You’re listening to Danny, on WHAT : DE HEK podcast. This is the place where I share my experience, knowledge and skills.
Transcribed by Otter
Rob Woolley 0:00
I’m so nervous, I’m so nervous, I’ve never done this before
Danny de Hek 0:04
We’re actually recording now. So welcome along Rob Woolley all the way from New Zealand, New Zealand, New Zealand. Excellent. Well, welcome along and thank you for coming along and I had the privilege of asking you 12 questions there. For those listeners who don’t know what we’re doing with our 12 questions. They are totally random. I actually have 107 questions, and we shuffle the pack. And then I ask them, so it keeps it in promptitude. So, Rob, how many languages do you speak? Question number one.
Rob Woolley 0:35
One, and I struggle with that.
Danny de Hek 0:37
I think you’re a public speaker trainer and I believe that you speak two languages.
Rob Woolley 0:43
What is the other one Danny?
Danny de Hek 0:45
Body language?
Rob Woolley 0:47
Oh body language? I do try. I do try. I’m not too sure what it communicates half of the time, but I do try.
Danny de Hek 0:54
Brilliant. So they do speak two languages we ever get asked that question again on a podcast, you’ll know how to answer it professionally. What’s the most daring thing you have ever done?
Rob Woolley 1:05
Wow, I could read off 100 daring, things I haven’t done, I’m not a very daring person actually, there we know how to take a once and the most extravagant food I had was wild pork sandwich.
Danny de Hek 1:21
Pork!
Rob Woolley 1:24
That was extravagant.
Danny de Hek 1:27
That was the Hokitika Wildfoods Festival was it?
Rob Woolley 1:29
I had wild pork, I had to force myself to eat that.
Danny de Hek 1:35
You didn’t try snails or anything unusual? Because that is the point of it.
Rob Woolley 1:40
Well, you say like all these are kind of like live living things that you know had a life.
Whereas when you eat other forms of meat and animal products, you don’t really think of them as being animals to you.
Danny de Hek 1:53
You know, I’m a vegan don’t you.
Rob Woolley 1:55
I do, I know you’ve got a next level.
Danny de Hek 1:58
Now, I don’t know if you read but what’s your favourite author? Question number three.
Rob Woolley 2:02
I, I hardly ever read? I never get the time. The only author that I’ve read more than one book of is John Grisham. Is it?
Danny de Hek 2:15
I don’t know. I don’t read actually.
Rob Woolley 2:17
It’s it’s the author who writes all those books that start with that, like they all became movies like the film and the runaway and etc, etc. I highly the rate I only read if I need to learn anything. I almost never read anything fiction.
Danny de Hek 2:39
How long would it take to read average book?
Rob Woolley 2:41
I am really slow, weeks, weeks.
Danny de Hek 2:46
I’ve never read a book in my life. But it’s not about me. It’s about you. Okay, so COVID and all and this year, I don’t know how much travelling you’ve done. So I’ve never really asked you that or remembered what the answer was. But we’re in the world would you travel to next question of a four.
Rob Woolley 3:01
Anywhere, anywhere? I’ve been around mostly New Zealand now haven’t been to a place down the Catlins I think it is. But I’ve been to wherever I’ve been. I’ve been to the UK. I’ve been to Wales. It’s part of the UK, Scotland, Paris very briefly. America for a month, Australia and Dubai. But where would I it’s got to be hot. It’s not hot. I feel like I haven’t actually gone anywhere. I went to the UK a few times. And obviously all the buildings old. Yeah, because there’s not really hot. It’s not exotic. Yeah, America’s hot and exotic. Australia is hot and exotic. It’s got to be hot, anywhere hot, but not with creepy crawly things. So Southeast Asia might be out of the way. Although I did go to India for about a week and a half. And I really enjoyed that. I wouldn’t I would never thought I would have gone to India before I went there. Yep, I went there for work. But I definitely go there again, but not drink the water. Yeah, I travelled India 30 years ago and vowed never to return. And at Christmas time I went back to India because it’s one of the countries I wanted to go back to the most. Hmm. And now I’ve never returned again.
Do I have a motto? Do not avoid. Do not avoid? If anything comes out? Excuse me? Yeah, I really try to go and do it. So there are not a passenger to that fear. Though do not avoid as a really simple one. You either gonna do it or not do it you’re either gonna avoid or not avoid.
Danny de Hek 6:17
I’ve seen you do some impromptu speaking before. And I you’re the most competent person I’ve actually seen being thrown in front of a bus who could manage to talk the bus driver out of running you over?
Rob Woolley 6:32
Most of the time that works. Yeah, yeah.
