Speaker 1: I'll get a team. It's it's me, It's Quig Anthony
Speaker 1: harpert'z the you projected Tiffany and Cook over there at
Speaker 1: typ Central, uh and Lucas. We're going to go with Andrew.
Speaker 1: We'll find out a minute. Lucas Andra Dixon, I made
Speaker 1: that up.
Speaker 2: It could be.
Speaker 1: I bet it starts with a vow. Not sure, TIV.
Speaker 1: Why are you wearing glasses?
Speaker 3: Because I wanted to fit in halps peer pressure? Really? Yeah, well,
Speaker 3: secure Lucas looked really intelligent. You've got you RWs And
Speaker 3: I was like.
Speaker 1: Let's call him doctor Lucas because he's a fresh doctor.
Speaker 1: He's like about six months a doctor, so we're going
Speaker 1: to call him that. And he's afreshy. And when you're
Speaker 1: a freshy, I mean, I don't know. I've never been one,
Speaker 1: but maybe one day, who knows. Tif How things over
Speaker 1: on planet tiff.
Speaker 3: Things are fabulous. Although I've got my hot lucky blanket
Speaker 3: on my legs and instead of roasting, and I don't
Speaker 3: know why I'm not turning it off, But you know,
Speaker 3: maybe one of you doctors can or almost doctors can.
Speaker 1: Well there's a real doctor. There's a real doctor and
Speaker 1: a not a close doctor, so just a bullshitter. So
Speaker 1: and I don't think he's that kind of doctor, although
Speaker 1: he might have some kind of psychological interpretation of what
Speaker 1: the fuck you're doing. Hey, Lucas, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Pleasure to be here, Craig, and thanks Tiffany.
Speaker 1: Wow, thanks for coming to playmatee. Now let me tell
Speaker 1: everyone how you and I. I was telling you before
Speaker 1: we went live. I typically don't invite guests on the show,
Speaker 1: it's not my job, but Melissa and Tiff tend to
Speaker 1: one do that and to be much better at that
Speaker 1: than me. And I was reading a paper when I
Speaker 1: should have been reading other papers. So I blame you
Speaker 1: for my lack of productivity with my own research.
Speaker 2: I'll take them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but you wrote a paper called the Secret
Speaker 1: to Success, the Psychology of belief in manifestation. Is that
Speaker 1: the oh no, no, no, this was the one. No,
Speaker 1: that was it. Yeah, that was the paper, and and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, this is so good. So I want
Speaker 1: to dive into that, but I just want to give you.
Speaker 4: You didn't say it, whether you didn't say it with
Speaker 4: the question mark tone in your voice. For those of
Speaker 4: the podcasts, that's the secrets success question mark.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the psychology of belief in manifestation or perfect You
Speaker 1: know those people who went down the old secret rabbit
Speaker 1: hole about a decade ago, They're just going to sit
Speaker 1: on the couch and manifest fucking excellence. How's that going anyway?
Speaker 1: So here's a bit of a snapshot. Doctor Lucas Dixon,
Speaker 1: graduated with a PhD in Social and consumer psychology from
Speaker 1: the UQ Business School in twenty twenty three, investigates the
Speaker 1: psychology of the success industry. I fucking love this, including
Speaker 1: the marketing and consumption of small business and solo preneur
Speaker 1: business education. He also investigates psychological factors that contribute to
Speaker 1: participating in multi level marketing and get rich quick schemes.
Speaker 1: Having run his own small business, Lucas aims to reduce fraud,
Speaker 1: misleading marketing, and improve offerings in this space. Are people,
Speaker 1: let's start with, are people just as gullible now as
Speaker 1: they were ten years ago, twenty years ago? Are they
Speaker 1: more gullible or are we more discerning? Or don't you know, doc, Oh.
Speaker 4: That's a good question, Craig, But I couldn't answer that really,
Speaker 4: But I look, my sneaking suspicion is we we're all
Speaker 4: gullible if people say the right things to us at
Speaker 4: the right time. Some perhaps more gullible than others. If
Speaker 4: we I mean, I guess as psychologists or whatever, we
Speaker 4: will break that down and think, well, what are the
Speaker 4: aspects of gullibility. So it's not just one thing that
Speaker 4: kind of makes us us gullible. But I do feel
Speaker 4: that we're in a unique time for this kind of
Speaker 4: being persuaded, being you know, being I guess hypnotizable in
Speaker 4: a way because of the factors that this new media
Speaker 4: landscape is not something we've experienced before. AI is going
Speaker 4: to be super interesting. They see what happens there. We're
Speaker 4: just not very great at times in making decisions with
Speaker 4: our heads.
Speaker 2: Or working out how to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess also, like you know, to quote many people,
Speaker 1: we love the idea of two minute abs, right love.
Speaker 1: We love the idea of reward without work. We love
Speaker 1: the idea of the destination without the journey you know,
Speaker 1: fill in the blank. The instant gratification, the quick fix,
Speaker 1: the magic pill, the silver bullet, like all that stuff
Speaker 1: is fucking attractive. And if you can get someone to
Speaker 1: believe that that might be real, which is not that
Speaker 1: hard for people who don't want to do the work.
Speaker 1: Then bibbity bobby boo ka ching you've got a sale.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, exactly, No, I agree, And it's one of
Speaker 4: the it's you know, that's I guess something I can
Speaker 4: speak to that we've we have found that, you know,
Speaker 4: the more you believe that, the more you believe that
Speaker 4: there really are get rich quick schemes, the more you're
Speaker 4: likely to believe the next one. You know, And so
Speaker 4: I guess the more that you're around groups and people
Speaker 4: and consuming content that is kind of reinforcing that message.
