Speaker 1: Good eight team. It's harps hope, you're bloody terrific. So
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about the very common
Speaker 1: habit of getting stuck. That is spinning our wheels, that
Speaker 1: is living life or part of our life in a
Speaker 1: perpetual holding pattern, thinking about doing different while not doing different,
Speaker 1: talking about doing different and better while not doing it,
Speaker 1: talking about transformation and improvement and growth and learning and
Speaker 1: unlearning and becoming the best version of ourselves and exploring
Speaker 1: our talents and our potential and building our best whatever,
Speaker 1: while simultaneously not fucking doing it. Ah, And let's be honest.
Speaker 1: Let's be honest. That's a lot of people a lot
Speaker 1: of the time. And that's not me being critical. That's
Speaker 1: me being an observer of people. Also myself being one
Speaker 1: of those people. So there've been many times in my
Speaker 1: life when I have been I've been, I guess, trapped
Speaker 1: in a kind of a holding pattern, a holding pattern
Speaker 1: of mediocrity, like a groundhog day, like same shits, same stuff,
Speaker 1: same doing the same things with my business or my brand,
Speaker 1: or my money, or my body, or my relationships or
Speaker 1: my spiritual life or my mental health or my emotional
Speaker 1: health or my academic pursuits, my learning, commitment, my training,
Speaker 1: my nutrition, doing stuff that didn't work, but nonetheless getting
Speaker 1: up each day and essentially doing a version of what
Speaker 1: didn't work the last day, month, year, decade sometimes. So
Speaker 1: I'm very interested in, as you are well know, I'm
Speaker 1: interested in human potential. I'm interested in possibilities. I'm interested
Speaker 1: in what we can do, what I can do, what
Speaker 1: you can do when you and me get out of
Speaker 1: our own way, when I can get out of my
Speaker 1: destructive habits, my self destructive self talk, thinking, my shitty lifestyle,
Speaker 1: not so much these days, but at times, my relationships,
Speaker 1: my operating system, not just relationships with people, but relationships
Speaker 1: with food, relationships with my body, relationships with all of
Speaker 1: the things that I do, habits and behaviors, and stepping
Speaker 1: into out of the self destruction and the overthinking and
Speaker 1: the self doubt and the imposter syndrome, and slowly stepping
Speaker 1: into self awareness and self genuine self improvement and self
Speaker 1: regulation and self optimization for that matter. So many years,
Speaker 1: for many years, I worked with people who came to
Speaker 1: me to get in shape physically, and then more recently
Speaker 1: last decade or so, you know, mentally and emotionally, but
Speaker 1: who were stuck and stuck physically sometimes or stuck mentally
Speaker 1: or emotionally all three, or socially and or socially practically
Speaker 1: behaviorally you know, just in this normal operating system that
Speaker 1: doesn't work. So there's there's a there's a degree of
Speaker 1: unconsciousness that all of us in habit, and as the
Speaker 1: name suggests, we're not aware of it. That is, we
Speaker 1: unconsciously do a lot of things, and we do a
Speaker 1: lot of things that really will require very very low
Speaker 1: level decision making in that you know, we've got to
Speaker 1: open the fridge to get the thing out to put
Speaker 1: it in our mouth, but it's almost like we do
Speaker 1: that without thinking, without choosing. It's just a habit, it's
Speaker 1: a pattern, that's a ritual, it's a behavior. I feel
Speaker 1: I'm not hungry, I'm not actually hungry, I don't actually
Speaker 1: need food, but I'm having a bad day. So now
Speaker 1: I'm grabbing chocolate. Now I'm eating chocolate, I feel a
Speaker 1: bit flat, I feel a bit anxious. Now I'm grabbing booze.
Speaker 1: I fit whatever. And so we have a propensity and
Speaker 1: a tendency, many of us, to do things for an
Speaker 1: extended period of time, sometimes decades that clearly do not
Speaker 1: work for us. And when I say do not work,
Speaker 1: I'm saying do not work on the understanding or the
Speaker 1: premise that we want to be better. We don't want
Speaker 1: to be unhealthy. We don't want destructive habits. We don't
Speaker 1: want to overthink. We don't want to overdrink. We don't
Speaker 1: want to overeat. We don't want to be the procrastinator.
Speaker 1: We don't want to be the excuse maker. We don't
Speaker 1: want to be the avoid or the denier. We want
Speaker 1: to take ownership, we want to take charge. We want
Speaker 1: to optimize our genetics, optimize our potential, optimize our IQ,
Speaker 1: our intellectual capacity, optimize our creativity. We talk all the time,
Speaker 1: especially in the personal development, self help space, human performance,
Speaker 1: human behavior, we talk all the time about optimization, that is,
Speaker 1: getting the most out of ourselves. But truly, truly, as
Speaker 1: unpopular as this might be, or as uncomfortable as this
Speaker 1: might be for some to hear, and I don't know you,
Speaker 1: so clearly it's not personal, or clearly you're one of
Speaker 1: many listenings, so I'm not targeting you. So all I
Speaker 1: ask you to do is consider what I'm about to say,
Speaker 1: and that what I'm about to say is that some
Speaker 1: of you have probably been doing things that don't work
Speaker 1: for a very long time, and maybe lots of things
Speaker 1: that don't work. And if on some level you've kind
Speaker 1: of resigned yourself to that fact and you're kind of
Speaker 1: okay with it, then okay. However, if you're not okay
Speaker 1: with it, if you are sick of being the one
Speaker 1: day soon person, the almost person. I listened to so
Speaker 1: much self help and personal development, behavioral change, in neuroscience
Speaker 1: and neuropsychology and nutrition, and I've read every fucking thing
Speaker 1: and listen to every fucking thing. But here I am,
Speaker 1: and I'm still in groundhog day. I'm still spinning my wheels,
Speaker 1: I'm still going nowhere fast. I'm still in a perpetual
Speaker 1: holding pattern of mediocrity and dissatisfaction and wasted time, talent,
Speaker 1: and energy. If that's you, then then one, do you
Speaker 1: need to figure out if you're really desperately, passionately committed
Speaker 1: to changing that? And then two, whether or not you
Speaker 1: are genuinely willing to pay the price of whatever is
Speaker 1: required to create that shift on planet you. And this
Speaker 1: is the big kind of gap, This is the chasm
Speaker 1: between the idea and the action and the idea. Everyone's
Speaker 1: in love with the idea. Everyone's in love with the
Speaker 1: idea of better. Everyone's in love with the idea of
Speaker 1: lean and strong and functional and successful and joyful and
Speaker 1: wealthy and focused and fulfilled. We love all that shit
Speaker 1: because who doesn't want that. We all want that or
Speaker 1: a version of that. I rarely speak to people who
Speaker 1: say I am totally content. I don't want anything else.
