Speaker 1: I get a you bloody champions, it's Harps. Who else
Speaker 1: would be welcome to the you projects? So I put
Speaker 1: out a little a call, you know, out in the
Speaker 1: podcast Wilderness a couple of weeks ago, asking for you,
Speaker 1: my listeners, my faithful, trusty listeners, to send in a
Speaker 1: queue that I might provide an A four for some
Speaker 1: Q and A. And one of our cheeky listeners who's
Speaker 1: not totally unfamiliar to all of you, Kelly, who's been
Speaker 1: on the show once before, went well, I've got more
Speaker 1: than a question. I've got a couple and oh no,
Speaker 1: I think you said, can I come on and ask
Speaker 1: these questions? Or something like that? Firstly, Hi, Kel, how
Speaker 1: are you?
Speaker 2: Hi? Craig, I'm good. I did ask that. I thought
Speaker 2: I'm going to be cheeky and you'll either say yes
Speaker 2: or no.
Speaker 1: I love that though. I love that. Look if you're
Speaker 1: a if you're a well, if you listen and you
Speaker 1: wouldn't mind doing one of these one day and you
Speaker 1: think you know you can come on and ask me
Speaker 1: some questions, well we'll do another one. We're not going
Speaker 1: to do a million of them, but you know, I
Speaker 1: definitely go into the group and hit me up and
Speaker 1: at some stage we'll do another one. But so the
Speaker 1: quick backstory that is not large, but call and I
Speaker 1: train at the same gym, So I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know our Is that our origin story the gym
Speaker 1: or is it like did you? I know that we've
Speaker 1: kind of we high five each other near the bloody
Speaker 1: cable crossovers and the bench press, and we we share
Speaker 1: a little bit of love, but we don't really know
Speaker 1: each other off the podcast or outside the gym that much.
Speaker 1: Is that we initially intersected?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the gym. I remember seeing people kind of flocking
Speaker 2: around you and I thought, who, who on earth is
Speaker 2: this person? Why is he so? Why is he so popular?
Speaker 2: Why is he so intriguing? And then yeah, I just
Speaker 2: kind of stumbled upon who you were and we started talking.
Speaker 2: You know, I got over my intimation and said hello
Speaker 2: a couple of times and that was it, and started
Speaker 2: listening to the podcast and really got a lot out
Speaker 2: of it. So I think that's our Yeah, that's our origin.
Speaker 1: And I think we did a listener Asking Me Questions
Speaker 1: series a couple of years ago and you came on,
Speaker 1: do you remember what nump? Doesn't matter? I don't do
Speaker 1: you remember what number it was? I don't.
Speaker 2: I think it was about five years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we've been around for that long, all right.
Speaker 1: So you actually came up with some really good questions. So,
Speaker 1: as always everyone, I normally don't know the questions in advance,
Speaker 1: and I've not done any massive preparation or anything. But
Speaker 1: I've given each of these questions a little bit of
Speaker 1: thought because Kelly's questions were really different and insightful. And
Speaker 1: I'm not just pissing in your pocket because you hear
Speaker 1: quite clever. And for me, I get asked a lot
Speaker 1: of the same shit, and I do lots of other
Speaker 1: people's podcasts, and that's okay. I'm not mad at answering
Speaker 1: the same questions, but you know, it's nice when I
Speaker 1: get asked questions that you know. Also, I get asked
Speaker 1: questions I don't know the answers to, of course, but
Speaker 1: I'll give I'll share some thoughts or ideas. But these
Speaker 1: questions are really good. So we're gonna we're going to
Speaker 1: see how we land. I feel like this is going
Speaker 1: to end up being two or three short ish podcasts.
Speaker 1: We have fifteen questions in total, and knowing me and
Speaker 1: my verbosity, as Sister Kathleen used to say, I am
Speaker 1: excessively verbose and loquacious, and that I am. So yeah,
Speaker 1: let's get underway, let's go, let's see how we go.
Speaker 1: And this could be one long podcast or a few
Speaker 1: different ones, and anything that you want to add or
Speaker 1: weave in around your questions and my answers, feel free.
Speaker 1: Kelly Smith, takeover.
Speaker 2: Take over. Well, I wanted to ask you things that
Speaker 2: were different to what I've heard on the podcast, because
Speaker 2: I do listen to almost every episode and I'm not
Speaker 2: just saying that's pissing your pocket because I'm here, I
Speaker 2: genuinely do. So what I've noticed at the moment is
Speaker 2: that there is a huge uptake in the health and wellbeing,
Speaker 2: fitness fitness influencer space, and you know, every other person
Speaker 2: has something to say about that. So I was wondering,
Speaker 2: is there anyone or any single message that you feel
Speaker 2: is absolutely on point at the moment in that space?
Speaker 2: And the opposite of that, is there any messaging that
Speaker 2: you think is completely off base?
Speaker 1: All right, let's go with question one. So the question
Speaker 1: is do I think there's anything that's getting brought up
Speaker 1: a lot or presented a lot in media and social
Speaker 1: media that's bang on. So that there's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of culti thinking and a lot of emotional kind of
Speaker 1: bro science pseudoscience that I don't see eye to eye with,
Speaker 1: But there's one message that's starting to get a fair
Speaker 1: bit of airtime that I fucking love and I'm giving
Speaker 1: it a fair bit of airtime. And this is this
Speaker 1: is not new, by the way. We've known this for
Speaker 1: a long time, but we've never really leaned into it.