Speaker 4: And it's easy to see why you might believe that
Speaker 4: when you can hear people's stories of a success that
Speaker 4: are kind of like got that hero's journey, or you know,
Speaker 4: they're sort of leaving out all the hard bits, or
Speaker 4: you know, they're just kind of doing their their best
Speaker 4: to sort of tell an appealing story about how we've
Speaker 4: triumphed over some adversity. But of course life's not that simple,
Speaker 4: and there's so much that maybe we don't even know
Speaker 4: that's contributed to our success. But those simplistic narratives are
Speaker 4: great for TikTok, great for YouTube, and great for and
Speaker 4: of course they can be really motivational, but also kind
Speaker 4: of leave us down this path of feeling like success
Speaker 4: should be a quick or easy or a linear process
Speaker 4: of just climbing a ladder, and it's I don't know
Speaker 4: about you, but it hasn't been my experience.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean, my background, as I told you briefly,
Speaker 1: was working with thousands of people helping them change their body.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the funny things is, or
Speaker 1: one of the common things I guess is somebody wakes
Speaker 1: up one day. Let's just pick someone who's forty and
Speaker 1: they've been in and out of shape for a lot
Speaker 1: of their life, which was my story for a long time,
Speaker 1: in and out of shape, fit, unfit, big, small, overweight,
Speaker 1: fucking you know, ripped and rock hard everything. And then
Speaker 1: you know, one day people wake up and they want
Speaker 1: to undo forty years of kind of shitty thinking and
Speaker 1: choosing and behaving in four weeks, you know, and to
Speaker 1: create a new operating system. And all of that is great,
Speaker 1: but ye know, for so like when we talk specifically
Speaker 1: about the idea of physical transformation, you know, it's a
Speaker 1: physical process, but it's also such a psychological, emotional, sociological
Speaker 1: journey and like, you know, being able to step up
Speaker 1: and own up and say, well, I really do want
Speaker 1: to be successful. I do want to create that outcome,
Speaker 1: but I also need to acknowledge that it might not
Speaker 1: be fun or quick or easy or painless, you know,
Speaker 1: because that the two minute ads the silver bullet, that
Speaker 1: stuff is hugely appealing, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Agree, And it's it's also you know, really appealing for
Speaker 4: us perfectionists out there, and when I'm sure you've spoken
Speaker 4: a lot about that in your fifteen hundred episodes, and
Speaker 4: it's one of those things that if you expect you're
Speaker 4: going to you want to have high expectations of yourself,
Speaker 4: but you know, to hold yourself to that that I
Speaker 4: guess to have some kind of degree of self esteem
Speaker 4: and self confidence and want to to really raise that bar,
Speaker 4: but at the same time kind of realize we're not
Speaker 4: always going to hit it and not let that be
Speaker 4: the thing that's advotages you just because you're not you're
Speaker 4: not winning at the degree or the rate that you
Speaker 4: thought you were going to to be doing. And sometimes, hey,
Speaker 4: I hope that sometimes we could surprise ourselves. I always
Speaker 4: say to my students, you know, I try to keep
Speaker 4: my expectations in check, and then I'm just pleasantly surprised.
Speaker 4: I love being surprised when things go well. But maybe
Speaker 4: it's because I'm a natural pessimist.
Speaker 2: I don't know you.
Speaker 1: Are you truly a natural?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Is that how you're kind of wired? Look?
Speaker 5: I mean that's such a It's interesting, I think I
Speaker 5: when I become too optimistic, which I can do so
Speaker 5: I can be influenced and I can get.
Speaker 2: Caught up in imagination.
Speaker 4: My background was as a musician, that was my first career,
Speaker 4: and so I guess I have a creative, artistic mind
Speaker 4: and I've definitely had I've been through sort of the
Speaker 4: self help and personal development industry side of things as
Speaker 4: well as a consumer of that, from probably when I
Speaker 4: was maybe sixteen seventeen all the way up until sort
Speaker 4: of being a practitioner as a coach and as a
Speaker 4: hypnotherapist for as a transition from music to doing research.
Speaker 4: So I think that I've gone through phases of really
Speaker 4: digging my heels into the optimism space and going, yes,
Speaker 4: yes I have I'm going to think positively, but it
Speaker 4: never ultimately fit me. So I'm guessing that that means
Speaker 4: that I'm kind of on that pessimism scale somewhere.
Speaker 2: Below maybe I don't know, maybe just slightly somewhere in
Speaker 2: the neutral space.
Speaker 4: I feel really okay with that now, and I think, yeah,
Speaker 4: so that's self awareness.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe I'm Maybe you're kind of a realist, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you're pragmatic. You know. Let's so, yeah, I wanted
Speaker 1: to I want to talk about the paper and then
Speaker 1: kind of we'll see where we go. But the paper
Speaker 1: is called The Secret to Success question mark the Psychology
Speaker 1: of Belief in manifestation. Give us a snapshot of that
Speaker 1: research and that paper and what you found if you would.
Speaker 4: Sure think well, me and my colleagues, my advisors were
Speaker 4: it was.
Speaker 2: It was something we were interested in looking at. I
Speaker 2: didn't know if I was going to get to it.
Speaker 4: During my PhD, we started by looking at we're looking
Speaker 4: at multi level marketing organizations, you know, so Amway, Herbal Life,
Speaker 4: those kinds of companies, and looking at the personal development
Speaker 4: side of those businesses and thinking, wow, you know, there's
Speaker 4: a lot going on here as far as teaching people
Speaker 4: how to think about success or how to think about
Speaker 4: how to improve their business. And one of the things
Speaker 4: that came out of that was definitely this focus on
Speaker 4: manifestation and manifestation belief and even sort of going into
Speaker 4: the religious space of the prosperity gospel, believing if you
Speaker 4: invest a certain amount of money in.
Speaker 2: Your church or your group that it'll re return to you.
Speaker 4: And so we thought from that, I wanted to really,
Speaker 4: I know, it hadn't been looked at a lot in
Speaker 4: any kind of academic work. It hadn't really been looked
Speaker 4: at as kind of law of attraction manifestation. And of
Speaker 4: course that was what fifteen years ago, but it's been
Speaker 4: around for longer than that, longer than the Secret and
Speaker 4: in various forms. But I just thought, well, okay, how
Speaker 4: long has it been. It's fifteen sixteen years, it's the secret,
Speaker 4: and should we even look at it?
Speaker 2: People still in to this.
Speaker 4: But then I realized, look, the secret so of what
Speaker 4: thirty million copies or something was huge, and maybe it
Speaker 4: would be good to look at what's going on in
Speaker 4: the space now. If you look at TikTok at the time,
Speaker 4: they've changed their statistics strangely, but it was like thirty
Speaker 4: billion view you know, views or swipes on how TikTok works,
Speaker 4: but on manifestation content, you know, and so it's right
Speaker 4: manifestation of you can you know, if you just put
Speaker 4: that thought out there and you believe strongly and you
Speaker 4: act like you're successful, that sends this energy out to
Speaker 4: the universe. The universe hears that message and then sends
Speaker 4: that back to you. And you've got to look for
Speaker 4: those opportunities and make the best of those opportunities. And
Speaker 4: I've always been interested in like the difference, like the
Speaker 4: fact that there's these gray areas here, there's like all
Speaker 4: of these elements of truth there. Yeah, you know, self
Speaker 4: fulfilling sort of prophecies. Looking at the positive things helps
Speaker 4: you to see more positive things in the future. And
Speaker 4: and of course those things are kind of true. But
Speaker 4: then on the other side, like could we be embracing
Speaker 4: a world view like that? There's actually like quite a
Speaker 4: strong if you really believed the book The Secret, You've
Speaker 4: taken on a I would say, a pretty extreme view
Speaker 4: of how the world works. Every thought that you have
Speaker 4: is what creates every experience.