Speaker 1: This is a whole other conversation, by the way, but
Speaker 1: I'm there, I don't need any more. I'm happy. I'm content,
Speaker 1: you know, for the most part, not anxious. Life's great.
Speaker 1: That's generally not the case. And there's another conversation, as
Speaker 1: I said to you, had around that. But for the moment,
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about whether or not
Speaker 1: you are genuinely ready. Firstly, I'm going to operate on
Speaker 1: the assumption that you are at the very least interested
Speaker 1: in getting unstuck, interested in getting out of your own way,
Speaker 1: interested in stepping out of the rules and habits and
Speaker 1: rituals and the perpetual holding pattern that you may be
Speaker 1: in in some areas of your life that doesn't work
Speaker 1: or don't work. To step out of that. So firstly,
Speaker 1: let's talk about what are the drivers? What are the
Speaker 1: things which cause us to get stuck? And so this
Speaker 1: list is not in terms of significance or important. They
Speaker 1: are all equally important. And some of these may relate
Speaker 1: to you, some of them may not. It's seven or
Speaker 1: eight or nine maybe, And some of them seem like
Speaker 1: overly simple. Well, come on, Craig, I need more than that.
Speaker 1: I need some deeper science. I need something more profound
Speaker 1: than that. I need something more wise and insightful and
Speaker 1: deep than laziness. For example, this sounds funny, but I
Speaker 1: just meet people who are fucking lazy, and that's why
Speaker 1: they're stuck. It's not even that they're scared, they're just lazy.
Speaker 1: They just don't They just don't want to do the work.
Speaker 1: They like the idea of the outcome, they like the
Speaker 1: idea of the destination, but they are not ready to
Speaker 1: get up every day and walk the path, or drive
Speaker 1: the path, or take the path, or or take the journey.
Speaker 1: Like the destination, the idea of the outcome is brilliant,
Speaker 1: but the idea of doing what's required to create that outcome,
Speaker 1: they're like, ah soon, And so you know, if laziness
Speaker 1: is the overriding kind of factor, then we're stuck. And
Speaker 1: so that and I think sometimes that that kind of
Speaker 1: general apathy, laziness, apathy, lack of motivation, perhaps they're tied
Speaker 1: in together. And my just my thoughts. This is not science,
Speaker 1: this is my thoughts. I think that, as I've said
Speaker 1: a lot on this show, there's almost like a psychological
Speaker 1: and or emotional tipping point for a lot of us,
Speaker 1: and that is we kind of just go. We just
Speaker 1: kind of trudge along in blah, you know, in Blasville,
Speaker 1: in mediocrity in three out of ten, and it's not
Speaker 1: fulfilling or rewarding or awesome or joyful, but it's also
Speaker 1: not complete shit. It's okay. There are moments of okayness,
Speaker 1: and you know, until we get to that point where
Speaker 1: we associate more pain with staying in it than getting
Speaker 1: out of it, most of us will stay in it.
Speaker 1: And you can see as an observer of human behavior,
Speaker 1: you can see people staying in things, sometimes relationships or
Speaker 1: jobs or situations or circumstances or environments or patterns or habits,
Speaker 1: staying in things that really don't work, but on some
Speaker 1: level they're scared of the option. They're scared of the work,
Speaker 1: They're scared of the unknown, They're scared of the uncertainty.
Speaker 1: Should they shut the door on that thing and step
Speaker 1: away and head in a new direction with no safety
Speaker 1: in it? So fear comes into it, laziness, apathy, fear. Mindset. Now,
Speaker 1: when I talk about mindset, clearly we could and we
Speaker 1: have done many shows on this, But it's, you know,
Speaker 1: being aware that my mind is not in charge of me.
Speaker 1: I am in charge of my mind. And yes I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about my brain here. My brain is different,
Speaker 1: is a different animal. But in terms of managing regulating
Speaker 1: my thoughts, what I pay attention to, what I focus on?
Speaker 1: Am I the problem person? Am I the solution person?
Speaker 1: Am I making good decisions? How do I process the
Speaker 1: world around me? What is the thing that happened? What
Speaker 1: is my story that I'm telling myself about the thing
Speaker 1: that happened? Why do I think the way that I think?
Speaker 1: Where does my thinking come from? What role does my
Speaker 1: programming play in my current internal paradigm, in my internal framework?
Speaker 1: What role does my programming play in terms of how
Speaker 1: I live and what I do and my values and
Speaker 1: so on? So, becoming aware of these internal kind of
Speaker 1: drivers that influence, perhaps determine whether or not we stay
Speaker 1: stuck or we move self doubt. Self doubt is like
Speaker 1: almost a pandemic, you know, aversion to discomfort spoken about
Speaker 1: a lot of times. People want the work, they don't
Speaker 1: want the pain, self limiting thinking, crap, self esteem, and
Speaker 1: so on. And the truth is that at some stage,
Speaker 1: should we really want to move forward, we need to
Speaker 1: feel what we feel. Feel lazy, feel not good enough,
Speaker 1: feel like a fraud, feel like an impostor, but nonetheless
Speaker 1: start the ball rolling. I've spent most of my life
Speaker 1: still feeling like the insecure, fat kid that got picked
Speaker 1: last for every sporting team. At some stages, I feel
Speaker 1: like that. I don't feel like literally that, I just
Speaker 1: that those emotional and psychological remnants live on. You know.