Danny de Hek 6:35
If you could go back in time and change one thing? What would you change?
Rob Woolley 6:40
Wow.
Well, I guess I guess when put with a when faced with this question, the obvious thing is, would we go back pre 1939 and shoot Adolf Hitler? I think it’s one that.
Danny de Hek 7:04
I’m surprised you bought that one up.
Rob Woolley 7:08
No, I think I think if I could go back in time, I’d have a word with me and say, hey, look, if you work harder at school, but have a plan of where you want to go after school, then you’re probably gonna have a completely different life. Yeah, that’s about it.
Danny de Hek 7:27
I might have scrimped and saved and saved a bit more money. I’ve got a bit of property and set on it. It’s one of the things we have a bit of property wealth. A lot of wealthy people seem to have a whole property portfolio. So that means I think the first 10 years of their life, they may have actually missed out on life. And just work saved and bought and in ate rice for dinner every night. I had pretty good lifestyle.
Rob Woolley 8:01
Well, I very vague, I hate the savers. But actually taking the Mickey out of other people usually makes me laugh in a light hearted way. If If I was with you, and we’re laughing so hard that I almost cried. I was probably taking the Mickey out of you, Danny, and you were probably taking the Mickey out of me. I think I think we need to laugh at ourselves. We take yourselves far too seriously. Like none of us are gonna get out of life alive. So who is here?
Danny de Hek 8:33
I reckon you do? It’s got me out of trouble being dyslexic. I’m always put my foot in it, saying things wrong. But my humour is my saving grace.
Rob Woolley 8:41
Yeah, yeah.
Danny de Hek 8:45
When I was 23, I met my real father. I hadn’t grown up with him. And I was really surprised. He had the same sick sense of humour as myself. And he didn’t have any influence in my life. And I thought must be like, do you think that you’ve got, like genes in you for laughter or human eye?
Rob Woolley 8:59
Look, I can tell you a very similar story here is that I met my father, my real father once when I was 14 for one afternoon. And he was supposed to come and take me away for a Christmas holiday. About six months later, he never did. Don’t see him again until I was 28 in exactly the same thing as what you’re saying him and I are like brothers, we we talk the same, we look the same. We think that wow, I don’t know that we think the same but we may have had the same experiences but yet very, very similar.
Danny de Hek 9:35
I met my father for the first time at 14 other than when I was two, and then I re met him when I was 23. So similar story never do mate. Now this is really stunning. What do you do to keep fit?
Rob Woolley 9:50
What do I do or what do I want to do or what should I be doing? This true story, this is true story.
Yeah, yeah, as opposed to all the fake stories, but chose story yesterday, I went and did an estate call. And I bought a small handful of antiques. And I said, Look, just show me through the entire house when under the garage is an exercycle in there, almost never use and as in how much you want for that.
I don’t need it, as you could tell, like I’m in supreme fitness. But if you want to get rid of it, I’ll give you 20 bucks and it took five hours yesterday, China put the belt back on. But I’ve actually bought those exercycle that I region. Now. Now I’m thinking I can change my whole desk to a standing desk, sit on the exercycle do peddling and do all my work. Hi. Come back in six months, and see what this guy looks like.
Danny de Hek 10:50
I will hold you accountable for that. Now, we watched the chase. And on the very last commercial, they always have a infor commercial. And where Helen, I always forget what it’s gonna be. And they’ve got this Cubii Machine if you seen it. And he was sitting on the sofa and they piddle.
Rob Woolley 10:50
I know I haven’t seen it. Yes, yes. Yeah. This must be where I got it from.
Sleep?
Danny de Hek 11:20
Yeah, stuff. You don’t nighttime.
Rob Woolley 11:22
Ah, look, I have a real issue with sleep, like serious issue. I’ve got sleep apnea and when I get tested about four years ago, I went into the hospital. And they said, Hey, have you heard your results yet and she said, they are spectacular. She said and 110 minute period, you did not breathe for 5:48 never seen anything like that. When here there’s a little taste they do. They put a sensor on your finger while you’re asleep and it measures your oxygen. And if your oxygen level even dips below 90% you’ve got sleep apnea. And I and I think you will severe sleep apnea. My average was below 90%.
Danny de Hek 12:11
Wow I was in hospital, and my I had after the best appendix I had got poisoning and I actually went into shock. And I had five doctors around me at the time trying to put needles in me and keep me calm. I was shaking like uncontrollably. And at that time my oxygen level was 80.
Rob Woolley 12:31
Wow.