Speaker 2: So we created a scale that measured this.
Speaker 4: We work on basically in psychology, like scales that from
Speaker 4: one to seven. You know, how much do you agree
Speaker 4: with certain kinds of statements, and we we thought, okay,
Speaker 4: so people's believes different in this than they believe certain
Speaker 4: types of things, whether you read The Secret or you've
Speaker 4: read another kind of book, Think and grow rich Napoleon
Speaker 4: Hill if.
Speaker 2: You you know.
Speaker 4: But we thought there's commonalities there, the two commonalities being
Speaker 4: cosmic collaboration. So the idea that you collaborate, I've got
Speaker 4: hard to is the alliteration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hey, I was in the apiration.
Speaker 4: And personal power, which you know, hey, we all know
Speaker 4: Anthony Robbins that kind of thing. So basically that you
Speaker 4: either use you can harness that power of cosmic collaboration
Speaker 4: by doing the visualization, doing the positive affirmations, and we've
Speaker 4: found a whole bunch of things, so we I mean,
Speaker 4: the first thing was that we were trying to validate
Speaker 4: this scale, so making sure that the scale action measure
Speaker 4: of what we thought it was going to measure so
Speaker 4: we could use it in the future. But then we
Speaker 4: started to look at so manifestors. People who are scoring
Speaker 4: higher on this scale were more likely to believe that
Speaker 4: they would be successful in the future, so have that
Speaker 4: self confidence and optimism about the future, which maybe we
Speaker 4: could say is could be a good thing. But what
Speaker 4: we also did was then sort of look at, well,
Speaker 4: where are people at in their lives as far as
Speaker 4: maybe things like income and education and attainment, and sort
Speaker 4: of using that as a bar of going okay, so
Speaker 4: if you should we do manifest as people who are
Speaker 4: stronger in manifestation, do they maintain that kind of positive
Speaker 4: expectation about the future regardless of what their level of
Speaker 4: kind of income or is and education, so regardless of
Speaker 4: where they're at in that kind of process of attaining success.
Speaker 4: So we ask them things about, you know, what's your
Speaker 4: goals in life, and manifestos were more likely to say
Speaker 4: they had goals for sort of being rich, being famous,
Speaker 4: having being popular, having this kind of appealing image, and
Speaker 4: so when we looked at that, they were more likely
Speaker 4: to believe that they would achieve those things regardless of
Speaker 4: when we control for income and things like that. So
Speaker 4: it's this kind of level of success that's beyond whatever
Speaker 4: restrictions that people have.
Speaker 2: So from that we.
Speaker 4: Thought, okay, so that could be good for people maintaining
Speaker 4: hope and all of that. But then on the other side,
Speaker 4: perhaps that's kind of an unrealistic bar to put on yourself,
Speaker 4: like if you've got you're not you know, I don't know.
Speaker 4: So we looked we were interested in that, curious about that.
Speaker 4: We then looked at a particular type of We just
Speaker 4: gave them a scenario, a fairly simple scenario, asked them
Speaker 4: what do they think they're best at or what do
Speaker 4: they like in their life that they value, And basically
Speaker 4: then we said, okay, so imagine that you are doing
Speaker 4: that thing that you value and you could earn three
Speaker 4: hundred thousand dollars a year, have hundreds of thousands of fans,
Speaker 4: and have that respect and admiration, and like, first of all,
Speaker 4: we asked people, would would you how much would you
Speaker 4: like that to be the case. Of course, everyone, with
Speaker 4: most almost everyone in our samples said that they would
Speaker 4: like that, But manifestos were more likely to rate themselves
Speaker 4: as more likely to achieve that in their lifetime and
Speaker 4: also achieve it quicker.
Speaker 2: So we asked them how many years that we thought that, and.
Speaker 4: So every every step higher on the scale, they were
Speaker 4: more likely to say that they would achieve that goal
Speaker 4: in less time.
Speaker 2: So, considering it's a fairly.
Speaker 4: It's going to be an unattainable goal for most people,
Speaker 4: and we could kind of assume from that that manifestos
Speaker 4: kind of had more of an unrealistic expectation about.
Speaker 2: Achieving that kind of success.
Speaker 4: And then you know, we went on to look at
Speaker 4: some financial risk variables too, So we thought, well, if
Speaker 4: you have a kind of belief in this sort of
Speaker 4: secret source or extra power that you have be able
Speaker 4: to collaborate with this kind of cosmic law of attraction,
Speaker 4: you're probably more likely to feel that you could take
Speaker 4: more risks, that things will come more easily to you,
Speaker 4: especially if you're saying those kinds of informations to yourself.
Speaker 2: And so we looked at.
Speaker 4: We looked at basically some other some risk variables, so manifests,
Speaker 4: people who scored higher on the scale, more likely to
Speaker 4: say that they would be okay with taking higher risks,
Speaker 4: more likely to endorse the idea that you can get
Speaker 4: rich quick, more likely to have investments in things like
Speaker 4: crypto rather than sort of standard stocks, so those more
Speaker 4: you know, volatile but you know, I guess, more gambling
Speaker 4: style investments. And then also the one that really got
Speaker 4: the news attention was they were also more likely to
Speaker 4: report that they'd been bankrupt in their in their in
Speaker 4: their life, So yeah, that was basically what we found
Speaker 4: in this first set of studies that we've looked at manifestation.
Speaker 2: So it's some pros and some concept could you.
Speaker 1: So just for people who are going, what the fuck
Speaker 1: is a manifesto? Could you you to me? Like, like
Speaker 1: you said before, there's a bit of that. Let's focus
Speaker 1: on what we want. But I think if it ends there,
Speaker 1: well that's a problem. But if that leads to a
Speaker 1: decision and a plan and behavior and action and adaptation
Speaker 1: and like, if there's a whole kind of strategy and
Speaker 1: action plan that's that's executed, that's great. But more about
Speaker 1: the just focus on it and it will happen. Am
Speaker 1: I correct? So yes, to find what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: So somebody who is a manifestor what do you mean
Speaker 1: by that?
Speaker 4: Okay, well, let me just let me read some of
Speaker 4: the items that are in the scale. I feel that
Speaker 4: that's the easiest way to describe what I've got. The
Speaker 4: luxury of two screens here, so I can just read
Speaker 4: some of those items.