Speaker 1: I could be in the middle of, like right now,
Speaker 1: sharing this with you, at the same time feeling like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is shit and no one's going to enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Like that. Self doubt never fully goes away from me,
Speaker 1: that imposter syndrome, not good enough, not smart enough, not
Speaker 1: academic enough, not lean enough, not likable enough, not fucking
Speaker 1: it what. That stuff never fully goes away. It doesn't
Speaker 1: dominate me, it doesn't render me paralyzed. But do I
Speaker 1: ever feel supremely confident? Never? I never feel that I
Speaker 1: feel somewhat confident. I feel content and pretty calm and
Speaker 1: pretty satisfied most of the time. But what I know
Speaker 1: is that the psychological awareness that I can do things,
Speaker 1: I'm not useless. I can succeed, I can write well,
Speaker 1: I can speak well, I can talk to an audience.
Speaker 1: I can build a business and brand, while also knowing
Speaker 1: that I've fucked up a lot of things and all
Speaker 1: of that. But that knowledge that I can do well, oh,
Speaker 1: exists at the same time with those feelings, those emotions
Speaker 1: of inadequacy and self doubt and periodic self loathing. And
Speaker 1: that's not weird or broken or terrible. That's normal. Even
Speaker 1: the people that I've worked with that many of you
Speaker 1: would know that are high performers in the in the
Speaker 1: areas of thoughts or politics, or media or entertainment or
Speaker 1: the creative arts. Some of the people that I've worked
Speaker 1: with that are wildly successful are also insecure, also riddled
Speaker 1: with self doubt, also have self esteem issues, also could
Speaker 1: talk themselves into analysis paralysis in a second. So if
Speaker 1: any of that is you. That is not a reason
Speaker 1: to not succeed. You can be scared and successful. You
Speaker 1: can be inherently kind of naturally lazy while choosing to
Speaker 1: be active and proactive. You can do that. You can
Speaker 1: override things. My genetic default setting is endomorphic, which is
Speaker 1: I gain fat very easily. But my genetics don't need
Speaker 1: to be my destiny because what I look, feel, and
Speaker 1: function like is about twenty to thirty percent about my genetics.
Speaker 1: The rest is about what I do, and what I
Speaker 1: do is optional. What I eat is optional, how I
Speaker 1: live is optional. How I move my body, whether or
Speaker 1: not I drink booze or use drugs, or how I
Speaker 1: sleep or how much I sleep, or how I put
Speaker 1: all this shit together. My over arching values, my overarching
Speaker 1: operating system for life. There are We can rationalize anything
Speaker 1: if we want, if we want to come up with
Speaker 1: a reason why we're not succeeding, and life's not fair
Speaker 1: and my mum did this or my dad. And I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to be disrespectful to people who've been through
Speaker 1: legit trauma. Of course we recognize that and respect that,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, guess what a lot of
Speaker 1: people have been through trauma and a lot of people
Speaker 1: have been through some horrible shit. I interviewed Joelsarti the
Speaker 1: other day, who's speaking on our program, who went to Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: served for Australia in the military, spent eight months there
Speaker 1: on an active tour, came back, was having a quick
Speaker 1: break before he went back to Afghanistan, fell over, railing,
Speaker 1: railing on some stairs, broke his neck, broke his neck
Speaker 1: is a quadriplegic. Now, if anyone's got a reason to
Speaker 1: get stuck, it's that, dude. If you want to rationalize
Speaker 1: doing nothing, feeling sorry for yourself, being in a holding pattern,
Speaker 1: you know, getting stuck in all kinds of ways, you
Speaker 1: would look at, at least from the outside looking in,
Speaker 1: and look at that scenario and what happened to Jijol
Speaker 1: and go, man, I get it. I get it. But
Speaker 1: guess what, He's not stuck in the middle of the
Speaker 1: mess and the mayhem and the pain and the dysfunction
Speaker 1: and the physiological limitations and all of the challenges, massive
Speaker 1: challenges of adapting to a brand new life in a
Speaker 1: body that doesn't work as it once did. In the
Speaker 1: middle of all of that, he's growing and he's learning
Speaker 1: and he's developing skills and insight and awareness, and he's courageous,
Speaker 1: and he's doing fucking amazing shit. And you can do too.
Speaker 1: We all can. It doesn't mean we can all do anything.
Speaker 1: We can't all run one hundred meters in ten seconds,
Speaker 1: we can't all win a Grammy. We can't all become
Speaker 1: president or prime minister. We can't just practically, we can't
Speaker 1: because we can't have a million prime ministers at once.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of stuff that we can do.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff that we can do. So
Speaker 1: let's have a look at some ideas on how to
Speaker 1: get unstuck. So I've got a list for you, because
Speaker 1: you know the occasional list doesn't hurt. Number one is,
Speaker 1: recognize your stuckness. Like that, Recognize that you are stuck,
Speaker 1: that you are trapped, that you are in a holding pattern,
Speaker 1: that you are spinning your wheels, whatever metaphor you want
Speaker 1: to what to use, but recognize that you are stuck
Speaker 1: and identify the cause. So for a very long time,
Speaker 1: for example, with my body, my starkness, my holding pattern,
Speaker 1: my inability to look or feel or perform or achieve
Speaker 1: the level of health and performance, and body composition that
Speaker 1: I wanted for me. The cause was food, specifically, my
Speaker 1: relationship with food, specifically, how I thought about food, how
Speaker 1: I chose food, how I behaved with food and around food,
Speaker 1: how I socialized, how I bullshitted myself with food, how
Speaker 1: I lied to people. People would ask me about what
Speaker 1: I eat, and I would be too embarrassed at times
Speaker 1: to tell them really what I ate sometimes, so I
Speaker 1: would make up some bullshit to sound good, And so
Speaker 1: I was in a holding pattern. I was stuck. I
Speaker 1: had this toxic, destructive relationship with food. By the way,
Speaker 1: food wasn't the problem is the problem. It's just that
Speaker 1: food was the epicenter of the problem. And so that
Speaker 1: was for me, you know, owning up and stepping up
Speaker 1: and being honest and raw and real. And the reason
Speaker 1: that I share that this was part of my journey
Speaker 1: is because I know other people do the same. I
Speaker 1: know that I don't live on an island in this respect.
