Speaker 1: I'll get a Jody, get a doctor. Jody. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the You project.
Speaker 2: Hey, Craig, thanks for having me back.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks for being had Tiffany and Cook down there
Speaker 1: at Bloody the engine room of typ.
Speaker 2: High reporting in for duty. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I didn't even get a salute, but okay, how's yeah?
Speaker 1: There it is there, it is the little salute. Let's
Speaker 1: start with the girl at the bottom of the screen,
Speaker 1: the lady, I should say, asterisk ki tiv. How's your
Speaker 1: day been.
Speaker 2: It's been really good. It's a nice sunny day. We've
Speaker 2: had a good summer and it's making me very happy.
Speaker 2: I want to last forever.
Speaker 1: It's about to get very hot in the thriving metropolis.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, Arbo. As we're recording this, everyone and I
Speaker 1: think the next four days are meant to be mid
Speaker 1: to high thirty, so batten down the hatches. Are you
Speaker 1: a hot weather person, Jody? Do you tolerate it? Love it?
Speaker 1: What's your favorite season?
Speaker 3: I am okay, when it's kind of up to about
Speaker 3: thirty five. Once it's getting stinking hot, I struggle, But
Speaker 3: I love the water, So put me.
Speaker 2: In the water. And if the weather's hot and I'm happy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't mind too much. I don't love extreme heat,
Speaker 1: but I just I just stay out of it. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, but anyway, it is what it is. What's
Speaker 1: happening on planets Richardson, what's happening over there at you Central?
Speaker 2: Well, we've got a very sad and sorry pooch here
Speaker 2: at the moment.
Speaker 3: He's got a cloud collar and have you ever had
Speaker 3: of a cloud collar tear.
Speaker 1: For half a bucket thing?
Speaker 3: It's like it's like your neck rest when you're flying,
Speaker 3: but at valcrows around to kind of stop them licking
Speaker 3: their wounds. We've got the bucket head thing happening for him.
Speaker 3: But he also had an ECG in his heart today
Speaker 3: because he has a heart murmur. So that was pricey
Speaker 3: but also very good news that the heart murmur is significant,
Speaker 3: but not so significant that it needs surgery or any
Speaker 3: change to his routine.
Speaker 2: We're relieved, We're very happy.
Speaker 1: Wow, that is good, that is good. What's his name? Dusty, Dusty,
Speaker 1: good old Dusty. Melissa Marie Cameron said to me, can
Speaker 1: you make sure that Dusty is okay?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: That's that. I spoke to her half an hour ago,
Speaker 1: so that was her only request about.
Speaker 3: The Yeah, right, because I rescheduled this to a little
Speaker 3: bit later because the specialist got me in at ten
Speaker 3: this morning. So yeah, he wasn't happy about it. He
Speaker 3: was not happy. He's very growly.
Speaker 2: He would have bitten someone if he didn't have a
Speaker 2: big party hat on.
Speaker 1: What's the what's the prognosis and what's the protocol moving forward?
Speaker 2: Well, it was so.
Speaker 3: Interesting because it kind of took me back to my
Speaker 3: anatomy days. I didn't know dog's hearts and human hearts
Speaker 3: were pretty much. I mean, the Vetzel shoot be for this,
Speaker 3: but kind of identical, you know, from a basic anatomy
Speaker 3: point of view. And poor chambers, all that, poor chambers,
Speaker 3: him's ventricles, valves and all that, and essentially there's a
Speaker 3: valve that is not working properly, and so one of
Speaker 3: the chambers is having to work harder, the pressure is higher,
Speaker 3: there's thickening of the muscle. These sorts of things can
Speaker 3: happen in people as well. But thankfully because when you know,
Speaker 3: like with people, like if you don't understand what's happening
Speaker 3: with your heart, know how to kind of look after
Speaker 3: yourself or your pet, you know, there can be some
Speaker 3: really serious kind of fallout from these sorts of things.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, he's six, and the specialists just said, look,
Speaker 2: he's got to.
Speaker 3: Six, and if this is how kind of bad it
Speaker 3: is at six, we shouldn't expect too much more. But
Speaker 3: he's doped out at the moment, he's completely passed out
Speaker 3: because you have to give them all these sedatives and everything,
Speaker 3: and poor little thing.
Speaker 2: But their family.
Speaker 3: I know, Tiff, I know you've got your beautiful cat
Speaker 3: and your dog.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, for a.
Speaker 3: Lot of us, our pets are absolutely family. And so
Speaker 3: whilst it was close to one thousand dollars for this test,
Speaker 3: was like, well, you know, we're really relieved we've got
Speaker 3: that piece of mine. Now that he can play and
Speaker 3: he can run, we don't, you know, to take him
Speaker 3: on anything too strenuous. He's not a working border collie.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, so that's good news.