Speaker 1: We've never really shone a light on it, and we've
Speaker 1: never in public really opened the door widely on it.
Speaker 1: And that is the message around the importance of an
Speaker 1: impact on love, connection, kindness, social acceptance, and belonging on physical, mental,
Speaker 1: and emotional health. So we talk a lot in our
Speaker 1: world about, of course, about food, and about exercise, and
Speaker 1: about sleep, and about drugs and about boos and about
Speaker 1: stress and about all of those things, and we need
Speaker 1: to talk about those because they are all factors and
Speaker 1: variables which one hundred percent impact on a person's physical, mental,
Speaker 1: and emotional health. But what we know now is that
Speaker 1: things like loneliness and social disconnection and isolation and rejection
Speaker 1: and an individual feeling like they don't belong with, they're
Speaker 1: not wanted or loved or needed, has an incredibly negative
Speaker 1: effect on their physiology, not just their psychology and their
Speaker 1: emotional state. So the answer is, what I'm loving is
Speaker 1: that we're now starting to recognize the impact of sociology
Speaker 1: in broad terms, the way a person operates on a
Speaker 1: sociological level with friends and family and other humans, and
Speaker 1: the impact of that, and the role of that, and
Speaker 1: the importance of that with helping people live long and strong.
Speaker 1: So you know, like I think this kel. I don't
Speaker 1: have data on this, but I'm pretty fucking sure about this.
Speaker 1: If somebody had ticked all the boxes pretty well, not perfect,
Speaker 1: but they eat pretty well, they exercise pretty well, they
Speaker 1: sleep pretty well. You know, they don't do much booze,
Speaker 1: they don't eat much junk, they walk a fair bit.
Speaker 1: They tick all of the boxes, and they're somewhere in
Speaker 1: the ballpark of a seven to nine out of ten
Speaker 1: on all of those markers or variables. But that person
Speaker 1: lives by themselves and are isolated and lonely and feel
Speaker 1: unloved and unwanted and socially and emotionally disconnected, I think
Speaker 1: that will have a bigger impact on them than any
Speaker 1: of the other variables in isolation. Right. So yeah, because
Speaker 1: when you're lonely, your biochemistry changes. You know, when you're lonely,
Speaker 1: you're producing, for one of a more accurate scientific term,
Speaker 1: sad hormones and stress hormones. And hormones affect your physiology
Speaker 1: from a cellular level up. And we know there's a
Speaker 1: you've probably heard me bang on about it. There's a
Speaker 1: thing called ah fuckuld you fuck? Come on, harps, reach
Speaker 1: into the old mental It's called psychoneuroimmunology. There it is
Speaker 1: from the shelf up the back of my brain. Psychooneuroimmunology
Speaker 1: or p and I talks about the relationship between basically
Speaker 1: how you are mentally and emotionally and the impact that
Speaker 1: that has on your immune system and also everything else.
Speaker 1: So the long winded answer is, I think we're shine
Speaker 1: in the health wellness fitness space. We're now starting to
Speaker 1: talk about the fact that being in healthy relationships, being loved, needed, wanted, connected,
Speaker 1: is actually a huge effect of an impact on not
Speaker 1: only physical, mental, emotional health, but also health span and lifespan. Help.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you think also too? And this is a
Speaker 2: side note to it, but given that we've got organizations
Speaker 2: like the AFL shining a light on men's mental health rounds,
Speaker 2: and then we've got players who are sadly taking their
Speaker 2: lives because of mental health issues. Do you think that
Speaker 2: it becoming more mainstream in such a way is also
Speaker 2: helping to shine that light on love and connection rather
Speaker 2: than you know, you need muscles and you need to
Speaker 2: be bloky, or you need to be chummy or whatever
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Sure, And look, I mean, I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of things which are pigeonholed on. Men can't talk
Speaker 1: about emotions or that's kind of bullshit that men are
Speaker 1: definitely not as good as women, I think, But that's
Speaker 1: just my opinion. But look, dude's I talk about I'm
Speaker 1: constantly talking about feelings and emotions and I'm a bit
Speaker 1: of an alpha male, But am I I don't know,
Speaker 1: I've got biceps. But I'll give you a hug, I'll
Speaker 1: fucking cry with you, I'll sit with you, I'll have
Speaker 1: snot going on with you. I'll do the whole fucking
Speaker 1: shooting match, and I'll tell you about all my flaws
Speaker 1: and weaknesses and bullshit and fear and insecurity and I
Speaker 1: don't think that makes me less of a bloke, right,
Speaker 1: But yeah, you're absolutely right, and it is good that
Speaker 1: we're bringing this to, you know, a space where it's
Speaker 1: it's more visible, it's more talked about, there's more awareness.
Speaker 1: We're pulling it out of the darkness into the light,
Speaker 1: and it's it is for the obvious reasons of mental
Speaker 1: health and suicide prevention and all of that, of course,
Speaker 1: but also just more broadly. You know, people who feel
Speaker 1: like I consciously, intentionally and consciously find a way to
Speaker 1: at least invest a little bit of time and energy
Speaker 1: and love into people that I don't know, or whenever
Speaker 1: I can. I was going to say every day, Well
Speaker 1: that's not true, because every day an opportunity doesn't present itself,
Speaker 1: but whenever I can. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: not only and I know this sounds all shit.
