Speaker 1: I get eight champions. It's the You Project? What else
Speaker 1: would it be? Craig Anthony Harper reporting for Judy, know,
Speaker 1: Tiffany and Cook. It's just me all by myself.
Speaker 2: Fuck.
Speaker 1: I hope I can manage it. Paul Taylor and I've
Speaker 1: been friends for years. Nothing's changed. He's been a bloody
Speaker 1: a mainstay on the Australian fitness and health landscape for
Speaker 1: fucking decades. Now he's an immigrant. Don't hold that against him.
Speaker 1: You probably won't understand him. But if I do need
Speaker 1: to decode anything, I will. Great Champ, how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm bloody awesome?
Speaker 1: How did w are you? Sounding like an Aussie? More
Speaker 1: and more? How long have you? Is it? Two decades?
Speaker 2: Hello you? It is. This is my twenty first year.
Speaker 2: It's going to be my twenty first anniversary here on
Speaker 2: the fourteenth of December.
Speaker 1: Well, happy anniversary. It feels like five minutes ago that
Speaker 1: you stumbled in like a tall leopard corn into my
Speaker 1: facility at six four three in Apan Highway, which was
Speaker 1: then called Harper's is now the Woodshed with Sam Wood.
Speaker 1: But how long? What year did you come in? What
Speaker 1: year did we meet?
Speaker 2: We went a matt at two thousand and five, because
Speaker 2: I got here the end of two thousand and four
Speaker 2: and probably walked into your office I would say January
Speaker 2: or February of two thousand and five. Ah, there you go.
Speaker 1: For those who don't know, Paul, of course is an
Speaker 1: excise physiologists, got a master's in X fears and nutrition,
Speaker 1: and now a PhD in psychology. He's a straight up
Speaker 1: smarty pants. He's not got a new book. We'll explore
Speaker 1: that and more. But yeah, we worked, We worked together,
Speaker 1: we worked in the same facility, We worked side by
Speaker 1: side for quite a long time, and we've still been
Speaker 1: collaborating over the years ever since. For those who don't
Speaker 1: know you, who are meeting you for the first time,
Speaker 1: give everyone a little bit of a because we have
Speaker 1: a turnover of listeners and we constantly have new listeners.
Speaker 1: So give us a little bit of it. Rather than
Speaker 1: me reading some bio, give us a bit of a
Speaker 1: snapshot of you.
Speaker 2: So look, my background is pretty eclectic and born and
Speaker 2: reised in Belfast from a mixed marriage, which has a
Speaker 2: different connotation there and then everywhere else. Went to UNI,
Speaker 2: studied information management, then did a master's sports science, then
Speaker 2: joined the British military as an Arist Catholic, not many
Speaker 2: of us. Spent eight years flying in helicopters, doing anti
Speaker 2: submarine more for helicopters, starch and rescue, went through combat survival,
Speaker 2: resistance to interrogation training, did another master's part time, and
Speaker 2: then moved over to the Australia as an exercise physiologist
Speaker 2: nutrition has set up in your business, and then started
Speaker 2: doing corporate speaking, and then realized that it wasn't about
Speaker 2: telling people what to do, it was about behavior changing
Speaker 2: me and you had many conversations about that. So I
Speaker 2: went and studied neuroscience and the last bit of the
Speaker 2: puzzle for me was doing the pH d in psychology,
Speaker 2: where I explored cognitive fitness, which is performance under pressure
Speaker 2: and hardiness psychological hardiness, which is the topic of my
Speaker 2: new book. So now me and Gig is I'm a
Speaker 2: corporate speaker. I've also got a podcast like yours and
Speaker 2: an author as well. So following in your footsteps, Graig.
Speaker 1: Well, you're definitely not. You've taken mom just in your dust.
Speaker 1: I'm just wearing fucking goggles so I don't get all
Speaker 1: the bloody debris in my face from just charging ahead
Speaker 1: like a fucking ripper that you are. Do you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? I have congratulated you, but let's congratulate
Speaker 1: your fish officially, so doctor Paul Taylor for the first
Speaker 1: time on this podcast anyway, Doctor Paul Taylor. Mate, really,
Speaker 1: and it sounds silly something coming from me, who it's
Speaker 1: funny how much our kind of lives parallel. But as
Speaker 1: the guy who is not a doctor of psychology to
Speaker 1: the guy who is a doctor of psychology, congratulations, sincerely.
Speaker 1: I'm obviously I'm personally interested to know what's the feeling like.
Speaker 1: Is that relief? Is that joy is at fucking pride?
Speaker 1: I don't know because it's in years.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I think it's a little bit of everything.
Speaker 2: I think the first one I prayers submit is just
Speaker 2: massive relief that fucking hell, this is finally done and
Speaker 2: dusted and in.
Speaker 1: And then you sent me a screenshot of that. I
Speaker 1: was I was equally proud and resentful. I'm like, ah,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. Fuck him. I'm like, oh, I couldn't be
Speaker 1: proud of fuck off.
Speaker 2: That's right. I see you were the first person to
Speaker 2: you find eating before my parents, because I clicked because
Speaker 2: we are sort of running in parallel and you're a
Speaker 2: better ahead of me. And then I was a better
Speaker 2: ahead of you. And then luckily I had luckily I
Speaker 2: had opened heart surgery which put me in hospital, and
Speaker 2: the accelerated the finishing of my PhD because i'd probably
Speaker 2: still be on it. So yeah, relief. And then and
Speaker 2: then when I reflected, I remember actually I went in
Speaker 2: the day after I went in to Carly maybe I
Speaker 2: get up in the morning and I was saying, you know,
Speaker 2: I was. I was sitting there and I was I
Speaker 2: was going through my miner right right, what's the next
Speaker 2: one we're doing next? And then I said to Carley,
Speaker 2: I think I just need to slow down and take
Speaker 2: a bit of a break for a while. And she
Speaker 2: laughed at when she went, Paul, it's been less than
Speaker 2: twenty four hours for God's sick.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. But then you know, then when people start
Speaker 2: calling you doctor when you're doing a talk doctor Paul,
Speaker 2: first of all, I was like, fucking hell, who's that.
Speaker 2: So now I'm starting to get a little bit more
Speaker 2: comfortable with it. Just presented at the Melbourne Business School
Speaker 2: actually to the CEOs program, and it's it's nice because
Speaker 2: it gives you, particularly when you're talking at that level.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's just that that kind of sense
Speaker 2: of you know, you deserve to be there. It's the
Speaker 2: I think it's probably the best thing is it's killed
Speaker 2: that little residual thing that's in the back of your mind,
Speaker 2: you know, that that whole imposter syndrome that has been
Speaker 2: around for a long time, and I think it's now
Speaker 2: finally Dad.