Speaker 1: One of my friends, you know, Rustiff, Yeah, yep, so
Speaker 1: her brother got a German German Shepherd something cross. Apparently
Speaker 1: beautiful dog got really really is not funny. But what
Speaker 1: I'm about to say, the dog's fine, but the dog
Speaker 1: got very sick. Nelly died that bill thirty three thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: thirty three thousand dollars, and I'm like, wow, that is
Speaker 1: that is that is love. That is that is lots
Speaker 1: of money and that is love. Because I think there's
Speaker 1: a few people who might go, oh, sorry, fidoh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, that's understandably heartbreaking, heartbreaking. We've had emergency visits,
Speaker 3: we've had blocked a softage deal, a sophageal blocks with
Speaker 3: previous dogs and everything, and we kind of had to
Speaker 3: sign off on kind of you know, what's the maximum,
Speaker 3: like we got again that was a pretty straightforward procedure too,
Speaker 3: and we got away with that for about one thousand
Speaker 3: dollars maybe fifteen years ago, but we kind of signed
Speaker 3: off on up to five before more consultation. But man,
Speaker 3: oh man, it puts you under the pump. And what
Speaker 3: a heartbreaking decision to make. Pains me to think of
Speaker 3: not everyone can afford to spend that kind of money
Speaker 3: on a pet, you know, no questions. So gosh, yeah,
Speaker 3: that hopefully they were pre warned about that bill and
Speaker 3: that there's a payment plan option.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I think I think I think he's okay financially,
Speaker 1: which but yeah, I I reckon if my dog got
Speaker 1: sick like that's sick. I think within reason, I mean,
Speaker 1: even without reason, I think I just have to figure
Speaker 1: it out. Like I couldn't. I couldn't, I couldn't go Nah, Sorry,
Speaker 1: I don't love you that much. I just have Anyway,
Speaker 1: this is not a very uplifting start to that.
Speaker 2: True, let's talk about something all positive you.
Speaker 1: Were telling us before we went live, which I love
Speaker 1: the idea of. I mean, I'm very, very very pro
Speaker 1: people who are really at any age. But I think
Speaker 1: it's really important that people who are forty plus are
Speaker 1: consciously doing things to keep their brain working, their mind working,
Speaker 1: developing new skills, learning new things. And it's good that
Speaker 1: we train our body, and I think more and more
Speaker 1: people are exercising productively and effectively and understanding the link
Speaker 1: between moving our body and health span and lifespan and
Speaker 1: all of that stuff, but trying to keep our brain
Speaker 1: working optimally for longer. And maybe with that in mind
Speaker 1: or not. But you've taken up a new hobby.
Speaker 3: I have, and yeah, it's definitely top of mind for me.
Speaker 3: We can talk about that why.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I've started learning the piano and.
Speaker 3: It look I mean it's a keyboard, it's an electronic keyboard.
Speaker 2: We've had here for years.
Speaker 3: And our daughter is a singer and has had music
Speaker 3: lessons for years. And I was a real musical kind
Speaker 3: of kid a long long time ago, but never never
Speaker 3: could play more than chopsticks on a piano. And I've
Speaker 3: kind of forgotten how to read music and anywhere. I've
Speaker 3: got an app. It's called Simply Piano. It's free to
Speaker 3: start with and then you can upgrade. And we did
Speaker 3: to a family plan. And my mum's seventy seven. She
Speaker 3: came around yesterday and I was telling her about it
Speaker 3: and she's like, oh my gosh, Aldie have keyboards at
Speaker 3: the moment. Of course they do, so she's going to
Speaker 3: get herself a keyboard and I've added her to the
Speaker 3: family plan.
Speaker 2: I am loving it, Craig.
Speaker 3: It's very rewarding, but it's I also know it's really
Speaker 3: really good for my brain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred's. It's funny how much we like when
Speaker 1: you talk about, you know, cognitiveunction, how well your brain works,
Speaker 1: or how your brain works for how long and we
Speaker 1: talk about there's so much conversation around Alzheimer's and dementia
Speaker 1: and cognitive decline and brain health in general. But there's
Speaker 1: really not I know there's some, but there's really not
Speaker 1: a lot of encouragement for people to do things other
Speaker 1: than you know, we know that there's a relationship between
Speaker 1: cognitive function and sleep and diet and all of those things,
Speaker 1: which are also very important. But for me, I think,
Speaker 1: almost at the top of the list, even before the
Speaker 1: other stuff, is just how you use your brain and
Speaker 1: your ability to keep, for want of a better analogy,
Speaker 1: to keep training it, just like you train your biceps
Speaker 1: or your lats or your delts or your legs or
Speaker 1: your heart to be able to train your brain so
Speaker 1: that it works as well as it can for as
Speaker 1: long as it can.
Speaker 3: Totally, you're exactly right when it comes to kind of
Speaker 3: thinking about the brain in this way. And it's not
Speaker 3: my experts at all, but I'm learning more about it.
Speaker 3: I'm really interested. My mother in law has dementia. At fifty,
Speaker 3: my friends and I started to talk about what's happening
Speaker 3: with our aging parents and things like that, and you know,
Speaker 3: neurons that fire together, wire together. We know that's sort
Speaker 3: of a bit of an old neuroscience saying, but what
Speaker 3: I recently learned is that we can the more we
Speaker 3: sort of build these neurons and sort of build our
Speaker 3: brain for one of a better kind of expression. The
Speaker 3: more we've got to kind of lose before the function,
Speaker 3: you know, in terms of brain changes with age, you know,
Speaker 3: with dementia of you know, any particular kind Alzheimer's or
Speaker 3: Lewis body or CTE for those who play rugby or
Speaker 3: you know, footy and things like that American football. That
Speaker 3: if you've got a bigger kind of reserve than any
Speaker 3: changes that, if you've got a lesser reserve, you'll notice
Speaker 3: the change sooner. Whereas if you've got a bigger reserve
Speaker 3: in terms of your brain building and growing neurons, then
Speaker 3: you'll delay those noticeable changes to your thinking and your
Speaker 3: memory and things like that.
Speaker 2: So, you know, we're all living older longer.
Speaker 3: People are dying older, and I think that's why we're
Speaker 3: hearing and talking so much about kind of memory loss.
Speaker 2: That's why that's.