Speaker 1: I'm not Robinson Cruz. I'm not the only person to
Speaker 1: have done this. I've spoken to maybe thousands of people
Speaker 1: who have very very complicated relationships with their body, very
Speaker 1: complicated relationships with food and with exercise and with self
Speaker 1: esteem and with body image and body dysmorphia. And I
Speaker 1: think the starting point for a lot of us, the
Speaker 1: unstuck getting unstuck starting point is just being fucking honest.
Speaker 1: I eat shit. I don't need the end not ah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but my genetics. But yeah, but you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: want to offend anyone, but oh it was all I
Speaker 1: could get my hands on. Ah, but it was my birthday,
Speaker 1: but it was it was you know, and you're fifty there,
Speaker 1: and now you're fifty and you're still telling yourself why
Speaker 1: you're not doing the things that you allegedly want to do. Like,
Speaker 1: you will not accidentally get in great shape. You will
Speaker 1: not accidentally have a fucking awesome body, awesome health, amazing
Speaker 1: immune system. You will not accidentally run a fucking marathon
Speaker 1: or whatever it is that or build a business or
Speaker 1: build a brand, or do an undergrad degree or overcoming it.
Speaker 1: You'll not accidentally do these things. We need to acknowledge
Speaker 1: the reality of us. This is why I'm doing a
Speaker 1: Part of why I'm doing a PhD in self awareness,
Speaker 1: literally is because self awareness with so much of this
Speaker 1: stuff is the starting point. Not self loathing, not self hate,
Speaker 1: self awareness, This is what I'm doing. Okay, my life's
Speaker 1: not working in this text. What part of the problem
Speaker 1: am I? It's not to say you're always the totality
Speaker 1: of the problem, but let's just be brave for a
Speaker 1: moment and courageous and grown up and mature and let's go, yeah, look,
Speaker 1: at least I'm part of the problem, all right. Number
Speaker 1: two is this identify the thing that you're not doing
Speaker 1: that you should be doing. So what might that be
Speaker 1: for you? Maybe that is maybe that is you need
Speaker 1: to study thirty minutes every morning. Maybe that is you
Speaker 1: need to start having a cold shower every day. Maybe
Speaker 1: that is you need to commit to some I don't
Speaker 1: know what it is, doesn't matter. It could be something
Speaker 1: to do with your kids or your partner. Could be
Speaker 1: something to do with your career. Could be something to
Speaker 1: do with your physical, mental, or emotional health. It could
Speaker 1: be something to do with a toxic relationship that you
Speaker 1: need to deal with. It could be something to do
Speaker 1: with your lifestyle. It could be a million things. But
Speaker 1: what is the thing that you're not doing that you
Speaker 1: know you should be. Number three is kind of an
Speaker 1: expansion of that, and that is to do a stop,
Speaker 1: take or audit on what's working and what's not working
Speaker 1: on planet you. And this is not something that you
Speaker 1: do in three minutes driving to work, listening to the radio,
Speaker 1: looking for a park. This is something that I think
Speaker 1: really we need to take seriously about when we talk
Speaker 1: about living consciously. We spoke before about unconscious stuff and
Speaker 1: how you know. In many ways, for a range of reasons,
Speaker 1: many of us are periodic passengers in our own life.
Speaker 1: That is, life has its own energy, Life has its
Speaker 1: own life force, Life has its own momentum, and life
Speaker 1: happens despite us. Life keeps going on, and the things
Speaker 1: that we are in the middle of have their own
Speaker 1: momentum and energy as well. And sometimes we need to
Speaker 1: get out of that river, that ever flowing river that
Speaker 1: we are sitting in our canoe just being swept, that
Speaker 1: we need to paddle to the side. We need to
Speaker 1: get to the metaphoric bank, pull up our canoe and
Speaker 1: our paddle, sit on the metaphoric rock and just take
Speaker 1: a minute. Take a minute, get out of the river,
Speaker 1: get out of the momentum, get out of the busyness,
Speaker 1: get out of the never endingness, even if it's for
Speaker 1: thirty minutes to sit. No phone no computer, no distractions,
Speaker 1: just you thinking about how's my life going? How is
Speaker 1: my life going, how's my body going? What about my rituals?
Speaker 1: What about my social life? What about my sleep? What
Speaker 1: about my self talk? What about my mental health? How's
Speaker 1: that going on? What's that about? What about? What about
Speaker 1: the results that I'm producing? Are they the results I
Speaker 1: want to produce? If not, why not? What am I doing?
Speaker 1: What could I do better? One of the challenges for
Speaker 1: us is that, obviously my world view is subjective. All
Speaker 1: of my experiences are influenced by the goings on in
Speaker 1: my external world, but ultimately created by me. And when
Speaker 1: I say me, I say my brain, my mind, my
Speaker 1: data processing center. I am always doing a subjective assessment,
Speaker 1: an interpretation of objective things. Something happens to me around
Speaker 1: me despite me, a person, a situation and outcome, a result,
Speaker 1: the weather, some piece of news. Then what I do,
Speaker 1: automatically and almost unconsciously, is I break it down and
Speaker 1: I give it meaning. And one of the challenges for us,
Speaker 1: in the continuity and the never endingness of the human
Speaker 1: experience and the never ending stream of information and energy
Speaker 1: and people and events, is to be able to find
Speaker 1: some space, some metaphoric space, sometimes some literal space to say, well,
Speaker 1: here I am, I'm thirty, I'm forty, I'm fifty. How
Speaker 1: long have I been thinking about changing these things? How
Speaker 1: many times have I had the same story or told
Speaker 1: myself the same or others the same story about the
Speaker 1: same things that I'm going to change soon. I'm going
Speaker 1: to I'm doing it soon. But here I am and
Speaker 1: now I'm fifty and I'm not doing it. What are
Speaker 1: the things that on planet me are not working? And
Speaker 1: what are the things that are working? What are my
Speaker 1: results telling me? What's my life telling me? What are
Speaker 1: my relationships telling me? Things won't accidentally get better. You
Speaker 1: and I will do the audit. We will observe the thing,
Speaker 1: recognize the thing, We'll take ownership of the thing, and
Speaker 1: then will work to change the thing that needs to
Speaker 1: be changed, or we won't. That's up to you, that's
Speaker 1: up to me. Number four on my how to get
Speaker 1: Unstuck list is choose to do what scares you. That
Speaker 1: is the thing that you need to do to create
Speaker 1: the outcome you want. I'm not just talking about what
Speaker 1: scares you running in front of a truck. Do that,
Speaker 1: And no, of course not I'm talking about strategic, intelligent,
Speaker 1: purpose driven facing your fear. Be courageous. Your goal is
Speaker 1: not to be fearless. Your goal is not to eradicate
Speaker 1: all self doubt. Your goal is, despite your fear, despite
Speaker 1: your overthinking, despite your self doubt, despite your insecurity, do
Speaker 1: something really fucking brave because you can. Because you can.
