Speaker 1: I've always been fascinated with the idea of success and
Speaker 1: the understanding and thinking an interpretation that we collectively and
Speaker 1: individually have around it. What it means, what it means
Speaker 1: in our culture, what it seems to mean in our society,
Speaker 1: what it means to us as individuals, and how it relates,
Speaker 1: how the achievement of success whatever that is, relates to
Speaker 1: happiness and joy and fulfillment. And I guess on a
Speaker 1: level our life being better. I think everybody wants to
Speaker 1: be successful. Nobody wants to be unsuccessful. Everybody wants to
Speaker 1: be successful. But one of my interesting, I think interesting
Speaker 1: observations is when I would ask people, you know, whether
Speaker 1: or not they want to be successful in a really
Speaker 1: straightforward I say, I don't ever think what I'm about
Speaker 1: to ask you, just yes or no? Do you want
Speaker 1: to be successful? Everyone says yes because nobody doesn't want it.
Speaker 1: And then when I say, tell me what that means
Speaker 1: for you, many people struggle to have an explanation or
Speaker 1: a definition or an understanding of what a successful life
Speaker 1: for them would mean. And I guess they think that
Speaker 1: they relate success to a change in circumstance or situation
Speaker 1: or outcome or income or job or brand or health
Speaker 1: or whatever. We're generally talking when we speak globally about,
Speaker 1: you know, being successful. We look up to successful people,
Speaker 1: and we always talk about in our culture anyway. We
Speaker 1: talk about what they have and what they earn, and
Speaker 1: what they own, and what they drive, and where they live,
Speaker 1: and their movies and their music, and their achievements and
Speaker 1: their business and their wealth and power and influence and
Speaker 1: all of the things that we as a collective of
Speaker 1: humans seemed to hold up as the high watermark. And
Speaker 1: I remember when I was a young fitness professional, I
Speaker 1: was working in gyms, and you know, as most you know,
Speaker 1: I started working in gyms when I was eighteen, and
Speaker 1: I was literally driving a crap piece of car. I
Speaker 1: was driving a car worth a few hundred dollars. I
Speaker 1: was working in gyms through the day for twelve or
Speaker 1: eleven bucks an hour as a gym instructor. I was
Speaker 1: working in pubs at night for quite a while there,
Speaker 1: three or four years, getting punched in the face for
Speaker 1: also twelve or thirteen or fourteen dollars an hour maybe.
Speaker 1: And I was training every day, and I had a
Speaker 1: bunch of friends and in the middle of my less
Speaker 1: than impressive situation and less than impressive you know, job
Speaker 1: and income and all that. For the most part, I
Speaker 1: was somewhere between really content most of the time and
Speaker 1: happy and fulfilled and curious and excited. And maybe this
Speaker 1: is just the way that I responded in the middle
Speaker 1: of that. But you know, while there were things that
Speaker 1: I wanted, you know, I wanted to earn better dough
Speaker 1: and I wanted to be in a job that I loved,
Speaker 1: which I kind of was, but there were limitations. And
Speaker 1: you know, I certainly was not without ambition or aspiration,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't I didn't have, you know, some burning
Speaker 1: desire at that point in my life anyway to build
Speaker 1: some kind of you know, wealth or empire or you know,
Speaker 1: impressive portfolio of something. And not that any of that
Speaker 1: is bad, but just at that point in my life.
Speaker 1: But I guess, you know, when I thought about myself,
Speaker 1: I thought, gee, I'm impressive. I'm something people should aspire to.
Speaker 1: I definitely didn't see myself as successful. I didn't think
Speaker 1: I was a moron, but I probably saw myself closer
Speaker 1: to the shit kicker end of the scale than the
Speaker 1: superstar end of the scale. And I would intermittently sporadically
Speaker 1: bump into people who were successful, and I would be
Speaker 1: I don't know I was going to say I would
Speaker 1: be impressed. I wasn't really impressed. I was more curious.
Speaker 1: I was more curious about them and whether or not
Speaker 1: their success in inverted commas equated to a better I
Speaker 1: didn't think of it like this in the terms of
Speaker 1: these words or this explanation. But this is what I
Speaker 1: know I was thinking, and I just happened to be
Speaker 1: able to articulate it better now. But I guess I
Speaker 1: was wondering or curious about whether or not their external reality, suation, circumstance, environment, brand,
Speaker 1: you know, business, money, looks, all of those things equated
Speaker 1: to them being happier than me and or more successful
Speaker 1: than me. Like, was success about what's happening around? Is
Speaker 1: success about what people can see and touch and feel
Speaker 1: and experience and you know, interact with Is that what
Speaker 1: success is about? Or is success about the stuff that
Speaker 1: people don't see? Is it about my internal world? And
Speaker 1: maybe it's not one or the other. Maybe it's an
Speaker 1: intersection of both. Maybe it's a combination of both. I
Speaker 1: believe that you know, what's happening around a situation, circumstance, etc.