Speaker 1: So well, I reckon with you know, multiple books are
Speaker 1: very and internationally successful, podcast two masters a PhD. You're
Speaker 1: probably going, okay, you can probably say I'm not a
Speaker 1: complete fucking fraud, But that whole, I mean, what is
Speaker 1: interesting is it almost doesn't matter what you do. Like
Speaker 1: I've done a few good things as well, you know,
Speaker 1: I worked with e late Sporting Class, I've spoken all
Speaker 1: over the world all that shit, and yeah, for me,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know if for a PhD
Speaker 1: is going to get rid of it, but I'll let
Speaker 1: you know when the time comes. But yeah, that whole
Speaker 1: I don't feel worthy. I don't feel good enough. I
Speaker 1: don't feel whatever enough. Whether it's pretty enough, funny enough,
Speaker 1: you know, clever enough, talented enough, skilled enough, it's almost
Speaker 1: it's almost unavoidable for human beings some version of.
Speaker 2: That, right, yeah, and look it can't be It actually
Speaker 2: can be very useful. And I find that Maine was
Speaker 2: very useful. For some people, it's not useful, but for
Speaker 2: other people it sort of drives them on. So for me,
Speaker 2: I talk about functional and dysfunctional imposter syndrome. It's just
Speaker 2: like it's like narcissistic tendencies. There are some functional narcissistic
Speaker 2: tendencies and some dysfunctional narcissistic tendencies.
Speaker 1: That's so good. I love that. I like for me,
Speaker 1: my kind of my analogy is I tell people that
Speaker 1: mediocrity is my superpower because I'm so fucking average at
Speaker 1: so many things. I'm really inspired and motivated to overcome,
Speaker 1: like because I know that, you know, nothing has come
Speaker 1: super easy for me. Probably the one thing that I
Speaker 1: am naturally good at. But the only thing is communication,
Speaker 1: building rapport connection, which is not a bad thing to
Speaker 1: be naturally that good at, right, But other than that,
Speaker 1: you know, building businesses, academia, you know, creativity, writing books.
Speaker 1: All of those things were definitely not impossible, but it's
Speaker 1: not it's not like, oh yeah, crag, you just are
Speaker 1: natural at that shit. And so for me, that underlying
Speaker 1: self doubt, and that not even just self doubt, but
Speaker 1: self awareness around my own ability and lack of ability
Speaker 1: in certain spaces. It kind of kept me motivated and
Speaker 1: inspired because I knew if if I didn't fucking work hard,
Speaker 1: and if I wasn't resilient, and if I didn't have
Speaker 1: some hardiness beautiful segue harps, if I didn't have that,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't fucking succeed. I just knew that I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: And so it's almost that cliche of out workout perform, outlast.
Speaker 1: It's like, for me, literally true.
Speaker 2: And when you're on your death bed, you're going to
Speaker 2: be looking back and going that was a life that
Speaker 2: I could be proud of.
Speaker 1: Yeh.
Speaker 2: It's much better than looking back and going, hey, that
Speaker 2: was an easy life because I was so fucking talented.
Speaker 1: M Well, congrats on the book, dude. Let's dive in.
Speaker 1: Let's have a chat about all things related to that,
Speaker 1: because it's not one thing, it's many things. And I
Speaker 1: love I love that there's a lot of intersecting variables
Speaker 1: around this and a lot of factors, and I love
Speaker 1: that you've chosen something which is pretty much relevant to
Speaker 1: every human you know, when I mean, sometimes I'm interviewing
Speaker 1: someone about their book and it's like, well, six of
Speaker 1: my listeners will to this because you know what it's
Speaker 1: like really really specific and not not broadly kind of representative.
Speaker 1: But this is broadly representative. So the book was called
Speaker 1: The Hardiness Effect, Growth from Stress, Optimized Health, Live Longer.
Speaker 1: Doctor Paul Taylor, congrats on that. Give us the synopsis,
Speaker 1: give us like and then I want to dive in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So resilience hardiness is a close cousin to resilience,
Speaker 2: but there are distinct differences. Resilience is more of an outcome.
Speaker 2: It doesn't tell you how to get there, whereas hardiness does.
Speaker 2: And even in the if you look at the academic
Speaker 2: literature when I was doing my literature review, so much
Speaker 2: to be in an academic circles is resilience? Is it
Speaker 2: a state? Is it a treit? Is it a process?
Speaker 2: Is it an outcome? If? Is it something you're born with,
Speaker 2: something you have, something you develop, and there's so much
Speaker 2: to be at about it. Hardiness is it actually tells
Speaker 2: you how to get there. It's called the courage to
Speaker 2: grow from stress. So the early research, particularly in the
Speaker 2: US military, there was a bunch of it by a
Speaker 2: guy called Paul Bartone who was a bit of a
Speaker 2: mentor of me in this area doing my PhD. He
Speaker 2: when they screened recruits going into military training, they did
Speaker 2: a whole heap of psychometric assessments on them. And the
Speaker 2: one thing that they find at the end when they
Speaker 2: saw who passed and who field, and they went back
Speaker 2: and looked at it to say, was there anything predictive?
Speaker 2: The one thing that was predictive of passing and field
Speaker 2: was hardiness. They then found that hardiness predict who passed
Speaker 2: and who field. Special Forces selection training the toughest course
Speaker 2: you could possibly imagine that's been found in different militaries
Speaker 2: around the world. It also predicts who passes police special operations.
Speaker 2: It predicts career longevity and high pressure environments. This is
Speaker 2: the military, police first responders. It's been called the greatest,
Speaker 2: the trade, the key trade of fifty of the world's
Speaker 2: greatest leaders. And it also impacts our health. People who
Speaker 2: are hiring hardiness and have better overall well being. Their
Speaker 2: immune systems respond better to stress, they recover quicker from
Speaker 2: serious illness, and even school kids who are hiring hardiness
Speaker 2: are much more likely to go to university than those
Speaker 2: who are lower independent of socioeconomic status. So I love
Speaker 2: it because there's so many real world outcomes. What I
Speaker 2: added into it, and this was part of my PhD
Speaker 2: as well, was physiological hardiness because all the research is
Speaker 2: about psychology. But for me, as a psychophysiologist, I believe
Speaker 2: anybody who tells you that you can optimize for mental
Speaker 2: health and cognitive health just with thinking skills is fucking
Speaker 2: batshit crazy because your physiology has this huge impact on
Speaker 2: your biology. So part one of the group of the books, sorry,
Speaker 2: it was all about psychological hardiness, where I unpack the
Speaker 2: three c's and I've added a fourth. We can jump
Speaker 2: into that if you want. And then the second part
Speaker 2: of the book is all the physiological heartiness, and it
Speaker 2: turns out that nature has actually designed certain things to
Speaker 2: make us heartier, which I'm sure we'll unpark as we
Speaker 2: go through.
Speaker 1: It's funny because really, the only the only place in
Speaker 1: inverted commas that psychology and emotion and even sociology, biology, physiology,
Speaker 1: the only place they all operate in isolation is in
Speaker 1: research exactly. It's like in the in the real fucking world.
