Tim Rubin
Transforming by Addressing the Emotional Trauma of a Challenging Life with Tim Rubin
A man who survived apartheid and combat learned that the behaviors that saved him were choices he could unmake.
Hear this story
Kintsugi Studio
Tim Rubin
A man who survived apartheid and combat learned that the behaviors that saved him were choices he could unmake.
Hear this story
Tim Rubin survived apartheid South Africa, two years in a combat unit during the Angolan war, and the drowning death of his epileptic sister while he was at university. He learned early to switch off emotion when things hurt, a skill that kept him alive in violent places but followed him into civilian life for decades. He moved to Australia in 2001 with his wife, built a career in IT, raised two sons, and believed his life was on track until it wasn't.
At middle age, Tim hit a wall. His marriage deteriorated, he discovered his wife's infidelity, his professional relevance faded, and he found himself searching online for ways to end his life. The numbness that had protected him in the military had become a prison. But when he decided not to take his own life for his two boys, something shifted. He realized the behaviors that had saved him in one world were choices he could unmake in another.
Tim learned to separate the person he was from the person he was being. He discovered through meditation and a close friend's confrontation that he had never actually been present in his own life, always living toward some future moment instead of inhabiting the one he was in. He learned to feel sunshine on his skin. He allowed himself to be held and supported, things a South African man had been taught never to do.
Now Tim wants conversations that matter and time with people he loves. If every remaining day is like today, he says, he will die a happy man.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses suicide & self-harm prevention, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au
“I grew up in a society where if you're not going to push your chest out and front up, then you are going to be a victim, you know. And the result of being a victim in Southern Africa is a lot more, usually a lot, a lot more fatal than what it would be anywhere else in the world.”
“I discovered that you, that you are not, you're not a victim of who you are. Yeah, you, you do, you do have choice. You do. There is a different way to be, and it is open to you and available to you at all times.”
“I think that growing up in that, in that pressure cooker, kind of aggressive, violent situation gives people my age sort of a long-term trauma that, you know, we kind of struggle to face or struggle to even realize we have at times.”
The hero, today
Behaviors that protect you in one environment can become self-sabotaging in another; Tim held onto the aggression that kept him alive in South Africa and the military long after he needed it. The numbness Tim developed in response to his sister's death was not a choice but a survival mechanism so ingrained it took seven years and a funeral to crack it open. Tim's real transformation began when he separated himself, the person, from his behaviors, and recognized that the way he acted was not fixed wiring but choices he could change. Being present, even to small things like sunshine on skin, became the foundation for Tim to stop living in an imagined future and start actually inhabiting his own life. Tim made a decision not to end his life for his two sons, and that decision forced him to ask what kind of life he wanted to live if he was going to stay.
Yes. Tim Rubin 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.
Behaviors that protect you in one environment can become self-sabotaging in another; Tim held onto the aggression that kept him alive in South Africa and the military long after he needed it.
The numbness Tim developed in response to his sister's death was not a choice but a survival mechanism so ingrained it took seven years and a funeral to crack it open.
Tim's real transformation began when he separated himself, the person, from his behaviors, and recognized that the way he acted was not fixed wiring but choices he could change.
Being present, even to small things like sunshine on skin, became the foundation for Tim to stop living in an imagined future and start actually inhabiting his own life.
John Milham (Host) · 00:00
Kintsugi Heroes acknowledges funding and was made possible with support from the Community Broadcasting Foundation.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 00:06
Find out more at cbf.org.au.
John Milham (Host) · 00:15
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.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 00:25
This week, John Millum has a chat with Tim Rubin. Tim's journey takes him from being an IT salesman in South Africa to running illegal casinos, moving into the music industry, and finally landing as an IT expert in Australia.
John Milham (Host) · 00:39
Along the way, he faced intense personal challenges, including the trauma of military service and the tragic loss of his sister. Tim really opens up about these and how they affected his life, leading to a breakdown and eventual growth.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 00:54
He shares how he learned to address his emotions, understanding that behaviors ingrained by trauma can be changed with effort.
John Milham (Host) · 01:02
Enjoy this one with Tim Rubin. So ladies and gentlemen, uh, listeners to Kintsugi Heroes, welcome back to another story, another, uh, episode of Kintsugi Heroes Stories That Matter. And today it is, uh, well, it's always my privilege to talk to our guests, but today is especially fun because it's a man I admire on many levels. A man who has experienced moving from one country to another, from South Africa to Australia. A man who has experienced service to his country, is an IT guru, which is something I identify with or used to identify with. And he is a man of action, but also a man of thought. And I'm talking about Tim Rubin. My guest today is Tim Rubin. Welcome, Tim.
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This conversation includes who tim thinks he is, growing up in apartheid south africa, two years in a combat unit, his sister drowns in the bath, learning to dial down the pain and the funeral that broke him open.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 01:56
Thank you, John. Lovely to be here.
John Milham (Host) · 01:59
Uh, mate, it's wonderful to have you on Kintsugi Heroes: Stories That Matter. And, uh, I thought rather than, um, you know, offering a lot of detail, uh, through me, I'd go— I usually ask my guests to, uh, to tell us, uh, tell the listeners out there a little bit about who you think you are.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 02:18
We always start with the tough questions, don't we, John?
John Milham (Host) · 02:20
Always, mate. Identity is a very tough question.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 02:23
Yeah, who do I think I am? Um, mate, uh, I think like you introduced me, I've, uh, I've managed to survive many years on the planet. I haven't done it particularly elegantly, I don't believe, but I'm still here, still breathing, still grateful. Um, yeah, as you mentioned, um, yeah, a typical sort of childhood, much like you'd have here in Australia, you know, a lot of sunshine, a lot of beach, a lot of sports. A fairly conservative kind of an upbringing. So the expectation is always you become a doctor, a lawyer, or an accountant, and nothing else really matters. Yeah, and I went the traditional path through life, you know. I served my country. It was a requirement in that age, at the age of 18. South Africa was embroiled in an armed conflict for many years. So, We were kind of expected to participate in there, nothing particularly special other than combat. And after that, sort of straight into university, which is kind of where my life started to diverge from what I would deem to be normal. So just dealing with the everyday kind of traumas and grief and things that, you know, we kind of go through sort of put me on this path. But No matter what that path was, I couldn't kind of shake, um, the upbringing that I had and the, the way society expects you to conform, the way society expects you to think. So I've always faced life's challenges in the way that I've been expected to, and as a, you know, probably very similar to Australian, to be very stoic and very manly about everything it is that I do. Um, And my definition of manhood, I think, really dictated how my life ran until it ran completely off the rails. And I decided— well, not decided, it became apparent to me that I needed to think and be and live a totally different way. So I wouldn't say that I've had an exceptionally different path to most people on the planet, uh, and I think like most of your viewers, um, at some stage or another living those expectations, you just come run, you know, hell for leather into a brick wall, and that kind of, that kind of resets everything for you. I think it does.