Speaker 1: I know you don't want to sometimes, I know that
Speaker 1: you doubt yourself. At the very least, you're going to
Speaker 1: have an experience. You might fuck up, you might fall
Speaker 1: down metaphorically, you might get it wrong, and then at
Speaker 1: the end of that you have a challenge. By the way,
Speaker 1: you might get it right, might be fucking great. Whatever
Speaker 1: the outcome is, you're going to learn something. You're going
Speaker 1: to learn something. I've spent years doing things that didn't work.
Speaker 1: In fact, most of the things that I tried, at
Speaker 1: least initially didn't work, or I got a four out
Speaker 1: of ten, not a ten out of ten outcome, sometimes
Speaker 1: a minus two out of ten. And that is because
Speaker 1: I knew. I knew that I well, I didn't know.
Speaker 1: Actually I thought that I could probably do this thing eventually,
Speaker 1: But in the moment, at the start, I knew that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't win. I knew that I wouldn't get it right.
Speaker 1: I knew that it wouldn't be perfect. I knew that
Speaker 1: it would be flawed. But I also knew that that
Speaker 1: imperfection and that flaw and that three or two out
Speaker 1: of ten result was a pathway. It was a conduit
Speaker 1: to understanding and skill and development and growth and better outcomes.
Speaker 1: It's in the middle of doing the things that scare
Speaker 1: me that I get better. It's in the middle of
Speaker 1: doing the things that I'm uncomfortable with, that I'm unfamiliar with,
Speaker 1: around which there is little or no certainty. It's in
Speaker 1: the middle of that that I become the best version
Speaker 1: of me. It's in the middle of letting fear control
Speaker 1: me that I become the worst version of me. Because
Speaker 1: if I don't manage my fear, it will manage me.
Speaker 1: And I do want to not be ah a prisoner
Speaker 1: in my own emotions, and neither do you. Number five
Speaker 1: is practical, not sexy, not mind blowing. Number five is
Speaker 1: right yourself for to do list, and that might just
Speaker 1: be two things, that might be two hundred things. Let's
Speaker 1: probably not go with two hundred Right yourself a to
Speaker 1: do list and fully commit to it, Like fully, this
Speaker 1: is me, Now, this is what I do. Now, remove
Speaker 1: the escape clause and the safety net, take away the
Speaker 1: get out a jail card. Tell somebody else, perhaps, so
Speaker 1: that now you've got a level of accountability. Take the
Speaker 1: emotion whatever it is that you feel, the thing that
Speaker 1: you want to do, that you're excited about but scared
Speaker 1: to do. And then with that emotion, that excitement, that goal,
Speaker 1: that vision, that dream, that thing that you want to change,
Speaker 1: that thing that you are moved to change or do
Speaker 1: or be or create, take that emotion and wrap it
Speaker 1: in a strategy, Wrap it in a plan, Wrap it
Speaker 1: in logic, wrap it in accountability, wrap it in wrap it.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying rabid rap wrap wrap it in something
Speaker 1: which is almost impossible for you to not operationalize. In
Speaker 1: other words, do so many people set themselves kind of
Speaker 1: a goal or write themselves a to do list, but
Speaker 1: they're on no level committed. Like if I'm fully committed
Speaker 1: to something, fully committed, I mean mentally, emotionally, behaviorally, one
Speaker 1: boots and all. Then on the days when I don't
Speaker 1: feel disciplined, I'm not you know, ah, inspired, I'm not motivated,
Speaker 1: I'm not feeling it. I'm not loving it. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter because I'm fully committed. So barring sickness or injury
Speaker 1: or some unavoidable reason, but barring that, I'm doing it.
Speaker 1: And the reason that I'm doing it is because I
Speaker 1: am fully invested and fully committed to this process to
Speaker 1: create the thing I want to create. And we need
Speaker 1: to get our head around the idea that this won't
Speaker 1: be fun, quick, easy, or painless. And not only is
Speaker 1: that okay, it's fucking great because in the middle of
Speaker 1: all of that, I'm still going to I'm going to
Speaker 1: create better results anyway because I'm doing the workhead down,
Speaker 1: bum up, I'm focused. But also the bonus and maybe
Speaker 1: even the real gift in the middle of all of this,
Speaker 1: is that I'm becoming better. I am making me a
Speaker 1: stronger me, a better me, a more resilient me, a
Speaker 1: more capable me, a more resourceful creative me, and hopefully
Speaker 1: a better me others a better leader, a better communicator,
Speaker 1: a better dad, a better mum, a better sister, a
Speaker 1: better brother, a better friend, a better problem solver, a
Speaker 1: better creator. Like this is kind of the refiner's fire,
Speaker 1: where we put ourselves in the fire of that challenge
Speaker 1: and we come out the other side. Ah, So that
Speaker 1: was five and six. Number seven is extricate yourself from
Speaker 1: people who perpetuate your stuckness. Oh, I'll say that again.
Speaker 1: Extricate yourself from the people who from people who perpetuate
Speaker 1: your stuckness. In other words, as much as possible. And
Speaker 1: I know there are a lot of variables around this.