Speaker 1: All of that ship's intertwined and interconnected and interacting all
Speaker 1: of the time. And when you probably say the same thing.
Speaker 1: And I say that to you know, people in suits
Speaker 1: as part of my job, and I say, even when,
Speaker 1: and to demonstrate it, I say, you know, and you've
Speaker 1: heard this old chestnut from me, and you probably use
Speaker 1: a version of it. All Right, Let's say, right now,
Speaker 1: you have a thought, and the thought right now is
Speaker 1: that you're in danger. And let's say you believe that thought,
Speaker 1: and then we talk about, you know, the cascade of
Speaker 1: physiological consequences as a byproduct of that thought, right, And
Speaker 1: then people go, oh yeah, And then I say, and
Speaker 1: also what's happening emotionally, and what's happening to your blood
Speaker 1: pressure and to your nervous system? And then and what's
Speaker 1: happening you know, all of these things are happening, but
Speaker 1: it happens kind of both ways too. Something happens to
Speaker 1: us physically, then there's a psychological consequence to that physical experience,
Speaker 1: and that Yeah, I think the idea that heartiness or
Speaker 1: resilience or navigating life or trying to increase your capacity
Speaker 1: to poor form under pressure is purely a psychological you
Speaker 1: know process or cognitive process. Yeah, is as you said,
Speaker 1: fucking ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's complete and utter horseshit. And I love what
Speaker 2: you said. The only place that they exist separately in research,
Speaker 2: and that is absolutely true. You know, anybody who's ever
Speaker 2: been chronically stressed knows that it can affect their gut health,
Speaker 2: they get irdable ball syndrome. It affects their mood as well.
Speaker 2: But your physiology has a huge impact on your psychology,
Speaker 2: absolutely huge, right. Your brian completely depends on the health
Speaker 2: of your body in order for it to function well,
Speaker 2: and the same with mood. And I always say to people,
Speaker 2: if you know, we're in this mental health crisis as
Speaker 2: they talk about and lots of people, you know, it's
Speaker 2: all about the solutions are all about psychology or medication
Speaker 2: any like, if you're not moving and you are not
Speaker 2: looking after your sleep and you're eating your crappy diet,
Speaker 2: which is the average Australian lifestyle, good luck with your
Speaker 2: mental health because you are swimming up stream massively against
Speaker 2: a huge tighte, right, a huge tighte. And you know,
Speaker 2: part of but my sort of mission is to bring
Speaker 2: that awareness to people, but also give them that integrated
Speaker 2: solution of how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, I had a meeting yesday, which you have
Speaker 1: these meetings all the time. So we've got to go
Speaker 1: up to doesn't worry, it doesn't matter. I've got to
Speaker 1: go in the state next week, and I can probably
Speaker 1: say this bit. I've got to talk to a bunch
Speaker 1: of lawyers, like a whole lot of lawyers, and we're
Speaker 1: talking around the person, and I that we're chatting about
Speaker 1: the event. We're talking about the issues and challenges, you know,
Speaker 1: cultural practical, kind of all the dynamics within the organization.
Speaker 1: Da da da da da. You know, we're talking about
Speaker 1: all that stuff that needs to be in some way
Speaker 1: kind of improved or addressed or spoken about. And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: all of that's good, and we'll do that. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about that. But how about we talk about like, let's
Speaker 1: step back a few steps and let's talk about how's
Speaker 1: Dave when he gets out of bed? Is David two
Speaker 1: out of ten? Or is David nine out of ten?
Speaker 1: You know? How's Sally? How's her nervous system when she
Speaker 1: starts checking shit on her phone at four forty five
Speaker 1: and she gets out of bed at five forty five,
Speaker 1: and she's already fried she's already stressed. And I said,
Speaker 1: you know, if we've got people who are mentally, emotionally
Speaker 1: and physiologically fucked before they get to work, good luck
Speaker 1: being a good communicator or problem solver or conflict resolver
Speaker 1: or negotiator or team leader or lawyer or anything. Because
Speaker 1: if you show.
Speaker 3: Up whatever your job is, whether you're Paul Taylor and
Speaker 3: you're about to do a full day fucking conference, if
Speaker 3: Paul Taylor shows up at two out of ten, like
Speaker 3: because you haven't slept and you've been eating shits and
Speaker 3: you're like, you can't be a nine out of ten
Speaker 3: or an eight out of ten you on stage. So
Speaker 3: you need to manage you before you manage your tasks
Speaker 3: or you manage your responsibilities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, it does start with the morning. Actually,
Speaker 2: it starts with the night before and all of your
Speaker 2: preparation around your sleep, and then it's about the morning.
Speaker 2: And as I said to these bunch of CEOs this
Speaker 2: morning that we were dealing with was if you're if
Speaker 2: you touch your phone before your feet hit the floor
Speaker 2: in the morning, your life is fucked. And how many people.
Speaker 1: I love it when you speak scientifically, but think about it,
Speaker 1: how many people The first thing they do is they
Speaker 1: check a goddamn phone, and it's just mental.
Speaker 2: You're getting inputs, you're being switched on, You're upregulating your
Speaker 2: nervous system before you even get out of bed. So,
Speaker 2: as I was saying to these guys, how about we
Speaker 2: wake up and we think, who do I want to
Speaker 2: be today? You know, what what values and virtues do
Speaker 2: I want to exhibit today? What challenges might I go
Speaker 2: through today? How am I going to deal with this? Right?
Speaker 2: And just do five minutes of mental preparation met just
Speaker 2: like every world class athlete does before performance. How about
Speaker 2: we start the day like that, right, and then we
Speaker 2: continue today operating in peak performance mode. You know that's
Speaker 2: that's really key. There's so many things that are out
Speaker 2: there that steal our attention. And you know, me and
Speaker 2: you were both involved in that DELFI study around the
Speaker 2: cognitors drive cognitive drivers of peak performance. And I don't
Speaker 2: know if you talk about that, but I actually realized
Speaker 2: when you look look at that the number one thing
Speaker 2: there was sixty four of us experts around the world,
Speaker 2: or sixty two plus me and U squeezed in, but
Speaker 2: all business psychologists and military psychologist, sports psychologists, and we
Speaker 2: were all asked to rea it the cognitive drivers of
Speaker 2: performance under pressure, and the thing that everybody said was
Speaker 2: number one was attentional control. And our attention is being
Speaker 2: stolen left, right and center, and then it drags our
Speaker 2: nervous system with it. That's the key thing.
Speaker 1: If it's got your attention, it's got you. It's got you,
Speaker 1: it's got your body, it's got your nervous system, it's
Speaker 1: got your time. Yeah, that's I say to people. You
Speaker 1: and I have very similar processes. You know, when I
Speaker 1: get up each morning, I essentially ask my well, I
Speaker 1: get out of bed, I don't look at my phone.