John Milham (Host) · 04:52
I mean, um, and it's interesting, that reset where I'm, you know, itching to explore a bit further. But let me take you a little bit back, right? As you said, life started in uni, uh, to deviate, right? To, to sort of break through some of your expectations. Do you— and you talk about manliness as if it's like a palpable thing. Do you think that came from, you know, South Africa is a place where those cult— that kind of masculine culture was big, right? The sporting prowess and outdoorsman and a man capable of, of looking after himself or defending his place, right? Do you think that was— was that a good thing? Like, often we talk about childhood trauma, not But there wasn't trauma. You were, you know, you had a, uh, uh, you had a childhood raised in some normal sort of cultural stuff. Was that in and of itself traumatic?
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 05:49
I think in and of itself not openly, apparently traumatic, but, um, so growing up in a society where there is a very strong expectation of You know, you're a man, you've got to be strong, you've got to be sporting, you've got to be a winner. South Africa at the time was also in a huge transition from, you know, sort of veering towards post-apartheid. So I grew up in apartheid Africa, which in and of itself was a particularly violent kind of place, you know, especially if you were of the genetic persuasion that I'm not of, you know, you had to fight for your life and for your rights. Which kind of fostered quite a dangerous society. It's very, very unique. And I mean, I don't want to really go into the details of it, but when you grow up in a society that requires you to either stand up for yourself or to just become a victim, then you're almost forced to, you know, to actually stand up for yourself. Most of the time, South Africans typically get viewed, especially in Australia, as being somewhat arrogant. But, you know, I believe it's a it's actually a result of an upbringing where if you're not going to push your chest out and front up, then you are going to be a victim, you know. And the result of— absolutely. And the result of being a victim in Southern Africa is a lot more, usually a lot, a lot more fatal than what it would be anywhere else in the world. So you didn't really have a choice, you know. You had to puff your chest out, you had to kind of front up. So it— so in and of itself, I don't think that was traumatic. I think it was a— I think it is a way of behaving that served us well when we needed it. But the, but the problem with that we as humans, I think, face is that we tend to hold on to behaviors that we think have served us well because we think they're always going to serve us well. And the second you're out of that situation, then I think the trauma of actually growing up that way becomes way more apparent when you're behaving like that in a society that doesn't require you to behave that way. Um, and you're being a your definition of being a man, um, A, is no longer required, and B, is, you know, quite self-sabotaging when it comes to relationships and careers and everything else. So yeah, in terms of the actual trauma, no. I mean, I think I was— I think I was exposed to a very similar amount of trauma that everyone faces, you know. Siblings die, family members die, parents leave, Not nothing unusual there. Yeah, but, but I think, I think that growing up in that, in that pressure cooker, kind of aggressive, violent situation. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it gives people my age sort of a long-term trauma that, you know, we kind of struggle to face or struggle to even realize we have at times.
John Milham (Host) · 08:45
But there's a catalog of— it sounded a little bit like trauma there with, you know, siblings, you know, parents, um, you know, leaving your life. That's, uh, yeah, that's a lot to handle. Um, when you, when you, you mentioned, you know, the, there was compulsory service in South Africa that saw you go into military and you actually saw combat, which is of course, um, you know, is an experience that must change you. You know, it— would that be fair?
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 09:18
Again, I don't think you recognize the changes that you go through, you know, um, in a similar way that being a baby adequately prepares you to be a toddler, and being a toddler adequately prepares you to be a child, and etc., etc. Growing up in South Africa in those times, you know, through your childhood, you were growing into the person that was going to be proud to go into the military and serve their country, and hopefully you were going to be in Angola, and hopefully you were going to pull the trigger, you know. So I suppose very much like Germans in Nazi Germany sort of experience, you know, very much a trajectory and an expectation within society that that's just what you do as a man, you know. Um, so yeah, compulsory, 2 years of compulsory military. Um, how it used to work was if you didn't go to university, you, um, you had to go to the military. If you went to university first, you had to go to military after university. Um, so it was kind of inescapable. 80% of all militaries, 90% of all militaries is non-combative. So there are a lot of administrative functions, a lot of people sleeping at home every night and, you know, getting, you know, having girlfriends and partying and stuff. My experience was a little different. I was called up to a combat unit, an armor unit. South Africa's war in Angola and Namibia was very much a mobility kind of war. So armor was a frontline combat sort of organization. Um, yeah, just, um, obviously, obviously there are experiences that now I can recognize as having traumatized me quite severely, uh, but in, in those days, like any sort of soldier does, you develop a black humor about everything. You, you know, you could see the most horrifying sights and you could be laughing with your, with your buddies, you know. So And that, I think there is, there is an underlying trauma there when you see somebody laughing at a corpse, you know, like, you know, if I had to see my kids doing that now, I'd be, I'd be mortified, you know, I'd be deeply distressed. But then, but then it just seemed like it was kind of what you had to do, you know, if you were a blubbering mess on the floor in front of a dead body, you know, the rest of your army mates would kick the shit out of you. Excuse the language, but you know what I mean. So yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 11:40
I find it really, um, you know, just an observation. I find it's always your childhood and the challenges, you know, the personal tragedies and so on, and the difficulties, and then the culture all preparing for you to get through that. And then you go to uni, right? So you've got your military service out, which is significant. So you're 20 years old, you're at university, and you, you, you've got, uh, all this legacy of like You know, steel backbone, right? Suck it up.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 12:11
Exactly that. I mean, um, I don't know. So again, things started to shine through for you when you come out of the military. Um, the one thing that really became apparent to me is in the military is some things matter, some things truly matter, and some things just don't even feature on the, you know, on the care factor scale. Um, Getting out of university, my friends that hadn't been to the military were stressed about, you know, where are we going to go clubbing and what am I going to wear and, you know, what do I think of this girl? Whereas I'm kind of going, hang on, it's not an RPG fucking being shot at me. I'm not being mortared. I don't give a rat's where we go or what I'm dressed like, you know, like it became very black and white. Like some things I care about, some things are important and some things just aren't important. So yeah, that transition, I mean, having freedom, finally being an adult, you know, 20 years old, you know, you've been in school from the age of 6, you've been in military for 2 years and in a combat unit. I only saw home in 2 years, I only saw home like 5 times. So all of a sudden you've got all this freedom, you get to go drinking, you know, you get to have girlfriends, you know, you get to party hard. I don't know, I think having 2 years in army would be like having 2 years in prison and then being set free, you know. There was a freedom in university, um, that ended pretty rapidly. My, um, my sister passed away in my first year at university, and that kind of, that kind of changed my life entirely. So I only had 8 or 9 months of, um, of, of true freedom before I started dealing with the next thing. But, um, it was, it was heavenly. Not much studying, John.