Speaker 1: Money environment. You know, if you're living in like I
Speaker 1: live in Melbourne, Australia, I think I'm very blessed and fortunate.
Speaker 1: I live in a great environment. I didn't. That's not
Speaker 1: anything I earned. I just happened to be born in
Speaker 1: this amazing country and I feel blessed and grateful for that.
Speaker 1: So to me, that's part of success. But I didn't
Speaker 1: do anything to earn that success. That was just luck,
Speaker 1: you know. That was just hey, thanks mom and dad,
Speaker 1: and hey thanks Grandma and Grandpa. That's what that was.
Speaker 1: But I remember when I started to work as a
Speaker 1: personal trainer and I started my own business and I
Speaker 1: started to you know, I was twenty six years old,
Speaker 1: and I was still essentially a slightly evolved Bogan from
Speaker 1: the country, slightly evolved and I wasn't overly ambitious. But
Speaker 1: I really realized that I didn't want a regular job.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to work nine to five for people forever.
Speaker 1: I wanted to you know, I wanted to work for
Speaker 1: me and I didn't want I didn't want someone telling
Speaker 1: me what to do and what not to do all day.
Speaker 1: And it's not that that's good or bad. It just
Speaker 1: that it wasn't optimal for me. That it isn't optimal
Speaker 1: for me. I realized that part of success would be
Speaker 1: me being able to create a model for life and
Speaker 1: work and living and learning, and that happened to be
Speaker 1: something that was an intersection of income and joy and
Speaker 1: growth and socialization and fun and laughing, and to be honest,
Speaker 1: when I look back, I was really naive. I didn't
Speaker 1: even I didn't know how hard that would be. But
Speaker 1: I'm kind of glad I didn't know, because maybe I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have taken the first step. But anyway, it all
Speaker 1: kind of worked out. And there's been as many fuck
Speaker 1: ups as there have been triumphs, and as many troughs
Speaker 1: as there have been peaks. But I think I really
Speaker 1: started to consider the concept of success when I started
Speaker 1: to work with in the mid eighties and then late eighties,
Speaker 1: early nineties, and then on and on. But I first
Speaker 1: started to intersect with what we would call in our
Speaker 1: culture wealthy successful high achievements. So people had lots of
Speaker 1: dough people who owned their own company, people who drove
Speaker 1: very expensive cars to train with me. I mean, their
Speaker 1: car was worth more than everything I owned in the world,
Speaker 1: people who from the outside looking in by most people
Speaker 1: would be called successful and by normal standards in inverted commas.
Speaker 1: Back then, most people looking at me wouldn't definitely maybe
Speaker 1: they wouldn't call me a failure, but they wouldn't call
Speaker 1: me a success story. I was just a kid working
Speaker 1: in a gym, helping people get in shape. And for me,
Speaker 1: the first kind of light bulb moment around this kind
Speaker 1: of question around what is success and what does it
Speaker 1: equate to happened when I worked with more and more
Speaker 1: people who were commonly successful and miserable, or if not miserable,
Speaker 1: not as happy as me, not as hopeful as me,
Speaker 1: not as calm as me. And it's not like I
Speaker 1: was the high watermark at all, But I thought, Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm driving a car worth six hundred bucks. I'm getting
Speaker 1: punched in the face three times a night for fourteen
Speaker 1: bucks or whatever it was. I've got pretty shitty genetics
Speaker 1: that I struggled to keep in check. I've got food issues,
Speaker 1: I've got body dysmorphy issues. I've got lots of issues.
Speaker 1: But I'm fucking happier than you. And it wasn't a
Speaker 1: judgment or a criticism, but for me, it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it was an awareness, it was a curiosity. I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: so what is that about. And so people that were
Speaker 1: and also I'm talking about people who were well known
Speaker 1: some of them. I'm talking about some people who were
Speaker 1: somewhere between just really well known and famous on TV,
Speaker 1: on radio. I worked with lots of high profile people.
Speaker 1: I worked with people who were in industry and people
Speaker 1: who were in the commercial space with big businesses and brands.