Speaker 1: It's great.
Speaker 4: I don't well look, I mean, look, you look like
Speaker 4: you've got a lot of screens there. I have to say,
Speaker 4: there's a big screen behind you. So they're not as big.
Speaker 4: Mine's not big, but you know I know how to
Speaker 4: use them. Okay, So visualizing a successful outcome causes it
Speaker 4: to be drawn closer to me. I can speak success,
Speaker 4: success into existence through positive self talk, I'm more likely
Speaker 4: to attract Let me think, go down here, I attract
Speaker 4: success into my life with the help of the universe
Speaker 4: or a higher power. The universe or a high paths
Speaker 4: sends me. People are events to aid my success. To
Speaker 4: attract success, I align myself with cosmic forces or energy.
Speaker 4: If I think about success, achieving success, those thoughts alone
Speaker 4: make success more likely. So what we're talking about is
Speaker 4: if you really score high, we're very very high on
Speaker 4: this scale, say that you're really believing that that is
Speaker 4: the secret, right, that is the cause that's happening there.
Speaker 4: And so if you if you believe that it's the
Speaker 4: thing that causes success and you read something like this secret,
Speaker 4: which we also obviously looked at whether people who score
Speaker 4: high on the scale have read the secret, and.
Speaker 2: Obviously they have more likely to have done that.
Speaker 4: But yeah, you're going to believe that, you're more likely
Speaker 4: to be able to sort of sit back and let
Speaker 4: the universe do the work.
Speaker 2: Don't worry about the how it will come together.
Speaker 4: And of course there's something that's maybe positive about sometimes
Speaker 4: stepping back and just sort of saying, hey, I'm going
Speaker 4: to hand things over. But as you're saying, like if
Speaker 4: it sort of prevents you from taking certain actions but this, Yeah,
Speaker 4: so that's definitely one thing that we didn't focus. There's
Speaker 4: definitely more room for work in that area. So maybe
Speaker 4: you'll do that, Craig for me, that would be good.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I think that that's probably going to be
Speaker 4: the case. They're more likely to I've done a little
Speaker 4: bit of piloting of some studies with this, and it
Speaker 4: seems to be the case that they're going to be
Speaker 4: less likely to take those what I called like like
Speaker 4: those instrumental actions, which are those step by step, day
Speaker 4: by day, the effort you have to make, but more
Speaker 4: likely to spend time on symbolic actions, so the things
Speaker 4: that sort of are supposed to prove to the universe.
Speaker 4: So things like dressing as your rich self for you know, right,
Speaker 4: doing a vision board and again on their own, those
Speaker 4: things are kind of harmless, but if they're done, and
Speaker 4: it means that you're doing more of that and spending
Speaker 4: a lot of time and energy on that and less
Speaker 4: time on the sort of hard yards of taking those
Speaker 4: actions that there's probably you know, that could sit to
Speaker 4: some extent explain what we found, or there's some other
Speaker 4: things that probably explain it to that I'm sure we'll
Speaker 4: get into.
Speaker 1: There's probably, I mean, there would be some groups and
Speaker 1: organizations that fucking hate your research. I hate to tell
Speaker 1: you that'd be like do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: That's going to rub a few people the wrong way.
Speaker 1: But how when people who are strongly towards the high
Speaker 1: end of the manifesto scale, you know, they they tick
Speaker 1: all the boxes, no pun intended. Are they very are
Speaker 1: they open to this? Like when you say, look, I mean,
Speaker 1: bottom line is in a nutshell, it doesn't work. Like
Speaker 1: manifesting doesn't correlate with better outcomes, better income, better long
Speaker 1: term results, better health. There's no evidence at all to
Speaker 1: suggest that this strategy or this whatever ideology philosophy works.
Speaker 1: Have you had any feedback from people when you kind
Speaker 1: of present them with that.
Speaker 4: I think I haven't experienced a lot of it publicly
Speaker 4: or like directly to me, but I would say that
Speaker 4: I probably don't.
Speaker 2: Present it exactly that way and maybe that's.
Speaker 4: Why I try to like, we're only this is one state,
Speaker 4: like one journal article in so I don't want to
Speaker 4: say that there's no advantages. And you know, obviously to
Speaker 4: really look at that, you probably have to look at
Speaker 4: over time, which we didn't do.
Speaker 2: We didn't look at people's success over time.
Speaker 4: But I think that, like what we were trying to
Speaker 4: do with this is set up some questions moving forward,
Speaker 4: and some of those questions are like what could be again,
Speaker 4: like what could be causing the perhaps poorer financial outcomes
Speaker 4: in this The fact that there is no sort of
Speaker 4: advantage necessarily except for the fact that maybe it we
Speaker 4: do know it makes people feel better. You make some
Speaker 4: more hopeful, and it makes them and that can be important.
Speaker 4: But I think just that it's not actually having the
Speaker 4: effect that maybe these books are promising. Is I think
Speaker 4: I could put my foot down and say that that
Speaker 4: it's not you're not going to get what the secret
Speaker 4: is telling you you're going to get. I'm happy to
Speaker 4: put my flagging.
Speaker 1: Them on that. It sounds a little bit like you
Speaker 1: and I have had like similar components to our background,
Speaker 1: which is opening the door on you know, self help
Speaker 1: and personal development and you know, which you ended up
Speaker 1: doing a PhD in psych the same as me, and
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. And you It's interesting because I do
Speaker 1: a lot of like my main job is speaking, is
Speaker 1: corporate speaking, and working in the public sector doing workshops
Speaker 1: and stuff. And I was talking to somebody this morning
Speaker 1: and they literally asked me how, I how do you
Speaker 1: keep coming up with new stuff? Right? And like I said,
Speaker 1: I don't. And I said, like, they're pretty much there
Speaker 1: is no new stuff like the stuff that I talk about.
Speaker 1: You know, philosophers and stoics and theologians and psychologists and
Speaker 1: researchers have been talking about for hundreds and thousands of years.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like there's there's nothing. You know, there's
Speaker 1: new ways of sharing old ideas or old wisdom, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's like I'm just opening the door and pointing
Speaker 1: towards you know. It's like, make hard decisions, do hard things.