Speaker 3: More of a significant problem now, because people aren't dying
Speaker 3: from other things.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think what else is interesting? And this
Speaker 1: is just my observation. I don't have data in front
Speaker 1: of me, so it could be wrong, but I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure I'm not with this. Yeah, we're living longer, but
Speaker 1: I don't think our health span is longer generally speaking.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, it's late. There are some
Speaker 1: people living to ninety, and some are living to ninety
Speaker 1: and they're great, But some are living to ninety in
Speaker 1: their last twenty years is fucking terrible. But there's drugs
Speaker 1: keeping them alive. But what's not keeping them alive is
Speaker 1: great lifestyle or great habits or great behaviors or great
Speaker 1: food or you know it's that. And then I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to be judgmental here, I'm just like I always think,
Speaker 1: you've got one brain. Why don't you do everything you
Speaker 1: can fucking do to make that brain work great? Because
Speaker 1: you can you can like, you can't get a different brain,
Speaker 1: and you can't change your genetics, and you can't wake
Speaker 1: up tomorrow and be ten years younger. But what you
Speaker 1: can do today is do something. You know, learn the piano,
Speaker 1: go do a course, read a book, do some memory puzzle,
Speaker 1: solve some problems, like do something where you have to
Speaker 1: think and stop living. So many people I don't mean
Speaker 1: to sound judge you, but so many people truly live
Speaker 1: in this just this groundhog day of repetition where they
Speaker 1: don't fucking do new things, and then they look up
Speaker 1: and they're like, I've been doing the same thing for
Speaker 1: the last five years, and by the way, that thing
Speaker 1: that I do every day, it doesn't really work. It's
Speaker 1: not optimal. And if Craig said to me, oh, do
Speaker 1: you want your brain to work better, I'm going to
Speaker 1: go yes, but I'm not doing anything to make could
Speaker 1: work better. You know, do you want to be healthier? Yes,
Speaker 1: I do, but I'm not doing anything consciously and consistently
Speaker 1: to be healthier. Like this shit doesn't magically manifest. We
Speaker 1: need to recognize the issue and then do the work,
Speaker 1: you know, and and doing the work can be fun,
Speaker 1: like learning the piano or you know, fucking doing learning
Speaker 1: another language. You know. One of the things I want
Speaker 1: to do when I finish my current study is I
Speaker 1: want to I want to learn language. I don't know
Speaker 1: what I'm going to learn, but I'm pretty sure because
Speaker 1: I don't speak anything at all, not even a bit
Speaker 1: other than English. And some people would argue that I
Speaker 1: mutilate the fuck out of that, but ah, you know,
Speaker 1: but I just think that is definitely going That is
Speaker 1: definitely going to be a challenge for me because it's
Speaker 1: just like walking through a brand new door into a
Speaker 1: room you've never been, you know, so excited about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, and the technology that we can use to
Speaker 3: this our daughter line and Spanish with due lingo.
Speaker 2: It's so funny.
Speaker 3: I saw a poster that I on LinkedIn somebody had
Speaker 3: some sort of detox retreat. They said, duo lingo is
Speaker 3: killing our business. People don't want to lose their eighteen
Speaker 3: hundred day duo lingo streaks because the gamification is so
Speaker 3: well designed. That really yeah, totally, And yeah, I know
Speaker 3: lots of people who sort of kickstart it that way.
Speaker 3: And there's alkie ILK, I dot something or other easily
Speaker 3: googled where you can meet a native language speaker of
Speaker 3: the language you're learning and set up regular kind of
Speaker 3: zoom meetings. And often it's not at a huge cost,
Speaker 3: depending on what you're learning and who you're talking to
Speaker 3: and where they are. Could be ten bucks an hour
Speaker 3: or something or ten bucks for thirty minutes, and so
Speaker 3: there's so much. But I tell you what, it's uncomfortable
Speaker 3: to start with because it's like such a brain strain,
Speaker 3: like you can feel like, especially like with the piano learning,
Speaker 3: like do something different with your left hand to your
Speaker 3: right hand, and you think, oh man, oh this is
Speaker 3: going to be my ceiling, like I'm going to really
Speaker 3: spend a lot of time here. But it's incredible because
Speaker 3: of the way the learning is designed. How much easier
Speaker 3: it is than you think it's going to be. It's
Speaker 3: just getting started and being consistent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Speaking of left handed or right handed,
Speaker 1: I I did this thing in chatters before chat GPT.
Speaker 1: I was curious to see if there's any This is hilarious,
Speaker 1: so I typed in, is there any research suggesting that
Speaker 1: left handers are more intelligent? But here's the hilarious thing.
Speaker 1: Because I wrote it fast, I misspelled intelligent right of course,
Speaker 1: I am okay, So this is what again? This has
Speaker 1: not verified everybody, but it's probably something. And so research
Speaker 1: has explored potential cognitive differences between left and right handers,
Speaker 1: with mixed finding. What some studies suggest so left handers
Speaker 1: greater creativity and divergent thinking. Some studies suggests left handers
Speaker 1: might have an advantage in creativity, problem solving, and thinking
Speaker 1: outside the box. This could be due to greater inter
Speaker 1: hemispheric communication in the brain. I'm like, I'm happy with
Speaker 1: that higher representation in gifted populations. Some researchers found that
Speaker 1: left handers are overrepresented among artists, musicians, and individuals with
Speaker 1: high intellectual achievements. Of course, I'm paying attention to this,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't mean that all left handers are more intelligent.
