MATT HATT - TOP GUN - Get the Edge with Hayden Knowles

In the gym and in your profession you are dealing with some crazy forces on those planes and keeping your body in shape to keep your mind in shape. Are you doing any meditation or something? obviously you have to do physical training, yeah, so both, so I have a sports psychologist and you know, we do, yeah, all the normal kind of sports psychology, you know, it's a positive thinking, um, uh. preparatory breathing uh, you know, just lying down with your palms up, breathing deeply, you know, basically, self-hypnosis and meditation. I'll do it, um, with 56 minutes until takeoff.

I have an 18-minute meditation session where I completely shut down and come back out sooner. I get on the plane just to be completely clear and free of distractions, that's how I can wake up from that with half an hour until I get on the plane and leave. My life is so simple, all I have to do is get on a plane flight and I can do it and just because you're prepared for it, yeah, and it's so simple you just said 58 minutes before you get on a plane, that It's what you do 56, yes, 56 minutes before.

Get on a plane and you do 18 minutes, that sounds pretty regimented, yeah, so I'm probably guessing you also know what you were doing at minute 60 because you know at minute 56, Mark, I'm going to have 18 minutes of meditation and then . What is your routine after those 18 minutes? So after the 18 minutes of meditation, there's about four and a half minutes where I'll get up and go to the bathroom because generally hydration is a big point, so you know, every 20 minutes. you go out to the bathroom after the bath you come back breathing deeply stretching just activating my body again here some squats you know how boom I'm ready the next six minutes is to sit down review my goals for this particular flight that I have has been written previously, so the goals are to improve this and this so that you stay very, very focused on what you're working on instead of saying I have a full flight to do the whole flight is easy and now we are.

I'm going to narrow the focus down to here. Then I'll review the previous flight I did in a video and continue, that's what I did last time. I will visualize what I am going to change differently. Then I will walk down the runway which Then it will take me about four minutes to get dressed in my flight suit and then I will go out with the equipment and the plane to be weighed and then we will take it to the starting point where I will put on the belt and then from I put on the belt I am completely removed from any decision process.

I just sit on the plane completely switched off and relaxed until my team tells me it's time to start, so I'm not watching the time, I'm not waiting for the siren. To get out, I just sat there until my team tapped me on the shoulder and stuff and they don't even talk to me, they just touch me, so I don't talk to anyone. I'm sitting there, completely turned off, they play. I on the shoulder then put on the helmet, disconnect my communications, reconnect, close the canopy, raise the crank and go fascinating, well, you know the best, the best athletes in any sport have similar routines, similar approaches, but what I am , what I am.

Getting soaked here is yours is always a very high risk. Taking as yours is what is life or death. I mean, you did it in a combat situation, but you had that close experience in a competition. You know you do, so you go out, obviously you have. You have a plan, you have a career plan, you trust it, you commit, you trust your team, you are now committed to it, but it's still another thing for me to sit here and listen to these stories because obviously you're a bit of a risk taker. I'm actually not, it's um, a lot of people say, oh, you must be an adrenaline junkie or a risk taker.

I'm not, um, it's uh, it sounds funny, but, um, if what you're probably also hearing in this discussion is that every single thing I do is absolutely planned in advance, yeah, so a risk taker would be someone who says , you know, I'm going to jump in my plane and, um, and just do a quick flight and fly between some poles, that's a risk. -taking while I'm happy to fly between some poles but I will spend three days preparing it so that not a single thing happens um that I don't expect and in fact I hate adrenaline um if you know so I don't Skydiving I don't do anything that generates adrenaline because, um, if I get adrenaline, that for me and it's always been that way for me, adrenaline for me says, pull back, you know you're going to lose control.

The adrenaline kicks in when when I don't know what the end result is going to be it's like you're doing something it's like I'm losing control I don't know if I'm going to go this way or that way I don't know if I'm going to stack it or stay upright , whatever it is, so if I'm on a plane and I'm feeling adrenaline, that means I'm no longer 100% sure what the outcome is going to be, yeah, I'm not talking about performance results, I'm talking about survival results, so Yes If my body ever activates and tells me: you are on the limit and you could crash, the adrenaline will activate and if I succeed, my first response is to get away from the ground, so I have trained the adrenaline for myself, that makes me feel bad when I feel adrenaline because to me that says "stop, you're at risk", stop, yes, to the average person running and flying airplanes seems risky, but it's not risky for you, no, it's so planned in advance, yes, everything It's planned, yeah, and I got adrenaline in that accident, obviously, um and I hated it, I hated the feeling afterwards, you know, the shake that it can't, now everything is speeding up and it's like I like it, you know , when I'm running, it's actually for me. a magic carpet ride when I'm completely in the zone.