Speaker 3: We've got all very deep and spiritual very quickly, but
Speaker 3: I truly just believe that not only is it great
Speaker 3: for the person that you're giving love to and paying
Speaker 3: attention to and sharing some unconditional kindness with, I think it's.
Speaker 1: Great for you too. And absolutely I know there's another
Speaker 1: question about that. Just read out your second question again,
Speaker 1: because I glossed over it.
Speaker 2: So question two, So basically, what's the opposite? Do you
Speaker 2: think there's any messaging at the moment that is completely inaccurate?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, I think there's a I don't want to
Speaker 1: identify a specific thing, but I think that the broad
Speaker 1: kind of messaging that that happens in. Look, it happens
Speaker 1: in what I would call psychological, ideological, and scientific or
Speaker 1: pseudo scientific silos. Do you like that? And what I
Speaker 1: mean by that is people saying this is the best
Speaker 1: way too, This is the best way to lose weight
Speaker 1: or fat, This is the best way to build muscle,
Speaker 1: This is the best way to sleep effectively, This is
Speaker 1: the best way to hydrate, this is the best way
Speaker 1: to get rich. This is you know, all of that
Speaker 1: anything around, And what I truly believe is that you
Speaker 1: know there is there is There are very few things
Speaker 1: that work for everybody the same, in fact, other than
Speaker 1: fucking eating oxygen. I reckon, we all need that, right, Well,
Speaker 1: that's a given, but there's not much you know, Well,
Speaker 1: we all need water, we all need you know. But
Speaker 1: even then you go, well how much water do you need? Well,
Speaker 1: how much do your weigh? How much did you sweat? Today,
Speaker 1: how much do you typically sweat? You know, what kind
Speaker 1: of food did you eat? Did the food that you
Speaker 1: eat was it high water content food or low water
Speaker 1: content food? Because if you eat a diet the high
Speaker 1: and water content food, you don't need to drink as
Speaker 1: much as the person who doesn't. Oh, I didn't know that, right,
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of variables. So what I
Speaker 1: hate is any messaging that tells people that this is
Speaker 1: the best way for everyone to achieve this particular outcome.
Speaker 1: And I wrote something yesterday specific to this, which is
Speaker 1: not a very good it's not a very good kind
Speaker 1: of interruption, but I'm going to find it. So I
Speaker 1: wrote this thing yesterday and it's specific to what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. And it's a whiteboard of mine that you've
Speaker 1: probably read twenty times. It's old, and the whiteboard says
Speaker 1: something works for everybody, but everything doesn't work for everybody,
Speaker 1: So find your something. And then I wrote in the
Speaker 1: comment there's no universal best diet, workout, sleep protocol, medication, supplement, lifestyle,
Speaker 1: or even job. That is, there's no single intervention, strategy
Speaker 1: or approach that works equally well for everyone. But there
Speaker 1: is a best everything for you, the individual what works
Speaker 1: optimally for me could be anywhere between mildly effective and
Speaker 1: disastrous for you. My healthy snack could be your anaphylactic reaction.
Speaker 1: My dream career could be your nightmare job. The medication
Speaker 1: that helps me function might give you anxiety. Don't confuse
Speaker 1: advertising with information or truth or pseudoscience with actual science.
Speaker 1: Your body is your greatest teacher and truth teller. And
Speaker 1: so for me, that's like I'm like, even when you've
Speaker 1: got to remember when a doctor, a dietitian, like we're
Speaker 1: talking about a GP here, and even surgeons to an extent,
Speaker 1: and exercise scientists and psychologists, and when we sit in
Speaker 1: front of a person like me. I've written tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of programs for people, fitness, exercise program strength programs,
Speaker 1: a myriad of different variations of that. I've trained. I've
Speaker 1: done over fifty thousand PT sessions. Now, if you came
Speaker 1: to me, and I know you reasonably well, you sat
Speaker 1: down and you went, Craig, this is me. You've seen
Speaker 1: my body, you know me, and you said, Craig, these
Speaker 1: are my goals. And then I said, cal let's do
Speaker 1: some testing. And then with all of that data, I'm
Speaker 1: going to then write you a program, and what that
Speaker 1: program is is my best guess at what I think
Speaker 1: will work based on all my knowledge and experience and
Speaker 1: all the shit you told me. But is it going
Speaker 1: to be the perfect program? No chance. So everything is
Speaker 1: kind of to a point, high level trial and error
Speaker 1: and educated guessing. When a doctor like I've got this
Speaker 1: thing called you station tube dysfunction, right, my ears, one
Speaker 1: of my ears blocks usually not both at the same time,
Speaker 1: but one or the other blocks. And it's like I've
Speaker 1: been trying to resolve this problem. I reckon. I've spoken
Speaker 1: to ten medical people who've all given me different advice,
Speaker 1: which is cool, who are all qualified, all knowledgeable, spoken
Speaker 1: a pharmacists. I've spoken to a bunch of people I've
Speaker 1: done and they've all given me medical advice. They've all
Speaker 1: got more knowledge than me. They've all given me advice.
Speaker 1: None of the advice worked, right, So this is my point.
Speaker 1: My point is everyone's taking an educated.
Speaker 2: Guess yep, yep. So there's no one size fits all
Speaker 2: for obviously not.