Speaker 1: You might get better results. Sitting on the couch crossing
Speaker 1: your fingers not a great strategy.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Self awareness is a pretty good idea. Authenticity and humilistic humility,
Speaker 1: and like in this space of personal development and you know,
Speaker 1: self help, it's like for me it's largely a regurgitation
Speaker 1: of things. And especially maybe it's just some of the
Speaker 1: people that I follow or connect with on social media platforms,
Speaker 1: but you know, people who seem to be on a
Speaker 1: level reinventing the metaphoric wheel and pretending that they invented
Speaker 1: the actual wheel. It's like, no, dude, this is this
Speaker 1: is just you're saying shit that has been said forever.
Speaker 1: And I talked to some really big audiences, but I
Speaker 1: don't say anything that hasn't been said. I might say
Speaker 1: it in my way, you know, and it's it's for
Speaker 1: me unless the and I know i'm digressing here, but
Speaker 1: for me, unless the message is empowering the individual, not me.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like I tell everybody constantly, I'm not
Speaker 1: the answer whatever. I'm just a resource and I may
Speaker 1: or may not be any value to you. That's more
Speaker 1: about you than me. But empowering people to maybe lose
Speaker 1: the wishful thinking. It's good to be positive, it's good
Speaker 1: to focus on what you want to do be create change,
Speaker 1: but also perhaps you know, going back to that pragmatic
Speaker 1: thing of going, well, what is it that I want
Speaker 1: to create and change? What do I want to learn
Speaker 1: and unlearn and now what decisions do I need to
Speaker 1: make an action do I need to take to truly
Speaker 1: manifest it myself. So the manifesting is a byproduct of
Speaker 1: my work and courage and choices, rather than sitting on
Speaker 1: a couch thinking happy or positive thoughts. No disrespect to anyone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean there's a few points there that I
Speaker 4: could grab and go on go on about too, I feel,
Speaker 4: but I want to I want to just say that
Speaker 4: I agree that like that there's so much regurgitation and
Speaker 4: and actually you find that fields like stagnate when there
Speaker 4: is that, right, you're not actually creating anything new, and
Speaker 4: people get very sort of sensitive about protecting their you know,
Speaker 4: trademarked kind of system of success or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Let's call it. Let's call it pseudoscience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it stagnates.
Speaker 4: And so it's strange, you know, because that's one of
Speaker 4: the things that pushed me into doing going to university.
Speaker 4: Actually because I I was training NLP, so I was
Speaker 4: training neurone risky programming training trainers, and and that that
Speaker 4: I was trying to I was creating content like I
Speaker 4: was creating the curriculum and wanting to really understand where
Speaker 4: these ideas came from. And it was really frustrating to
Speaker 4: me because I had no way of really getting back
Speaker 4: to and tracing these things back to their roots. I
Speaker 4: read the books and then I read you know, the
Speaker 4: Founders books, and they're just squabbling with each other, and
Speaker 4: you know, the thing is that there was just no
Speaker 4: systematic way of being able to understand the roots of
Speaker 4: these ideas. And to me, that's why it's I don't know,
Speaker 4: like we're doing sort of talking shop here, but it's
Speaker 4: like it's hard to really be able to say, look,
Speaker 4: this is what NLP is, or this is what whatever
Speaker 4: modality it is that you do if you can't actually
Speaker 4: sort of agree on the philosophies behind this, or at
Speaker 4: least be able to talk to each other and challenge
Speaker 4: each other on what the roots of these things are
Speaker 4: and then be able to test those, hopefully scientifically or
Speaker 4: at least sort of empirically or observation. And so I
Speaker 4: think citing your sources is just a bloody good idea.
Speaker 2: You know, I think you can do it easily.
Speaker 4: You can just say I heard this from blah blah
Speaker 4: or you know, Marcus Aureli has said, and it's done.
Speaker 4: You know, people can go do their own, like you said,
Speaker 4: their own kind of research. So that really piqued my
Speaker 4: interest when you said that, because that's what I found
Speaker 4: from going to university. And I try to tell my
Speaker 4: students too that hey, like this is not just the
Speaker 4: boring thing that we try to get you to do,
Speaker 4: but like that is the way you learn, that's the
Speaker 4: way you grow. And part of how you do that
Speaker 4: is that you're held to a high standard when you're
Speaker 4: doing a PhD. Right to like not reproducing stuff that's
Speaker 4: been done before. The only way you know whether or not.
Speaker 4: And hey, we don't even really know. I'm sure someone's
Speaker 4: done some research or manifestation and called it something different
Speaker 4: that I didn't find, but I know that I'm at
Speaker 4: least one of the first that's just made this little
Speaker 4: contribution in my field because we can trace back, do
Speaker 4: you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
Speaker 4: For me, that was really eye opening to go to
Speaker 4: university and understand that that's those books in the library
Speaker 4: and these millions of people writing things down. The only
Speaker 4: way we can have a sort of way of navigating
Speaker 4: that is to be able to understand how to to
Speaker 4: cite our sources, and I don't how you do that
Speaker 4: other links.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And one of the that's actually fascinating. I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about NLP in a moment. But
Speaker 1: one of the ever present realities too is when you
Speaker 1: are truly intertwined with an ideology or a philosophy, or
Speaker 1: a practice or a construct, then you get a sense
Speaker 1: of your identity from that. Right, So when people have
Speaker 1: certain strong beliefs, then logic and science goes out the
Speaker 1: window because now we've got a motion wrapped around this idea.
Speaker 1: And if you challenge my idea, you challenge my identity.
Speaker 1: So fuck you and your science, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And this is like one of the challenges. And I'm
Speaker 1: not a very good scientist, right, I'm not bad. You're
Speaker 1: way better than me, I'm sure. But one of the
Speaker 1: ever present realities for me is that every scientist has
Speaker 1: got bias. Like we all like to think where totally objective,
Speaker 1: None of us are. We're all subjective, every including me.
Speaker 1: Do I have bias? Of course? Am I emotional? Of course?
Speaker 1: Do I get defensive? Of course? Have I got an ego?
Speaker 1: Of course? Do I want to be that? No? I don't, Right,
Speaker 1: But I think that acknowledging our humanity not as a
Speaker 1: flaw or a weakness, but just an ever present reality
Speaker 1: and saying look, you like you've just done this is
Speaker 1: what I think. This is what I did. Maybe someone
Speaker 1: else did some similar research called at something else. But
Speaker 1: when we've got an incentive to produce a certain outcome,
Speaker 1: which a lot of research has now because it's funded
Speaker 1: and the people who are funding it on a certain outcome,
Speaker 1: let's not open that door. But yeah, it's trying to
Speaker 1: find the absolute unbiased truth at the bottom of all
Speaker 1: of this stuff, which can be you know, I mean
Speaker 1: that's a that's a minefield, you know, yeah, steps down
Speaker 1: our high horse.