Speaker 1: I get out of bed, I walk to the I
Speaker 1: do what I need to do, clem Mattie, splash my face,
Speaker 1: walk to the cafe. And I literally asked myself this
Speaker 1: question or a version is that is, in terms of
Speaker 1: who I want to be, how I want to be,
Speaker 1: and what I need to get done today, what's the
Speaker 1: best use of my time, energy, and attention, Like, what's
Speaker 1: the optimal use of me? You know, because it is
Speaker 1: you think about people whose brain or attention is hijacked
Speaker 1: by their phone and the people who you are, you know,
Speaker 1: talking about whose list. Fucks they're looking at their phone
Speaker 1: before their feet hit the ground. They're almost doing if not,
Speaker 1: they are doing that on autopilot, like they don't wake
Speaker 1: up and go, you know what I think I should do.
Speaker 1: I should reach from my phone, I'll grab my phone,
Speaker 1: I'll have it, Like they're just doing that before their
Speaker 1: brain is really like this is this is an addiction,
Speaker 1: This is a this is a groundhog day that is destructive, Like,
Speaker 1: this is a this is now a habit that's actually
Speaker 1: derailing your fucking everything from your potential and talent to
Speaker 1: your energy and your physical health.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and is it's it's a key part of heidiness.
Speaker 2: It's commitment to orientation, which is being fully engaged. High
Speaker 2: heiding people are fully engaged at life. They're engaged that work,
Speaker 2: but they're also engaged in their free time. They're fully engaged.
Speaker 2: And as I say, there are an increasing amount of
Speaker 2: people who are spending an increasing amount of their spur
Speaker 2: time with their heads buried on a fucking screen looking
Speaker 2: to be entertained, whether it's on social media or on
Speaker 2: Netflix or whatever your streaming platform is. And I don't
Speaker 2: remember Aristotle or Socrates or the Buddha saying that the
Speaker 2: purpose in life is to be entertained. Right. It's about
Speaker 2: being engaged in life, being curious about life, right, and
Speaker 2: actually just wanting to immerse yourself in it. And it's
Speaker 2: also you know, commitment orientation. When you're fully engaged in life,
Speaker 2: that's when you can find a sense of purpose and meaning.
Speaker 2: And life has no meaning other than what we give it.
Speaker 2: That's the key thing, right, there's no fucking purpose. Very
Speaker 2: it's going to come along and show you what your
Speaker 2: purpose is. We actually have to find it through meaningful
Speaker 2: engagement in life, and that's hugely important, and that's commitment orientation,
Speaker 2: but also then being committed to your own well being.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you a quote that I show today, I
Speaker 2: show all the time, so I say, my favorite quote.
Speaker 2: It's from Seneca, and it's kind of paraphrasing his stuff, right,
Speaker 2: But here's what it is. Every individual burs the responsibility
Speaker 2: to be of value to humanity, if possible, to benefit
Speaker 2: a large number, if not, to benefit a smaller group,
Speaker 2: If that too seems unattainable, then to benefit their immediate community.
Speaker 2: But above all else, they must prioritize self growth and
Speaker 2: personal well being. And I love that statement because it
Speaker 2: encapsulates everything about hardiness. It encapsulates that sense of meaning
Speaker 2: and purpose, but gives people a clear path that it's
Speaker 2: about engagement with others, it's about being useful to your community,
Speaker 2: about being a member of a tribe. All the research
Speaker 2: and human flourishing points as this where and you will
Speaker 2: know that. But then it's about being committed to your
Speaker 2: well being because if you look after yourself, you're going
Speaker 2: to be much more effective at whatever your meaning and
Speaker 2: purpose is. If it's to be the best mom or
Speaker 2: dad that you can be, if you short your shit out,
Speaker 2: you will be a much better parent. Right, Seemen work
Speaker 2: all of those things, and that really encapsulates hardiness. Commitment,
Speaker 2: which is one of the key season hardiness.
Speaker 1: So I've got a few questions. Here's my first one.
Speaker 1: You've never been asked this question. I'm going to ask
Speaker 1: you this question. I want you to finish this sentence.
Speaker 1: Hardiness is the antidote to what.
Speaker 2: All of the distractions and stressors of modern life and
Speaker 2: the inevitable shit sandwiches that you will have to fierce.
Speaker 1: Again, folks, science, you heard it here. Science. He's a doctor.
Speaker 1: He's a doctor. Now, all right, beautiful I love that.
Speaker 1: I thought I would get something like that, beautiful. I
Speaker 1: want you to you kind of did it before. But
Speaker 1: just as we are finding our kind of feet of
Speaker 1: understanding in this space of trying to differentiate between resilience
Speaker 1: and hardiness and all of that, just give us a definition.
Speaker 1: It can be appalled definition. It doesn't need to be official.
Speaker 1: A definition of hardiness versus a definition of resilience. And
Speaker 1: what's the overlap and what's the difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so resilience is an outcome. It doesn't tell you
Speaker 2: how to get there. Hardiness does. Resilience is backwards looking,
Speaker 2: hardiness is forwards looking. So hardiness is about a say,
Speaker 2: set of psychological orientations that help you to prepare and
Speaker 2: deal with stress and grow from stress in and of
Speaker 2: the moment, whereas resilience is about picking yourself up when
Speaker 2: you've been battered. Right. So there's a distinct difference between
Speaker 2: the two. But there is an overlap as well. And
Speaker 2: this and and here's the other thing. Hardiness can be learned,
Speaker 2: whereas resilience is a lot harder to learn. That that's
Speaker 2: the key thing. A lot of things will say resilience
Speaker 2: is is is a is a treit it's something you have,
Speaker 2: and the other people are arguing, is it a state,
Speaker 2: is it something you do? All of this, but hardiness
Speaker 2: is very clearly a process, a set of psychological orientations
Speaker 2: that anybody can learn. So I often have people in
Speaker 2: workshops create their own personal tombstone statement in three minutes flat,
Speaker 2: and I give them a few little a few little prompts,
Speaker 2: but get them to create a tombstone statement, something which
Speaker 2: they would like to be remembered for that sums up
Speaker 2: their commitment. And I often talk about mine. I talk
Speaker 2: about it in the book, and it happened. The trigger
Speaker 2: for this was eight friends of mine getting killed in
Speaker 2: a helicopter crash two of my best meets, and I
Speaker 2: was pretty lucky not to be in one of those helicopters.
Speaker 2: And anyway, through a series of events, I ended up
Speaker 2: deciding to leave the military and go down this path.