Speaker 1: Spatial mathematical skills, some studies suggests left handers have a
Speaker 1: slight edge in certain spatial reasoning and mathematical problem solving
Speaker 1: and cognitive flexibility. The last one. Some theories suggest that
Speaker 1: left handers may have better adaptability in thinking due to
Speaker 1: using both hemispheres of the brain more effectively. So I'm
Speaker 1: just going to pay attention to that because I like
Speaker 1: that science. I'm not going to look any further. I'm
Speaker 1: just going to go that's absolute now, but it is.
Speaker 1: It is interesting when you like Sometimes I go, I've
Speaker 1: been doing stupid experiments on myself since I was a kid, right.
Speaker 1: My first one was basically when I was about ten,
Speaker 1: just trying to hold my breath for as long as
Speaker 1: I could, which is stupid, I know, but I was
Speaker 1: a kid and I had a stop Watch which was amazing,
Speaker 1: so I spent like the next one was trying to
Speaker 1: teach myself to spin a ball a basketball on my finger,
Speaker 1: which I got to the point out where I could
Speaker 1: just do it constantly, and it just to the end
Speaker 1: where it hurt my finger, but I could do it
Speaker 1: for minutes and minutes and minutes without it falling up. Right.
Speaker 1: What I do sometimes is I go this week, because
Speaker 1: I got five whiteboards in my house and I'm always writing,
Speaker 1: I go, this week, I'm only writing with my right hand.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Okay.
Speaker 1: So I do a whole week of just doing my
Speaker 1: right hand, and by the end of the week, my
Speaker 1: writing is probably sixty seventy percent better than it was
Speaker 1: seven days ago. And yeah, just things like that where
Speaker 1: I think, you know, you can create these little I
Speaker 1: don't know, these little games for yourself, or these little
Speaker 1: kind of tasks for yourself where you have to do
Speaker 1: something that you always do but do it in a
Speaker 1: different way. So you're literally challenging your brain, your nervous system,
Speaker 1: and a whole bunch of things. Because me writing with
Speaker 1: my right hand is completely unnatural.
Speaker 3: Do you find that the thoughts flow as freely when
Speaker 3: you're writing? Because I found that even standing at my
Speaker 3: standing desk versus sitting, like when I was writing books,
Speaker 3: I really need to concentrate.
Speaker 2: I sit. It's an interesting sort of observation for me.
Speaker 3: I imagine, you know, other people have probably had similar experiences,
Speaker 3: but just it's like my body and brain know this
Speaker 3: is the posture, this is kind of the position for
Speaker 3: this kind of output. Did you find that it flowed
Speaker 3: just as freely or did you have a thought and
Speaker 3: then thought I'd better write it down and then I
Speaker 3: suppose that's what happens, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I'm only talking about the whiteboard. I mean, unless I
Speaker 1: was writing a whiteboard that I was going to post
Speaker 1: to socials, that's different. But I often have a thought
Speaker 1: like I have an eight foot long, four foot high
Speaker 1: whiteboard in my bedroom, and I get out of bed
Speaker 1: probably every second night to write something on that whiteboard
Speaker 1: because I have an idea.
Speaker 2: Right yeah, yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 1: No, it's did I just say, yeah, no, it doesn't
Speaker 1: really inhibit my flow, my creativity or my thinking. But
Speaker 1: obviously I write way worse and way less efficiently. But
Speaker 1: what I have done is which I've told Tiff, and
Speaker 1: I've told the listeners, but not you. In the last
Speaker 1: I don't know if I told you this, Joe, but
Speaker 1: about I don't know two months, my phone basically said,
Speaker 1: you're a fat fuck. You need to work walk more, right,
Speaker 1: So I started. I went, all right, I've got to
Speaker 1: do rock bottom ten thousand steps a day, and I've
Speaker 1: done every day. The least I've done is like ten
Speaker 1: and a half thousand since i got that message. Right,
Speaker 1: But what that means now is I've had to find
Speaker 1: more time. And like I like to do fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: a day, I don't always, but on a bad day
Speaker 1: I'm doing ten. Right, So but it means that I've
Speaker 1: begun to do meetings while I'm walking, and even some
Speaker 1: video calls. Obviously you've got to be careful where and
Speaker 1: how you do that. But if I'm just walking around
Speaker 1: the backstreets and I'm not walking on the road, and
Speaker 1: I'm not always staring at my phone, but I've started
Speaker 1: to do walks and talks and I actually think when
Speaker 1: I'm walking and I'm obviously i'm not sprinting, but I'm out.
Speaker 1: I've got a few trees around me, the birds are singing,
Speaker 1: the be's are buzzing, the sun is shining. My brain
Speaker 1: maybe works better than where I'm at right now sitting
Speaker 1: at a desk in my office. So for me, it's
Speaker 1: it's great because I'm getting in you know, I can
Speaker 1: do a one hour coaching session or a one hour
Speaker 1: meeting or a one hour whatever. I before. I've got
Speaker 1: a gig in a few weeks in Queensland, and I
Speaker 1: had a meeting with some blokes, and so the blokes
Speaker 1: who might be listening, not the one you think. I
Speaker 1: had two meetings today. One I did on zoom here,
Speaker 1: but another one I did actually walking and talking. And
Speaker 1: so I'm having a business meeting and I'm walking around
Speaker 1: suburbia and I'm answering questions and I'm ticking boxes and
Speaker 1: getting stuff done and walking five thousand steps. It's great
Speaker 1: for me. It really works well.
Speaker 3: Are you like when you say you're answering questions and
Speaker 3: you're ticking boxes, are you taking any notes?
Speaker 1: Not? These are not ones that I you know, but
Speaker 1: if I get home and i'll i'll, you know, I'll
Speaker 1: remember the key kind of the key kind of messages
Speaker 1: that I need to get down. But I can. I mean,
Speaker 1: I often will write something in notes in my phone
Speaker 1: as we go, but typically I don't. But I just
Speaker 1: think I mean broadly, speak how old are you now?