Speaker 2: Go oh, I'd say.
Speaker 4: That that that's a really interesting point about truth and
Speaker 4: and you you, I think your research that you said
Speaker 4: you've been doing with your PhD s Thatt are touching
Speaker 4: on on that too, of being able to look at
Speaker 4: the accuracy of certain beliefs that we have.
Speaker 2: But I think it's some of us, you know.
Speaker 4: I guess you could call it like in academica or
Speaker 4: call it epistemology, right, but basically the idea that like,
Speaker 4: how how do we judge whether.
Speaker 2: Something is true?
Speaker 4: And we all do this in our own way, and
Speaker 4: some of the stuff that I've looked at in my
Speaker 4: research has been like that sometimes we have certain styles
Speaker 4: that we that we gravitate towards on a spect like
Speaker 4: from trusting our gut versus and being really quick and
Speaker 4: intuitive with our decisions versus thinking through things really sort
Speaker 4: of slowly and deeply. And it's not to say that
Speaker 4: one is always good or one is always bad, and
Speaker 4: it's not to say that we don't all naturally fluctuate
Speaker 4: and use our hearts so to speak, and our heads sometimes,
Speaker 4: but we tend to gravitate. It's almost like a personality
Speaker 4: trait that we have where some of us will kind
Speaker 4: of prefer to trust our gut and perhaps if we
Speaker 4: have a belief by manifestation, it's almost like.
Speaker 2: You're supposed to, you know, and so you you really develop.
Speaker 4: That that, yes, I do this, and those sort of
Speaker 4: trusting your gut versus preferring to think deeply about things.
Speaker 2: There's been a lot of research lately about how how
Speaker 2: that you know that.
Speaker 4: That trusting your your your gut when it comes to
Speaker 4: complex issues is not always.
Speaker 2: The greatest way to make decisions. So especially like.
Speaker 4: If you think, I'll just give you an obvious example.
Speaker 4: So if it's it's something like finances, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, or how well your business is going, you know,
Speaker 4: at your at your three year mark or something.
Speaker 2: Like that, when you really.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like you said, you're motivated towards wanting to think
Speaker 4: good about this.
Speaker 2: It's not nice that to have the hard conversation with yourself.
Speaker 4: And so we're going to all naturally kind of go
Speaker 4: towards that intuitive sort of like, oh, this is how
Speaker 4: I want to feel about this, this is how I
Speaker 4: hope that things are going to go in the future.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to I'm just going to brush over,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm just going to brush over these these
Speaker 4: hard truths and prefer like and I think that you
Speaker 4: can find yourself in groups and in around people or
Speaker 4: gurus that will encourage that in you for and that's
Speaker 4: some of the recess I've looked at with multi level marketing,
Speaker 4: where it's kind of used as a tool to sort
Speaker 4: of stop you from thinking critically about Hold on a min,
Speaker 4: I haven't made any money in three years, and perhaps
Speaker 4: I've lost money, but you know, maybe there's something not
Speaker 4: quite right about this model or you know, should I
Speaker 4: just keep listening to them telling me that it's my
Speaker 4: fault because I'm not manifesting this enough, you know.
Speaker 2: So, you know, I think it's important.
Speaker 4: To to kind of understand that we can fall in
Speaker 4: this spectrum of I mean, we've got to try to
Speaker 4: find a way of integrating our heart and our head.
Speaker 4: And that's that, to me, is a really fascinating process
Speaker 4: moving through life.
Speaker 2: You don't want to be a stone, you know.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, you know, thinking sort of
Speaker 4: intuitively and quickly helps us to buy our coffees and
Speaker 4: do the automatic things every day, but not necessarily make
Speaker 4: those big life decisions that that might be it might
Speaker 4: be more helpful to really deliberate on and think about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that I'm fascinated with cults, Lucas, And
Speaker 1: to me, and I've done lots of pseudo research into cults,
Speaker 1: and I listen to fucking countless podcasts on cults too
Speaker 1: many when I should be doing actual research. But to me,
Speaker 1: multi level marketing is like a cult of thought, a
Speaker 1: cult of behavior. It's like it's like we were going
Speaker 1: to tell you how to think. We don't want you
Speaker 1: to think for yourself, going to tell you how to
Speaker 1: think and what to think, how to be, what to
Speaker 1: focus on, what to pay attention to, and if you
Speaker 1: have this thought, get rid of that thought because that's
Speaker 1: bad thought. And so literally it's a form of mind
Speaker 1: control and manipulation and coercion. And you know, like many
Speaker 1: actual what we would call religious cults or spiritual cults.
Speaker 1: I mean there are food cults, there are exercise cults,
Speaker 1: there are cultural cults where in order to belong in
Speaker 1: that group, you need to think and be an act
Speaker 1: and behave and align with that group. Otherwise, like if
Speaker 1: you can't disagree with anything, or you're out of the group.
Speaker 1: So the idea of critical thinking, as you that's truly
Speaker 1: discouraged because you know, they're neither you're a sinner or
Speaker 1: a backslider, or you're mistaken or you're a problem or
Speaker 1: you know you've slipped out of the light into the
Speaker 1: darkness or whatever metaphor you want to lose use. But
Speaker 1: like I don't care what kind of group it is,
Speaker 1: but if you are in any group and they don't
Speaker 1: want you to question anything or think for yourself or
Speaker 1: ever be critical of anything that is like a fundamental
Speaker 1: of that group, then you should get the fuck out
Speaker 1: of that group. Like for me, that's just that's a
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's alarm belts right there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, I agree. Couldn't say it better.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's that's how that's the advice that I
Speaker 4: give people to Like, even though my research isn't necessarily
Speaker 4: directly looking at cults, I think, you know, I always
Speaker 4: just try to say, look, if you're feeling like this
Speaker 4: real social pressure to to have to think a certain
Speaker 4: way and not think another way, and that that involves
Speaker 4: you not thinking critically, not questioning, then that's a red flag.