Speaker 2: And so my tombstone statement is military man turned educator
Speaker 2: to help others be better versions of themselves. So I
Speaker 2: encourage everybody to write a tombstone statement about how you
Speaker 2: would like to be remembered and what your contribution would be,
Speaker 2: and remembering what Seneca said, you know, it can be
Speaker 2: many people. It can be a small group or it
Speaker 2: can be just your immediate community. So it can be
Speaker 2: about being the best mom or dad, or son or
Speaker 2: daughter whatever that you can be. But once you've written
Speaker 2: down a rough draft, I like to get people to
Speaker 2: spend ten minutes a day deliberately acting on that purpose,
Speaker 2: because then your attention is on it, and then you
Speaker 2: start to become more aware of it, you start to
Speaker 2: think about it more, and it starts to develop. So
Speaker 2: you don't need perfect, don't let don't let perfect be
Speaker 2: the enemy of goot. You know, just get some sort
Speaker 2: of a tombstone statement dying, spend ten minutes a day
Speaker 2: working on it, and it will start to become clearer
Speaker 2: and clearer as you go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so interesting how how much we invest into
Speaker 1: you know, our career or you know, make and dough,
Speaker 1: not that they're bad things or you know whatever. Whatever
Speaker 1: It is like time, effort, energy, focus, attention on external things,
Speaker 1: but not really I'm building ourselves. You know. It's like,
Speaker 1: how much time do I spend like trying to be
Speaker 1: to build, you know, to develop hard in us or
Speaker 1: to be developed, in my instance, self awareness, or to
Speaker 1: even think about my fucking thinking that metacognitive door that
Speaker 1: I like opening, or more specific than my research, trying
Speaker 1: to understand how other people think one and two how
Speaker 1: they think about me. Like these kind of internal processes
Speaker 1: that really make life, communication, problem solving, teaching, leading better,
Speaker 1: we don't really. I feel like, despite all of the
Speaker 1: psychology and all of the research and all of the
Speaker 1: for one of a better term, self help personal development,
Speaker 1: we still don't truly work on ourselves much. And we
Speaker 1: kind of you know, you, if you meet Dave today
Speaker 1: and then you see Dave in ten years, even if
Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of shit that Dave wants to
Speaker 1: change and needs to change today, a fair chance is
Speaker 1: just going to be a ten year old version of
Speaker 1: the same bloke in ten years, unless I feel like,
Speaker 1: unless there's some kind of almost fucking revolutional internal revelation
Speaker 1: that switches something.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I would do if I was
Speaker 2: tizarre of the universe? I would make every man, woman
Speaker 2: and child do one hour a week of a deep
Speaker 2: dive into philosophy. Yeah, and the Stoics used to say
Speaker 2: that philosophy is the doctor's office for the mind, and
Speaker 2: it is. It's all of that stuff about thinking, who
Speaker 2: am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose? All
Speaker 2: of that? And and it's through an exploration of philosophy,
Speaker 2: which I kind of started when I was a teenager
Speaker 2: and then dropped and ain't got back into it. But
Speaker 2: but that's the stuff where you do create meaning and
Speaker 2: purpose in life with those philosophical questions. And there's a
Speaker 2: there's a brilliant book that I actually got and that
Speaker 2: we were then sitting with our kids at dinner and
Speaker 2: would read it. I think it's called thirty second Philosophy,
Speaker 2: and it's basically taken some of the big philosophical thinking
Speaker 2: and having a story in a way that that that
Speaker 2: everybody can understand, and then imposing some questions. And actually,
Speaker 2: my you know what, I knew that this was all
Speaker 2: worth it. So my daughter Kira made it's going to
Speaker 2: blow your mind. She's at UNI. She's at Melbourne UNI.
Speaker 2: Now you remember her when she was a little baby,
Speaker 2: So she is. She's studying biomedicine at UNI. And she
Speaker 2: was to take a broadening subject this year and she
Speaker 2: came back and said, I'm studying philosophy as a broaden
Speaker 2: I'm like that.
Speaker 1: Did you share a tea? Stoic shared a tea.
Speaker 2: I did a little bit. And that's that's the misunderstand
Speaker 2: that's this little stoic stuff. Upper lip a big stoic.
Speaker 2: The Stoics they actually had emotions and and and they
Speaker 2: explored their emotions, but they just they just said, don't
Speaker 2: be a slave to your emotions. Don't be a slave
Speaker 2: to the passions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a misconception. I think that like people correlate, Oh,
Speaker 1: they go, oh, he's very stoic. He's standing there with
Speaker 1: a stern face at the funeral, not shitting a tea
Speaker 1: and being a fucking pillar of strength. I'm like, nah,
Speaker 1: that's not stoic.
Speaker 2: That's that's little s stoic. It's different to capitalists, which
Speaker 2: describes the Stoic philosophers. So yes, it's a it's a
Speaker 2: complete misunderstanding.
Speaker 1: Is is hardiness? Can we measure it? Can we have
Speaker 1: value at it?
Speaker 2: We can? We can? Yeah, and I did. There was
Speaker 2: a number of validated tools. I used one in my
Speaker 2: research and so we recently my last published paper for
Speaker 2: part of my PhD, we did an intervention in New
Speaker 2: Zealand with two different companies, one law firm, the other
Speaker 2: was a fast pierced startup. So these guys are all
Speaker 2: massively under pressure. We did a survey on hardiness. We
Speaker 2: used the Hardiness Resilience Gage, we used a brief resilience scale,
Speaker 2: the WHO five on mental well being, and we did
Speaker 2: a gratitude survey. And we also did cognitive testing that
Speaker 2: was thelloped in at Britain Park where you're doing your PhD.
Speaker 2: And so these cognitive assessments were part of the whole
Speaker 2: cognitive fitness program that measure performance under pressure. And what
Speaker 2: we found is statistically significant improvements in hardiness, in resilience,
Speaker 2: in mood, in gratitude, in perceptions of stress, in inhibitory control,
Speaker 2: and attentional control. The only one that didn't move the
Speaker 2: needle on was working memory, and we think probably because
Speaker 2: that takes longer to change. So and the research shows
Speaker 2: that hardiness can actually be learned. And that's why I
Speaker 2: love it because there's that clear process. And this is
Speaker 2: what I explore in the book. You know, the four
Speaker 2: season things that you can do to enhance your level
Speaker 2: amongst all of those things.
Speaker 1: Do you think, sorry, I'm jumping around a little bit,
Speaker 1: but as you're talking about you know what largely what
Speaker 1: is and in well correlates with an internal state like mindset,
Speaker 1: and do you think living in twenty twenty five when
Speaker 1: there's an overwhelm of drugs to treat every emotional and
Speaker 1: psychological conditional issue. But we know not, we think, But
Speaker 1: we know that you know, changing diet, We know that exercise,
Speaker 1: certain kinds of exercise at certain levels. We know that sleep,
Speaker 1: We know that lifestyle. We know that being around people
Speaker 1: that you love, the way that we socialize. We know
Speaker 1: that lying on the floor with your fucking golden retriever,
Speaker 1: if you love a golden retriever. We know that all
Speaker 1: of these things can change what's going on in our body.
Speaker 1: But it seems are the breaks coming on a little bit?
Speaker 1: Do you think with this over medication of fucking throwing
Speaker 1: pills at everything, like, are we starting to learn that
Speaker 1: lifestyle and exercise and food and movement and who we
Speaker 1: hug or don't hug is as powerful or more powerful
Speaker 1: than drugs.
