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this one's a little different. i'm on the other side of the microphone. Creighton Bertrand invited me onto his podcast and what unfolded was one of the most honest conversations i've had about my own journey. we got into growing up in a migrant household and making achievement mean safety from the age of five or six. failing to get into medical school after four years of trying. the drug use, the court date, the rock bottom. building a mental health company while still struggling with my own. and what finally shifted when i stopped coping and started healing. if you've ever tied your worth to what you do, what you produce, or what you achieve, this one will hit close to home. enjoy 💙

what we explored this episode

00:00 growing up in a migrant household

04:15 chasing medical school for four years

08:30 self-loathing, blame and the question that changed everything

12:45 bouncing between career roles

16:20 the pressure of not knowing who i am or what i'm for

19:40 the moment i felt like a criminal and a degenerate

23:00 building a mental health company while still struggling with my own mental health

26:10 why awareness alone never healed anything

29:45 pain versus suffering

33:30 creighton's story - holding his daughter and feeling enough for the first time

38:00 how men cut themselves off from the full spectrum of emotion

43:15 what it actually means to coach someone versus fixing or rescuing them

47:30 coming from power versus coming from force

52:00 what terrifies most high achievers

57:10 tying your identity to your achievements

01:01:30 you are enough exactly as you are

some takeaways

the belief that achievement equals love, approval, and safety gets formed as young as five or six years old. and it runs your life until you look at it directly

you can be deeply aware of a pattern and still be unable to change it. awareness is not transformation. healing is

building a mental health company while still struggling with your own mental health is not hypocrisy. it is the human condition. coping gets you through. healing gets you free

the drug, the scroll, the overwork, the achievement chase — they are all the same thing. an escape from a feeling that hasn't been fully felt yet

pain is inevitable. suffering is the story you tell about the pain. and that distinction changes everything

anger can be a powerful motivator. but operating from force always produces forceful results — stress, burnout, and a bank account full of emptiness

safety is not weakness. it is the physiological precondition for healing, for creativity, for genuine connection, and for sustainable success

when your identity is tied to what you do, you will never feel peace. when you come back to who you are, you can finally play with house money

you are enough exactly as you are. the work is just learning to believe it — and then taking action from that place

connect with me

👉take the root cause audit

free five minute assessment - answer a few honest questions about what's showing up in your life right now. i'll personally review your responses and send you back a detailed breakdown of the specific emotional pattern driving your behaviour within 48 hours. no call and no pitch. just clarity on what's actually keeping you stuck.

👉free resources

practical tools, guided practices and resources to help you create more clarity, confidence and alignment - all 100% free. no catch - just high-impact support for high performers & purpose-driven humans ready to grow. enjoy!

👉need more support?

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lots of love,

david 💙

Dominic de Moura McCarthy is the Founding Director of the Global Institute for Leadership. He has led leadership, entrepreneurship, and public diplomacy initiatives across the Pacific, Latin America and Europe. He is also the Founder and President of the Pacific-Australia Youth Association Inc. (PAYA), one of the region’s leading youth NGOs with over 400 members. Dominic has represented Australia at international dialogues and summits hosted by the OECD, the Australian Government and the U.S. State Department, and has implemented programs in more than 15 countries. He speaks English, French and Brazilian Portuguese, and is currently learning Tok Pisin.

connect with Dominic

website: https://dominic.global/

linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicdemouramccarthy/

instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gringodominic/

PAYA: https://paya.org.au/

~

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Dominic de Moura McCarthy is 25 years old, he grew up in regional queensland, spent 15 years doing ballet, taught himself french and founded an international youth organisation that now connects over 400 young leaders across 12 pacific island nations. and it all started with a facebook messenger group chat. in this episode, we get into what it actually costs to build something meaningful while saying yes to everything, how a debilitating injury in his first week of university changed the trajectory of his entire life, what 15 years of ballet taught him about resilience, commitment and the long game, how he navigated tall poppy syndrome, loneliness and the grief of outgrowing old friendships, and what liberation looks like to a 25-year-old who has already built more than most people twice his age. this one will stay with you. enjoy 💙

what we explored this episode

00:00 the hidden cost of saying yes to everything

02:28 what servant leadership actually looks like from the inside

05:22 where the drive to give back really came from

08:05 the injury in week one that changed everything

10:29 what 15 years of ballet actually installs in a person

13:39 why Dom commits to things for years not months

16:25 a facebook messenger group chat

18:59 the simplest possible first step and why most people overcomplicate it

29:30 COVID, evacuation from new caledonia and what he did next

34:26 tall poppy syndrome - what it actually looks and feels like on this path

42:56 if you haven't found your tribe yet

46:16 faith, God and what sustains him when nothing else does

52:58 what liberation means to Dom

connect with me

👉take the root cause audit

free five minute assessment - answer a few honest questions about what's showing up in your life right now. i'll personally review your responses and send you back a detailed breakdown of the specific emotional pattern driving your behaviour within 48 hours. no call and no pitch. just clarity on what's actually keeping you stuck.

👉free resources

practical tools, guided practices and resources to help you create more clarity, confidence and alignment - all 100% free. no catch - just high-impact support for high performers & purpose-driven humans ready to grow. enjoy!

👉need more support?

if you’re interested in coaching programs and more support.