Speaker 1: If you don't mind me asker? No, you're not meant
Speaker 1: to ask relate?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I don't care. Fifty I'm fifty fifty one
Speaker 3: in April.
Speaker 1: This is so do you think about do you think
Speaker 1: about what am I going to feel like? Function? Like
Speaker 1: at fifty five? How's my brain going to work? How's
Speaker 1: my body going to work? How do you think? Now?
Speaker 1: More intensely about self management from that point.
Speaker 3: Of view, more recently my brain, but always my body.
Speaker 3: I think from about you know, like when I've done
Speaker 3: strength training since I was sort of a teenager, on
Speaker 3: and off, always exercised, but there was a turning point
Speaker 3: where it sort of went more from how I felt
Speaker 3: about like my body image, like how do I look?
Speaker 3: I'm training because I wanted to look different. I wanted
Speaker 3: to look better in veral commerce. How do I want
Speaker 3: to function? And what's and my health? I think particularly
Speaker 3: becoming a parent, And so I've always I think about
Speaker 3: my bone strength, I think about my muscle mass. I
Speaker 3: mean CrossFit that I do. It's so bloody hard, it is,
Speaker 3: honest to goodness. Some days you know what's asked of
Speaker 3: us is really and I just scale it, I just
Speaker 3: scale it to you know, what I can do. That's
Speaker 3: still a big challenge, but everyone has different weights in
Speaker 3: their hands, and and you know, it's easy to sort
Speaker 3: of think, oh, like sometimes like, oh, how do I
Speaker 3: keep showing up for this? But I just try to
Speaker 3: show up because I know that anything I do there
Speaker 3: is going to be a huge benefit for me now
Speaker 3: and obviously in the future. I'm thinking more about my
Speaker 3: bone health in terms of bone density and like boarding
Speaker 3: off osteoporosis, especially because I'm apparently postmenopausal. I had an oblation,
Speaker 3: an indemetrial ablation, which are you for me with what
Speaker 3: that is? So for listeners who don't know, essentially the
Speaker 3: lining of the uterus is layser away and so you
Speaker 3: stop having a period because of that. So I didn't
Speaker 3: have the typical kind of signals of when you're going
Speaker 3: through perimenopause and into menopause where your periods have stopped.
Speaker 3: I didn't have any of that because I've been stopped
Speaker 3: for a long time. So apparently postmenopausal so hormones I'm
Speaker 3: thinking about.
Speaker 2: My mental health is excellent.
Speaker 3: The exercise and the medication I take and the way
Speaker 3: I sort of lived my life but now because my
Speaker 3: mother in law has Alzheimer's, my friend's mum has just
Speaker 3: been put into a home because of her Alzheimer's. I
Speaker 3: think very much about how awful it is for the
Speaker 3: you know, my mother in law.
Speaker 2: I see that.
Speaker 3: I see that all the time, how frustrating is for her,
Speaker 3: and I just think, Oh, I want to do whatever
Speaker 3: I can to make sure that's not me.
Speaker 2: I don't want to end up like that. It's awful.
Speaker 2: It's awful.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to ask you a question that neither
Speaker 1: you or I really qualify to answer. So everyone, don't
Speaker 1: take this as advice or a prescription. This is just
Speaker 1: two people with a bit of knowledge having a conversation
Speaker 1: thinking about optimizing although we both know a bit about this,
Speaker 1: of course, but thinking about optimizing your brain for as
Speaker 1: long as you can if you had to. I don't
Speaker 1: know rank let's say rank exercise, food, sleep, lifestyle. Maybe
Speaker 1: not rank them, but just talk about where do you
Speaker 1: think they all fit, Like, what do you think you know?
Speaker 1: Brain training, specific brain training, how do you value each
Speaker 1: of those as a contributor or factor or variable around
Speaker 1: cognitive function into older age.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm glad you took away the question about ranking
Speaker 3: them because it's so hard. Like I, from what I
Speaker 3: do know, exercise and the brain is obviously like extremely powerful,
Speaker 3: not only for our mental health but just for our
Speaker 3: cognitive function and clarity. And also we know that if
Speaker 3: we have chronic stress, that really affects how our brain
Speaker 3: will function. How you know, cognizant we are when we're
Speaker 3: answering questions and responding to challenges and problem solving and
Speaker 3: things like that. So in terms of kind of brain
Speaker 3: health in the long term, you know, I don't know
Speaker 3: enough to really say, but for me, I guess the
Speaker 3: things that I think about to keep my brain healthy
Speaker 3: from a mental health point of view. More so because
Speaker 3: this brain health and longevity idea is very new to
Speaker 3: the way I'm thinking about my lifestyle.
Speaker 2: Sleep is when the brain is washed.
Speaker 3: You know, the brain sort of has this opportunity to
Speaker 3: kind of have this wash cycle when we're sleeping. We
Speaker 3: really need good sleep to think, to help consolidate memories,
Speaker 3: of course, which is important as we get older, and
Speaker 3: to really help protect our mental health and reduce our reactivity.
Speaker 2: And then food.
Speaker 3: Of course, we know that the gut brain access is
Speaker 3: incredibly powerful, and the difference It makes to the way
Speaker 3: that we can think and function, as well as our
Speaker 3: mental health when we eat mostly plants and reduce sugar
Speaker 3: and salt and transfats and the like. It's a really
Speaker 3: interesting question. I'm on the start of this learning journey.
Speaker 3: What about you?
Speaker 2: What do you know about this area?