Speaker 1: And even down to one that might surprise you. It's
Speaker 1: like people would think I would say everyone should lift weights. No,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say that. I would say everyone over forty
Speaker 1: should do some strength training, in my opinion, for a
Speaker 1: bunch of very logical reasons that I could explain. But
Speaker 1: do need people need to go to a gym? No?
Speaker 1: Do they need to lift bar bells, dumbbells and kettlebells? No?
Speaker 1: Are there other ways to build strength heaps? Okay, So
Speaker 1: I'm suggesting strength training is probably a good idea for
Speaker 1: most people. Unless you're a genetic freak, or unless you
Speaker 1: do something daily that keeps you physically very strong and robust,
Speaker 1: then you don't need it. But even with that, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: how you get strong and stay strong? There's a myriad
Speaker 1: of options for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, you wouldn't recommend my ninety five
Speaker 2: year old and do a bench press, would you.
Speaker 1: I mean, she'd probably beat me at the moment with
Speaker 1: me fuck shoulders, But no, we won't. We won't be
Speaker 1: doing that for grant. Are those answers? Okay?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Very interesting and not what I expected either.
Speaker 1: Oh good, good? Yeah, all right, what's you down? Only
Speaker 1: thirteen to go?
Speaker 2: Let's crack on, let's go. So this probably you can
Speaker 2: expand upon from your first answer, and as a long
Speaker 2: time listener, something I've noticed is do you feel like
Speaker 2: your style has changed recently and that perhaps you're a
Speaker 2: bit more vulnerable than you have been in the past.
Speaker 2: And if you feel that, what's been the change?
Speaker 1: I think he reaches down to plug his fine and
Speaker 1: terrible thing to do in the middle of a podcast.
Speaker 1: I think, I think, yes, I don't want to be
Speaker 1: disingenuous when when I say this, so you know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to bang on because everyone's the same. I
Speaker 1: mean kind of not there. I just said everyone's saying
Speaker 1: definitely not the same. But I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people suffer from insecurity. I reckon you probably have or
Speaker 1: do I have, or do right? And so I was
Speaker 1: as somebody with a little bit of a profile. I
Speaker 1: was so good at distracting and deflecting and instead of
Speaker 1: at times probably opening doors that I could or should
Speaker 1: have opened in some conversations, I would just be the
Speaker 1: funny guy because I can make people laugh, I can
Speaker 1: tell stories, I can inspire people. I can be passionate,
Speaker 1: I can be them. I can do all of that.
Speaker 1: But I also wanted people to think highly of me,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, all kinds of insecure and fear
Speaker 1: and a bunch of other things, of course. And I
Speaker 1: mean it's not just the last few years. Maybe the
Speaker 1: last few years, I've become more and more I try
Speaker 1: to be you know that that thing I talk about.
Speaker 1: There's like there's public you, there's personal you, there's private you,
Speaker 1: and secret you. Do you remember that little kind of ye?
Speaker 1: So you know, public you is the you that everyone
Speaker 1: anyone can access, you know, the blocoo's selling you you bananas.
Speaker 1: He gets to meet public you, and then personal you,
Speaker 1: I think is more closer friends and family, and then
Speaker 1: private you is really maybe one or two people, maybe
Speaker 1: three depends how and then secret you is that's just
Speaker 1: you gets to know that person, right, Yeah, Well I
Speaker 1: try to open I try to get through, you know,
Speaker 1: like on a podcast. I try to bypass public me
Speaker 1: and personal me and get somewhere in the ballpark of
Speaker 1: private me and maybe even periodically secret me, because I
Speaker 1: think it might be valuable to other people. And I
Speaker 1: think if people think less of me or I'm embarrassed
Speaker 1: or I'm humiliated or I look less, I'm okay with it.
Speaker 1: And if I'm not okay with it, that's my ego.
Speaker 1: And so like one of the things that when you
Speaker 1: talk about a value driven life, like where I say
Speaker 1: one of my key values is service and love and kindness.
Speaker 1: I think it's really easy to say that on a podcast.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think it's.
Speaker 1: Very fucking hard to live it when no one's looking,
Speaker 1: no one's watching, and because like I feel like, and
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I'm better than anyone, I'm definitely not.
Speaker 1: But I feel like there are a lot of people
Speaker 1: who have public attention or a spotlight who I don't reckon.
Speaker 1: The way that they are when they're being watched is
Speaker 1: the way that they are when they're not being watched.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's some bullshit going on with a
Speaker 1: lot of people, And if I'm being completely transparent, there's
Speaker 1: been bullshit going on with me over the years, you know.
Speaker 1: I think for the most part I was close to authentic,
Speaker 1: but there was still bullshit and deception and lies and
Speaker 1: insecurity and me trying to be impressive, right.
Speaker 2: And that was just fueled by your ego.
Speaker 1: Ego, insecurity, fear, self loathing, oh, just pick a fucking yeah,
Speaker 1: all of it, market, all of it.