👉linkedin

👉facebook

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lots of love,

david 💙

Parag Lokhande is the creator of Metro Munk, a space dedicated to shadow work, emotional healing, and deep inner transformation. After years of exploring psychology, spirituality, and countless healing modalities, Parag realised that true change doesn’t come from understanding the mind alone, but from reconnecting with the body and feeling what has been suppressed. Today, he helps people access emotional depth, process unresolved patterns, and build a genuine mind-body connection through experiential healing work.

connect with Parag

website: https://metromunk.com.au/

instagram: https://www.instagram.com/metro_munk/

youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MetroMunk

~

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you've read the books, done the therapy, attended the events, consumed the content.. and yet something keeps pulling you back - the same patterns, the same relationships, the same outcomes - and you're starting to wonder if this is just who you are. it's not. in this episode, i sit down with my brother, shadow coach and one of the most important people in my own healing journey, Parag Lokhande. we get into why so much self-improvement keeps people stuck in a more sophisticated version of the same maze, what dissociation actually is and how it quietly disconnects you from your own life, why learning to feel is the work that all the mindset content skips, what shadow work really is beneath all the jargon and how your body already knows exactly how to heal if you get out of its way. this one goes deep. enjoy 💙

what we explored this episode

00:00 why smart, self-aware people still end up right back where they started

03:10 the trauma response hiding beneath your drive to grow and improve

07:45 growing up in india, moral dissonance, and a soul that couldn't make sense of the world

14:20 what dissociation actually means in plain language and why most of us are living it

20:30 the somatic practitioner, one question, and the penny drop moment that changed everything

26:15 what surrender really looks like and why it has to happen before feeling can begin

32:40 the anchor mindset and how to have an honest podcast with yourself

38:55 carl jung, the shadow, and why your unconscious is a treasure chest not a skip bin

45:10 triggers, repeating patterns, and physical symptoms — three signs your shadow is running the show

51:20 the three myths about shadow work that keep people from ever starting

57:30 your body already knows how to heal — you just have to stop playing god with it

01:03:45 coping gets you back to work on monday but it will never give you truth

01:09:20 all emotions are unspent love — the most profound reframe in this conversation

01:13:50 what liberation actually means and the workshop parag and david are running together

connect with me

👉take the root cause audit

free five minute assessment - answer a few honest questions about what's showing up in your life right now. i'll personally review your responses and send you back a detailed breakdown of the specific emotional pattern driving your behaviour within 48 hours. no call and no pitch. just clarity on what's actually keeping you stuck.

👉free resources

practical tools, guided practices and resources to help you create more clarity, confidence and alignment - all 100% free. no catch - just high-impact support for high performers & purpose-driven humans ready to grow. enjoy!

👉need more support?

if you’re interested in coaching programs and more support.

👉linkedin

👉facebook

👉instagram

👉tiktok

👉youtube

👉website

lots of love,

david 💙

you've done the therapy, read the books, attended the events and maybe even felt different for a little while. and then slowly, almost invisibly, you were right back where you started. same patterns, same doubts, same results. and you're wondering what the hell is wrong with you. but nothing is wrong with you. something very specific is happening beneath the surface. in this episode, i get into the real reason change doesn't stick, why willpower and habit-stacking will never be enough on their own, what maxwell maltz discovered about the two images we all carry, what bob proctor called the strongest force in your personality, and the five practical steps to actually update your self-image from the inside out. this isn't about doing more. it's about going deeper. enjoy 💙

what we explored this episode

00:00 why you keep ending up right back where you started

05:07 the thermostat (how your self-image sets the ceiling on everything)

10:13 psycho-cybernetics and the two images we all carry

20:46 why the smartest traditions all said the same thing

27:10 five practical steps to actually update your self-image from the inside out

33:04 you don't need to become someone else, you just need this

some takeaways

you will always perform in a way that is consistent with how you see yourself. always. not sometimes. always

behaviour is downstream from identity. if the image doesn't change, the behaviour will revert every single time

awareness does not equal transformation. intellectually understanding something is not the same as changing it at a felt, embodied level

maxwell maltz found that some patients still felt ugly after objectively successful surgery. the external image had changed. the internal one hadn't. that's the whole lesson

your brain's default mode network is constantly running a background program reinforcing who it thinks you are. you can prime it deliberately or leave it on autopilot

you can change your habits, your environment, your goals. without changing your identity, you will recreate the same patterns everywhere you go

the identity shift has to happen in the body, not just the mind. shame and unworthiness stored in the nervous system will override cognitive understanding every time

outgrowing an old identity means outgrowing the people, habits, and environments that belonged to it. that in-between void is real, it's uncomfortable, and it means you're doing the work

connect with me

👉take the root cause audit

free five minute assessment - answer a few honest questions about what's showing up in your life right now. i'll personally review your responses and send you back a detailed breakdown of the specific emotional pattern driving your behaviour within 48 hours. no call and no pitch. just clarity on what's actually keeping you stuck.

👉free resources

practical tools, guided practices and resources to help you create more clarity, confidence and alignment - all 100% free. no catch - just high-impact support for high performers & purpose-driven humans ready to grow. enjoy!

👉need more support?

if you’re interested in coaching programs and more support.

👉linkedin

👉facebook

👉instagram

👉tiktok

👉youtube

👉website

lots of love,

david 💙