Speaker 1: I worked with people in entertainment and television. As I said,
Speaker 1: I worked with people who were what most people would
Speaker 1: call success stories. And now remember this is just my
Speaker 1: in the field research. This is my anecdotal evidence. This
Speaker 1: is not clinical research, but my anecdotal evidence. My observation
Speaker 1: was that the wealthier, more successful people that I worked
Speaker 1: with tended to worry more, tended to be more anxious,
Speaker 1: and more medicated for anxiety and or depression and or sleeplessness.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not saying one equals the other, but if anything,
Speaker 1: the correlation for me, it wasn't necessarily that successful people
Speaker 1: will put an asterisk next to that, It wasn't that
Speaker 1: they were necessarily miserable because of the success. I don't
Speaker 1: know what the correlation was, but it seemed to be
Speaker 1: there was some kind of relationship and I could do
Speaker 1: a deep dive into that. I've got some thoughts on that,
Speaker 1: but I guess the point of this chat with you
Speaker 1: is to maybe rethink, like what we think at success
Speaker 1: is or why we think it is the thing that
Speaker 1: we think it is. And I've told you this story,
Speaker 1: and so I'll not tell the whole story. I'll tell
Speaker 1: it in thirty seconds. But I got to the point
Speaker 1: where I had five different businesses, five standalone bricks and
Speaker 1: mortar businesses, one hundred staff, three gyms. At that time,
Speaker 1: I was doing lots of things, making lots of money.
Speaker 1: All of my businesses were in profit, and very much
Speaker 1: compared to where I'd come from. I was wildly successful.
Speaker 1: If we're talking about success being commercial or financial, or
Speaker 1: brand or profile or credibility, if those things are indicators
Speaker 1: or KPIs of success, and I'm saying if they are,
Speaker 1: then I was successful. But in the middle of my
Speaker 1: apparent success, I definitely was less happy than before. Now
Speaker 1: that's not to say a caused be I'm just saying
Speaker 1: what happened for me and that kind of that made
Speaker 1: me revisit how I thought and how I framed success
Speaker 1: and my relationship with from one of the better term
Speaker 1: success and whether or not my my then propensity to
Speaker 1: focus on outcomes and focus on results and focus on
Speaker 1: the destination rather than being in and just fucking loving
Speaker 1: the journey, you know, focusing on getting to the top
Speaker 1: of the mountain, you know, because that's what we're told,
Speaker 1: you know, to get to the top of the mountain.
Speaker 1: And but I was so busy getting to the top
Speaker 1: of the mountain. I wasn't enjoying the climb. I wasn't
Speaker 1: looking around, I wasn't getting my feet in the dirt.
Speaker 1: I wasn't and it for me anyway, And I think
Speaker 1: this happens for many people, you know, And this is
Speaker 1: probably what I was encountering and experiencing when I was
Speaker 1: a young broke pete where I'm meeting people who, you know,
Speaker 1: we have this idea that that we will achieve something,
Speaker 1: be something, do something, create something, and we call that success.
Speaker 1: And then when we get there, we're there and we're like, fuck,
Speaker 1: I've done it, I own it, I've created it, I'm
Speaker 1: looking like it, i'm driving it, i'm wearing it, I'm
Speaker 1: living in it. I'm fucking yep, And then you go.
Speaker 1: But I'm still anxious. I'm still an overthinker. I still
Speaker 1: don't I still feel emotionally distraught. I'm still still all
Speaker 1: of my issues here, and not only are they here,
Speaker 1: they've maybe expanded because now I'm worried that people are
Speaker 1: only talking to me because they want something from me.
Speaker 1: And by the way I've built, I had one X
Speaker 1: and now I've got one hundred X money, and fact,
Speaker 1: what if I lose some of that money? And what
Speaker 1: if I invest in this and it's not the right thing?
Speaker 1: And then what if people start to say bad things
Speaker 1: and my brand goes from good to less good? And
Speaker 1: what if and all of a sudden And again, this
Speaker 1: is not for everyone. And I'm also saying that that
Speaker 1: building wealth doesn't have to equal misery. Of course, I'm
Speaker 1: just saying that for me, that was part of the
Speaker 1: journey and I had to figure out, or I guess,
Speaker 1: come to the awareness that having more is not for me.
Speaker 1: And I think really for any of us, having more
Speaker 1: as not being more, and more stuff doesn't necessarily equal
Speaker 1: some kind of positive In turn, cosmic seismic shift where
Speaker 1: we go, oh wow, I've looked at all these things
Speaker 1: I've done, and I'm creating and I'm owning, and I'm earning,
Speaker 1: and now I'm emotionally great, now I'm psychologically and sociologically great.