John Milham (Host) · 13:55
No, I'm sure there are campus, campus bars that, uh, you know, weren't sorry to see you occupied with other things, right?
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 14:03
So probably, yeah, probably, mate.
John Milham (Host) · 14:06
Um, you know, you, you, you know, we tend to say things that happened to us in the past so easily, right? Your sister passed away, of course, that was, you know, decisive in shaping where, what, uh, what you were going to do in life, right? Is it okay to ask about that?
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 14:24
Of course it is. Yeah, anything's okay.
John Milham (Host) · 14:27
So how, you know, as a young man without, without a lot of experience, you know, of experience of processing deep emotion, how, you know, how on earth did you, um, uh, deal with your sister passing?
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 14:41
Short answer, I didn't. So, so it's actually the, the night, the night she passed, um We drove. So she was married, she married particularly young, if you don't mind me sharing. She, um, her husband was a sound engineer in Johannesburg. He was doing a record, an album recording actually, for a very famous South African artist. He'd phoned my sister mid-afternoon or lunchtime, whatever, and told her he was going to be late that night, that he had this recording on and that, you know, they couldn't leave early. Uh, she complained to him that he'd got her out the bath and she'd dripped water all the way down the passage to answer the phone. In those days, phones were like at a certain— landlines, yeah, you couldn't walk around with them. Yeah, she had to run down the passage to pick up the phone. Um, he got home at midnight and found her in the bath. So she was epileptic, she'd had an attack and drowned. My parents obviously got the phone call within 15 minutes of them finding— so, um, my brother was off at uni somewhere, I, I was dating some older woman, and I'd gotten home like an hour earlier, lying in bed thinking how beautiful life was. And my mom came through, woke me up and said, hey, we've got to get through there. So I grew up in Pretoria, uh, which is maybe 70 kilometers north of Johannesburg. She lived in Johannesburg. We've got to get through to Joburg. So we drove through there, you know, the police were there. She was still in the bath and I was outside smoking a cigarette with the two policemen and I was laughing and joking and telling jokes and offering smokes. And one of the cops, the one Black policeman turned around and he's gone, 'What are you doing here? Like, who are you?' And we've gone, 'Uh, like, that's my sister inside.' And he's gone, 'Are you okay?' 'Do I look okay? Yeah, I feel, I feel fine. Have us have another smoke.' And, um, you could kind of see these two guys sort of stand back and look at me going, 'Hang on, there's something, something's not good.' Yeah, I didn't realize something wasn't good for 7 years. Like, John, literally, I felt nothing. Like, I felt What I felt was a need to feel something.
John Milham (Host) · 16:53
Yes.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 16:53
Um, I remember walking around the corner before I went inside, just punching the wall, going, can I actually feel— can I feel that if I hit my hand against the wall? If I break my bones, will I, will I feel that? Because I don't feel anything. I just felt dead. And I didn't feel anything for 7 years, John. Like, it was almost— I think it was almost what I put it put it to you. Uh, so, so we, us, we saw a lot, we saw a lot of gnarly things in the army. And I think that soldier's way of dealing with that sort of thing, to kind of lock it away and make a joke about it and show no outward emotion, I think it had set itself in so well that it was playing itself over again in the situation of my sister. And I literally couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't even bring myself to feel something. It wasn't, it wasn't that I chose not to feel something, it was that it was almost like I had this little dial, this importance dial, and the second thing started to hurt, that I could just dial it down and go, it doesn't hurt anymore, you know. Uh, and it took, it took 7 years for that damn wall to break, and boy, did it break then. And then, and then I spent 15 years, I couldn't talk about it without being in tears, you know. It was just, I couldn't actually control the emotion. So I think, um, you asked me about the trauma of, of all of that. It, it was a trauma that became apparent because I just wasn't behaving normally when it— in a way that you should deal with grief and that you should deal with trauma. I was, oh, uh, you know, I was doing something entirely different. And that again became the norm for me in, in how I treated my relationships, my, my ex-wife, everything, you know. I was just this person who relied on this ability just to switch the pain off when I needed to. And, um, unfortunately, it, it, it never goes away. You're just dialing it off. It's like kicking the can down the road, you know. You're just deferring the— you're just deferring the inevitable sort of thing.
John Milham (Host) · 18:44
Um, because, uh, you know, you know, the white coats might, uh, you know, call that a maladaptive, uh, habituated response to trauma, right? And of course, but it worked, right? You got through. Did, did you— and you said it was then playing out into other areas of your life. How did that— like, did you recognize what was going on, or did that— you know, was Was it— were you, uh, were you— was it easy to, to deal with, or were you feeling the cost of this?