Speaker 2: This is exactly what I mean, though, And the interesting
Speaker 2: thing is that I picked up on it from a
Speaker 2: whiteboard that you put out which was about imposter syndrome,
Speaker 2: and you just think it was like three slides and
Speaker 2: you listed everything that you were insecure about, and I
Speaker 2: think you ended it with something like I'm human. And
Speaker 2: having been listening and following for so long, it was
Speaker 2: the first time that I kind of stopped and went,
Speaker 2: oh shit, that's everything that I feel. And if someone
Speaker 2: in your position is putting it out there that you
Speaker 2: feel the same way, well, that's hope, and that's that's honesty,
Speaker 2: and that's really vulnerable. And then I started listening in
Speaker 2: a different way and I thought, Okay, there's there's something
Speaker 2: that's coming through that is hitting more to the core
Speaker 2: of you than there ever has been. And that's what
Speaker 2: that question was.
Speaker 1: Wow, thank you. Yeah, it's it's it's for me. It's
Speaker 1: a constant process to walk my talk, you know, to
Speaker 1: do to do what I say and too because I'm
Speaker 1: an only child and part of me wants attention and
Speaker 1: all that bullshit, and and like, I really think that
Speaker 1: for me, and this is going to sound weird, but
Speaker 1: it's a spiritual journey of and again this sounds bullshitty,
Speaker 1: but having a purpose bigger than me. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and I know that I used to be all about
Speaker 1: my well, I wasn't always all about my body, but
Speaker 1: I was about you know, building a business, building a brand,
Speaker 1: looking good, you know, all that stuff. Nothing wrong with
Speaker 1: any of that, by the way, but realizing, you know,
Speaker 1: getting to a point where I had kind of ticked
Speaker 1: a lot of boxes, you know, and from the outline
Speaker 1: outside looking in, people would have thought, you know, he
Speaker 1: he's got his shit together, he's going well. But so
Speaker 1: often the confident, funny, successful guy is actually the sad, scared,
Speaker 1: insecure guy trying to be what he thinks is going
Speaker 1: to impress people. And I And by the way, I
Speaker 1: don't sit at home fucking rocking back and forwards, going
Speaker 1: I'm broken. I still you know, I still fuck around,
Speaker 1: I still have fun, I still have a good life.
Speaker 1: But I just think the irony is that trying to
Speaker 1: be impressive is the opposite.
Speaker 2: It'd be very tiring.
Speaker 1: Well, but also it's not impressive because we know what's
Speaker 1: going on. We know what's going on, you know. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes people are say some horrible shit about me,
Speaker 1: not not too often, but every now and then, and
Speaker 1: honestly I believe them, or I go yeah, I understand
Speaker 1: why you think that, and I'm not even mad at you,
Speaker 1: and I'm not gonna It's like, I reckon, this is
Speaker 1: the challenge. It's like we I think in hey, everyone,
Speaker 1: feel free to turn off if this is too fucking
Speaker 1: dark and weird. But I you know, we're so much
Speaker 1: at the moment living in these, like I said, these
Speaker 1: silos or these cults of thoughts, where we think the
Speaker 1: right way, we have the right this or the right whatever,
Speaker 1: the right beliefs, the right faith, the right diet, the
Speaker 1: right way to train, the right political beliefs, or we
Speaker 1: have the right ideology and if you don't think like us,
Speaker 1: you're our enemy, and blah blah blah. And I just think, fuck,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know many people who think like
Speaker 1: me anyway, which is not that's good for the rest
Speaker 1: of the world. But if I only love or like
Speaker 1: or pay attention to people who agree with me on everything,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have fucking two friends in the world,
Speaker 1: so you know. And also I think, just like when
Speaker 1: you just turn down the emotion and the need to
Speaker 1: be right, and you go, how many times in my
Speaker 1: life have I been wrong? Fucking thousands? Well, of course,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get shit wrong today, of course, of course,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's an interesting one as well, that you
Speaker 2: can have all of those thoughts and tapping into the
Speaker 2: imposter syndrome. You can have nine people say something really
Speaker 2: lovely about you, and then number ten comes along and
Speaker 2: says something really and you go, number ten's right because
Speaker 2: I am awful, I am incapable, I am shit, I
Speaker 2: don't know what I'm doing, and that number ten is correct,
Speaker 2: and you just forget any of the good because that, yeah,
Speaker 2: the doubt creeps in.
Speaker 1: That is so fucking true. I told a story. I've
Speaker 1: told this story, but I did. A friend of mine, Rosa,
Speaker 1: owns a gym. Shout out to Rosa or anyone who
Speaker 1: goes to Rosa's gym in Riots called the boat House.
Speaker 1: It's one of the best privately owned gym's regional gyms.
Speaker 1: Is it regional, right, I don't know, but anyway, great
Speaker 1: And every year I go down and I do a
Speaker 1: talk for Rosa. I love job just because she's great,
Speaker 1: and not this year, but I think last year, Mate,
Speaker 1: of the last one or two talks I did, there
Speaker 1: was someone in the group who, as I was doing
Speaker 1: the presentation, Kelp. It was about I don't know eighty people,
Speaker 1: so not small, not huge, just a good group of people.
Speaker 1: And there was a dude there who clearly fucking hated me,
Speaker 1: and in my mind, right I'm looking at him, I'm
Speaker 1: like this guy, it's like it's always I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but not always, but mostly it's going to be seventy
Speaker 1: or eighty percent women in my gigs. We won't even
Speaker 1: unpack why that is. And no, it's not because of
Speaker 1: fucking my attractiveness, so don't be a smart ass everyone.