Speaker 2: Look, I write about this quite a lot in the book.
Speaker 2: I give alternative prescriptions for mental health. But I start
Speaker 2: the book with, you know, probably the greatest philosophical story
Speaker 2: that one of Hercules who and this is the Greek version,
Speaker 2: So Hercules are Heracles in the Greek, but let's just
Speaker 2: go with the Roman. Hercules comes to a fork in
Speaker 2: the road and he sees two women, one on each fork,
Speaker 2: and the first woman approaches him and tells him that
Speaker 2: her name is judate Mania, which is is true happiness,
Speaker 2: but her name is actually Kakia, which is vice. And
Speaker 2: he says to him, come this way, you will have
Speaker 2: an easy life. You will have a life of all
Speaker 2: of the comforts and indulgences and and all of that
Speaker 2: will be the expense of others, and it will be
Speaker 2: such a good, enjoyable life. And then then Araty that
Speaker 2: that basically translates his character, approaches him, and she's much
Speaker 2: plainer looking, but has this natural beauty, and she says, well,
Speaker 2: if you follow my path, this is the path to
Speaker 2: true happiness. But it is the hard path. You will
Speaker 2: have to undergo severe challenges that will test and develop
Speaker 2: your character. But all and this is not easy, but
Speaker 2: ultimately this is the true path to fulfillment. And Hercules,
Speaker 2: as we all know, chooses the hard path of arity
Speaker 2: and has to go through the twelve trials of Hercules,
Speaker 2: and eventually he gets killed. But Zeus is the the
Speaker 2: the ultimate god, is so impressed with his character that
Speaker 2: he deifies him right, he makes them, he makes him
Speaker 2: a demigod because of what he's actually done. And I
Speaker 2: think we are not at a crossroads. That that is
Speaker 2: how I set up the book. We are at the
Speaker 2: crossroads where we have comfort all around us. We have
Speaker 2: food at the tip of our fingertips, we don't have
Speaker 2: to move, we don't have to go through physical discomfort.
Speaker 2: We're in climate controlled environments. And if you've got an issue,
Speaker 2: where we have a pill for that, and it's the
Speaker 2: path of Kakia. It's the easy path that seems to
Speaker 2: be the path that we should go down, but ultimately
Speaker 2: the true path is taking the path of ouritay and
Speaker 2: taking the path where you deliberately actually encounter hardships and
Speaker 2: you approach them with the right character. And that's the
Speaker 2: stuff that drives you on and gives you a life
Speaker 2: that you could be proud of.
Speaker 1: And I actually talk.
Speaker 2: About the book, you know, when you mentioned that, I said, hey, well,
Speaker 2: you know your end of your life. You're looking back
Speaker 2: in your life, what do you want to say that
Speaker 2: was an easy life, a life of comfort or jeez,
Speaker 2: that was hard, but that was a life that I
Speaker 2: could be proud of I fascinate the people. I read
Speaker 2: the end of chapter. If you want the former, throw
Speaker 2: this book away because it's not for you.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, And it's funny. I feel like your
Speaker 1: message in my message with many things anyway, you know
Speaker 1: that parallel And I often say to an audience, I
Speaker 1: can tell you what you want to hear or what
Speaker 1: you need to hear. What do you prefer like, I can.
Speaker 1: I can be fucking hilarious and Mormon fuzzy and tell
Speaker 1: you you're all ace but you're not right. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I can. I can. We can just have this delusional
Speaker 1: kind of experience for an hour, or I can tell
Speaker 1: you shit that will actually if you do the work
Speaker 1: and if you apply the information, potentially change what's going
Speaker 1: on in your life now and forever. But you might
Speaker 1: not love it. You might not love the presentation, you know.
Speaker 1: And then and it's it's a bit of a it's
Speaker 1: complicated because they're like, well, you know, and of course
Speaker 1: they normally choose the latter, but it's that, you know,
Speaker 1: that that obsession that we seem to have. And I'm
Speaker 1: using the global w and of course listeners, this is
Speaker 1: not everyone. It may not be you. But the addiction
Speaker 1: that we have to instant gratification, and whether that's whatever, drugs, booze, food, sex, comfort,
Speaker 1: you know, lying down whatever it is, like, what is
Speaker 1: the apart from telling me delaying gratification, what's the antidote
Speaker 1: to instant gratification? Because it feels like, and I'll shut
Speaker 1: up after this. It feels like where many of us
Speaker 1: anyway are perpetually starting on Monday. Right it's not yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's because we love saying look not now for
Speaker 1: these reasons. And the reasons generally are not reasons by
Speaker 1: the way their excuses dressed up as reasons. But we
Speaker 1: always have this listen Monday or you know a similar
Speaker 1: version of Monday, because and then we wake up and
Speaker 1: it's fucking two thousand and thirty.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I think the key to understand here is
Speaker 2: that we are wired to go down the path of
Speaker 2: Kakia because if you think of our our evolutionary history,
Speaker 2: you know, as cavan, as hunter gatherers, life was fucking hard.
Speaker 2: So we have all of these things in our you
Speaker 2: know that to activate our brain that give us those
Speaker 2: dopamine hits, right, you know, the social interaction with people
Speaker 2: sitting around the campfire right, which has now been hijacked
Speaker 2: by social media. Right, the eating of food, the tasting
Speaker 2: of honey or fat, right, is actually rewarding. It's the
Speaker 2: neurobiology of preference because fat is energy dense, honey is
Speaker 2: is quick, glue, quick sugar. Right, it's good, good for
Speaker 2: you in the in nature, but that has been hijacked
Speaker 2: by these food companies and ultra processed foods that give
Speaker 2: our brains a hit of dopamine that we were never
Speaker 2: designed to hold, right. And and all of these, all
Speaker 2: of the recreational drugs, they all act on neurotransmitters in
Speaker 2: the brain. If we didn't have the neurotransmitter, if we
Speaker 2: didn't have an opioid receptor, heroin would do call for you, right,
Speaker 2: If we didn't have a serotonin receptor, Ecstasy wouldn't feel good.
Speaker 2: If we didn't have dopamine receptors, Cocaine wouldn't feel good. Right.
Speaker 2: So we have all of these things that have been
Speaker 2: created on our environment that hijack these natural systems that
Speaker 2: motivate us to do stuff. And so what we've got
Speaker 2: to do for me really is making that choice about
Speaker 2: what path we go down, and choosing the hard path
Speaker 2: and that really that brings us into challenge orientation. Right.