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 19:19
John, I think I still feel the cost of this. Um, was it easy to deal with? It was, it was so easy to do. It was so easy to do, it was almost second nature. It was almost just turn it off, walk away, I'm fine. Um, the The long-term dealing with it is where it's really become difficult, you know. Um, things become so ingrained into your personality, you start to believe that's kind of how you are as a human being. You think that's how you're wired. You think the way you respond to aggression, road rage, uh, difficulties in relationships, all of that, you, you you form this belief system that you are a slave to your wiring, if you know what I mean. You're wired a certain way, and that's just how you do things. Um, the big transformation, the, the huge transformation in my life has been the realization that that wiring doesn't actually exist, that, that you wire yourself. You choose to be wired any, any way you choose to be. And no matter what your wiring looks like, no matter how volatile or angry or but, uh, anything else, you do actually have a certain degree of choice and control over how you— of who you're being in the world. Um, but that, that is something that I still do, you know. That is— I don't think that is a trauma that you can ever kind of say, I've put that to rest and I'm, you know, I'm a transformed human being. It still jumps out in, in certain ways, you know, when, when you deal with things you don't think you can cope with, heartbreak or Or, um, you know, when you're— when, let's say, one of your children's behaviors just leaves you so challenged, you feel so powerless to, to, to make a change, those old behaviors and habits so want to just come out of the woodwork. You know, it's— you have to be— I find I, I, I have to be conscious and vigilant all the time, or else that, you know, I still get that behavior sneaking out. I mean, I lost my shit a couple of days ago with a couple of kids on bicycles, and your normal human being would have gone, dude, you're an idiot, you're going to hurt yourself, stop doing that. But like when PTSD jumps out, it's like, hey, do that again and I'm going to come over there and I'm going to teach you a lesson. You know, it's like crazy, crazy stuff.
John Milham (Host) · 21:40
It's, I mean, like incredible level of self-awareness you have. Like when you said 7 years, it came to an abrupt realization, uh, a full, uh, a turning point, if you will. What, what was that turning point? What, how did that come about? What did it involve?
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 21:59
Uh, so I was at a, I was at a funeral, um, for an aunt, and an aunt had been really close to me as, as a school kid, as, as a kid. Um, super wealthy auntie. We used to go and spend time there. She used to give us pocket money. I always used to blow it on pinball and cigarettes or whatever. But such, such a lovely woman. Um, traditional Jewish lady, had a traditional Jewish funeral, I think, uh, in the absolute pouring rain. And I was in the hole with a shovel in my Hugo Boss suit, shoveling sloppy mud into this. And I just lost my— I just lost control of my emotions. I just I just broke. I just fell apart. I just— and, and it wasn't because that auntie had meant so much to me. It was— I just think it was an upwelling of grief from all throughout my life that just found the perfect moment to go, all right, you need to feel this now. And, um, fuck boy, did I, did I, did I feel it, you know. Um, so I don't actually think it was a particular occasion. I don't, you know, it wasn't the result of any sort of I'd never gone and seen anybody. I'd never actually gone to somebody going, hey, I think I got PTSD. I think I got some things wrong with me. I don't think I deal with grief. You know, the only counseling I ever went to was, you know, when my marriage started to fall apart. But before that, you know, I'd never kind of been to counseling. I don't know what it was about that occasion, John. There was, there was just, there was just something about standing knee-deep in mud with a shovel and a Hugo Boss suit that, that just That just broke me. I don't know, it just broke me.
John Milham (Host) · 23:43
Yeah, I can't imagine what that would be, right? That's just— yeah, there's a bucket that's full there, mate, and, uh, yeah, you just tipped it over, right?
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 23:53
Yeah. Wow.
John Milham (Host) · 23:55
So what did— what did— I know, mate. And, uh, wow, you know, it's so amazing the way you describe it. What did that mean for you from that point? Because nothing could be the same, could it?
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 24:07
So funnily enough Uh, so funnily enough, it wasn't much different from that moment forward. So I think there was enough pent-up grief to allow me to grieve finally, to— but there wasn't enough pain in that to actually change me. Yep. So although this damn wall kind of broke open and then— and I became a lot more emotional about the things that, that I, that I feel, it still wasn't enough to actually change the behavior. Yep. So I would still, if confronted by, you know, let's say a domestic argument, I, I would still, you know, just be dialing the knobs down, and I would argue like an absolute arrogant whatever, like a show no pain, take no backward steps argument.
John Milham (Host) · 25:01
I hate that phrase, you know, Sorry, you mistook me for someone who gave a shit, right? So yes, that feeling.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 25:10
Yes, I definitely think that there was a change though, John, in that it allowed me to actually start exploring internally, but it was at snail pace. It wasn't suddenly this epiphany. I didn't go off to Goa and, you know, take drugs and contemplate the universe or, you know, it was like this, oh wow, all right, so I don't have, I don't have this wiring. I do feel things like I can feel emotions. And let me not explore that, but let me be with that. And when an emotion came along, it would almost be, oh wow, I can feel that again. But there was still this conscious— I suppose there's a conscious and an unconscious. So unconsciously, I was becoming more conscious of my feelings, but consciously, I was still a South African trying to be a hard South African, you know, like nothing much was changing in my behavior in that regard.
John Milham (Host) · 26:02
Yeah, it's interesting. Bruce Lee described, I love the clip where he describes unconscious incompetence, conscious competence, conscious incompetence and conscious competence, right? So there's that sense that you've started having an idea about what isn't working or what is working, right? So yes, yes, you, you, you know, you're burying your aunt and that changes things and then You end up in Australia. Tell me about that.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 26:33
So as you, as you mentioned, I, um, after, after— so after my sister, I, I, uh, gave up university. Uh, one of the immediate effects of that was just this, this kind of, um, thought process that said, hey, if you're gonna die young, you may as well do some living before you get on with dying. So I tossed university in. I became a scuba instructor. After, you know, with Scuba, I became a business partner. We were importing scuba gear. I was traveling the country and diving and, you know, carrying on. That turned into building a yacht with my ex-business partner. That turned into running an import business. That turned into, you know, just, just fucking living wild and free, you know, smoking as much as what I could get my hands on, uh, meeting as many women as I could, you know, just, just the life of, you know, living a party. I kind of started— these were the days when personal computers kind of, you know, people might not remember the days without personal computers, but personal computers were really becoming sort of mainstream when I was in the scuba business. And we managed to get our hands on one in the, in the scuba business. A long story, somebody owed us money, he was an IT salesman for Fujitsu or whatever it was, couldn't pay us, so he gave us a computer and I got to work teaching myself a bit of programming and a bit of database and You know, Quattro Pro and, you know, things like that. Just started messing around, ended up sort of building systems for the scuba, for the import of scuba gear and for selling it. So working out costings and profit and invoicing and da da da da da. So kind of moved from there into, so when I got out of the scuba, I got out of the scuba business after fallout with my partner and his wife. I got into illegal casinos in South Africa in the time, which again kind of played well into my sense of adventure and living hard and dying young and, you know, all of that. And after all the illegal casinos fell apart, I ended up in the music industry. And there was a day cycling to work on my bicycle at the age of 26 going, what are you becoming? Like, you know what, I want a picket fence, I want a wife at home and a puppy dog and a pool and all of that. And the one thing I was truly passionate about then was computing. So I took myself off to a programming college. I managed to get in, well, before I got employed, I went to a computer programming college, did mainframe programming. Met this beautiful receptionist. First day I ever saw her, I told the guy sitting next to me in class, I'm gonna marry that girl. And yeah, ended up dating her for many years, and we ended up getting married and went to Bali, got engaged, came to Australia to see all of her family, met a friend of a friend in Sydney who offered me a job. Um, kind of went, yeah, interested, but I'm gonna get married in 12 months' time, so maybe after that. And, uh, yeah, we went back to South Africa, ended up getting married, and 3 weeks after honeymoon, we sold everything and immigrated to Australia and kind of started our lives there. So that was 2001. And yeah, that's kind of, that's kind of how that happened.
