Introduction with your host Grant Siedle
Download MP3Hi everyone and welcome to the first episode of Who Says You Can't. I've been wanting to do a podcast for quite some time and I've finally decided that there's no time like the present. So here we go. Let's start off by saying what's it about? Who Says You Can't is a podcast that I have started for the Mavericks, for the underdogs and the people in this world who just want to get things done and don't want to let things get in their way.
Grant Siedle:But also perhaps for those who haven't done some things and have questioned their ability to do something perhaps it will, encourage some to try, challenges and inspire them somewhat. So, my aim here is and I've decided to do the first episode just myself and I'm aiming to do it live in one take so this is it. I'm not going to film them all but for the first one I thought it might be good for you to see who I am. My aim for every episode is to try and make it interesting and, hopefully make it entertaining along the way and leave you wanting more rather than dipping out quickly. And last of all hopefully a bit motivating.
Grant Siedle:Give you some things to think about and potentially action some items or some passions that you haven't done in the past. As I said I'm hoping to do it all live. There may be some editing down the track depending on what sort of guests I get or how I go but this is the main aim. Everything these days is edited to an inch of its life and I thought today I would just talk and see where we get to. So first of all, why me on the first episode?
Grant Siedle:I did consider launching it with a big guest or a famous person I could find but I decided that it was important for you to know who I am and what I'm about and hopefully that way you will understand the background of this podcast. You'll understand the context and you'll get to know me a little bit too and it'll make things I think more more interesting, more realistic. You'll understand why I'm choosing certain guests and, hopefully some good banter between myself and whoever comes on. So, also I thought it's good to put a face, you know, good or bad to the voice that you're going to hear a fair bit. I'm hoping to only keep these episodes at, half an hour maximum because I think there's plenty of information you can get through in half an hour and, speaking from my own experience here half an hour is absolutely plenty.
Grant Siedle:Know you're all very busy and in fact some of you are probably starting to look at your watches now so perhaps we could get straight into the nitty gritty of this first episode. And let me tell you right now that this first episode is not presented by anyone. It's not sponsored by anyone. And I can say whatever I want. So let's keep going.
Grant Siedle:I actually moved from South Africa where I was born in '68 to Australia in 1980 and, I went from playing soccer to playing footy cause you wanted to assimilate obviously as quickly as possible and, developed a love of AFL. And I suppose the other thing is that when you get to a new country, you have a very different perspective and I was actually looked after very well in that early year and felt like a bit of a celebrity and maybe that got me off to a good start. We were down in Garden Vale and, had a really good one year and after that went to a private school where once again I was fortunate to have a lot of things on offer and I continued in my sport and my music. I continued playing a footy and I did a bit of swimming. I did a lot of tennis.
Grant Siedle:I always a big, big tennis player and at that time I was also getting into playing saxophone. So I did saxophone as a school subject. I was in musical at school, had, some singing lessons and I just had a great time doing things I loved. Once I left school I actually still continued with music and tried to, tried to make a living so to speak, playing in piano bars and from the age of 18 I did a lot of solo piano bar work. Actually I had my very first gig on the corner of Chapel Street and Toorak Road at the, at the, South Yarra Arms I think it was called or something like that.
Grant Siedle:Maybe the Toorak, the Toorak Inn. Can't quite remember. Anyway, we're going back there and, basically music was my focus to try and make a living as a musician. I wrote, and produced two full length albums of my own music. I toured, with a band.
Grant Siedle:I actually played in the BABA which is an Abba tribute band. I've played in that band for a year full time as Benny. I donned the wig. I was able to grow the beard but I had to don the wig and that was a lot of fun. I then did a couple of, shows internationally with Bjorn again as well.
Grant Siedle:We went to Singapore, we went to New Zealand, and we even went to China and played for thousands of people. So the music continued. Sport was still going on as well. And, I actually did an Oz swim, qualification when I was in my early twenties and I started coaching at Harold Holt swimming pool. Those of you who had not, not locals would, would perhaps not know but Harold Holt was one of our prime ministers who disappeared off the back beach at Portsea and there's a lot of speculation about what happened but ironically they named a swimming pool after him.
Grant Siedle:That's where my swimming coaching career began and I became the head coach of the squad there and was there for four or five years. At that time I really enjoyed, working with teenagers and also adults to help them to swim faster and we did a lot of competing. I then went into surf lifesaving and also into triathlon and, so the sport was well and truly still a big part of my existence. I was at university doing a psychology degree with, criminology and psychology as the majors. It was a very interesting degree.
Grant Siedle:I also got to do some film studies and we, dabbled in the history philosophy of science department where we looked at the IVF program and, the ethics around that as well as the early mapping of the human genome. So it was a very interesting time for me at university and then playing music and trying to write songs. When I got into my late twenties I decided that I would have a great go at becoming a famous musician. Not so much a rock star cause being a pianist is hard to be a rock star apart from Billy Joel and Elton John. Heard that covered.
Grant Siedle:And, anyway, decided to go to America and I spent one year in America in 1998 traveling around all the different States and giving out an album I'd made. Did a few gigs in New Orleans. I ended up in New York at the final turn, was also in Austin, Austin, Texas. I hiked into the Grand Canyon. I spent three months in, Redondo Beach which is around LA and Santa Monica and, I didn't have much of a plan with my music but I ended up doing a few shows and having a few, few, quasi record company executive meetings.
Grant Siedle:Nothing came of it but I had a wonderful year away and I returned to Melbourne. Years later I did a similar trip, albeit a little bit shorter where I went to Europe for three months with the second album that I'd produced. And I shopped that around. I went out to 60 different jazz clubs across 10 different countries through Europe and heard some incredible music and met some amazing people. So I've been lucky to do some fun and exciting things and, I haven't even got to the swimming events yet And I guess the two hats I wear are, as a musician and as a swimming coach and event producer.