Speaker 1: It's funny, right, because we know that different people respond
Speaker 1: in different ways to the same stimulus, right, you know,
Speaker 1: or the same stimuli right. But for me, I'm not deluded.
Speaker 1: I don't think oh I'm fucking twenty six. I don't
Speaker 1: think that. And I don't know what sixty one is
Speaker 1: meant to feel like. I guess there's no arbitrary feeling
Speaker 1: that everybody should feel at a certain age. But as
Speaker 1: objective as I can be, which is not very I
Speaker 1: kind of feel like I felt when I was forty.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like people say to me all the time, Oh,
Speaker 1: I feel so fucking old. I'm like, I don't, No,
Speaker 1: I don't. I actually don't. I'm very grateful. There's no
Speaker 1: arrogance or ego in that. I just don't like. If
Speaker 1: I did, I would go I do. But I don't
Speaker 1: feel old like I feel. I feel good, you know,
Speaker 1: I think all of that stuff. I was thinking one
Speaker 1: thing as you were talking about, one variable that almost
Speaker 1: never gets spoken about when we talk about health and
Speaker 1: longevity and the human experience, right in a almost in
Speaker 1: relation to this wellness, health, health span, peace, and that
Speaker 1: is fun. Like I absolutely prioritize fun, like for me,
Speaker 1: it's a value. But very few people, you know, I
Speaker 1: remember when I used to do lots, and I mean
Speaker 1: every day, you know, I would train a million, not
Speaker 1: a million, but I would do twelve appointments a day
Speaker 1: for fucking years, right, And I'd get new people in
Speaker 1: and i'd talk to them, and i'd talk to people
Speaker 1: in their fifties and I was younger, and we talk
Speaker 1: about all this stuff. And I would say to I
Speaker 1: would often say to men who would appear to me
Speaker 1: and this is judge, but it's just how it appeared
Speaker 1: to me. Like this guy or this lady, lots of money,
Speaker 1: successful business, you know, ticking all these boxes, but fucking miserable.
Speaker 1: I'd see no joy, like no happiness. I'm like, and
Speaker 1: I'd say, do you like fun? And they'd say they
Speaker 1: look at me like I'd just ask some something ridiculous,
Speaker 1: and they go, what do you mean I go, you
Speaker 1: know what fun is, right, They're like, well, yeah, I go.
Speaker 1: Do you like having fun? They're like yeah, I go,
Speaker 1: WA's your fun plan? And they look at me like, like,
Speaker 1: I think grown ups should have a fucking fun plan. Yes,
Speaker 1: We've got to make a few dollars, we've got to
Speaker 1: eat some good food, got to keep our brain healthy
Speaker 1: and learn shit, and you've got to you know, be
Speaker 1: of value to the world and serve and all of that,
Speaker 1: but also have some fucking fun laugh. Not everything has
Speaker 1: got to be saving the world, and not everything's got
Speaker 1: to be some deep and meaningful fucking post on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Let's just do shit because it's fun and laughter is awesome, Like,
Speaker 1: let's just fucking laugh, because laughter and fun is literally
Speaker 1: healing for your body. It literally makes your body happier
Speaker 1: biochemically but one of a more accurate scientific term, biochemically happier.
Speaker 1: And you know, for me, I'm a big I'm a
Speaker 1: fucking because I'm either talking about something deep and meaningful
Speaker 1: and difficult and confrontational, or I'm telling dick jokes and
Speaker 1: laughing my ass off, or I'm in the gym being
Speaker 1: a fucking idiot with my friends. But I need that
Speaker 1: for me that because I don't drink, I don't do drugs.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't. You know, a lot of people
Speaker 1: have an outlet which is that, oh, oh god, I
Speaker 1: needed this what I do a lot of people do.
Speaker 1: And I think for me, my antidote to a lot
Speaker 1: of the stress and the tough stuff is just laughter
Speaker 1: and silliness and getting on a motorbike and riding and
Speaker 1: just you know, having fun. And I mean Tif's done
Speaker 1: that in the last year, you know, and I've seen
Speaker 1: in her like even just that she doesn't need a motorbike.
Speaker 1: And Tif's not talking at the moment everyone because her
Speaker 1: microphone has shat itself. That's the technical term, but it's
Speaker 1: just I mean, it's yeah. So I just think that
Speaker 1: among all the other things too, as we get older,
Speaker 1: I think, yes, we need to consciously try to keep
Speaker 1: our brain working somewhere near optimal for whatever our potential is.
Speaker 1: But also, let's just fucking laugh, shall we.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, my cheeks are hurting from just how much
Speaker 3: this is resonating with me. And what I was thinking of,
Speaker 3: adding to what I said before, was when we think
Speaker 3: about our longevity, what do we want.
Speaker 2: To do with that time, like how do we want
Speaker 2: to spend our time?
Speaker 3: And what you just said about it doesn't have to
Speaker 3: be groundbreaking, life changing, full of purpose and meaning, just
Speaker 3: for the sake of doing something, like you know, like
Speaker 3: that's what piano is for me, Like I I'll never
Speaker 3: play for anybody.
Speaker 2: I'm doing it for me. It's fun. I enjoy it.
Speaker 3: But a couple of weeks ago, because I love the water,
Speaker 3: and when we go away, I'm the fifty year old
Speaker 3: in a long sleeved rash best because I'm so overly
Speaker 3: son smart, it's ridiculous. Everyone makes fun of me. But
Speaker 3: I'm the one that's on the rope swing. I'm the
Speaker 3: one that's swinging into the water and you know, climbing
Speaker 3: back up the hill.