John Milham (Host) · 29:45
Yeah, just, just glossing over basically the lifestyles of the rich and dangerous, right? But anyway, You know, you've got 2001, you're in, you're in Australia. And what we've got here is, you know, you're climbing the IT ladder and you're safely ensconced. What about Australia drew you? Right. I know it's quite similar in feel in some ways to South Africa.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 30:14
John, honestly, before coming to Australia, I was on a massive banking project. Remember, I've kicked in university. I've issued any kind of formal education. So I'm a man with a Year 12, basically. But I had this passion for programming, and I used to just devour programming books and, you know, write code. And thankfully, I have a certain predisposition to kind of being okay coding and also being okay in front of customers and being okay presenting and public speaking and all of those sorts of things. On this big banking project, we had a bunch of British consultants on with us, and they were earning 4 times the amount of money that I was earning purely because they could charge sterling, and I was charging South African rand. And I just thought, you know, this is, this is bullshit. I'd done some work for an American company in Southern California. So I'd been over there, you know, many times, and I knew I could hold my own with them. We'd set up our Middle East operations. I'd spent time in Dubai and, and, and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia with a number of government institutions, putting in systems for them, set up a branch in London. So I was kind of getting this global sort of experience. And yet I was still on a quarter of the wage that, you know, um, that people that I didn't think were particularly talented were on purely from the fact that they were overseas consultants and I was a local one. Um, one of the trajectories I wanted to get on was I wanted some Asian experience because Asia was going to be the path of the future. I wanted to get into, into APAC, and for me, Australia was a, was a leapfrog into getting some Asian experience. When we moved to Australia in 2001, the idea was it's only going to be a 4-year thing just to put it on my CV. Uh, but yeah, we ended up having children, and, um, the result of that was, I don't want to raise my kids in South Africa. Well, let's stay in Australia. And it kind of became— it became home, um, you know, after that. But, but we never— we never came here with the view of this was going to be home, you know. My ex-wife's parents and brother are still in Australia— in South Africa. My parents and brother are still in South Africa. So it was never, uh, you know, it was never a decision to actually leave South Africa and permanently in Australia. It's just kind of turned out that way.
John Milham (Host) · 32:27
So you're married, you got kids, um, not everything is, uh, and you're making your way in career, mate, but not, not every, you know, life is challenging, right? It, you know, if you've got some lessons to learn, it'll give you a chance to learn them. How'd that come out?
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 32:43
I mean, it's 23 years now, so, you know, it's more than 35% of my life. That I've been in this country. So I can't really gloss over it too much. But, and again, I don't think it's different to anybody else. I think it's a very rocky road for a bloke heading towards middle age, chasing the corporate dream, raising a young family. I think it went kind of as expected. I was mildly successful professionally. I wouldn't say I was this, you know, climbing the corporate ladder. I certainly wasn't climbing the corporate ladder. I'm very comfortable with technology, and that kind of left— that kind of ensured that I sort of stayed, you know, with my sleeves rolled up as far as technology was concerned. I never had too much interest in, you know, in climbing the corporate ladder and sitting in a C-suite or anything like that. I, you know, I want to put in solutions. I want to learn new technology. I want to be hands-on, you know. I love the hands-on sort of stuff. You know, things carried on kind of blissfully well, says the, says the man with the, you know, with the, with the face mask that doesn't actually realize what's going on around him. You know, I was, I was getting years behind my belt. I was, I was doing fairly well in my career. You know, I was doing a lot of global travel. I was, you know, making money, making a name for myself with the companies that I was with, some particularly large technology organizations. Unbeknownst to me, though, I was heading— yeah, I was heading for that. There was a brick wall waiting for me, a particularly large armored brick wall that there was no ways I was going to smash through it. Yeah, I wouldn't have been half as comfortable if I'd known that that existed in my future.
John Milham (Host) · 34:29
But I'm sorry, mate, I know you're tough enough, so I'm going to ask you, tell us about hitting the brick wall. And of course, you don't have to, I'll tell you that. But I really want to hear about it, right? Not because I am sadistic, just because, mate, you have got brilliant insights.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 34:48
I know you're not sadistic, John. I'm happy to— I'm happy to tell you about this. I do want to say before— before we go into this, I recognize that there are two sides to every story. Yeah, the, you know, my truth and my ex's truth are not necessarily the same. In fact, they're not necessarily even in the same universe. That her lived experience— two people standing on different sides of the room have a totally different view of the same room, if you know what I mean.