Grant Siedle:And at around about 2009 I was coaching at Paran Swimming Pool by then running my own squads. And, I met a wonderful man named Don Rudington and he and I became wonderful friends and incredibly he asked me to coach him across the English channel and that's probably a topic of another podcast in, at some other time, perhaps Don will come and have a chat, but essentially swimming events, took on a huge part of my life. And what I will say quickly, cause I couldn't not say it is that Don did make it across the channel and was the oldest swimmer at the time, the oldest Australian swimmer to make it across at 68. And that was a remarkable adventure, with Don and also with Libby who swam, about, forty eight hours before him and she made it as well. And I happened to be the coach of both of them.
Grant Siedle:They're both great friends. So another wonderful adventure in the swimming open water swimming world, basically lit up for me. At that time I then was swimming a lot with the bright and icebergers and, I decided to run a night swim. They're a wonderful group down there. Once again, a whole nother subject of a podcast, but let's stick to one thing at a time.
Grant Siedle:And I decided to run an unusual event cause there were so many swimming events already and I decided to run an open water swim in the middle of winter without wet suits in the dark. And that was the first event I ran and luckily there were a few people around there who were just as crazy as me and they came and took part and, that was the start of my swimming event career. After that I ran the Giants of the Bay, which was at the time I believe the longest swim in Australia. It was a 42 kilometer swim done, as a relay. It started in Point Lonsdale and went to Port Arlington and then we had a good meal at the pub and a few drinks and the next morning we took everyone by boat across to Port Melbourne and we swam from Port Melbourne to Brighton and we were greeted there by, some cheering swimmers from Brighton Icebergers and, one of the teams was the Brighton Icebergers and, we raised a significant awareness and some money for autism Victoria.
Grant Siedle:So the Giants of the Bay was probably one of the big events that I ran at the time. And then that led nicely into the RIP swim and the RIP swim has become a huge part of my life over the last ten years. It actually started when, myself and, some very good friends decided to take on the swim that had already been done by several people but it was always looked on as a bit, a bit too dangerous and questionable, questionable about whether it was actually legal or not. So anyway, we ended up swimming from Point Lonsdale across to Pointe Nepean and landing on the beach. And, there was a bit of a story in the Good Weekend, the glossy magazine of The Age, which actually ran before we did the swim, which was strange.
Grant Siedle:Anyway, that then sparked off an idea about, right, what an amazing swim. Wouldn't it be good if we could, we could set this up? And of course those words came into my head and Don was with me at the time and Don and I became the co founders and there was a lot of questions about, you know, can you do this? And hence, you know, the title of this podcast, who says you can't? Well, we decided that we would set this up and we started producing some documents and we went into the city and had some big meetings and we, we got it running.
Grant Siedle:And in October 2014, the very first trip took place with six swimmers. Parks Victoria were there. We had a jet ski or two, we had a kayaker, we had a boat. It was a lot going on and our risk manager was there as well and, it was successful and so began the Rip Swim project. And that has now, seen 1,200 people across since 2014 and thirty five trips have happened and it's been an absolute joy, and privilege and a very exciting, aspect of my life.
Grant Siedle:And I've met the most amazing people and I'm sure some of them will feature here on this podcast. Currently I am in planning for the 2026 season. We've had a few challenges with our, crossing, but I'm not going to go into that here, but it certainly has given me time to reflect and it's given me time to actually action a few of these things that I've been wanting to do for a while and one, one has been the podcast. My current interests and passions also include chess. And it's a game that I find absolutely fascinating.
Grant Siedle:I've spent probably more hours on it than I should, but I think it's a game that if you get into offers an incredible amount of satisfaction, although you can get angry when you lose but it also helps you to learn to focus and to learn to be in the moment. And, you know, I never thought that I would be teaching primary school children and adults how to play chess. But after three years of learning myself and studying under three grand masters internationally and one international master here in Melbourne, I decided I knew enough to at least, at least teach, the basics and that's how complicated it is. So as you can see, there's a few different hats I wear and, you know, there are times where I question what I do and I think, you know, what's going on here? Is this possible?
Grant Siedle:And once again, the title of this podcast, kept coming back to me. Who says you can't? And before we wrap up this, before I wrap up this final, part of the podcast and we'll then wait until our first guest, I wanted to explain a bit more about this notion of who says you can't. And I think it's very relevant in many areas of life because sometimes we want to do things and there may be an obvious limitation, but when you strike that limitation, I guess the thing is to say, well, who says I can't? Now sometimes there is someone who says you can't and you do need permission or there is someone who just doesn't believe you can do it, but you need to question the authority of that person, their knowledge, how well they know you.
Grant Siedle:So obviously an external force that stops you from doing something is one aspect, but the other force, is probably greater in a lot of ways for many of us is that internal voice that says, no, I can't do this. Now that is going to be our general theme for the podcast. But of course given it's pretty broad, I'm anticipating having a lot of different guests here and if you've listened to this first episode and you're actually interested in coming along, please let me know and we can, we can have a chat about it. I am very, very curious to see the, some of the discussions I have even with people I do know because I'm sure everyone has an incredible story to tell. And, if you then listen to those episodes and walk away with a notion of believing you might be able to do something that you thought was impossible or, you question someone else's authority who is telling you what you can and can't do, perhaps that'll be a positive thing.
Grant Siedle:I'm going leave it there for episode number one. As I said, it's live, it's uncut, it's unfiltered. So apologies for any rambling, but that is how it is for episode number one. And I really do hope you'll subscribe and come back, for plenty more here at Who Says You Can't? Y'all myself.