Danny de Hek 12:32
So they told me Yeah, because I remember I like steps. But that’s so you are when you’re sleeping your oxygen levels dangerously low
Rob Woolley 12:40
Crazy low. So I sleep in a machine with a machine. And to be perfectly honest, I will not sleep without it.
Danny de Hek 12:49
Wow. So yeah, I told you after you’re gonna, I’m gonna hold you accountable? Because?
All right, second last question. And it’s a long one. So I’m probably gonna mispronounce it wrong a few times. Now listen to the question. Aside from necessities, what’s one thing you could not go? A Day Without I got it Right? So I’m not talking about coffee? Yes, sleep?
Rob Woolley 13:15
Well Coffee was the first thing that came to mind? I’m not into coffee. g can’t say internet and say internet?
Can’t go without. Look.
Until next time,
Danny de Hek 4:25
yeah. All right. Question number five. What would you prefer? Or sorry? What would a perfect day look like for you?
Unknown Speaker 4:33
Oh, wow.
Rob Woolley 4:35
I think I would love to answer there. It would be a summer’s day. It would be relaxing. It’s got to be by water. Beach sun. And, and hate again, right is the theme coming out of here. But actually a really exciting day for me as anything that I get a buzz out of. I love learning I love presenting as part of what I do. So if I have a really good presentation and there’s a lot of energy and laughter and stuff in there, it’s fantastic work wise otherwise just doing nothing at all. But I do actually find it quite hard to do nothing at all.
Unknown Speaker 5:17
Right?
Danny de Hek 5:19
Perfect Day is Rob not doing nothing at all. Maybe GOING TO TONY Roberts, and standing sitting in the front row and
Rob Woolley 5:29
rah rah. Yeah, hi, look, I’ll try anything once.
Danny de Hek 5:32
Brother Krishna. Number six. Does your family have a motto? spoken or unspoken? What does your family live by? No. laughing I
Rob Woolley 5:40
don’t think my family knows what a mano means. Yeah, no, no, my family doesn’t have a motto. My family doesn’t have anything like that.
Danny de Hek 6:42
Other than lottery numbers?
Hey, you, you’re a funny guy. Sometimes we’ve laughed so much that we’ve had tears running in our face, and I can’t remember what the joke was. But what makes you laugh the most?
Okay, what’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep?
Rob Woolley 12:39
is
Danny de Hek 13:26
Because that’s sort of a necessity. I’ve done this question a few times, people often try to remember the easy ones. And I like to make it awkward and painful. The answer
Rob Woolley 13:39
Don’t say I think I’m a I can’t think of the big word that expires. I think I’m a little bit of an enigma here is I have to be motivated to work. But when I’m motivated, I struggled to stop work. And to be perfectly honest, and it kind of comes back to what is my perfect day or my perfect day in my head is to go to a beach and and just barge out and feel the heat. But in reality, I actually can’t do that and enjoy it unless I have worked really hard for about two or three weeks up to that point. Because I really struggled to just switch off and relax and I don’t really like that about myself. And the strange thing was, is that I actually think back to when I was in my 20s I had no problem doing nothing and then celebrating doing nothing by doing nothing. But now I can’t do nothing without having earned the right to have a day off.
Danny de Hek 14:47
I transcribe this podcast into text now reading what you just said it’s going to be a real awful read to say. However I sort of a I get a lot of that because when I travel, I normally get everything done before I get on the plane. And then I feel like I’m free, I can enjoy my holiday. I mean, I think it would be a really good idea. If I pretend I was going on holiday, like every Friday, and I’m getting on the plane a sad day, because then I’ll finish everything I need to finish.
Rob Woolley 15:13
Yeah, and just look, I totally get what you’re saying, I really like to be productive. And in whatever it is that I’m doing. And I’m actually wondering if, if you and I were to go on a holiday Yella next time that we actually went on a holiday and did something productive on the holiday, which means we could gone and experience new experiences every MB productive at the same time.
Danny de Hek 15:41
Yeah, like a holiday resort workshop. And project, I’ve always liked the idea of getting five or six of my mates together and having one, you know, working as a team together, coming up with some product or service that we all contribute evenly to. But the stats, when you earn your first, whatever money and you have to split it up five or six ways. That’s the pattern I have had find hard. Because it’s not much money in the game. It doesn’t work out a lot of the time. And this you will put an equally? Yeah, I think.