Speaker 1: I think it's because people buy into women buy in
Speaker 1: more to personal growth stuff than men generally. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so he's looking at me, and he's not smiling, he's
Speaker 1: not enjoying it, and he's sitting next to I imagine
Speaker 1: his wife, and I'm thinking that, poor motherfucker. His wife
Speaker 1: dragged him along. He could be home watching the footy.
Speaker 1: He does not want to be here, and I felt
Speaker 1: bad for him, and then I felt bad for me
Speaker 1: because clearly he didn't like So seventy nine people are
Speaker 1: enjoying it. One blood has hate me. Where do you reckon?
Speaker 1: All My attention and focus was.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, mister footy of course, right.
Speaker 1: So I've just and I'm I'm almost and so instead
Speaker 1: of I don't think I was shit, but I certainly
Speaker 1: wasn't my best because I got distracted and whatever. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I finished, I did an okay job. Few people like thanks,
Speaker 1: that was great. I'm like cool, see you. Anyway, mister
Speaker 1: Footy fucking starts walking up towards me to talk and
Speaker 1: I'm like, ah god, I'm not even being paid, Like
Speaker 1: what is going on? I don't need this. I haven't
Speaker 1: had dinner, you know, I'm feeling sorry for himself. And
Speaker 1: he comes out and reaches out up, reaches out his
Speaker 1: hand and shakes my hand. He goes, that was amazing,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, and I'm like, fuck off, what
Speaker 1: guess what?
Speaker 2: He was?
Speaker 1: Vision impaired?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 1: So the dude couldn't see me. And I'm I'm telling
Speaker 1: myself a completely bullshit story, right. I literally not only
Speaker 1: was there not a problem, I created a problem for
Speaker 1: myself the mid circumstance.
Speaker 2: Wow. And isn't it you know That's that's what we do, right,
Speaker 2: Like we create most of the problems. And I think
Speaker 2: it was one of your episodes where you were talking
Speaker 2: about how you know a certain percentage, which I think
Speaker 2: was quite high, Like, what is it ninety percent of
Speaker 2: what we worry about never happens, and yet we spend
Speaker 2: all of this time with it just spinning the wheels
Speaker 2: of doubt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's ninety one percent never happens of
Speaker 1: the shit that we spend a lot of time, effort, energy,
Speaker 1: focus on, and then nine percent does. But something like
Speaker 1: seventy five percent of the time when those things do happen,
Speaker 1: it's not nearly as bad as we imagined.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's like, ah, so here's what I think to do. Right,
Speaker 1: We're going good, I think. So we've done three questions.
Speaker 1: Let's do two more yep, and then we'll call that everyone.
Speaker 1: We're having a team meeting as we're going Melissa, leave
Speaker 1: all this in, Melissa, don't edit any of this out.
Speaker 1: This is the inner workings of the you project. Call
Speaker 1: and I are having an on the run meeting. So
Speaker 1: we'll do two more, then we'll call it a day,
Speaker 1: and then we'll crank it up and do another one.
Speaker 1: So next question, please, missus interviewer.
Speaker 2: Next question is what is the biggest lesson you have
Speaker 2: learned in the past ten years.
Speaker 1: Oh well, yeah I did. When I looked at that,
Speaker 1: you're go on.
Speaker 2: Go on, Well, I captured at that, because there have
Speaker 2: been many episodes where you've already spoken about lessons learned
Speaker 2: over the course of your life. But I thought, let's
Speaker 2: reduce it a bit.
Speaker 1: So I actually, like, truthfully, nothing particularly like there's not
Speaker 1: a standout thing. There's a million things, but I thought
Speaker 1: i'd say I'd share two things that have been absolutely
Speaker 1: been lessons that have been underlined, reinforced and put in
Speaker 1: bold letters in my brain over the last ten years
Speaker 1: that for me matter. And I think also what I'm
Speaker 1: about to share is broadly relevant. So you know, if
Speaker 1: I had some revelations that didn't affect anyone else or
Speaker 1: it wasn't relevant, you know, but these are really relevant
Speaker 1: for me and I think most other people, and neither
Speaker 1: of them are going to surprise you. So Number one
Speaker 1: is that, like more than ever, I now understand, especially
Speaker 1: as I'm now old as fuck, I understand that while
Speaker 1: chronological aging that is the calendar, everyone is a constant
Speaker 1: until we die, biological aging is a variable that we
Speaker 1: can to a large extent control, slash manipulate, slash influence,
Speaker 1: and so meaning that sixty one year old Craig Anthony
Speaker 1: Harper doesn't need to not because he's better or special
Speaker 1: or gifted, because I'm fucking not. We've identified that I
Speaker 1: don't need to walk around in a typical sixty one
Speaker 1: year old body. In other words, I can have the
Speaker 1: health and fitness and performance and strength and physiology of
Speaker 1: somebody who is the equivalent of or someone who's forty
Speaker 1: years old at forty one or forty five or fifty,
Speaker 1: so I can have the equivalent physiology, in other words,
Speaker 1: of somebody much younger. Now, that is I think, and
Speaker 1: as I've gotten older, and I've really I mean, I've
Speaker 1: never been more I was going to say disciplined, but
Speaker 1: I'm not disciplined. Like I'm not undisciplined either, but I've
Speaker 1: never been more particular about what I do to my body,
Speaker 1: you know. So I'm like, I used to give myself
Speaker 1: a lot more latitude than I do now, just because
Speaker 1: I realize with my six out of ten genetics and
Speaker 1: my sixty one years on the planet and my multitude
Speaker 1: of fucking injuries that I've had through training like a moron,
Speaker 1: I need to optimize my behaviors, my choices, my habits,
Speaker 1: my lifestyle, my actions in order to work well for
Speaker 1: a long time. And so that's really been reinforced. Is
Speaker 1: that that you know, obviously, aging is a constant, but
Speaker 1: how I age is a variable. So that's number one,
Speaker 1: and then you can comment on both of these when
Speaker 1: I'm finished, if you like. And number two is just
Speaker 1: very simply that my brain slash mind, my cognitive system,
Speaker 1: let's call it, that needs to be trained, like I
Speaker 1: need to constantly and consciously and intentionally keep my brain
Speaker 1: young by doing things that I don't need to do
Speaker 1: but I choose to do just for that purpose. So
Speaker 1: if you think that your brain is just gonna magically
Speaker 1: stay young, functional, healthy, and somewhere near optimum cognition, just
Speaker 1: because you're wrong, you're wrong. It ain't gonna. So if
Speaker 1: you're anywhere in the ballpark of forty five onwards, and
Speaker 1: again it's not a personal prescription, it's just a recommendation,
Speaker 1: and you're not doing something to keep your mind work well,
Speaker 1: your brain working well, mental acuity, sharpness, memory, cognitive function, creativity,
Speaker 1: all of that, then I would highly recommend that you do.