Speaker 1: You say, yeah, cool, Craig, but what if one of
Speaker 1: those people is my partner, or my brother, or my
Speaker 1: sister or my Barcelma. I get it. And so that's
Speaker 1: why this is global, that's why this is broad in general,
Speaker 1: but as much as possible. When you realize that there
Speaker 1: is a personal person's on planet you and we're not
Speaker 1: blaming them, but we realize that perhaps they are a contributor,
Speaker 1: then either if possible, if possible and appropriate, we extricate
Speaker 1: ourselves from that relationship or that environment, or we perhaps
Speaker 1: change the dynamic, that is, we maybe see them less,
Speaker 1: we maybe realize there are certain conversations we don't have
Speaker 1: with them. There are people in my life virtue of
Speaker 1: situation and circumstance who are over my journey, have not
Speaker 1: been encouraging or supportive and that's okay. Have not had
Speaker 1: faith in me or confidence in me, and have at
Speaker 1: times undermined, questioned, and done a whole lot of things
Speaker 1: that really did not help me to move forward to
Speaker 1: grow to a vole. In fact, if I had have
Speaker 1: paid too much attention, and I did pay too much attention,
Speaker 1: but if I hadn't have been able to extricate myself
Speaker 1: from that influence, I would not have done a lot
Speaker 1: of the things I've done. And I'm definitely no high
Speaker 1: watermark for success or post a boyd for success. But
Speaker 1: I've done some really cool things and I'm very happy
Speaker 1: and proud of that. But I realize that there are
Speaker 1: certain people that although I may have to have a
Speaker 1: relationship with them courtesy of just my life or situation,
Speaker 1: there are certain people that I won't have particular conversations with,
Speaker 1: I won't open certain doors. And that doesn't mean I
Speaker 1: hate those people are dislike them. It doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: at all. It just means it just means that there
Speaker 1: are there will always be people who don't understand you,
Speaker 1: or your potential, or your possibilities or your vision. And
Speaker 1: that's okay. We're not about hating on people. We're just
Speaker 1: about realizing, Okay, I need to And by the way,
Speaker 1: we're not just looking for people who tell us what
Speaker 1: we want to hear. That's the opposite of what we need.
Speaker 1: But we're talking about people who people who genuinely love
Speaker 1: us and care about us and will support us, but
Speaker 1: also give us intelligent, critical feedback, you know, when required.
Speaker 1: So we don't need the haters, and we don't need
Speaker 1: the over the top, gushy, backslapping, you know, support group.
Speaker 1: We don't need that because that can create problems of itself.
Speaker 1: But just realize that who you hang around with matters.
Speaker 1: In other words, hang out with people who drag you up.
Speaker 1: So that I kind of meshed seven and eight there.
Speaker 1: So number nine is this do new things again? What
Speaker 1: are we talking about. We're talking about getting unstuck. Do
Speaker 1: new things, step into unfamiliar territory. I know that when
Speaker 1: I do new things with new people in new environments,
Speaker 1: I expose myself to new ideas. I expose myself to
Speaker 1: even different cultures and conversations and people. When I do
Speaker 1: something unme all of a sudden, I'm doing something new
Speaker 1: in a way that I've never done it, perhaps different place,
Speaker 1: different experiences, and it opens my brain. It makes me
Speaker 1: realize that I've been living in a corridor or an
Speaker 1: echo chamber. At times, when we have new experiences, it
Speaker 1: exposes us to things that we are generally not exposed
Speaker 1: to in our day to day. Sometimes it builds or
Speaker 1: arouses curiosity. Sometimes it creates awareness or insights. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: gives us a different understanding. Sometimes it creates momentum. You know,
Speaker 1: for example, the amount of people that I have worked
Speaker 1: with over the years that have done something physical which
Speaker 1: was a challenge for the first time, and I coached
Speaker 1: them towards that. They did the work, they did the event,
Speaker 1: they got the outcome, not me, but I supported and
Speaker 1: coached them towards that. So somebody who'd never run in
Speaker 1: their life, never run one kilometer, always consider themselves unfit, unhealthy,
Speaker 1: a complete non athlete. People I've trained up to eventually
Speaker 1: do marathons, but even say a ten k or a
Speaker 1: five k fun run. When something amazing happens, when people
Speaker 1: do shit that they never thought they could do and
Speaker 1: they get unstuck, they get unstuck, they get out of
Speaker 1: the groundhog danus of overthinking to an extent anyway, But
Speaker 1: what it does is it opens It opens new doors.
Speaker 1: It opens possibilities and understanding of possibilities and understanding of potential.
Speaker 1: Because when people do something that they never thought they
Speaker 1: could do, instantly they have a new belief. Or the
Speaker 1: belief is I can run a marathon. I know because
Speaker 1: I just ran one or a half marathon. The belief
Speaker 1: is like, oh wow, I actually have more capacity and
Speaker 1: moretential then I believed. I got it wrong? What else
Speaker 1: did I get wrong? If I can do this, what
Speaker 1: else can I do? If I can get out of
Speaker 1: my own way and run a marathon, or register a
Speaker 1: business or build a business, or do a degree, or
Speaker 1: lose thirty kilos or menda relationship or overcome a distractive habit.
Speaker 1: If I can do that, what else can I do?
Speaker 1: And it's in the doing of especially new things that
Speaker 1: we've never tried, that we change and that we open
Speaker 1: new doors and we create momentum. You know, it seems
Speaker 1: I'm kind of weird perhaps that I say I'm not
Speaker 1: particularly academic, But I'm not particularly academic, That's just the truth.
