ON PERSPECTIVE… With Adeel Akhtar and Pat Cummins

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2:21Welcome back to this week's episode reflecting on some of the best bits from the How to Fail archive. This week, we're taking a look at how keeping perspective is sometimes easier said than done. And even some of the most successful people, including actors and athletes, struggle with it too. First off, actor Adil Akhtar talks about his past self failing to keep things in perspective, but how becoming a parent helped him to do just that. And he finally cracked it. Cricketing legend Pat Cummings discusses how losing his beloved mum brought perspective on sport and how when he's on tour now, he doesn't just want to be looking at the clock, but instead really endeavours to be present in the moment.

3:06First up, we hear from Adeel.

3:12Your final failure is your failure to put things in perspective. Oh yeah, yes. I suppose in the sense that there's some things that take a lot of thought and there's other things that you don't need to think about that much I suppose that's what I mean and the benefit of age maybe means that you can be a bit discerning as to what those things are like definitely with my career I go okay there's a character I can see it and I understand where that lies in me and how I'm going to play it my failing perspective but when I was a lot younger would be like right all the research how does he walk what's his shoes does he like prawn sandwiches which is a real thing people sort of like what sandwich does he so to be with age you could sort of be a bit bit more economic with your energy and how you invest in things and stuff do you think you have a tendency to depression oh very good question I think I did when I was in that sort of chunk of time maybe in my late 20s, early 30s, I definitely, looking back on that now, I would say I wasn't totally happy.

4:22But as of late, like, I wouldn't, I've never, ever felt that level of despair. And I think it's because of this ability to just be myself, you know? I think the through line with all this, now I'm thinking about it, is the moments that you feel that anxiety, the moments you feel the depression, the moments you feel those really intense feelings of whatever emotions they are. There's a sort of incongruity between how you see yourself and how you're trying to present yourself to the world. And now I'm just sort of caught up with the fact of not having to perform any other part of myself that isn't weird and complicated, you know.

5:19Given your experiences of your childhood and your quest to embody the truth of yourself, that essential truth, how has having your own children changed your perspective? Has it made you more or less anxious, do you think? somebody told me this sort of psychological this sort of child development stage from naught to five and it's called emperor narcissism have you heard of yes it's wicked isn't it my best friend's a therapist that's the only reason i've heard of it yeah i love it because it suddenly makes sense of your role as a parent where this like little emperor is running around and you're like i'm so sorry and like you're apologizing way more than you like he's really really terrified I love that you know and if I didn't have kids I wouldn't be able to conceptualize what that is and basically what that is is we need to feel the center of somebody's world but then when I look in the world and I see that not happening and there's an incongruity with people there was something there you know something happened where you weren't you didn't feel like you were the center of things whether it's through our writing whether it's through doing this or whether it's through our acting or whatever whatever else you just want to go oh I hope I'm making a little bit of a step in that direction for people who never did there's a play again like that thing I'm saying like a placeholder for really complicated feelings.

6:55My kids have just taught me to sort of go further and deeper in that journey, really.

7:02There's another element to this failure, which is incredibly sad. And I want to preface this by saying, I'm so sorry for your loss. And if at any point you don't want to talk about this, please tell me. And it's about losing your beloved mum. and you were on tour in India in 2023 when this was happening. Could you tell us about that? Yeah, you know, of course. I think that's the other layer as well to kind of the end of 2021 and Albie being born was we knew mum didn't have very long. It was probably months more than years. You know, every time I was going away on a tour, I knew that was time that was, you know, finite and it was time that I could have been spending with mum.

7:48You know, really, really challenging. I was over in India playing in a test series when kind of mum went into palliative care. So I flew out to India knowing that I was going to be back on a plane a week or two later, kind of flying back to be with mum. Obviously, I think mum and dad were really strong on me going. They derived so much joy from sitting together watching me play cricket on TV and representing Australia. So they were adamant that I should go. So I think the other layer to it as well was, you know, they, you know, mum particularly was a super private person. Daddies as well. They don't want any fuss ever.

8:28And the nature of my role is, you know, if I'm starting to miss cricket, it kind of becomes public pretty quickly. So I felt that tussle as well, I think, of just wanting to be a son. But yeah, it was kind of half me that wanted to continue to keep playing, but the other half just wanted to be a son lying at the foot of the bed. Your mum was diagnosed with cancer, was it breast cancer? Breast cancer, yeah And how many years ago was that? So mum first got diagnosed in, I think it was about 2005, I was in year 7 And then the last kind of 4 or 5 where it was, yeah, I knew that it was going to be terminal So all of your teenage years were played out against this backdrop of your mum's illness?

9:10I think mum and dad tried to protect it from us So I remember I was 13 years old and my dad kind of sat us children down and was like, oh, mum's going to be sick for a little while. She's going to get some treatment, but it's only going to be six months and then she'll be back to her normal health. So I was like, oh, I'll take your word for it, whatever. No worries. Yeah, you don't realize till afterwards when you're a parent and you're an adult, just the severity of it. Yeah, once I was kind of back into my 20s, it came back and yeah, you started to realize that, no, they knew this day was going to come, whereas all of us kids probably hadn't fully grasped that.

9:48That was such an act of parental love, that shielding and protection. You said that you wanted to be a son and lie at the foot of the bed. Did you get a chance to do that? Yeah, no. So I flew back and had about 10 days in the palliative hospital with mum, dad and all my siblings. It was a really magical 10 days. We shared a lifetime full of memories and stories and lots of laughter, tears, but a really special family time, really. I'm so glad I went home. I'd be ruining that for the rest of my life if I didn't. Sometimes I speak to people who have witnessed or supported someone through the dying process, and they say that it teaches them so much about life and how to live life.

10:37Has it changed the way that you live your life? A hundred percent. Probably comes down to the time management. I'm just like so crystal clear now and like, you know, family's priority. You just can't keep kicking things down the road. You know, a lot of sports people, but, you know, maybe me in particular, you think, okay, I'll play cricket till I'm 35, 36. Albie will be six years old and then life will start and then we can start hanging out as a family. I've definitely changed my mindset now. It's like, no, I'm going to live life, say a big emphatic yes to things that we want to really do as a family.

11:11When we're on tour, let's make sure we have the time of our lives because when we're on tour, we're away from our families where we don't just want to watch the clock kind of tick by, bring the families along, just trying to live life a little bit more. Do you feel your mum with you when you're on the pitch? Yeah, every day. I think particularly since becoming a father as well, You remember the lessons that kind of she passed down to us kids? What was her name? Maria. And what was she like? Did everything you could imagine. So when we were, you know, really young children, she set up like a play group for, you know, the community and all us kind of kids.

11:48When we got a little bit older, she created like a social group for us teenagers to hang out. And then kind of once we moved out, she started setting up some disability netball teams. She would go and feed the charity on Wednesday. She'd never hear a bad word said about mum. She was amazing. It sounds like you learnt so much about leadership from her as well as love. Totally, yeah, 100%. That's always been instilled in us kids is, I guess, how lucky we are and not to waste that.

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