I'm looking for ways for— to make that something I can sustain and that will build a lifestyle, because I know I'm good at it. I've had enough people tell me that I'm good at it, um, and that they enjoy it. And now people are coming to me, whereas I was just starting conversations with people People are being recommended, people are being said, okay, you know, can I, you know, we do a live together. And I'm like, that blows me away because 6 months ago I was trying to like just reach out to people and see if they might be vaguely interested and not had to convince them. I've never had to convince anyone. They've always felt it was a good idea to do. Um, and then, and it's for free. I don't charge anyone. No one's paying anything. I I've wrestled with the idea of maybe making it a thing that people pay for, um, and I'm just exploring some business ideas, how to make that, maybe sponsorship, a whole load of other things. Um, but I'll get there, and it's super fun, and I don't think many people are doing it, um, unscripted, genuine conversations. If things mess up, they mess up. That's okay. That's real life, and I think that's what we miss in today's world where AI can generate false news, false content, everything.
John Milham (Host) · 1:14:18
I kind of like that. It's an amazing idea and I'm absolutely convinced that's the way to go for humans to practice, you know, those are the art of connection again and to rebuild our networks, you know, one conversation at a time. I love what you're doing. It's interesting though, because we fight against AI now, which can almost seamlessly simulate that same thing, but it's not the same. And it's too, you know, my belief is that, you know, and this is like a personal conceit, I'm now ugly enough never to be confused with AI, right? Because AI is just too perfect, right? And no one's going to accuse me of being perfect. So I think that's the humaneness of it is still what we're, I think, what people will yearn for when the AI novelty wears off.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 1:15:17
I don't know what you think. I've heard that a lot. It's one of my own thoughts as well, but it's been reflected quite a lot because The problem with, you know, I'm not here to bash AI because I think it's very good, but we, we use it. We've confused the use of it. We've tried to make it into this big selling tool that was going to make everything more efficient, um, and just make us more money. But the reality is, you know, there's much better uses for it, solving problems, et cetera, not, you know, not to have world domination. But the challenge is everyone's trying to make AI be perfect. And what that does is remove the human side. And we are human. We need connection. We, you know, we can sense it even if we can't put our finger on exactly what it is. We can, you know, I think because it's all new, we get a bit confused if it's AI or not. But I think we're becoming smarter. Yeah, you know, maybe we use— yeah, no. So I think as we're using the tools as well, we can also see like people using it for— you can see it in adverts and a load of other stuff, but that, that genuine thing, you know, you— no one's ever going to write into the script, oh, Colin burps half the way through a conversation, so I've got indigestion, that's how I show up. Oh, no one's gonna put that in, or like Oh, the doorbell rings. Yeah, you can start to do that, but no one's going to go into the depth of your mind, your knowledge, your experience, because you don't know what that is. And if I say something that triggers your brain about an event that happened to you 30 years ago that you've never talked to anyone, didn't know was there, AI is not going to be able to replicate that. So your answer to my question, like, you can't fake that. I know it's going to get better. I understand that. But the reality is, so people want that. Yeah, people want that human side. They— because we, we seem to be trying to aim for perfection, but humans aren't perfect, and that's what makes us human, and we forget that. And if— and I think that's why it lands, you know. I, I'm not here— I don't sit in a fancy studio. I sit here. This is my lounge, you know. We talked about the windmill behind.
John Milham (Host) · 1:17:36
Yeah, yeah. Have some quality windmill time.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 1:17:40
Yeah, exactly. But like, that's not even lined up. I can see it now, it's facing the wrong direction. But it's okay, that's human, you know, whereas AI would point that perfectly, it would be sitting, you know. And no one's going to invest all that time into not being perfect. They try to go, oh, everything needs to be perfect. Human's not perfect. And in this sea of unknown, fake news, everything, people want to connect with people. They want to trust someone and they trust someone by being human and showing up exactly as they are and that's important.
John Milham (Host) · 1:18:12
I love that because we've come to a point, I think that captures so much of what you said that authenticity is necessary to be truly connected to someone and to have them trust you. You've got to be yourself and to be yourself, you've got to know who you are. So that journey of self-reflection and then developing your ID ID. I think we've come back to that.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 1:18:35
So yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah, we've, uh, yeah, we've tied it up nicely.
John Milham (Host) · 1:18:40
Put a little— tied it up nicely, right? No script at all, right? But, uh, hey, uh, look, I, I could, uh— you're right, mate, you do it well. I could listen, uh, to our conversation. I could, you know, have a conversation for hours. Um, of course, uh, you know, my editors want me not to have that conversation for hours. What do they know, right? But it's been so much fun to talk about it, to share a little bit of your journey. Thank you for opening up and for being so candid and so brave in sharing that. And I love the thinking, mate. And if people want to perhaps look at some of your LinkedIn Lives or to send you a message, is that alright? How would they do that?
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 1:19:25
Yeah, so I'm very active on LinkedIn, so it's just Colin Parsons. I don't know if there's many, you'll probably see me. There's a profile picture of me looking off into the distance.
John Milham (Host) · 1:19:36
It's a terrific profile picture, right? And I love the blurb. That's what really captured me, right? That, you know, exploring conversations around the world, right? That's, you know, very close to my heart. So, and they can just follow you or reach out and have a conversation.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 1:19:55
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'm more than happy to do that. I'm really interested in people, as I said. But I, I want to say thank you very much to you because, um, you've created a lovely space to be able to talk about these things. And, you know, I do a lot of conversations where I'm asking a lot of questions, but, um, you've allowed me to talk about things that, um, you know, maybe I've not gone into too much depth. I, I know them, I, they, they exist in my head, but Oftentimes we don't talk about that out loud, and the idea that maybe someone's listening to this and that can help them, or, you know, they can either see, you know, themselves in something we've said, um, and maybe that makes their day, their life, or that moment a little bit easier, gives them a window into, okay, there are ways to move forward and to help ourselves or help those around us. And I think that's super important. So thank you for creating that space. Space for me to be able to do that today.
John Milham (Host) · 1:20:47
Wonderful. Thank you. That's very nice of you to say. And it's been very nice to hear you, mate. There's been such wisdom. I congratulate you on your journey so far and look forward to seeing more of your journey in the future, brother. Thank you.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 1:21:02
Thanks, John. Take care.
John Milham (Host) · 1:21:11
Thank you for listening to this episode of Kintsugi Heroes.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 1:21:16
Thank you to Colin Lilly for permission to use Broken as our theme music for this series.
John Milham (Host) · 1:21:23
If you enjoyed this conversation, share the podcast with a friend and let us know by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Colin Parsons (Guest) · 1:21:34
If you'd like to support Kintsugi Heroes and the stories we share, head to kintsugiheroes.com.au and follow the instructions to make a tax-deductible donation.
John Milham (Host) · 1:21:45
Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time.
You don't have to be in crisis to call.
Subscribe
Spotify
Apple