John Milham (Host) · 35:17
So yeah, I will give you, I will give you the view from my side of my room, acknowledging that, um, you know, that the other truth may be equally valid. Yeah, absolutely real. Yeah, I love that. I love that, um, honesty, mate.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 35:30
Yeah, absolutely. So, um, there was no doubt my ex and I were becoming more and more unhappy being married to each other. Again, part of my traditional upbringing, part of, part of being a, being a South African man, being a man. As much as I love a pretty girl, I, I, I, I would never be unfaithful to the person that I promised I would spend the rest of my life to. And I would almost have this blind faith that my partner would have the same sort of viewpoint. She's a South African girl. No matter how unhappy life became, you know, keeping the two kids in the family and making sure the family was taken care of and that we, you know, that we were financially well-off, stable, whatever, was a priority that exceeded, um, my own personal happiness. It's also tough, tough yards being in a country where you don't have— you don't have family to support you, you don't have parents, you know, you don't have parents. I don't— we couldn't drop the kids off and go away for weekends. It's, um, you know, I don't want to— I, I don't want to tell you how tough my life has been. It certainly hasn't been tough. I've been blessed with, you know, lots of things, but We were, we were alone trying to make it in a country that's foreign to us, as similar as what Australians and South Africans are at some level. A totally foreign country with no history, no schoolmates, no, you know, it was tough in a, in an industry like IT, which has moved. You would know with your experiences in IT, it's, you know, in the Wild West, all you had to do was have some talent and have a little bit of desire to make change and you could be a superstar. And that slowly but surely changed into people that— it's a tough industry. In an industry where it's becoming more and more utility, you know, where IT skills are less and less regarded because, hey, you can just go, you know, you can just go find skills on the internet, or you can just, you know, consume a cloud service, not have somebody who knows how to actually implement something for you, or whatever. So in a massively changing IT landscape, I became progressively more depressed. And part of what depressed— what progressively depressed me more and more was, was realizing that I was becoming a dinosaur, both professionally and personally. Yeah. Um, I think there's an epidemic at the moment where middle-aged men are losing the sense of value that they have when they're young. A, we're losing our physical ability to pick up heavy weights and to run around rugby fields and, you know, to be gods. But as our children grow up, they need us less and less. As our wives get progressively more unhappy with the hours that we're working, with the disregard that we sometimes have for them, with the, you know, all these things that happen, we become less important to them as well. We become less important to the organizations that we've Yeah, that I used to put in 70, 80, 90, 100-hour weeks sometimes. Um, so I think I found myself on this trajectory where I just started to lose my sense of value to everything around me. And of course it depressed, you know, it depresses you. And I think that is a, that is a downward spiral, you know. Um, The more, the more depressed you are, the more depressed you become. Um, yeah, the, the brick wall came in the form of, um, the form of a formal separation, and that brick wall was followed by an atomic weapon in the form of realizing in the midst of that separation that it wasn't to actually help fix the relationship. That it was a process being executed because my ex had actually moved on with somebody else already, unbeknownst to me. Uh, and that, that, as well as my career, you know, becoming middle-aged, becoming the dinosaur, kids getting old and not needing you enough, it kind of culminated in a point where I strongly questioned whether I had any value to give to anyone, and therefore whether I had any value. And I very rapidly, from those moments on, I found myself— I found myself Googling ways to end it. Um, nothing rational about it. A marriage that I hadn't been happy in for a long time, but the discovery of how you've been betrayed and how all the truths that you that you, that you had, that you thought just didn't exist. From, you know, how you're going to behave in your separation, how you're going to split assets, how you were going to live, how you're going to raise children. Like, everything you thought was the truth and that, you know, was dialogue that you'd actually had was just out of the window. It just was all gone. Yeah, you've got a nuclear device that's just going off above your head, and that's about it. Um, yeah, that, John, that That brought me to my knees. Um, 3 weeks before we started that separation— 3 weeks after we started that separation, I also started a new job, and I got out of the old job because of just that depressed— like, for me, this was a new start, and just as I was about to start, my world imploded, which made that particular year, you know, trying to, trying to impress people in a new job where I was struggling to get out of bed, I was struggling to not throw myself off a building. Was the— made the toughest, the toughest year that I've ever gone through. Yeah, at the same time, I think it was the gift that saw my salvation as well. It was the— you know, when I mentioned to you earlier, when I had that standing in my auntie's grave with a shovel in my hand, I hadn't— there wasn't enough pain to actually make a change in my world. Suddenly I was presented with all the pain and more that I thought I could handle. Um, and, and, and that was, that was the moment when I realized I needed to find a different way to be and a different way to live. And in the process, I, I actually discovered, um, I discovered that you, that you are not, you're not a victim of who you are. Yeah, you, you do, you do have choice. You do. There is a different way to be, and it is open to you and available to you at all times. You, you just need to be prepared and, and blessed, um, to be presented with an opportunity to kind of go, hey, do you, do you like the way you are? Well, if you don't, you know, change it. Do you like the way you react to that stuff? Do you like the way you think about yourself? Do you like, do you like the way you treat people in your life? Do you like the fact that you have no integrity, that you tell people you'll meet them for a drink after work and you just don't arrive? Do you like that? You know, all of these things you can just Fucking, you could just pile them all up around you and go, I'm tired of being this human being, you know, I don't want to be that guy anymore. I want to be somebody who actually— so what I recognized when my marriage fell apart was I couldn't have a relationship with anybody. Like, there was so much in me, John, that was just broken. It wasn't an indictment of my ex that the marriage ended. It was the reality that I could have been with Mother Teresa and she would have cheated on me and left me because I just wasn't being I wasn't being somebody that anyone would want to be with, you know.
John Milham (Host) · 43:24
Um, that's such, that's such a, um, such a painful but, and a courageous revelation, right? To accept that you're the problem in the face of all the evidence that says, hang on, someone else is at fault here, right? How, you know, how do you go from you know, having, being able to turn off emotions completely to going, hang on, I'm going to take, I'm going to be at cause for my problems. How do you find that? You know, where did that come from?
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 44:01
That is such an interesting question. You and I have had this conversation a couple of times in, in slightly different ways. Um, I, I, I, for whatever reason now, I am pedantic about separating the person from the behavior. Yeah, I'm, I'm absolutely pedantic about it. I have an ex-girlfriend who, who, when I see behavior with her, her child, I would chastise her, kind of going, you know, I hate the behavior, but, but don't hate on the kid, you know. I think it, I think it was, I think it— I don't know where it came from, but I know that it was well practiced when it came to me. Yep. So I separated out myself, the true me. Yeah, the, the, the hurt, the little kid standing in a parade ground in southern Angola surrounded by ripped-apart bodies from whatever contact we'd just been through, that just wanted to cry his heart out as opposed to just standing there making a joke with his mate. And, you know, um, I separated out the me, that little boy, from the person that stood there having a giggle, you know, um, and I started targeting the behavior. I started realizing that the, you know, underneath all this behavior, there's something consistent, and that is me, and that's somebody who feels hurt, and that feels— that's somebody that feels betrayed, that somebody who wants to feel love and wants to give love and have connection and all of those sorts of things. And I started The second I could create that separation, I could actually start to look at the behavior and go, wow, that, that dude fucking cut you off in traffic and you wanted to tailgate him and go and kill his entire family. Like, what is wrong with the way you're behaving? Like, this, this isn't you. If you had to pull over, get out, and be in tears and go, man, I'm sorry, my wife's just left me, I would hug him. And yet here I am wanting to fucking chase him and kill him, you know what I mean? So So I don't think it was as brave and courageous as what you try and make out. I think it was a necessity. It was a decision to live. I reached a turning point with my two children, with my two boys, where I made a commitment that I wouldn't actually end it for myself. And the second I made that commitment, I realized that I needed to work out a way to actually carry on living in a way that wasn't just going to sow the seeds of my own destruction again, that whether it's going to be a short or long existence, I actually wanted it to be a somewhat pleasurable existence. Um, and for me, one of the keys to that was just being able to separate out the way I'm being and who the man I'm— the man I'm being from who I think I already am, if you know, if that makes any sense to you.