Speaker 1: And for me, obviously a big part of that right
Speaker 1: now is doing my PhD. So that's like training and
Speaker 1: taking my brain to the gym every day for a
Speaker 1: hard session.
Speaker 2: Great. The most fascinating thing about that, though, is that
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm not saying this to be a
Speaker 2: cheeky ship, but you admitted to being old as fuck,
Speaker 2: and it's now that you have have come to the
Speaker 2: conclusion on these things. So the fact that you know
Speaker 2: that you're you can function in a body that is
Speaker 2: much younger than your biological age, and that you need
Speaker 2: to keep training your brain in order to keep it
Speaker 2: sharp and young and on point, it sounds like all
Speaker 2: of those learnings have come with experience and age. So
Speaker 2: it's kind of ironic, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, But I think there's a real difference
Speaker 1: between knowing something theoretically and having it reinforced experientially. Hell yep,
Speaker 1: you know. It's like, oh, we know, you know, I
Speaker 1: know I shouldn't eat you know, too much junk food,
Speaker 1: and I know, I know, I know data da And
Speaker 1: then you get diabetes and then you're like, oh, fuck,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't eat too much junk food. And now I've
Speaker 1: got diabetes. Now I can't do certain things, and now
Speaker 1: I'm you know, so there's a difference between having a
Speaker 1: theoretical understanding of something and knowing something. See for me,
Speaker 1: applied knowledge that's intelligence. Knowledge is just having something in
Speaker 1: your fucking cognitive hard drive. It's like, you know, so
Speaker 1: many people have a gym membership and a gym program
Speaker 1: and a reason to go to the gym, but they
Speaker 1: don't go to the gym right a lot like way
Speaker 1: more than fifty sixty seventy percent of current members either
Speaker 1: rarely go or don't go. I'm not saying it's all
Speaker 1: about gyms, but I'm just saying, you know, we can
Speaker 1: simultaneously have the knowledge, have the understanding, have the reason,
Speaker 1: and still not do the thing that we know is
Speaker 1: going to be good for our body and our health
Speaker 1: and our longevity and our health span and our cognitive
Speaker 1: function and our heart and our lungs and our the
Speaker 1: list goes on. And no, it's not about being a
Speaker 1: fucking fitness freak or an exercise junkie or a gym junkie.
Speaker 1: It's about you've only got one body you can't get
Speaker 1: a fuck another one you can't.
Speaker 2: It's been an experience for me that so I mentioned
Speaker 2: my grandmother earlier. She's now ninety five. When she was
Speaker 2: forty seven, she had a heart attack and was told
Speaker 2: that that's it. You know, you know Corby Family in
Speaker 2: You're not going to make it through the night. We'll
Speaker 2: do what we can, but you won't make it through
Speaker 2: the night. So now at ninety five, she says, it's
Speaker 2: been a very long night, and what, oh.
Speaker 1: You've got to do a podcast called It's been a
Speaker 1: very long night. Yeah. In fact, she should write a
Speaker 1: book and you should write it with her. Listen to
Speaker 1: me bussing you around. Well, I love that. I love
Speaker 1: that sentence.
Speaker 2: Yep. So we did create a podcast. But what she
Speaker 2: did was she changed her entire diet. She opened a
Speaker 2: health food store before they were even trendy. And she
Speaker 2: then read in it would have been her late forties
Speaker 2: early fifties that doing a crossword every day was great
Speaker 2: for your cognitive function and would help ward off dementia.
Speaker 2: And at ninety five she's still doing a crossword. She
Speaker 2: uses a magnifier now because her eyes are quite bad.
Speaker 2: But she has been for me that example of she
Speaker 2: knew what she had to do in order to have
Speaker 2: that body and that brain that would carry her through
Speaker 2: in the best possible way, and she did the work
Speaker 2: and she's still here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: God bless her, God bless her. Little sucks. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: makes Mary look like a teenager.