I'm just gently cruising around the track just enjoying the moment and it doesn't even feel legit. I don't feel the plane turning. I feel like I'm upright just dodging around the pylons and then I'll come here it happens in slow motion so how fast are you going at about 400 kilometers per hour? 400 kilometers and you feel like in slow motion that must be magic yeah that must be magic and the uh you Don't even feel the G's that would make anyone like me sick obviously faint yeah those people faint over 4G and let's go to go up to 12.

And actually you just said we're enjoying the moment, we have to go there. because anyone I work with forgets that they usually start out as someone similar, let's say you think about a rookie who enjoys the moment and generally plays the best he can and always goes through this period of stress, maybe or yes, some athletes analyze too much things. and usually the best ones surpass that, but you know what they end up with in their career at the end, I just need to go back and enjoy what I do, sure you just mentioned that you enjoy flying it. and you are in you are in a zone, there it is slow motion for you at 400 kilometers per hour, I would be sick or I would faint, you are enjoying that moment, yes, did this happen to you?

Because that happens to athletes. I sure did, so when I started competing in the air, it's exactly that I didn't care if I came last, now I do, but I had more opinions like I was one of the 15 guys in the world that do this, that's cool. I'm flying on a race track, yeah, how cool is this, yeah, and you fly really well and then in my second year of racing, actually, when I had the accident, I did pretty well in my first year, I got the Third place. in the world in my first year of racing so everyone said hey you can, you can be the world champion next year, so my focus changed from woohoo, I'm on the track to keep going, I've got it, I have to do better.

I have to go faster and like, ah, I made a mistake, you know, I can't afford to make a mistake in the next race. Going back there was like don't make a mistake, don't make a mistake instead of right here. Come on, I'm running again, so uh and that also led to the accident, because you know, that was one of the things where my mind wasn't on the job because I was so focused on the outcome and I stopped. following the process, yeah, um, so we reset and went, you know what if you're not enjoying it you're not going to win anyway, so you have to enjoy it and how we enjoy it?

Let's go the only way you can enjoy sport in the end is to have a good process and make sure you don't focus on what the end result will be. I don't care what the final score will be in the end. All I care about is getting through this next. set of pylons perfectly and the same with you know football or anything, you know, ultimately, yes, you care, you're lying if you say you don't care if you win or not, but see, I'm not thinking about the final. result when this iron goes off I'm just thinking I'm going to put this guy on his ass in the best tackle in the world and if you focus on that you go, yeah, you nailed the tackle, you enjoy it and you enjoy that part, yeah, instead from Worrying about what's going to happen in 10 minutes, that's a key thing you just mentioned, enjoy your job because it shows that you know it, you like it, I see it in athletes, you see it, obviously, you even see it with your own staff , if they are not enjoying their job, you probably need to help them because you need everyone to enjoy them and that shows that you know if they love coming to work or not, yeah, do you have it?

I mean, you have yourself. as an athlete with that state of mind, but if you have that with your staff for sure and we work very hard to achieve it as well, then, you know, you know with my sports psychologist we also work with the team because if the team is not enjoying it, it It's contagious and the person he really is is also prone to making mistakes, so when you're not, when you're not involved in enjoying it, there are several reasons why you might not be. enjoying it you may not be enjoying it because of the pressure and stress which means you are now going to start making mistakes, you may not be enjoying it because you are over it and you are sick of it which probably means you are being complacent and not caring to know the focus or you may not be enjoying it because you would rather be somewhere else because there is a problem in your life, you know there might be sick relatives etc. so you need to make sure that if those things are happening , we have to take that person out of the position and put someone else in because then you want people to lean forward and a good team is someone who stays with you with enthusiasm no

matt

er the outcome yes, I love it, in fact, I'm going to try it .

I'm going to follow your career more closely now and would love to come and see your team in action as well as the details that happen because attention. Detailing in every industry is crucial, but the staff you trust, their attention to detail has to be perfect. My life is in his hands, yes, yes, I would love to see it. Could you finish it? Maybe I mean. I've been around the sports track there, but I'm so amazed and so respectful of the people who fight for their country. Can you share with me, finish like some other really proud moments or I don't know?