Speaker 2: So challenge orientation is people high in hardiness challenge they
Speaker 2: view both change and adversity as opportunities for them to
Speaker 2: grow and develop, right, Whereas people low in heartiness challenge
Speaker 2: actually view these things as things to shy away from
Speaker 2: and they get in a threat response. So and let me,
Speaker 2: let me explain how this works for people. So it's said, great,
Speaker 2: let's sake me and you are presented with the same
Speaker 2: potential stress or don't matter what that is if you
Speaker 2: view it as a challenge and I view it as
Speaker 2: a threat, and this happens instantaneously in your brain very quickly,
Speaker 2: you make a decision whether this is a challenge or
Speaker 2: a threat. With you viewing it as a challenge, you
Speaker 2: go into what we call approach mode in psychology. So you know,
Speaker 2: you know about for our listeners, this is you lean in.
Speaker 2: You're motivated to actually engage with me with threat. I'm
Speaker 2: in the runaway mode, the flight part of fighter flight.
Speaker 2: You're in fight part. I'm in flight or freeze. I procrastinate,
Speaker 2: I delay, I bury my head in the sand, I
Speaker 2: run away, I avoid. We go to avoidance mode and
Speaker 2: then with the physiology, with a challenge response, you activate
Speaker 2: Mark series showed this at Buffalo University. You activate the
Speaker 2: sympathetic adrenal modulary access the fight part of the fighter
Speaker 2: flight which involves the chemicals adrenaline and no adrenaline. That
Speaker 2: means that your cardiovascular system prepares for action. Your blood
Speaker 2: vessels dilate, blood flow gets more, it's more, cardiac output increases,
Speaker 2: oxygen uptake increases. It prepars your body to deal with things.
Speaker 2: Whereas may with a threat response, I go into HPI axis,
Speaker 2: Cordisole comes over the top. That means that my blood
Speaker 2: vessels become constricted. Blood flow is less, blood flow to
Speaker 2: the brain is less. We go in, I go into
Speaker 2: shutdown mode. Now, the half life of those chemicals are
Speaker 2: very different. Adrenaline a new adrenaline. The half life is
Speaker 2: one to two minutes, and within about four half lives
Speaker 2: that chemical is back to base level. So within five
Speaker 2: minutes of this stressor you are back to homeostasis. Cordisole
Speaker 2: has a half life of about an hour an hour
Speaker 2: and a half. That means that five hours later, I
Speaker 2: still have significant amount of stress hormones running through my
Speaker 2: body attacking my organs impacting upon my brain, affecting my
Speaker 2: ability to get to sleep right. These are the people
Speaker 2: who go to bed in their brain on fire. So
Speaker 2: and that's that can be a choice though, that challenge orientation. Yes,
Speaker 2: and I'll give you I'll give you an example. So
Speaker 2: you know some of the listeners who knows know that.
Speaker 2: Last year I went to see a made a Man
Speaker 2: of carreologist just to get a check up on my health.
Speaker 2: Came in to get the results. He said, Hey, good news,
Speaker 2: your feller's a fiddle. Bad news. You were born with
Speaker 2: a dodgy aortic valve and you need open heart surgery.
Speaker 2: At some stage, I remember walking out of there and
Speaker 2: the words of Seneca hit me like a slap across
Speaker 2: the face. I pitied the man who has not faced adversity,
Speaker 2: because he has not faced a worthy opponent, and no one,
Speaker 2: not even him, knows what he is capable of. So
Speaker 2: in that moment, I choose to And because I've learned
Speaker 2: this from reading all the hardiness research, reading Victor Frankel,
Speaker 2: reading the Stoics, we don't get to choose our circumstances,
Speaker 2: but we always get to choose how we respond. Now
Speaker 2: I embraced my open hearts as a worthy opponent, something
Speaker 2: that would test and develop me. And I knew I
Speaker 2: have six months to prepare myself for my worthy opponent,
Speaker 2: and I actually embraced the open heart surgery, fully embraced
Speaker 2: it as a challenge to actually make me better and
Speaker 2: make me optimal. And we all have the opportunity about
Speaker 2: how we choose to face adversity and challenge. I was
Speaker 2: talking to Aunt Middleton the other day, you know Aunt
Speaker 2: Middleton from says You're tough enough. It was on his
Speaker 2: podcast and we were talking about this thing about life
Speaker 2: and we have very similar views but slightly different. So
Speaker 2: for him, everything in life is a game. It's always
Speaker 2: a game, and the challenge comes up. This is a game,
Speaker 2: right I because I've been influenced by the stoic life
Speaker 2: is a contest and Epiciteta says, the Olympic Games are
Speaker 2: upon us. There is no time to waste, and so
Speaker 2: you've got to be in the fucking contest. That's the thing, right,
Speaker 2: And you've got to welcome adversity that comes up, because
Speaker 2: it's just a shit sandwich from the universe, and you
Speaker 2: can play the victim and moesmy or you can go, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is a test, right, Yes, it's the Olympic Games
Speaker 2: of life. What am I going to do about this?
Speaker 2: And that leaning in and viewing as a challenge means
Speaker 2: that you're much more likely, number one, to engage and
Speaker 2: be proactive about it. But secondly, it massively changes your
Speaker 2: physiology hugely. So someone is constantly in threat mode, they're
Speaker 2: just they've got corse all coursing around their friggin body.
Speaker 2: And this sorry, it's great just to add on this,
Speaker 2: to expand on it. This is where I think we're
Speaker 2: going wrong because in schools they talk way too much
Speaker 2: about mental health conditions, and they're making all the kids
Speaker 2: aware of what anxiety is and what depression is, and
Speaker 2: the research is showing that it's making kids mental health
Speaker 2: worse because it's suggestible, oh fuck, maybe I do have anxiety,
Speaker 2: maybe I do have to pressure. And then their social
Speaker 2: development stuff is about peers and acceptance. And so if
Speaker 2: I'm a group of friends and some of them have anxiety,
Speaker 2: oh I want to have anxiety so that I can
Speaker 2: fit in. And this this is this is evidence, bas
Speaker 2: this is this is not me, This is evidence, bast
Speaker 2: So what happens is that because this is the unintended
Speaker 2: consequence of well intentioned interventions. Right, and in the workplace,
Speaker 2: there's so much talk about psychological safety. Amy Edmundson created
Speaker 2: psychological safety. Psychological safety is not about the right not
Speaker 2: to be fucking offended. That's horseshit. Psychological safety is feeling
Speaker 2: that I can speak up and give my views without
Speaker 2: fear of reprisal. Right, It's not that I feel a
Speaker 2: little bit off today. I'm on because somebody's spoken badly
Speaker 2: to me, So I'm going to have a fucking day off.
Speaker 2: That's not what it's about. So we have gone and
Speaker 2: again well intentioned, but we've gone too far, and everything
Speaker 2: is threat threat threat threat threat out there.
Speaker 1: And we got in the words, in the words of
Speaker 1: that great academic Ricky Gervais, your feelings are not my responsibility.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you know that, Like like, so you offended? Fucking
Speaker 2: so what? Yeah? Right, all right? And you know the
Speaker 2: universe things that we're guaranteed three things, death taxes, ship
Speaker 2: chandwiches from the universe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is that is all right. We've got you've
Speaker 1: got an appointment in seven minutes, so have I quick? Okay,
Speaker 1: so quick? Why do we wait for shit to fall apart.