Speaker 2: And doing it again.
Speaker 3: And Maca, our daughter McKinley, and I a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks ago, we took out the stand up paddle board
Speaker 3: and I'm not super balanced on that.
Speaker 2: When I'm on my feet.
Speaker 3: It's funny to watch me because I end up in
Speaker 3: the drink a lot. But we worked out that if
Speaker 3: one sat at one end, it was stable enough for
Speaker 3: us about to sort of climb on and then do
Speaker 3: like a back dive into the water just off the beach.
Speaker 2: Down here in Manaaliza. We laughed and laughed and laughed.
Speaker 3: And it was so fun and it was just exactly
Speaker 3: what you were speaking about, Like, like, life passes by
Speaker 3: so fast, and we all, every single one of us,
Speaker 3: can look at somebody that we know who can't do
Speaker 3: the things they want for whatever reason, lots of different reasons,
Speaker 3: and that's what life's about.
Speaker 2: Really, It's about people.
Speaker 3: It's about our connections and at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: they're the memories that really light us up. And so
Speaker 3: I really love that you've shared that, and I'm curious
Speaker 3: to kind of know, like, is there something that you've
Speaker 3: got on your kind of to do list or your
Speaker 3: bucket list or whatever that is super fun that you kind.
Speaker 2: Of want to give a go in the next few
Speaker 2: months six months or so.
Speaker 1: I mean nothing, I don't really have a plan in
Speaker 1: that sense, but for me, Like so, there's a guy
Speaker 1: that I train with, not the Crab who's my training partner,
Speaker 1: but another guy that trains with me quite regularly, Christian,
Speaker 1: And Christian's just this big, goofy, funny dude, right, and
Speaker 1: he makes me laugh hard, I mean, and him and
Speaker 1: I laugh at He used to work for me, so
Speaker 1: I've known him for thirty years and we used to
Speaker 1: have this. We're quite in some ways, quite different, but
Speaker 1: in some ways we have the same stupid sense of humor.
Speaker 1: And we would be able to talk about shit and
Speaker 1: nobody else knew what we were talking about at the gym. Right,
Speaker 1: wasn't always appropriate? Right, But the other day he said something.
Speaker 1: I laughed so hard I could hardly fucking breathe, right,
Speaker 1: And then he goes to me, how good's laughing? And
Speaker 1: I go, so good. So here's this fifty five year
Speaker 1: old saying that the sixty year old how Good's laughing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, laughing is so good? And it doesn't like
Speaker 1: I said to you, it's just that for me, it's
Speaker 1: just to be able to Yes, we want to do good,
Speaker 1: be good. We want to you know, we want to
Speaker 1: have a spiritual side. Perhaps we want to have meaning
Speaker 1: and purpose, and all of those things are good. But
Speaker 1: if the meaning of doing all this profound shit, you're
Speaker 1: kind of miserable. What's the fucking point? Like if there's
Speaker 1: no joy, no fun, no laughter, which I I you know,
Speaker 1: sounds judging, but I see some people I go, I
Speaker 1: don't know, you're kind of successful but kind of fucking miserable,
Speaker 1: like you never seem I'm like, I'd rather less money
Speaker 1: and more laughter, you know, totally.
Speaker 3: And it's not it's not hard to find if you
Speaker 3: just kind of you open yourself up to it and
Speaker 3: just often the stuff that is really funny is a
Speaker 3: relatable humor, and there's it's easy to find if you
Speaker 3: you know, if you look around, whether it's and luck
Speaker 3: you know, even if it's in your social media, like
Speaker 3: that technology can really lift us up, especially when somebody
Speaker 3: just posts something it's so relatable.
Speaker 2: You're just like sitting there laughing out.
Speaker 3: Loud in your own company, but much better when you're
Speaker 3: with friends.
Speaker 2: I wrote so much.
Speaker 1: Better, I reckon now is despite the resistance that some
Speaker 1: people have to you know, AI, and everyone thinks the
Speaker 1: world's going to end next fucking Wednesday, it's not everyone,
Speaker 1: so it's not. Well I could, but if it does,
Speaker 1: we won't fucking know, so happy days. But you know,
Speaker 1: like I think there's never been a better time in
Speaker 1: the sense that you know, from a perspective of being
Speaker 1: able to access so much great stuff, you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's funny stuff, or whether it's learning stuff or whether
Speaker 1: it's you know, stuff that can help you do your
Speaker 1: work or write your posts, or I don't know, build
Speaker 1: connection with other people or build relationships or I think
Speaker 1: there's just it's never been easier to be connected. Like
Speaker 1: connection is human connection, as you know, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like almost the most you know, we need air, and
Speaker 1: we need food, and we need sleep. But beyond that,
Speaker 1: from on a sociological and personal level, human connection is
Speaker 1: so fucking important and right now. Not that we want
Speaker 1: to have all our relationships or connections online, but for
Speaker 1: a lot of people who don't have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: be in front of people all the time, or who
Speaker 1: live in remote locations or who have you know, for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, can't leave the house too much, or you know,
Speaker 1: like it's just it's it's like it is a really
Speaker 1: good time in that in that sense, because you know,
Speaker 1: how much or how little we use social media or
Speaker 1: any of these tools or resources or AI. It's up
Speaker 1: to us. It's not obligatory. If you don't like it.
Speaker 1: You know, if you don't like you know this or
Speaker 1: that podcast, don't listen. If you don't like Instagram, don't
Speaker 1: go on. If you think AI is bullshit, don't use
Speaker 1: it if you know it's not that hard. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I hear it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm having similar conversations. I'm trying to learn as
Speaker 3: much about AI as I can, and you know, I
Speaker 3: understand it's really frightening. I sort of talked to mum
Speaker 3: about it recently and she was worried, you know, and
Speaker 3: I understand that there is a lot to worry about,
Speaker 3: but also there's so much good that it can do,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot to be.