Speaker 2: She does.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mary's just a sprightly eighty five. All right, let's
Speaker 1: do one more question and then we'll pull the pin
Speaker 1: and then reset.
Speaker 2: All right, so number five, what has been the most
Speaker 2: challenging part of your PhD?
Speaker 1: Thinking about this before, and it's like, honestly, I guess
Speaker 1: for me, not a single thing, a bunch of things.
Speaker 1: But I firstly, I was clueless, Like I did not
Speaker 1: know what I was getting into. I didn't understand what
Speaker 1: a PhD was, which is not a good starting point.
Speaker 1: I didn't understand, like and really I didn't understand. Oh you,
Speaker 1: I mean I kind of did. But you know, like
Speaker 1: people think when you do a PhD, you go to
Speaker 1: UNI and you know there are lectures and chutes and
Speaker 1: there you know there's there's none of it. Well in mind,
Speaker 1: there's none of that. It's all research based. So you
Speaker 1: do your own research. So you come up with an idea,
Speaker 1: you come up with an area that you want to research.
Speaker 1: You've got to fill a hole in the science. You
Speaker 1: got to look at something that hasn't been looked at
Speaker 1: or something that hasn't been looked at in the way
Speaker 1: that you're going to look at it. And then you're
Speaker 1: trying to solve a problem, right, or you're trying to
Speaker 1: bring some new information. And so you you design your
Speaker 1: research and then you run your own research. You get
Speaker 1: a venue, you get participants, you get ethical approval through
Speaker 1: the university, which is not an easy feat because you
Speaker 1: can't put anyone at any kind of risk at all.
Speaker 1: And then you do all of that, then you get
Speaker 1: all of this data, and then you've got to try
Speaker 1: and figure out what the fucking data means because it's
Speaker 1: all numbers and shit, right, And then then you know,
Speaker 1: and then you try to sift through that, make sense
Speaker 1: of it, interpret the data, find patterns, fine holes, find
Speaker 1: things that no one else has found. Hopefully, I mean
Speaker 1: it's much more than this, of course, But then you've
Speaker 1: got to write, you know, for mine, anyway, three or
Speaker 1: four academic papers that get published by academic journals. So
Speaker 1: all of that. It was just like for me, it
Speaker 1: was literally like it was like it's like going to
Speaker 1: somewhere like Russia, just wh is Russia? Because I have
Speaker 1: no clue. Right, I was in Russia, and I know
Speaker 1: I'm not dumb, and I know they're not dumb, but
Speaker 1: I can't speak their language. I don't understand the culture.
Speaker 1: I don't understand how to go and buy a fucking
Speaker 1: bottle of milk or a cart in the milk. I
Speaker 1: don't understand do they have coffee like we have their
Speaker 1: fucking cafes like we is there? How does it work?
Speaker 1: Do I? You know, I don't understand the government. I
Speaker 1: don't understand the culture. I don't understand the money. I
Speaker 1: can't speak the language. I don't know. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like that. It's like you've just gone to Russia and
Speaker 1: I didn't even fucking learn one word of Russian before
Speaker 1: I start, right, I yeah, so I nobody threw me
Speaker 1: in the deep end, and nobody. In fact, where I'm
Speaker 1: studying is called Brain Park, which is the Neuroscience Neuropsychology
Speaker 1: Lab of Monash, And they're fucking amazing. They're so good
Speaker 1: to me. You know, I've said this before, Like day
Speaker 1: one it was like bring your granddad to work day,
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting in this room with about eight other
Speaker 1: PhD students who it could be my kid or my
Speaker 1: kid's kid, right, and yeah, it was just like it
Speaker 1: was a very steep learning curve. I guess specifically it
Speaker 1: was I started full time two years full time and
Speaker 1: now in part time, so that helped. But the first
Speaker 1: two years it was like I was doing I had
Speaker 1: two careers, one as a researcher, full time researcher, and
Speaker 1: then the other as you know, all the shit other
Speaker 1: shit I do. And I guess specifically, just yeah, learning
Speaker 1: how PhD world works, learning understanding academic language, writing academically, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have lots of thoughts that I'll share when I
Speaker 1: finish my PhD. But I do think, and I'm happy
Speaker 1: to say this, I do think that that academic writing
Speaker 1: is unnecessarily complicated. It's it's and but I that's if
Speaker 1: you read some of the stuff that I'm you know,
Speaker 1: putting out now, you'd go, what the fuck is this?
Speaker 1: I go, this is what needs to be written the
Speaker 1: way it needs to be written. I understand that. And
Speaker 1: I'm just a shitkicker. I'm not going to change the system,
Speaker 1: neither do I want to. But but it's been it's been.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say it's been fun, but it's
Speaker 1: been good for me. It's been good for me. A
Speaker 1: lot of things that aren't fun are good for you.
Speaker 1: And it's definitely you know. It's taught me a lot
Speaker 1: about many things, including myself, which is good. So Kel,
Speaker 1: let's pull the pin. Sure, we're going to say goodbye.
Speaker 1: Kel and I are going to continue on in the
Speaker 1: next few minutes with installment too, but for now, everyone, Kel,
Speaker 1: thanks for being on the you project, Thanks for putting
Speaker 1: up your hand, Thanks for those five great questions. I'll
Speaker 1: see it the water cooler at.
Speaker 2: The gym, Absolutely you will.
Speaker 1: Thanks Kel. Thanks everyone,