There are scary moments, the first one still made me think that sport is great and I think the business part seems really fun and you are an incredibly successful person and I want to bring listeners closer to people at the top of their game and you are at the top of your game in business and in sport, but what you did as a fighter pilot like you were in the riskiest situations in the most powerful planes in the world, am I right, yeah? practically the f-15e was the uh was the last uh the last there here wow and I speak as if I don't know anything about airplanes so the f-15e what is what what is that what does that look like um so it looks like a um, yeah, like a fighter jet, as you would expect, but it's a very big fighter jet, it only has two seats, um, it can travel at twice the speed of sound, it carries a lot of weaponry, um, yeah, It is an incredible plane. um yeah, it's bigger than an F-18 um and I only flew for three years in the exchange program, but um I happened to be in the United States on that plane when the United States went into Iraq um into Iraqi operational freedom and I went in . with my American squadron, as an Australian officer, I was still flying their planes in combat operations, so it was an interesting situation in my life and it's one of those things where there were very proud moments, um, there I feel like I did it. some some things that were worth it there are some pretty sad moments in my life when I was there we also lost a plane and we lost the crew um and you know there are memories um yeah, but I guess probably one One of the most amazing feelings of accomplishment in The military side, the operational side, was that one night I was leading a quartet of F-15s and they took me back to southeastern Iraq, where there were some Marines under heavy pressure.

They were shooting and they were losing people and it was night and I brought my F-15s there and we started supporting them, but before we could neutralize the threat that was attacking them we ran out of weapons and couldn't provide any more support. for them and it was devastating to have to leave them on the ground and I promised the guy I would find someone to come help and it turned out I was on the radio trying to find other fighters to come helpand I couldn't find any so I ended up flying back to our base in Qatar which is about a 50 minute transit.

In the middle of the night I jumped off a plane I had arranged. Two more planes jumped back to another plane. My partner and I went back there and they would still agree to shoot, but we went in and we just cleared the threat and saved them and I remember. Coming out of that thing with him basically crying into the radio flying out of Iraq at 50,000 feet, we had plenty of fuel on board because I went very fast, a quick draw at the end and, yes, after the burner. As we went supersonic, we just went, we did something good, you saved people's lives and you risked your own honestly, I could talk all day about that stuff.

I can't imagine the details I have, I mean. I've seen, you know, you see people training planes flying like that close to each other and I mean, I'm used to dealing with football players, for example, where we have to move together, yes, synchronized, yes, in a straight line, talking between us, communicating. trusting each other, I can't imagine doing the same thing but at 400 kilometers per hour or twice the speed of light or honestly, you're the most impressive person I've ever had on this podcast and I want to get back to the Part. Two Perfect, what a legend, thank you so much, thank you so much, so if people want to come meet you, we're here, and if you want to come for a flight of joy, they can come with you, they can come with me too, yeah. and I heard you fly helicopters too, that's right, yeah, for helicopters, yeah, you're following me, so you go from flying missiles, you fly helicopters, you fly Flights of Joy, um, I saw a Red Bull plane out there before so the people can go on that.

Red Bull, yes, they can go on our plane Red Bull with us, yes, the skydiving part, you can come skydiving at this airport, but you're not an adrenaline junkie, so he's not going with you on that one, but This is a day off. For anyone, it's the first time I've been here and I'm bringing my kids back. We will have a joyful flight before. Where we are? What airport is called Lake Macquarie Airport? Just south of Newcastle on the Pacific Highway, okay? Matt Hall Racing, yes,

matt

elracing.com and we show what we can do, from taking care of a scenic flight in this plane to flying around the beach upside down looking for sharks.

Well, I was talking to one of you. personal from before, you are actually also starting a private jet company, that's right, we are also starting to fly. I like the plane that just arrived, yes, yes, twin turbines where we can take anyone anywhere in Australia, yes, amazing. I want to get on. one of those perfect ones, okay, thanks a lot Matt, thanks buddy, thanks again, some of the best learning you will ever do will be traveling, give yourself time to think creatively, learn to meet people or take a vacation with your family, take that time and There is no better person, people or company to help you than the people who make a deal, they are experienced agents who will take care of you from start to finish, they will plan your flights, your accommodation, your car, your excursions, whatever you need if you want to plan . trip of a lifetime, a trip, a deal is the place to visit tripadeal.com, if you enjoyed this video I know you would enjoy the audio version by Jerome Lua, hop on or on any major podcast platform, get a head start with Hayden Knowles and look up Jerome Lewis. you will love it