Speaker 2: Very excited about.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, I'm very lucky I work with I
Speaker 3: don't know if I've ever told you Halps, but for
Speaker 3: about two and a half, maybe coming on three years,
Speaker 3: I consult to a startup.
Speaker 2: I'm on a team, we've got a platform yet. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Anyway, and when you're working with a startup, you're iterating
Speaker 3: all the time. You know, you're going in one direction,
Speaker 3: you're looking at what the market needs, you're changing and
Speaker 3: in the last few years, obviously AI last six months.
Speaker 3: You know, AI is obviously at the forefront of what
Speaker 3: most apps are kind of introducing, and so we've been
Speaker 3: on it from the start, and so that helped, I
Speaker 3: guess to get me kind of started with the way
Speaker 3: I could think about it. But like a lot of things,
Speaker 3: when we don't know a lot about it, we can
Speaker 3: be fearful, and you know that's I think human nature.
Speaker 3: But I'm actually doing a two day kind of course
Speaker 3: in Melbourne in a couple of weeks where I'm kind
Speaker 3: of going to be learning all about how I can
Speaker 3: sort of support me in my business.
Speaker 2: So I'm excited. I'm excited.
Speaker 1: Good for you, that's good. I think doing stuff like
Speaker 1: that is you know, anything can be scary if you
Speaker 1: allow it scare you, and it's it's you know, I think,
Speaker 1: I think as what is real is that things are evolving,
Speaker 1: you know, especially in terms of technology, things are evolving
Speaker 1: like never before. But you know, humans are still humans,
Speaker 1: bodies still bodies. We've still got to manage our mind
Speaker 1: and our brain and our body and our you know,
Speaker 1: our sleep and all those very normal human things. And
Speaker 1: I think what matters about all of these resources is
Speaker 1: how we interact with them, how we use them. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, well it can be terrifying or it
Speaker 1: can be fucking amazing. You know, if you had have
Speaker 1: said to me ten years ago, you're going to be
Speaker 1: doing a daily podcast. You're going to be nearly two
Speaker 1: thousand episodes deep, and you're going to have an audience
Speaker 1: around the world. And now I would have gone, what's
Speaker 1: a podcast? I would have gone, you know, you don't know,
Speaker 1: you don't know. And if not for the tech that
Speaker 1: we now have, people wouldn't have access to this and
Speaker 1: all of the other brilliant podcasts like Roll with the
Speaker 1: Punches and like well, Hello Anxiety. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: hey Joe, we're going to pull the pin. But if
Speaker 1: people want to connect with you, it's always good to
Speaker 1: chat with you. How do they do that? How do
Speaker 1: they find you and follow you? And and why don't
Speaker 1: you plug your books? Because I feel like we never
Speaker 1: plug your best selling books.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, yeah, I often don't think to do that.
Speaker 3: So yeah, Anxious Kids, How Kids Can Turn their Anxiety
Speaker 3: into Resilience is the first book, and that's really a
Speaker 3: great book for parents and teachers. And the second book
Speaker 3: is Anxious Mums, How Mums Can Turn their Anxiety into Strength.
Speaker 3: They're both available on my website or at your local bookshop.
Speaker 2: Try to support your local bookshop if you can.
Speaker 3: I tried to do that today, but they didn't stock
Speaker 3: what I needed, so you know, back online I went,
Speaker 3: but I tried for me Instagram at doctor Jody Richardson
Speaker 3: Jody with an Eye, and my website is exactly the
Speaker 3: same doctor Jodi Richardson dot com.
Speaker 2: Today, you please come and.
Speaker 3: Say hello and yeah, I'm actually excited, Craig, because I've
Speaker 3: got a new product coming I've created. I am so
Speaker 3: proud of it. An anxiety deck, a practical toolkit for parents,
Speaker 3: and it's a deck and I've oh, actually, can I
Speaker 3: quickly show you?
Speaker 1: Of course, when you say a deck, what is it? Okay?
Speaker 2: Hard deck?
Speaker 3: So this is my first text test box. So it's
Speaker 3: magnetic car lots and lots and lots of.
Speaker 1: Cards, super super fancy.
Speaker 2: You're all graphically designed so much.
Speaker 3: He's been in the in production for about twelve to
Speaker 3: eighteen months because I'm trying not to be a perfectionist,
Speaker 3: but some things I can't help it. So my next
Speaker 3: test box is coming in fairb after a few weeks,
Speaker 3: I think, and then I'll be ready to approve them
Speaker 3: and make them available. So I'm really looking forward to
Speaker 3: having something that's sort of updated available for people as well.
Speaker 1: Wow, look at you actually promoting something like a grown
Speaker 1: up with a business I couldn't be proud of.
Speaker 3: I thank you, oh, thanks for a great chat. It's
Speaker 3: always just such a joy. It's real highlight of my
Speaker 3: day when I get to chat with you. So thanks
Speaker 3: for having me back up and ely to.
Speaker 2: See you Tiff.
Speaker 1: Well, Tiff, how's your shitty microphone going?
Speaker 3: Have I?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, you fixed it a my bag? Yeah better?
Speaker 3: Yeah I can't hear me, but that's okay great.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, we can hear you now and it's not tinny.
Speaker 1: You could have spoken at any time. You go, all right,
Speaker 1: we'll say goodbye a fair but thanks everyone,