Speaker 1: My anxiety has disappeared, and now I'm calm, and now
Speaker 1: I'm joyful, and now I'm clear. You know that may
Speaker 1: or may not happen. I don't think it tends to
Speaker 1: happen for most people, and so I don't think these
Speaker 1: are just my thoughts. By the way, I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to point you towards anything today. I was thinking about this,
Speaker 1: which is why I'm doing this a little solo. But
Speaker 1: I think what is Maybe you put this under the
Speaker 1: spotlight and see what you think. But maybe the smart
Speaker 1: approach is to realize that, you know, we're just psychological
Speaker 1: and sociological and emotional and physical and perhaps spiritual, depending
Speaker 1: on your belief system, creatures, just doing life, just doing life,
Speaker 1: and we want to do stuff and be stuff and
Speaker 1: own stuff and get stuff and change stuff. And there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with the doing, being, owning, getting, and changing,
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with any of that unless we think this
Speaker 1: is my asterisk, unless we think that's our reason for living.
Speaker 1: Where I think all of the things that I've built
Speaker 1: and created and the things that I own and the
Speaker 1: money that I have and the you know, they're for me,
Speaker 1: not reasons, but there are other resources. And so when
Speaker 1: we think about when we think about setting goals and
Speaker 1: moving towards what we consider to be success, I think
Speaker 1: there's a couple of important factors to ponder, And one
Speaker 1: is obviously, what's the thing that I'm chasing? What do
Speaker 1: I want? Like, what is my goal? What is not?
Speaker 1: What is the world tell me or my parents tell me,
Speaker 1: or fucking Facebook or Instagram tell me, or you know, media,
Speaker 1: social media, whatever mainstream media tell me. But what do
Speaker 1: I think success is for me? And why? I think
Speaker 1: it's one of the most important questions we can ask
Speaker 1: because when we I think, when we start to get
Speaker 1: out of the group, think, out of the cult of
Speaker 1: thought that says success is about more, success is about
Speaker 1: bigger and better and ownership and staff right, I think
Speaker 1: we go we start to realize that where I live
Speaker 1: is not in my ad HTV, it's not in my
Speaker 1: bank balance, it's not in my brand. Where I live
Speaker 1: is in my thoughts and feelings and emotion and that
Speaker 1: inner world of me, that inner world of me, and
Speaker 1: that's where joy and happiness and contentment and pain and
Speaker 1: agony and ecstasy, that's where all of those things live.
Speaker 1: And while perhaps you know, striving to do the things
Speaker 1: that we want to do, hustling, grinding, nothing wrong with
Speaker 1: those things, but also being aware of the other side
Speaker 1: of life, the inner world, not just the external world.
Speaker 1: And I think that you know, to try to to
Speaker 1: try to put under the microscope our pre set beliefs
Speaker 1: and ideas about if I achieve this, then I will
Speaker 1: if I create this outcome or do this thing, or
Speaker 1: I weigh this much, or I look like this, and
Speaker 1: this is another big one too, with appearance and weight
Speaker 1: and all the pressure, much of itself created pressure. By
Speaker 1: the way, I did the same thing. I desperately didn't
Speaker 1: want to be the fat kid, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: look a certain way, and I wanted to be ripped
Speaker 1: and jacked, and then I wanted to be big and
Speaker 1: muscular and fucking intimidating and all shit coming out of
Speaker 1: fear and insecurity. And then I did all of that.
Speaker 1: Then I built this body that was pretty fucking high
Speaker 1: performance and strong and liten fit and lean and functional,
Speaker 1: I did all of this, then I had this new,
Speaker 1: improved body, this two point zero version of men. In
Speaker 1: the middle of all of that fucking external bullshit that
Speaker 1: people could see was this insecure, overthinking, self doubting, self
Speaker 1: loathing baby in this giant body because I wasn't dealing
Speaker 1: with the problem. My body wasn't the problem. My body
Speaker 1: wasn't the problem. Like at a point where I'd gotten
Speaker 1: in shape and I was you know, but it was
Speaker 1: never enough. I was never whatever enough. I had to
Speaker 1: be more. And when I got to the point where
Speaker 1: I went right this is where I wanted to be,
Speaker 1: there was no joy or satisfaction or contentment or calm
Speaker 1: because I always had to move the goalposts. But what
Speaker 1: if what if idea of success? What if the story
Speaker 1: that we tell ourselves, or what if the group think
Speaker 1: that we have around success is an illusion? Like what
Speaker 1: if everything that you now I'm operating on the assumption
Speaker 1: which could be flawed. I admit that because I'm talking
Speaker 1: to a lot of people in different situations. So if
Speaker 1: this is not representative of your situational life, I apologize,