Rob Woolley 16:12
Yeah, look, I totally get it, I think to have a group of like minded people working on the one project. The hardest thing is, is to work out the complementary skills, you know, like if one person’s into it, or the other person’s into talking and the other person’s into negotiating, or whatever, how do you combine it? And who who did the most important work? Yeah, but maybe money, the money factor. And to be fair and equal is the problem, you just do it for fun. And I think a lot of people align when they’ve got a shared vision, and they just want to get the job done, or they want to get the project done. And they’re not worried about the money, the money is the icing on the cake. Now,
Danny de Hek 16:59
I told you yesterday about doing these 12 questions. And I said now when somebody starts going off topic, how do I get them back on track? And we suggested that once I asked the question, they have 45 seconds to answer it. So I’m going to read the question again, aside from necessities what’s one thing you couldn’t go a day without?
Rob Woolley 17:17
I find it really hard to relax and switch off of I haven’t felt I’ve been really productive and into it. So I guess any any day every day, I need to be productive in some way. Even efforts for like an hour, a really intensive err at the start of the day to tick off a lot of things that you wanted to do. And then you can just reward yourself by relaxing, enjoying the rest of the day.
Danny de Hek 17:46
Every day, you want to accomplish at least one of your goals you set out to do science, he answered that question next time young Rob, last question, and then we’ll ask you what you’re doing who you are. What’s the last movie you went to? I’m talking picture theatre? And what did you think about it?
Rob Woolley 18:07
I don’t know that this is the last movie that I went to. But the first one that pops into my head was maybe the second or third last one. And it was a little while ago called I think it was Nightcrawler is the most bizarre movie I’ve think I’ve ever seen. And one of the best movies I’ve ever seen about a guy that you think you you know this person and then they do is something completely radical. And totally unexpected. I thought it was a fantastic movie. Jake Gillen Hall I think was an extra minute. Yeah, I really like movies. We’re gonna think and I’m engaged the whole time action movie stuff like that doesn’t really do it for me.
Danny de Hek 18:51
I went to a movie A while ago. And it was like these guys that were not like a popcorn. They’re gonna go like the 12 pubs. And you watch them go to one pub got up to about six or seven pubs. And then they went to the loo and then one of them turned blue and the whole movie turned into some sort of like, zombie apocalypse movie. And I felt so ripped off because I hate those type of movies. But the first half of the movie was like semi normal. The second part was, they must have got bored halfway through it in this movie. I couldn’t believe it. I don’t even know the name of the movie. But yeah,
Rob Woolley 19:21
I completely relate to that. I watched a movie called from dusk to dawn by Quentin Tarantino. First half the movie. Absolutely brilliant. The second half? Yeah, I think I think they all took drugs and did something completely off script.
Danny de Hek 19:36
Yeah, they changed script. Alright, Rob Worley. Why don’t you tell our listeners who they’re probably trying to figure out what you’re doing who you are. You have two hits that I really know of? What would you somebody said hello, you’re in an elevator and somebody wants to know who you are. What you do, what would you say?
Rob Woolley 19:52
Look it’s really hard for me to say any one thing but my main income is I’m an antique dealer on the proprietor of a Academy Antiques and we buy and sell antiques collectibles specialise in English porcelain. But my other real passion is speaking and presenting. I love de net, I’m a recovering stutterer. So communication is really important to me and to be able to express myself and to encourage other people to find the voice and express themselves as well. So that’s my real passion and I just loved I wish I could do that more and do the antiques less.
Danny de Hek 20:32
I go. Now, I’ll ask some other questions here at the top of my head things like if you, most people when it comes to public speaking, can’t they always say, Oh, I can’t stand it. What I like, is the fact that we all public speak everyday because we talk. Yes,
Rob Woolley 20:51
Yeah, absolutely love, but slightly are two words. And that phrase is public speaking and I went to a school once and I said, Who here loves public speaking anyone? Yeah. And I said, Have any of you spoke so far today? And they all put their hands up? Was it in public and they held their hands up? And I said, you just did public speaking. You probably know all the needs all the rules that you need to know.
Danny de Hek 21:17
Right. And with lockdown, I know you run a big portion of New Zealand’s Toastmasters for Masterton down. So I’m with lockdown. You’ve been? I think you hit a lot of people trying to run the Toastmaster meetings over ZOOM. How did you find the the ZOOM recording working when people only from here up, or most people because what I’ve noticed that the biggest ZOOM meeting I ever had 60 people in it. And I noticed there was so many people, so many distractions in the background. It was just a completely different monster. And public speaking is all about using your hands using your body leaning and going back and and also know when you’re doing public speaking training. They teach you how to use the stage in we don’t have much of a stage here is how did you get on with the zoom meetings.