Speaker 1: And yeah, well I think also, I mean, if you
Speaker 1: think for yourself too much, they can't control you. And
Speaker 1: the idea of any cult is control and manipulation and
Speaker 1: domination on the premise that you know, like think about
Speaker 1: a lot of religious cults. You know, it's all a
Speaker 1: matter of semantics, really, religion cults, some religions I would
Speaker 1: call cults. Some are maybe more mainstream and I don't know,
Speaker 1: but you know, think about like I grew up in
Speaker 1: a cult that said if I behave a certain way,
Speaker 1: not the way I should behave, I'm going to burn
Speaker 1: in an eternal lake of fire. Forever. And I learned
Speaker 1: that when I was six. Right now, when you're six
Speaker 1: years old, and you get told if you do this thing,
Speaker 1: if you die in this state, and by the way,
Speaker 1: you could die at any stage. You don't know when
Speaker 1: you're going to die, Craig. And if you die with
Speaker 1: a mortal sin on your soul, this is what a
Speaker 1: mortal sin is. Right then you're going to burn for
Speaker 1: eternity in fire. Well, how fucking terrifying is that? And
Speaker 1: what a great way to control a mind. And it's like,
Speaker 1: this is not presented as an idea. This is presented
Speaker 1: as a truth. And so I grew up being terrified
Speaker 1: of dying, you know, with a sin. And it's like
Speaker 1: fucking hell. And this is being imprinted into children's minds
Speaker 1: by adults who don't go, oh, maybe this is not
Speaker 1: a good idea to do this And you know, the
Speaker 1: few times where I would question things, and again, this
Speaker 1: is just my story. And really it's not just about
Speaker 1: religion everyone, it's just about thinking and programming. But it
Speaker 1: happens to be in a religious context here. Yeah, I mean, wow,
Speaker 1: talk about how to dominate somebody, make them terrified and
Speaker 1: make them think that only you know the escape route.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's terrible. I mean is it's terrible.
Speaker 4: And the interesting thing as well, when when you when
Speaker 4: you like because I guess one of the ways that
Speaker 4: then they'll just sort of come back is go, well, no,
Speaker 4: but God God loves you, you know, or you're whatever
Speaker 4: you're you know, and it's doing it because he loves you.
Speaker 2: And what a message. What a mixed message going on there.
Speaker 4: But the same with positivity, I think that can happen,
Speaker 4: and I guess with manifestation and things that happen in
Speaker 4: MLMs if you plaster over that with oh yeah, but
Speaker 4: we're giving you something to grab onto, so yeah, don't
Speaker 4: think negatively, but you know, don't be critical, but you know,
Speaker 4: we've got all these tools and techniques to help you
Speaker 4: to be positive. Then it almost feels like it's not
Speaker 4: why why would people just want the best for me?
Speaker 2: You know, they want me to succeed.
Speaker 4: They there's no, there's no, they just don't want me
Speaker 4: to be negative. So it's very hard to see through
Speaker 4: that veil and realize that it could be used as
Speaker 4: a form of especially when it comes to positive thinking,
Speaker 4: it could be used as a form of control because
Speaker 4: it just feels like people have the best of intentions
Speaker 4: for you. They want you to succeed, they want you
Speaker 4: to think happy thoughts, they want you to you know, whereas.
Speaker 2: I think that it can be that they've mortgaged.
Speaker 4: In a case of MLM, they've they've remortgaged their you know,
Speaker 4: they mortgage themselves up to the hill or paying rent
Speaker 4: just so they can show you their expensive house and
Speaker 4: pretend that the MLM was the thing that got them there,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 2: So I yeah, it's.
Speaker 4: It's a I think when you when you see it's hard,
Speaker 4: but it's it's important to really think, you know, do
Speaker 4: these people have the best intentions for me?
Speaker 2: Or or what are they getting out of this? You know,
Speaker 2: what's the vested interests here?
Speaker 1: And MLM is multi level marketing? Everyone just that's cool?
Speaker 1: What's fucking MLM? Before we go, I want to ask
Speaker 1: you one thing. So I don't know what the answer
Speaker 1: to this is, but you know, ten years ago, anyway,
Speaker 1: I think most people, most actual researchers and psychologists or
Speaker 1: people in the psychology space kind of thought that NLP
Speaker 1: new neurolinguistic programming was kind of bullshit, kind of a
Speaker 1: pseudo science, not real not really respected or taught in
Speaker 1: universities or I don't know what what is it in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, What regards is NLP held in these days?
Speaker 4: I don't think it's much changed, but I think that
Speaker 4: that's the same kind of There was a set of
Speaker 4: studies done and that's been the thing that people have
Speaker 4: grabbed on to, I think, and sort of that it
Speaker 4: sort of disproved an aspect of NLP, the eye accessing queues. Basically,
Speaker 4: when the idea that if you look in a certain direction,
Speaker 4: it means that you're visualizing or talking to yourself and
Speaker 4: you can kind of not really people's minds, but get
Speaker 4: a sense of what's going on behind what their words
Speaker 4: are saying, and it was sort of they did some
Speaker 4: studies on that and it sort of disproved it.
Speaker 2: But it does also show you.
Speaker 4: There's a slight bias towards anything that's sort of not
Speaker 4: scientifically proven, and you find that, then people will grab
Speaker 4: those studies and make a big deal of them. But
Speaker 4: they weren't super high quality and they weren't able to
Speaker 4: no one's replicated it, so I don't take much of that.
Speaker 4: I just think that the two founders really pissed off
Speaker 4: a lot of psychiatrists and psychologists with their rhetoric for
Speaker 4: years and years.
Speaker 2: It's never going to be accepted. But of course, look,
Speaker 2: the NLP is.
Speaker 4: The thing with these things that are sort of suito
Speaker 4: scientific is that there's grains of truth all over the place.
Speaker 4: There's great practitioners that are doing excellent work, and there's
Speaker 4: a lot that's helped me in my life, and I've
Speaker 4: had great, great experiences with helping people.
Speaker 2: But if you're a.
Speaker 4: Field that can't sort of define what it is that
Speaker 4: you do and and what like, can't agree on like
Speaker 4: what these techniques are or what these tools are, and
Speaker 4: and you know, if you haven't got a kind of
Speaker 4: real foundation therefore or be able to test your claims,
Speaker 4: then I.
Speaker 2: Don't know, you know, I can't.
Speaker 4: I can't point to one thing and say that's NLP,
Speaker 4: that's an NLP technique, or that's a I don't know,
Speaker 4: cognitive behavior therapy technique, or that's a you know, something
Speaker 4: from family therapy, because it's and it's not NLP. I
Speaker 4: don't know, you know, because we haven't really progressed much
Speaker 4: as a as a as a field in being able
Speaker 4: to sort of test these things and set ourselves apart
Speaker 4: and say, well, let's do I don't know, a randomized
Speaker 4: control trial. Well, we put out put our techniques to
Speaker 4: the test and be able to see whether or not
Speaker 4: there's we can do just as good or as better
Speaker 4: as the standard approaches that are out there that would
Speaker 4: give you some kind of sense of, like, you know,
Speaker 4: how things are.