Speaker 1: I know we don't all, but it seems like we
Speaker 1: wait till shit implodes and then we go off. Then
Speaker 1: we have a revelation, then we might In other words,
Speaker 1: why are we so reactive? Is it because being proactive
Speaker 1: is hard?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I think it is. I think it is
Speaker 2: that being proactive is hard. And again, hunter gatherer stuff.
Speaker 2: We are programmed to want the easy path. And that's
Speaker 2: fine if your life is really hard, like a hunter gatherer,
Speaker 2: but if it's not that hard, and then it becomes
Speaker 2: a problem. And I think people, we have so many
Speaker 2: things out there that are are lovely, right, and all
Speaker 2: the food and the drugs and stuff, it's stuff that
Speaker 2: gives that hijacks our brains. It's not the reward we're
Speaker 2: meant to have. And so I feel a huge amount
Speaker 2: of sympathy for people who are like that. We now
Speaker 2: have to definitely choose the hard path, right, and we
Speaker 2: have to have this also, I'll throw in the last one,
Speaker 2: the control orientation, which is a deep belief that I
Speaker 2: control or heavily influence my environment and my destiny. And
Speaker 2: I focus on what I can control and don't put
Speaker 2: my energy in the stuff that I can't control and
Speaker 2: look for me, it's that whole existential crisis, right. And
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not religious at all, but I actually
Speaker 2: think society has suffered from the breakdown of religion because
Speaker 2: religion give people a set of values and behaviors and
Speaker 2: a group to connect in with U and ways to
Speaker 2: actually behave and integrate. And now without that, lots of
Speaker 2: people are in an existential vacuum where they don't have
Speaker 2: that sense of meaning and purpose. They've never actually sat
Speaker 2: down and gone, fuck, what are my values? Right? What
Speaker 2: are the key things that I want to live my
Speaker 2: life by? What's my compass? So for me, you know,
Speaker 2: they're things like like curiosity, gratitude, equanimity, and also just
Speaker 2: wanting to test myself. And so when you have that,
Speaker 2: authenticity is another one of mine. So this is the
Speaker 2: reason you know I'm irison ex military. I like a
Speaker 2: tipple as much as anybody else. The reason I'm not
Speaker 2: an absolute piss head is the value of authenticity because
Speaker 2: I can't stand up and talk about peak performance if
Speaker 2: I'm drinking four or five nights a week, right, So
Speaker 2: we have to really find out what are our core values,
Speaker 2: what's our meaning and purpose in life, because that becomes
Speaker 2: the north star to guide us around behaviors and to
Speaker 2: help us to make the harder choices in life.
Speaker 1: Love you, and I've got so much stuff I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about. We might have to do
Speaker 1: another one. I just I have so many things to
Speaker 1: talk to you about which I think are relevant and interesting.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to finish with this and then we're
Speaker 1: going to plug the book. Here's one of the bits
Speaker 1: of feedback. I get this is going to sound stupid,
Speaker 1: but I'm not lying people. Many people have said to
Speaker 1: me a version of this. It's easy for you. You're
Speaker 1: Craig Harper like to do right. It's easy for you right.
Speaker 1: And I feel like some people would listen to you
Speaker 1: and go, well, he's a fucking genius. He's smart, he's articulate,
Speaker 1: he's a weapon, he's got this background that he's all
Speaker 1: these things. I'm not that I'm a pile of shit
Speaker 1: with no fucking potential and no you know, and not
Speaker 1: that any of our listeners are. But I know that
Speaker 1: people feel like that. I feel like it's easy to
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts. I feel this, but I also know
Speaker 1: this because I get told and it's almost overwhelming, Like,
Speaker 1: where do I start? So somebody's listening to this, I
Speaker 1: would suggest probably lots of people are listening to this,
Speaker 1: and they go, Craig Paul, all makes sense. Nonetheless, I'm overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: I'm fucking overwhelmed mentally, emotionally, financially, I'm fucking terrified out
Speaker 1: of every second thing. I live in fucking upper wherever.
Speaker 1: And it's all well and good, and I love you both,
Speaker 1: and it makes sense. But where the fuck do I start?
Speaker 1: How can I open the door and create a little
Speaker 1: bit of momentum?
Speaker 2: So start with this. Scientists reckon that our chances odds
Speaker 2: of ever having been born as us are about one
Speaker 2: in four hundred trillion. Wow, right, we have won the
Speaker 2: greatest ever lottery. How about we start fucking acting like
Speaker 2: it and every morning just wake up your gremlin I
Speaker 2: talk about gremlin sees my gremlin when I wake up
Speaker 2: in the morning, goes press news, have a lie in,
Speaker 2: and my see it goes. Fuck that one in four
Speaker 2: hundred trillion, motherfucker. Let's get up and do something right.
Speaker 2: So if you start the day like that and do
Speaker 2: some work, do some get your get, do your tombstone statement,
Speaker 2: work out your values. You can just google a list
Speaker 2: of values to give you a bit of a guide
Speaker 2: around it. Right, So get clear on what you want
Speaker 2: to be remembered for, how you want to contribute, and
Speaker 2: get clear on your values, and then do an audit
Speaker 2: of your life. You know, how am I doing in
Speaker 2: my exercise, my food, my recovery, my family, all of
Speaker 2: those things. Do a little bit of an order on
Speaker 2: your life, and pick with the low hanging fruit that
Speaker 2: you can get a small win. Set yourself some goals right,
Speaker 2: and get a process and just see if you can
Speaker 2: achieve something right and then take the next step. Because
Speaker 2: self efficacy for people who really struggle, they need some
Speaker 2: self efficacy, the belief that what they can do makes
Speaker 2: the difference. And it's so hard when you're in that hole.
Speaker 2: You have to get clear on purpose and values and
Speaker 2: use those as a guide to help you to do
Speaker 2: the behaviors when it's hard, and then over time what
Speaker 2: you're doing is your devel up being disciplined. This is
Speaker 2: the big thing that people don't talk about. Why is
Speaker 2: it easy for Craig Harper, Why is it easy for
Speaker 2: Paul Dealer, Why is it easy for Aunt Middleton? Because
Speaker 2: we've all developed discipline from doing the stuff that we
Speaker 2: need to do even when the motivation for area is
Speaker 2: fucked off for a holiday.
Speaker 1: The book is called The Hardiness Effect. Doctor Paul Taylor
Speaker 1: is the author Growth from Stress Up to Myself, Live Longer. Mate,
Speaker 1: you're again, Congrats on the book, Congrats on the PhD.
Speaker 1: I'm always super happy for you and proud of you.
Speaker 1: I'll see you soon.
Speaker 2: I'll see you when you are. Next time I see you,
Speaker 2: I reckon you'll be doctor Craig fucking who knows? Who knows?
Speaker 1: Who knows?
Speaker 2: Thanks everyone, cheers, mate,