John Milham (Host) · 46:43
Mate, it does. It's, it's an incredible, uh, illustration of, of being— of a bloke going 'Hey, I can still do this,' right? Like, in the face of, of a reason to go on or a reason to stop, right? Finding that reason to go on, finding the, the light, right, is such a— well, you say it's not courageous. I, I would say it's, it's a massive, a massive courageous thing to do. Because to be honest, like, all of the other things that were happening to you right, you know, that sense of loss of worth and, you know, the loss of love and all the betrayal, right? You know, my thought would be that that's totally decimated our identity, right? So you, you were, you were sitting there, my, my suggestion would be you didn't know who you were, right? So to, to bravely go on and start to rebuild that identity, that's, that's huge.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 47:42
Yeah, it's— I don't know, John, I have a slightly different— again, a slightly different view on that.
John Milham (Host) · 47:48
Um, yeah, cool.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 47:51
Um, it wasn't bravery that made me do it. It was the realization that, okay, so I'm not gonna die. Well, maybe I am, but not of my own choosing. Um, and if I'm not going to do that, then what am I— what am I actually— what am I actually gonna do? Um, it's also fairly selfish in that, in that I'm not quite focused on what I would like my experiences to be like for the rest of my, rest of my days. And of course I'm going to have good and bad days. Of course I'm, I'm still going to have road rage, you know, but I'm not going to follow people home anymore. I'm not gonna, you know, um, I, I now am able to temper that with a You're being an idiot. Just smile and wave and move on and let it go. So yeah, it, it was more, uh, what other choice you have? If you, if you can't kill yourself, then you gotta live. And then what choices do you have? Do you want to live happily or do you want to live miserably? Like, I've, I think I've had an— I think I've experienced enough misery to actually, you know, I just want some time in the sunshine, you know. I just wanna, I just wanna put a smile on my face more often than Dude, before this happened, like, um, like, like, I, I don't think I knew what my own laugh sounded like anymore, you know. I can't remember what it felt like to actually smile again. Um, I have to tell you as well, you characterize this— I mean, I talked about the nuclear weapon that went off. You kind of characterize this as, you know, getting smashed by life, but Honestly, now that, now that some of the pain, now that the heat isn't as high as what it was in experiencing all of that, now that the realization, whether, you know, you go through this, is this really happening to me? Like, you wake up every morning going, please tell me this is not what's going on, you know. The second you kind of get through all of those things, the, the journey of The journey of transformation is such an amazing experience. It is such a beautiful gift. For me to be able to tell you that I love you as a South African middle-aged male would be— have been impossible for 99% of my life. And it now feels— it now feels amazing to be able to say that. And I truly see it as a gift. So a nuclear device fucking blowing my world up was actually the best thing that ever happened to me. It finally shook me to the, to the core where I actually, I could actually like honestly look at who I was being and how I was being. And I could honestly, um, I could assess that as going, I don't want to be that, I don't want to be that, I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to be that person. I don't want to be that school bully. I don't want to be that soldier. I don't want to, I don't want to be any of those things. I want to, I want to live, I want to live what I feel and I want to feel I want to feel my life, you know. Um, I don't know if that makes any sense, John. That kind of went on a bit of a ramble there, but no, no, it makes a lot of sense, mate.
John Milham (Host) · 51:01
And, um, it's interesting because, um, making that decision, right, sounds so easy, you know, as you and I share that, that thought. But of course it requires a whole bunch of, um, you know, of new paths, new strategies, and new tools. What, what was important that you needed to learn to be able to do, you know, to, to see that, you know, such tra— you know, such traumatic drama as being a gift?
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 51:29
Wow, John, so much, so, so much. Um, a, a big combination of I needed to learn things and I needed to feel things. Yep. And I needed to do them at the same time. So if I can reflect into some of those learnings and feelings. I needed to, um, so, so I've spoken about this before, but the first thing that I, the first thing that I needed to realize is that every future I thought I had was just a figment of my imagination. That it's great to have dreams and desires and goals and everything else, but I was convinced that my life would go the following way, that my future would look like this, that you know, when the kids left home, that my ex and I would buy a place up on the beach somewhere and we'd live out our days there and we'd finally reconnect and get to know each other. And it was a, it was a dream, John. It was a dream that was never ever going to happen. So the first thing I think I needed to learn was that this journey that I was now undertaking was just a combination, was just one step into the black void after another. That every single morning I would wake up and go, I don't know how to live anymore. I don't know how to be anymore. I don't know who I am. I, I am just going to take another step into the dark and trust that it's going to be okay. Um, that learning coincided with me suddenly realizing as well that I think maybe— well, not unique, maybe, maybe some of your viewers can resonate with something with this, I'd never been present in my life before, John. And what I mean by that is every single moment of my life was with a view to something in the future. Everything. So in the past, this conversation, I would be actively sitting here thinking, I wonder what this video is going to look like when we're done. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the day that I can actually go into Kensugi Heroes and I can, you know, see what an idiot I've made of myself or whatever, you know. There was always some future outcome, future, future thing that I was currently enabling. And my mind was always on that. And if it wasn't on that, it was reflecting on my past and replaying, um, things that had happened and living in this fantasy world of, if I did that again, I would do that completely different. Yeah, I would definitely chase him home, and I would definitely— whatever, you know, whatever that, that looked like. I got confronted by a very close friend. I got confronted with, uh, you've— you're not present in your life. You've never been present. The most confronting thing he ever said to me was, can you feel the sunshine on your skin? And for the very first time, I actually felt the sunshine on my skin. It was the most— it sounds completely innocuous, but it was the start of this kind of process where I got out of my thoughts. I got out of— it was enabled, I think, by meditation. And meditation, I don't think, is a, um, is a silver bullet to anything. It was just a way of me tapping into me in, in some strange way. Me becoming conscious of me doing the thinking. Me being aware of how scatty my thoughts are. Me being aware of, yeah, how random my thoughts are, how out of control they were. And, and just trying to inject some peace into those thoughts, or trying to seperate