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
Speaker 4: To me that it's hard to make a claim about
Speaker 4: whether it's great, good or not.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of why I walked. I guess I
Speaker 2: walked away. Let's be honest. I don't do it to
Speaker 2: be honest.
Speaker 1: Let's be honest. Look, but I kind of understand because
Speaker 1: my first, my first foray, my absolute for first foray
Speaker 1: into personal development was reading How to Win Friends and
Speaker 1: Influence People, which was written in nineteen thirty six by
Speaker 1: Dale Carnegie. But my first face to face live experience
Speaker 1: was Tony Robbins, and I reluctantly went along as a
Speaker 1: guest of some other people and fully expecting it to
Speaker 1: be bullshit and hate it. And honestly I got lots
Speaker 1: out of it, you know, like there was stuff that
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed, there was stuff that challenged my thinking
Speaker 1: there was like I realized that, Like I was very
Speaker 1: closed minded for the first hour or two it was
Speaker 1: like a ten hour or twelve hour day. But half
Speaker 1: way through, I'm like, he actually is making lots of sense. Now,
Speaker 1: love him or hate him, it doesn't matter, Like if
Speaker 1: you can get past your bias and just tune into
Speaker 1: what's being said and try to have a level of
Speaker 1: objectivity and awareness. And you know, that was I then
Speaker 1: went on, I would say a ten year kind of
Speaker 1: journey of what people would typically call self help and
Speaker 1: personal development. And some of it was garbage, and some
Speaker 1: of it was gold, and some of it was somewhere
Speaker 1: in the middle. And it's like, yes, some of it's
Speaker 1: pseudo science. But I think for me, more than anything,
Speaker 1: it got me to question, It got me to try things.
Speaker 1: It got me curious, It got me excited, It got
Speaker 1: me inspired, It got me to make decisions and change behavior.
Speaker 1: You know, So whether or not it was the book,
Speaker 1: or whether or not it was me, or whether or
Speaker 1: not it was the workshop or a bit of everything,
Speaker 1: it kind of doesn't matter. Right, So I think there
Speaker 1: are lots of tools that may not even be highlight
Speaker 1: regarded by science, that can still be valuable, you know,
Speaker 1: in the right context for the right person.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And I kind of feel that you can usually
Speaker 4: use your common sense meter with it. You know that
Speaker 4: if you someone just can describe to you what it
Speaker 4: is that they're giving you this technique for and what
Speaker 4: it can what it can do, and then you try
Speaker 4: it and it works for you, then then it's great.
Speaker 4: And I, like you, have definitely spent my life with
Speaker 4: a kind of growth oriented approach and wanting to grow
Speaker 4: and learn. And I love learning and that includes learning
Speaker 4: about myself. I think the thing for me that I
Speaker 4: guess I'm coming at it more from a thinking that,
Speaker 4: like for consumers, you've got to do what works for
Speaker 4: you. You don't have all day to be spending rummaging through
Speaker 4: all the scientific literature on something. You just have to
Speaker 4: trust I guess what you're so you need to trust
Speaker 4: other people to help you to Like I guess that's
Speaker 4: what you do, That's what I do. We're trying to
Speaker 4: be the leaders in I guess, the thought leaders whatever.
Speaker 2: I don't like those.
Speaker 4: Terms and change makers, thought leaders there, you know, but
Speaker 4: you know you're trying to disseminate and put together all
Speaker 4: of this wisdom and knowledge and communicated in a way
Speaker 4: so that people can then take that and make it.
Speaker 2: Meaningful to them.
Speaker 4: So I guess when for the consumers of that, yeah,
Speaker 4: they need to be able to trust that the people
Speaker 4: at that other level where the communicators of that information
Speaker 4: are I guess doing a good job of thinking about
Speaker 4: this stuff. And so I guess I'm more critical of
Speaker 4: that the industry, And.
Speaker 2: That's kind of where I'm you know, I'm not critical.
Speaker 4: Of anyone's individual journey, but I'm kind of critical of
Speaker 4: the industry for not for they Because if you're doing
Speaker 4: this professionally and it's your life's wor well that's what
Speaker 4: you want to do, and you're making these massive promises
Speaker 4: to people, then you should be being able to think
Speaker 4: about these things a bit deeper than and not, you know,
Speaker 4: regurgitating the same sort of simplistic ideas about and so
Speaker 4: I guess, yeah, I'm on a bit of a mission
Speaker 4: to try to wake people, wake practitioners up, I think,
Speaker 4: and go, you don't have to go to university, you
Speaker 4: don't have to spend I have to spend eight years
Speaker 4: to get in my PhD. Like I know, not everyone
Speaker 4: has that time or inclination and we don't have to
Speaker 4: do that, but I think we can all get better at,
Speaker 4: you know, being able to be a bit more nuanced and.
Speaker 2: Being able to help people to understand what's going to
Speaker 2: work best for them. I guess so awesome.
Speaker 1: Well, but it's been a pleasure meeting you, mate. I've
Speaker 1: got the name for you. Have you written a book yet?
Speaker 4: I'm halfway through a couple, so they're just sitting there
Speaker 4: at the moment, in the middle of semester.
Speaker 1: I've got a title for you. You ready, Yes, the
Speaker 1: title is There is no Secret. But ah and you
Speaker 1: had an exact same cover design and then you and
Speaker 1: you just put above in little words, there is no
Speaker 1: How do people find you? How do people find you
Speaker 1: and follow you and connect with you? Doc?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, good question. You know.
Speaker 4: I spend so much time online looking and lurking and
Speaker 4: but I'm so not active. But you could go to
Speaker 4: that horrible cesspool that is x and find me there
Speaker 4: mainly posting a little bit about my research and some
Speaker 4: ironic memes.
Speaker 2: That's about it. But that's doctor Lucas Dixon. So l
Speaker 2: U C A S D A x O N and
Speaker 2: LinkedIn And if you.
Speaker 4: Go to University of Queensland and pot my name in
Speaker 4: the search.
Speaker 2: You can find me there and get in contact. Love
Speaker 2: to talk to people.
Speaker 4: I've found that through this whole process that speaking to
Speaker 4: people who aren't academics has been probably the most rewarding part.
Speaker 4: I've got lots of insights and people's personal experiences with this,
Speaker 4: whether they're still into manifestation or into emilms or not,
Speaker 4: has been like super rewarding and yeah, so happy to
Speaker 4: chat with people about anything.
Speaker 1: Really well, mate, we'll say goodbye fair but for the moment, Lucas,
Speaker 1: thanks for being on the new project. It was great.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, cheers, Crog, Thanks Tiffany, Thanks Deer, thank you