Speaker 1: But I'm in the middle of this academic journey right now,
Speaker 1: and apart from the you know, the work, and hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll see hopefully the outcome of a PhD and all
Speaker 1: of that stuff, which is, you know, interesting, I guess
Speaker 1: the good achievement and all that, But you know what's
Speaker 1: really interesting for me is I just know so much
Speaker 1: different stuff now. I just have a different insight. And
Speaker 1: I'm not a better person than I was, but I've
Speaker 1: had in the last four years of my PhD journey
Speaker 1: so many new experiences, new conversations, new insights in new environments,
Speaker 1: being exposed to new ideas, and just so much stuff
Speaker 1: that is so different from the rest of my life
Speaker 1: that it's fucking mind blowing. And it just and honestly like,
Speaker 1: what are we now do I'm sixty next month, which
Speaker 1: is fucking ridiculous, But I've never been maybe I've been
Speaker 1: this excited, but I've never been more excited. I don't
Speaker 1: think I've never been more curious, like to do, to
Speaker 1: keep learning, to keep evolving, to keep optimizing everything from
Speaker 1: my body to my brain, to my knowledge, to my performance,
Speaker 1: to my emotional state, to my outcomes, to my relationships,
Speaker 1: to my business and brand and all of those things.
Speaker 1: I'm so fucking excited because my life is well. Fortunately, yeah, fortunately,
Speaker 1: I'm very blessed and very lucky. I acknowledge that. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, I've worked like a motherfucker for
Speaker 1: forty years. I've born in a great country with great parents,
Speaker 1: and so I had lots of I had a running start,
Speaker 1: as most of us who were born in Australia did
Speaker 1: not all. But it's for me a lifetime of doing
Speaker 1: new things and to stepping into unfamiliar territory, to exposing
Speaker 1: myself to new things, hard things, difficult, unfamiliar things. For me,
Speaker 1: that's what's kept me unstuck, opening businesses, building, helping build
Speaker 1: an industry, person training, writing the first course, writing books,
Speaker 1: getting books published and distributed, working on the radio, working
Speaker 1: in television, going back to or start doing my first
Speaker 1: degree at thirty six years of age, going back at
Speaker 1: fifty six. You know, for another crack, just this capacity
Speaker 1: that we all have to just keep doing new things,
Speaker 1: having new experiences, that we might keep growing and learning
Speaker 1: and evolving. Number ten is a bit deep and philosophical,
Speaker 1: but that's me tap into you. Number ten is tap
Speaker 1: into your internal sat Nab. And if you know me,
Speaker 1: you've heard this term many times. Your internal sat Nab
Speaker 1: is that kind of knowing, that wisdom that insight, that
Speaker 1: intelligence that comes from I don't know where. Maybe it's instinct,
Speaker 1: maybe it's intuition, maybe it's divine. I don't know what
Speaker 1: it is. I really do not know what it is.
Speaker 1: But I do know that I have that you have.
Speaker 1: That we all have a knowledge, a knowing, and an
Speaker 1: understanding and a level of wisdom and insight that is innate.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about things that we got taught or
Speaker 1: things that we got told, or I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: acquired knowledge. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: in the middle of the bullshit, there's always this still
Speaker 1: quiet voice. There's always this deep seated knowing of what
Speaker 1: we should do and shouldn't do. And sometimes we just
Speaker 1: drowned that out with noise and with chaos and with
Speaker 1: busyness and booze and drugs and lack of focus and attention.
Speaker 1: But when we can be still, where we can hit
Speaker 1: the pause button, when we can find some space and
Speaker 1: some time and some quiet, then we can realize and
Speaker 1: come to see and understand things that we don't when
Speaker 1: we're in our head, when we're trapped in our head,
Speaker 1: when we're trapped in the momentum and the chaos of life.
Speaker 1: And this requires again discipline, This requires some time. This
Speaker 1: is not something that you can do in the middle
Speaker 1: of the bullshit. This is something that require you. Maybe
Speaker 1: it means that five minutes, you know you have fourteen
Speaker 1: hundred and forty minutes a day. Maybe it means five
Speaker 1: minutes you sit somewhere and you try to switch off
Speaker 1: and you just see what comes up for you. You
Speaker 1: just feel what you feel, and maybe you get out
Speaker 1: of your head and maybe you get into your heart,
Speaker 1: maybe you see what's going on in there. Number eleven,
Speaker 1: we've got three more to go. Number eleven is keep trying.
Speaker 1: And that's one of those things you think, well, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to say that, But the truth is people
Speaker 1: don't keep trying. The truth is people try and then
Speaker 1: they stop. But if they kept trying and they kept
Speaker 1: trying and they improvised and adapted, you know, and overcame
Speaker 1: and survived and just figured it out and fell down
Speaker 1: and got up and fell down and got up and
Speaker 1: you know, fucked up and got back up, and you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes it just comes down to not giving up. That's
Speaker 1: not sexy, that doesn't require three HDS. You didn't need
Speaker 1: to pay for that but some people just don't give up,
Speaker 1: and they're not, you know, and they outperformed people with
Speaker 1: more talent and skill and a higher IQ and better genetics.
Speaker 1: And I think part of the reason I've done okay
Speaker 1: is that, like and for me, I've said this before,
Speaker 1: because I wasn't the naturally gifted, talented, genetically blessed kid,
Speaker 1: I always had to work harder for everything. I had
Speaker 1: to work harder to get in shape, and harder to
Speaker 1: make sporting teams, and harder to get academic results, and
Speaker 1: harder to even fit in socially because I wasn't the
Speaker 1: naturally charming, charismatic, gifted kid. I wasn't that, And so
Speaker 1: my my mediocrity in some ways for me was a gift,
Speaker 1: and it was a gift that turned into resilience. It
Speaker 1: was the gift that turned into the capacity that I
Speaker 1: have to keep going to not give up, to be
Speaker 1: able to deal with what many people would call failures.