Speaker 1: But clearly you understand I'm talking to thousands of people,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to operate on the assumption that you're
Speaker 1: not starving, that you're not living in abject poverty, that you
Speaker 1: have a house, that you have heat, that you have
Speaker 1: a few dollars in the bank, that you can you
Speaker 1: know that your life on a functional operational level is
Speaker 1: somewhere between okay and pretty good. Now, if that's the case,
Speaker 1: then what about what about the fact that you and
Speaker 1: I again I'm assuming here, but you I can get
Speaker 1: out of a chair and go for a walk. What
Speaker 1: about that you and I can turn on a tap
Speaker 1: and get cold water. What about that you and I
Speaker 1: can open a fridge and have food, We can get
Speaker 1: into a comfortable bed. What about the fact that and
Speaker 1: again this is so, if you're struggling with things, I
Speaker 1: apologize and I'm sending you love. But what about the
Speaker 1: fact that you don't have a body that's riddled with
Speaker 1: disease at the moment? Is that amazing? Is that a
Speaker 1: reason to celebrate? Is that a version of success? Like
Speaker 1: think about people who find out that they're unwell. Think
Speaker 1: about my friend john that got blown up in an
Speaker 1: accident that I've spoken about too much. God bless Johnny,
Speaker 1: who was told he or his family was told he'd
Speaker 1: never think, he'd never walk, he'd be a quadriplegic, and
Speaker 1: he'd be severely limited cognitively, he'd have a traumatic brain
Speaker 1: injury that wouldn't let him do life well. For John,
Speaker 1: success after two years or so of training with me
Speaker 1: and him doing all the work being the cheersquad, of course,
Speaker 1: but success for him was crawling on the floor of
Speaker 1: the gym three meters. That was one of the best
Speaker 1: days of his life and my life to that point
Speaker 1: in time was seeing my friend who was told he'd
Speaker 1: be a quadriplegic, be out of his chair and be
Speaker 1: on the floor crawling and then eventually walking and now
Speaker 1: training with me three days a week in the gym,
Speaker 1: walking with his stick, still medicated all the time for pain.
Speaker 1: But guess what compared to what could have been and
Speaker 1: where he was, he is an incredible success story for
Speaker 1: me anyway and for him anyway. Success is an idea.
Speaker 1: Success is not a thing. It's not a set thing.
Speaker 1: Because if success, for example, was all about let's just
Speaker 1: say this, let's give an example. If success was about
Speaker 1: having enough money to do everything that you need to
Speaker 1: do practically to live practically well, if that was success,
Speaker 1: and that equaled happiness. Then everybody that got to that
Speaker 1: point where they had enough money to live well would
Speaker 1: be happy, that'd be content, they'd be fulfilled. But the
Speaker 1: truth is you and I know, and maybe you are
Speaker 1: that person from time to time, I know I am,
Speaker 1: if I'm being honest. Have I felt, even in the
Speaker 1: middle of my relative success wink wink, nudge nudge, have
Speaker 1: I ever felt like not enough, like I need more?
Speaker 1: Like this is not it like I've got a of
Speaker 1: course I have. But then I realized the problem is
Speaker 1: not what I've got. The problem is not what I
Speaker 1: have or not what I don't have. The problem is
Speaker 1: my thinking. And so you know, it's a really personal
Speaker 1: thing this And I'm not trying to push you in
Speaker 1: a direction to and if you you're an ambitious person
Speaker 1: who's on your way to building all the things you're
Speaker 1: building business brands successful, this that great. I'm definitely not
Speaker 1: discouraging you from that. I think that's amazing. I still
Speaker 1: have commercial ambition. This is not a chat to denigrate
Speaker 1: ambition or commercial success. Of course, it's just me opening
Speaker 1: the door going and then what, Okay, you built a brand,
Speaker 1: You've got lots of go you look good, you lost
Speaker 1: the weight, you achieve the outcome, you tick the box,
Speaker 1: you reach the KPI bibittybobbity boo, what now? And so
Speaker 1: I think sometimes it's not so much about shifting our
Speaker 1: external reality or ticking boxes. It's not so much about
Speaker 1: what is seen, what is evident to others, but rather
Speaker 1: what is experienced by us. And maybe no one's going
Speaker 1: to see it. Maybe people are going to look at
Speaker 1: you and think you're not successful. Who cares? Who cares?
Speaker 1: If in the middle of what appears to be not
Speaker 1: particularly the high watermark for somebody else, If in the
Speaker 1: middle of that, you're pretty happy, You're pretty calm, you're
Speaker 1: pretty content, you're pretty fulfilled. You're living a life with purpose.
Speaker 1: You've got what I call spiritual, emotional and mental wealth
Speaker 1: and social wealth. Then I would suspect, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: that you are doing better than many