Rob Woolley 22:08
While I hate to say it’s a completely different animal. And I think I almost think there’s certain skills for presenting in person. And there’s certain skills for presenting online, I think online is a different medium. But you touch on one really interesting point. And it’s distractions. So these are not only distractions of you, if you’re speaking and you’ve got all of those images, or even not big audiences sometimes have all of the videos turned off. So you’re talking to a black screen. But then you’re looking at the speaker, but yeah, behind them, like obviously, I got a virtual background at the moment. Oh, I mean, it could be like a bookcase, you know, like clothes, it could be a tripod, it could be, you know, paintings on the wall, or whatever. And it’s all noise. And I think that the key to really good communication is cut down the noise and just deliver the message online has a lot of challenges with a to cut down the noise and deliver the message. So yeah, not it is a very effective tool for particularly conveying information, I think for getting to know people and really getting into a topic, maybe not so much.
Danny de Hek 23:32
Sorry. But that’s what I think of these ZOOM meetings. I find incredibly hard that people sit here and they do anything. Are you listening to me? And then they’re suddenly changing in background picture and then daughters?
Rob Woolley 23:49
Yeah, absolutely. Everything is communicating. Like this is the thing. Yeah. Like you mentioned before about the body language, like there’s my voice communicating. There’s my hands communicating. There’s my background, communicating something, there’s my shoot communicating something, and there’s everything else going on. It’s competing in and making noise or distractions. They’re all communicating. And the more things that communicate, the harder it is to actually listen to what you want to learn.
Danny de Hek 24:23
Phone just rang after all
Rob Woolley 24:25
Yeah.
Danny de Hek 24:26
That’s cool, man. I really appreciate you coming along. I’ve enjoyed that. I’ve known you for quite a few years now. How do we originally make was it through Toastmasters?
Rob Woolley 24:35
I usually say ah, some really inappropriate at this time, but
Danny de Hek 24:40
it’s good. You didn’t great
Rob Woolley 24:42
Rotary!
Danny de Hek 24:43
It was that’s right! I was a Rotarian and this guy didn’t know come and talk about stuttering and I thought wonder who he’s talking about. Little did I know that you were the stutterer!
Rob Woolley 24:51
That’s the one
Danny de Hek 24:53
You did a lot of work with people with stutte and suffering and help them how to manage it more than a lot of people want to get rid of it. You help people manage it?
Rob Woolley 25:01
Yeah, well, you can’t get rid of it like I still stutter. And I came onto this podcast. And I always wonder whether my words are going to come out completely fluently or not. But you can get into a few basic techniques, I used to run the McGuire programme. So that helped a lot. I’ve done speech therapy have worked with other people as well. I think managing is thank one except who are you’re not perfect, but nobody else’s either. And two the aim of speaking, is to communicate, it’s not necessarily to be fluent. So you just communicate. So what you want to say, however, you can say it, but there are some techniques to be able to manage how you say that and to control yourself and your speech at the same time.
Danny de Hek 25:50
That’s good. Did you hear about the dyslexic guy in the stutter that walked into a bar?
Rob Woolley 25:55
No but I am about two?
Danny de Hek 25:56
No, I just made that up. But does sound like a joke, doesn’t it?
Rob Woolley 25:59
I think it would be a joke, but maybe we should do it tonight at about 5:59 pm at sticks and stone and see how funny it is.
Danny de Hek 26:08
That is go and then for those people who thought that wasn’t joking, and now does happen. Did you hear about the horse that walked into the bar
Rob Woolley 26:14
that goes above
Danny de Hek 26:16
And the barman said what’s with a long face?
Rob Woolley 26:19
Yeah, yeah, I’ve never heard that before.
Danny de Hek 26:22
That’s cool. All right, Rob. Hey, thanks for coming long. Sorry about my sick jokes. And by all means, if you’re looking for Rob’s contact details, how do we find Rob?
Rob Woolley 26:32
[email protected]
Danny de Hek 26:34
Cool, and Woolly has two ll
Rob Woolley 26:37
Or ask Danny
Danny de Hek 26:39
Yeah, and he’s also I’ll put a link this off to your ELITE : SIX membership profile. Because at the moment if you go to robwoolly.co.nz takes you to…
Rob Woolley 26:50
O year where you wouldn’t want to go to the website that doesn’t exist but the by the time you go live who knows what could have happened to that domain name.
Danny de Hek 27:00
That’s right. All right. So it’s good night for Rob Woolley and good night from him. No good. I was the “The two Ronnies”?
Rob Woolley 27:07
And it’s good night for ME and it’s good night from HIM.
Danny de Hek 27:10
Brilliant. Excellent.
Transcribed by Otter
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