thoughts with just a moment of rest or respite. So that it was like the, the coinciding with that whole, hey, I've, I've lived my, I've lived my entire past in the future. Like, like today is a future that I used to dream about in the past. So why can't I just be here now and enjoy it? Why am I living in the next future instance or whatever? So I think that, I think those two things were key and then breaking through the I keep referring to like me being a male South African, but we don't ask— we don't ask for help traditionally. We're strong and hard enough that we can do it ourselves. We certainly don't need men's groups. I didn't— I don't need a bloke to tell me he loves me or that he's here for me or that he's, you know, that he sees me. Like, fuck, like, yeah, I know I'm here, you know, and I, and I know whatever, you know what I mean? The allowing yourself to be held, to be supported, to be heard, and being there for those people as well was, was so significant for me as well. And again, coinciding with the slow unwiring of being in the future, never being truly in the, in the moment that, that you and I are in at the moment as well, not wanting these interactions to end rather than end, rather than hoping every interaction would end Like everything, even things I'd look forward to, just can't wait for that over so that I can get to that future that I'm expecting, you know. I think it was, and a lot around that then, like, jhana, exploring meditation, exploring mindfulness, exploring a different way to think, exploring a different way to feel, you know, sense things. It certainly wasn't a journey that I mapped out and said, hey, this is how I'm going to recover. But very, very early on in my— in the implosion of my, of my marriage and thus my life, very, very early on, I recognized I wasn't doing this to fix my marriage. I wasn't doing this to fix somebody else, that I needed to actually start to look at some of the cornerstones, some of the building blocks of who I am as a human being, um, because those are what caused the absolute breakdown that I, that I suffered. Uh, you know, it, it was, it was nothing other than who and how I was being, um, that caused that, and who and how she was being, you know. And she's on her, her own journey to, to whatever destination she's, she's heading towards.
John Milham (Host) · 57:34
Um, yeah, mate, there's so much insight in all of that. Um, uh, particularly the idea of, um, of being present, you know, and allowing yourself to explore with curiosity who you, you know, what, what you discover there, right? But all of that now has generated, you know, the, your expression that came across your face when you talked about the journey now and the rewards that you were feeling it was bringing you, right? It changed, you know, you looked almost blissful right at that moment. Where do you think all of this is going then? What is your life like now that you're present to your life now? You can think comfortably about perhaps what's ahead. What do you think all this work is going to bring into your life?
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 58:38
John, if every, if every one of the remaining days of my life is like today, then I will die a happy man. I, I, um, it's not that I seek instant gratification. I don't think I am one of those people. Um, but, but I, I want to spend the rest of my life having conversations that matter. I want to spend— I want my life to be an expression of what's truly important to me. Um, and what that honestly, what that looks like is I want to bring value and be valued by people. I want to help— I want to help people that don't know that there is help to be had. You know, um, I want to help open people's eyes to the fact that, uh, that they're not on this— they're not on these fixed tracks that are heading to this fixed destination. They are in this very malleable soup, and they get to be in who— whatever they want to be, you know, whatever they want to be. I, I don't— I, I don't— I don't see this I don't see this ladder, this trajectory for the rest of my life heading to anything anywhere in particular. I want to spend time with people I love. I want to, um, I want to avoid people that make me uncomfortable. I want to be self-aware enough when I know I'm being— I'm feeling uncomfortable or feeling loved or exceptional. And be steered by that. Um, they are very real things that I still want to, you know, want to, want to do. I still need to afford to live, so I still have a career that I need to worry about. Uh, I want to be there for my children. I know they're gonna, they're gonna bash their faces just like we all have, and just like every, every person is going to in their futures, but it's supremely important to me that I'm there for my kids in some small way, shape, or form, no matter what, what that sort of looks like. And as long as I can be doing those things, John, uh, and as long as I can be around water— I love, I love water. Um, I don't know. I like, I like— I don't, I don't, I don't know. I'm not gonna go into ashrams. I'm not going to climb the Himalayas. I'm not, I'm not going to set the world on fire. I, I just want to spend my time doing the things I love with the people I love. Yeah, quite stereotypically.
John Milham (Host) · 1:01:22
Sounds like a great plan, mate. Um, it's, uh, and there's so much— there was a couple of things like, uh, I loved at one point you mentioned, uh, when we came down, when we were not being given the love that the gods we thought we were deserved. And, um, you know, I think there's a whole, um, there's a whole nother discussion in that idea of masculinity and, you know, aligning ourselves with gods and then slowly being diminished as we get older. But that— just so many insights. Just that is one of many. I'm so glad— I am personally grateful and present to this conversation because It has, um, it's, it's opened up my eyes in many ways, mate. And I, I, you know, even if you don't agree, I'm gonna say thank you for, for walking to areas that are just difficult to, to visit just because of, you know, associations and emotions and so on. It's not easy what you've done, and I'm so grateful that you did it, and I'm so impressed by the way you do it. Thank you, brother, for sharing an enormous and, um, powerful piece of yourself today for Consumer Heroes. I really, really appreciate it, man.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 1:02:41
It's an honor spending time with you, John. It's always an honor.
John Milham (Host) · 1:02:45
No, you, you salesman, you doing what I love with people I love.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 1:02:50
This is, this is, this is the top of it all.
John Milham (Host) · 1:02:52
I, I feel like that's the thumbnail, thumbnail from heaven, right? So yeah, mate, thank you. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna continue I'm going to take that on. I'm going to do more things I love with more people I love. And perhaps I'll add the bit where I go and also I'm going to go and find more people to love.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 1:03:11
Yeah. Yeah. There's so many of them out there. Let's, let's find them all, John.
John Milham (Host) · 1:03:15
Hear, hear. Great stuff again, mate. Thank you so much. It's been awesome.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 1:03:20
Yeah, it has. Much love.
John Milham (Host) · 1:03:23
Cheers, brother.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 1:03:28
Thank you for listening to this episode of Kintsugi Heroes.
John Milham (Host) · 1:03:33
Thank you to Colin Lilly for permission to use Broken as our theme music for this series.
Tim Rubin (Guest) · 1:03:40
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