Ditch Fear: Rhys Paddick on PYP 633

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

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

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

What We Discuss

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

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

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

Country with a capital C

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

Why I keep asking the wrong questions

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

Knowledge = head + feet

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

Ditch fear

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

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

White guilt — does it serve you?

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

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

Come as you are

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

Success is a feeling

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

The journey from acting to acknowledgment

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

Custodian as posture, not title

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

Go Slowly Present

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

Resources

Find Rhys

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

Concepts & Thinkers Referenced

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

Dr Howie Jacobson

This podcast is a labor of love and a way to give back to the world that has given me so much. That's why there aren't any sponsors (except me :).

My day job is helping leaders and their teams master their mindsets to remove all obstacles to heart-centered high performance.

Here are three gigs that I do:

1. Trigger-Free Leadership: Executive and Senior Leadership Mentoring and Facilitation

I work with high performing executive teams in organizations — and executive teams that need to become high performing. My focus is mindset mastery, because it’s our mindsets that either support high performance or get in the way.

At this level, everyone’s got the skills and experience to excel and contribute at the highest level. What holds people back is mindset stuff: specifically the triggers that get them out of creative engagement and into fight-or-flight defensiveness.

My practice is all about teaching people to respond differently to those triggers by updating old maps — essentially removing the glitches that the triggers grab onto.

2. Executive Coaching: Quick Wins for High Performance

I work with individual executives and leaders, one on one. The program is called Quick Wins for High Performance, and what we do is, we work strategically on one or two areas that are holding you back and keeping you from performing at your best.

We reverse engineer the presenting problems — too much work and not enough time, underperforming employees and teams, maddening organizational inefficiencies, etc — and identify and rewire the suboptimal mindsets that are behind those problems.

The work is all about updating your mental maps so your actions and responses are always appropriate, proportionate, and strategic.

3. High Stakes Conversations for Fast Growing Small Business Teams

I help small business teams have high stakes conversations with skill, humor, and grace. When people feel safe, they can do their best, most creative, most collaborative work.

So that's what I do. If you'd like any of those results, drop me a line and tell me about yourself.

You CAN Change Other People!

Well, that's what Peter Bregman and I claim in our provocative book of that title.

What we really mean is, you can bring out the best in the people around you. If you think you're powerless to help people change, it's because you've been going about it the wrong way.

Discover our straightforward, replicable process here: You Can Change Other People.

Music

The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.

It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.

You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

Gratitudes

Thanks to Plant Yourself podcast patrons – Kim Harrison – Lynn McLellan – Brittany Porter – Dominic Marro – Barbara Whitney – Tammy Black – Amy Good – Amanda Hatherly – Mary Jane Wheeler – Ellen Kennelly – Melissa Cobb – Rachel Behrens – Tina Scharf – Tina Ahern – Jen Vilkinofsky – David Byczek – Michele X – Elspeth Feldman – Leah Stolar – Allan Kristensen – Colleen Peck – Michele Landry – Jozina – Sara Durkacs – Kelly Cameron – Janet Selby – Claire Adams – Tom Fronczak – Jeannette Benham – Gila Lacerte – David Donohue – Blair Seibert – Doron Avizov – Gio and Carolyn Argentati – Jodi Friesner – Mischa Rosen – Michael Worobiec – AvIvA Lael – Alicia Lemus – Val Linnemann – Nick Harper – Bandana Chawla – Molly Levine – The Inscrutable Harry R – Susan Laverty the Panda Vegan – Craig Covic – Adam Scharf – Karen Bury – Heather Morgan – Nigel Davies – Marian Blum – Teresa Kopel – Julian Watkins – Brid O'Connell – Shannon Herschman – Linda Ayotte – Holm Hedegaard – Isa Tousignant – Connie Haneline – Erin Greer – Alicia Davis – Heather O'Connor – Carollynne Jensen – Sheri Orlekoski of Plant Powered for Health – Karen Smith – Scott Mirani – Karen and Joe Crabtree – Kirby Burton – Theresa Carrell – Kevin Macaulay – Elizabeth Rothschild – Ann Jesse – Sheryl Dwyer – Jenny Hazelton – Peter W Evans – Dennis Bird – Darby Kelly – Lori Fanney – Linnea Lundquist – Emily Iaconelli – Levi Wallach – Rosamonde McAtee – Dan Pokorney – Stephen Leinin – Patty DeMartino – Mike and Donna Kartz – Deanne Bishop – Bilberry Elf – Marjorie Lewis – Tricia Adams – Nancy Sheldon – Lindsey Bashore – Gunn Marit Hagen – Tracey Gulledge – Lara Hedin – Meg from Mamasezz – Stacey Stokes – Ben Savage – Michael K – David Hughes -Coni Rodgers – Claire England – Sally Robertson – Parham Ganchi – Amy Dailey – Brian Tourville – Mark Jeffrey Johnson – Josie Dempsey – Caryn Schmitt – Pamela Hayden – Emily Perryman – Allison Corbett – Richard Stone – Lauren Vaught of Edible Musings – Erin Hastey – Sean Owens – Sagar Naik – Erika Piedra – Danielle Roberts – Michael Leuchten – Sarah Johnson – Katharine Floyd – Meryl Fury – for your generous support of the podcast.

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