Speaker 1: I will generally call them insight into you know, what's
Speaker 1: working and what's not. Fall down, Get up, all down,
Speaker 1: six times, get up seven. Number twelve. This is an
Speaker 1: interesting one. Actually, Now I'm going to do that one
Speaker 1: last number, so we'll call this one number twelve. You
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm talking about, but I just switched
Speaker 1: my own list around. Number twelve is build a new
Speaker 1: relationship with this comfort. I talk about this too much, probably,
Speaker 1: but I'm saying this for those of you who are
Speaker 1: relatively new and haven't heard much of me. I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you that our capacity to be able to
Speaker 1: deal with discomfort and do things that we don't want
Speaker 1: to do and things that are not fun, quick, easy,
Speaker 1: or painless, that is a superpower. That is a personal
Speaker 1: development superpower because when we can and when we can
Speaker 1: lean into the discomfort, when we can when we can
Speaker 1: embrace the hard thing, when we can choose to physically, mentally,
Speaker 1: emotionally work against resistance. Just like we go to the gym,
Speaker 1: we work against resistance. The byproduct is strength. The byproduct
Speaker 1: is we build resilience and capacity and insight. We do
Speaker 1: a hard thing and we develop. And when we are
Speaker 1: prepared to change our relationship with discomfort, that is, we
Speaker 1: are prepared to lean into the pain in an intelligent, strategic,
Speaker 1: not a reckless or silly way, but prepared to embrace
Speaker 1: pain on a daily basis sometimes or embrace discomfort, then
Speaker 1: we accelerate our growth, we accelerate our learning, we accelerate
Speaker 1: our resilience. Every day in my life, I do things
Speaker 1: that I don't want to do, things that are uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: but things that I need to do to live my
Speaker 1: best life. Every day, every day I do things that
Speaker 1: if it was just up to my comfort level or
Speaker 1: what I would like to do, or what is fun
Speaker 1: or what is convenient, there's shit that I would absolutely
Speaker 1: not do. But because of my commitment to being the
Speaker 1: best version of me, I do that stuff on autopilot.
Speaker 1: I don't overthink it because I realized that's the commitment.
Speaker 1: That's the price that I need to invest every day.
Speaker 1: That's the emotional, physical, mental investment that I need to
Speaker 1: make every day to create the outcomes I want to create.
Speaker 1: And the last one, Number thirteen is is is deep.
Speaker 1: Number thirteen is don't ask me why thirteen. I've just
Speaker 1: come up with thirteen points. Number thirteen is considing or mortality.
Speaker 1: One of the things I think about is where I
Speaker 1: am now, Not in a morbid way or a dark way,
Speaker 1: but where I am now in the totality of Craig
Speaker 1: Harper's life. I think about nine Aeen sixty three, and
Speaker 1: I think about twenty twenty three, So nineteen sixty three September.
Speaker 1: I was born September twenty eight, So next month, September
Speaker 1: twenty eight, I'll be sixty and I go, wow, if
Speaker 1: I'm a typical Australian male, whatever that is, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to live if I'm typical to around eighty. Might
Speaker 1: be eighty one or eighty two, but let's just round
Speaker 1: it out to eighty. So if you go, well, Craig,
Speaker 1: if you're typical, your three quarters done. If I'm typical,
Speaker 1: let's hope I'm not. Let's hope I have a few
Speaker 1: more years than that. But if I'm typical, I have
Speaker 1: about twenty years to live. Now. I know that you
Speaker 1: might go, oh, that's fucking sad or dark or also real.
Speaker 1: Also potentially that's my reality. Potentially, like I said, hopefully
Speaker 1: I can live longer and better, but who knows. And
Speaker 1: so I think sometime times it's good to, albeit somewhat
Speaker 1: uncomfortable and scary, to think about where am I on
Speaker 1: my journey, on my human journey. How much longer on
Speaker 1: my human journey am I going to wait? How much
Speaker 1: longer am I going to feed? Myself bullshit, either cognitively,
Speaker 1: emotionally or literally eating shit crap food. How much longer
Speaker 1: am I going to waste my time, my talent, my potential.
Speaker 1: Am I going to do it till I'm seventy? Am
Speaker 1: I going to do it till I just dropped dead?
Speaker 1: One day? Like what in the context of what really
Speaker 1: matters to me, in the context of the totality of
Speaker 1: my life? This is my only life. I can't get
Speaker 1: another one. I can't get another body. And so for
Speaker 1: me who looks at the you know, just I once
Speaker 1: drew a dot on the left hand side of my
Speaker 1: white border dot on the right, and then I kind
Speaker 1: of I've figured out my timeline where I was at,
Speaker 1: and I looked at the context of the totality of
Speaker 1: my life based on eighty years, and you know, that
Speaker 1: line was three quarters complete. I'm like wow. And of
Speaker 1: course there are a few variables that hopefully I can
Speaker 1: influence and control about doing the next twenty years or longer,
Speaker 1: perhaps better. But this is great sometimes as uncomfortable as
Speaker 1: it might be, but it is great to step back
Speaker 1: and go fuck my life, my life? What am I doing? Like,
Speaker 1: where am I at? What's going on? With my job
Speaker 1: and me and my relationships and my body and my staff,
Speaker 1: and my happiness and my purpose and my reason and
Speaker 1: my spiritual life and my religion, nor whatever it is
Speaker 1: that matters to you. Like one day, you and I
Speaker 1: we ain't going to be here, yeah, and we need
Speaker 1: to think about well, we don't need to do anything.
Speaker 1: But I'm keen on figuring out, Okay, what am I
Speaker 1: going to do? Be? Create? Change? What am I going
Speaker 1: to do in the next twenty or thirty years. And
Speaker 1: it's not all about ticking boxes and achieving, And it's
Speaker 1: not all about that. I also want to have fun.
Speaker 1: I also want to laugh. I also want joy. I
Speaker 1: also want to watch Netflix and ride motorbikes and fucking
Speaker 1: hang out with friends. But at the same time, I
Speaker 1: want to be the best version of me. I want
Speaker 1: to live as long as I can optimally. I want
Speaker 1: to eat great food. I want to live in a
Speaker 1: great body. I want to I want to have a great,
Speaker 1: healthy mind. I want a healthy brain. I want healthy relationships.
Speaker 1: I want to do shit that's rewarding, fulfilling and fun.
Speaker 1: I don't want to let father time or mother nature
Speaker 1: take a hold. There are things that I can do
Speaker 1: to self regulate and self manage, which means I can
Speaker 1: live longer for better if I do certain things well.
Speaker 1: I feel like that was worth sharing. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if it was worth listening to. I enjoyed sharing it
Speaker 1: with you. I love your collective gutses. Are enjoy a
Speaker 1: day over and out.