Speaker 1: Good day, Champs, hope you bloody terrific. So I've had
Speaker 1: an interesting day, not bad or anything, just interesting, And
Speaker 1: I thought I would think out loud with you about
Speaker 1: a thing that I'm thinking about because I think it's
Speaker 1: broadly relevant. I think some of you will find it interesting,
Speaker 1: and those of you who don't can jump out. You
Speaker 1: know where the door is. So I put up a
Speaker 1: post earlier today on Instagram. If you don't follow me
Speaker 1: on Instagram, feel free Craig Anthony Harper. And the post
Speaker 1: was this, there's a little heading that says, there's no
Speaker 1: fucking wagon. Here we go. There's no fucking wagon, and
Speaker 1: you didn't fall off it. You stopped doing the healthy
Speaker 1: thing and made a decision to do the unhealthy thing.
Speaker 1: Zero percent wagon one hundred percent. You stop blaming fictitious
Speaker 1: wagons and start taking responsibility for your choices, actions and outcomes. Now,
Speaker 1: knowing me, that's not a it's not a particularly outrageous
Speaker 1: kind of a thing for me to say, you know me.
Speaker 1: The point being, I guess the thinking was, broadly speaking,
Speaker 1: we like we like it not being us, we like
Speaker 1: it being you know. Something happened. Oh, it was my
Speaker 1: daughter's birthday, or it was school holidays, or it was Christmas,
Speaker 1: or it was it was the wagon that I fell off.
Speaker 1: It wasn't me, it was the wagon, and it was
Speaker 1: the subsequent falling from the wagon. And all of that
Speaker 1: sounds very much out of my control, like the birthdays,
Speaker 1: out of my control. The business lunch. I had to
Speaker 1: go to a business lunch, I had to have thirty beers,
Speaker 1: I had to eat four fucking courses. It's not me.
Speaker 1: It's the business lunch that was inflicted upon me, and
Speaker 1: definitely not me. It was that fucking wagon that is
Speaker 1: very unstable. And because of the instability of the wagon,
Speaker 1: not my decisions on my behaviors, on me, there was
Speaker 1: a subsequent problem and I'm the victim of the wagon.
Speaker 1: Of course, something facetious and silly, but it's almost like
Speaker 1: like people talk about something as though something happened in
Speaker 1: my life and they had nothing to do with it,
Speaker 1: whereas I'm like, well, okay, that thing that you did
Speaker 1: that you did, how did that thing that you did happen?
Speaker 1: Did you do it unconsciously? Were you awake? Did you
Speaker 1: make a decision? Did you how did that thing that
Speaker 1: you know shouldn't go in your body? How did it
Speaker 1: get in there? That thing that is at odds with
Speaker 1: your intentions and your goals and your standards and your values,
Speaker 1: which is I want to be the healthiest, best version
Speaker 1: of me. And then you made a decision and you
Speaker 1: did a thing, and that decision and that that action
Speaker 1: created a consequence. Now is there anything I'm missing? Now?
Speaker 1: I know this sounds smart, assie, I do not mean
Speaker 1: it to be, But is there anything else? Is there?
Speaker 1: Is there something I'm missing? Rather than going by the way,
Speaker 1: if you ate ten bits of cake, I'm not saying don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not judging you at all. I'm saying, let's be
Speaker 1: real about what we're doing. I ate ten bits of cake.
Speaker 1: How did that happened? I chose the ten bits of cake,
Speaker 1: I inserted the cake, I ate the cake, and now
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with the consequences of the cake. Good well
Speaker 1: done you. That's all very honest. I'm not mad at you.
Speaker 1: I'm not blaming or shaming you. In fact, I'm kind
Speaker 1: of respecting you because you said what actually happened. You
Speaker 1: made a choice, you did a thing, and now here
Speaker 1: we are. Bibbitdy Bobby boo. What you're not saying is
Speaker 1: that somehow this fucking cake happened to me. And this
Speaker 1: is the point. When we talk about behavior, when we
Speaker 1: talk about choices, when we talk about accountability, when we
Speaker 1: talk about personal sovereignty, when we talk about self responsibility,
Speaker 1: we talk about optimization, we talk about health, we talk
Speaker 1: about the role that we play in our own destiny,
Speaker 1: the story that we are individually writing. We can't, when
Speaker 1: it's convenient, blame everything and anything except us, especially when
Speaker 1: we are talking about something that we literally did. And
Speaker 1: I guess you know, there's there's a myriad of things
Speaker 1: came out of this. Somebody wrote and by the way,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a nasty or anything. I can't even remember.
Speaker 1: I think it was a dude. He wrote something like, well,
Speaker 1: somebody's fallen off the positivity wagon, and then he wrote,
Speaker 1: you know another one. We just kid and love your stuff,
Speaker 1: so it's all good. Nobody did anything wrong, but it
Speaker 1: was funny. And then a few people kind of loved
Speaker 1: his comment, and I'm like, it is interesting that people
Speaker 1: would think that me sharing a message about accountability and
Speaker 1: responsibility and self awareness and the fact that there is
Speaker 1: no mythical, mystical, magical wagon and we don't fall off
Speaker 1: the pretend wagon. Right. This is just a this is
Speaker 1: a story. This is a fiction that we share because
Speaker 1: it's much easier to say to someone I fell off
Speaker 1: a wagon. Then I made bad choices, and I did
Speaker 1: bad things, and I created bad outcomes. Although that is
Speaker 1: actually what is truthfully happening. So you know, when I
Speaker 1: was morbidly obese, when I was forty kilos heavier than
Speaker 1: I am now nearly forty kilos heavier than I am now,
Speaker 1: I didn't fall off a wagon. Nobody made me fats.
Speaker 1: I wasn't a victim of any circumstances. Nobody was holding
Speaker 1: a gun to my head. I didn't somehow accidentally gain
Speaker 1: a shitload of weight. I did certain things. I made
Speaker 1: certain choices. I embraced certain habits and lifestyle and behaviors.
Speaker 1: And the consequence of all of the things that I
Speaker 1: did was I created that outcome. I created that outcome. Now,
Speaker 1: are there certain people who have certain variables that are
Speaker 1: beyond their control? Yes, some people have medical and clinical
Speaker 1: and hormonal issues that they really can't control. And that's
Speaker 1: not what I'm talking about here. But even that, I
Speaker 1: mean I have friends with diabetes. I have friends with
Speaker 1: thyroids that don't work well, which means they gain weight
Speaker 1: easily if they if they work at all. A whole
Speaker 1: lot of people with clinical and medical challenges that that
Speaker 1: particular thing is out of their control. But what we
Speaker 1: know is what is still in our control, even whether
Speaker 1: medical or clinical or genetic challenge, is that we still
Speaker 1: get to choose what we put in our face. We
Speaker 1: still get to choose what we drink or don't drink,
Speaker 1: eat or don't eat. You know, whether or not we
Speaker 1: use certain supplements or drugs or this or that. That's
Speaker 1: still within our capacity to control. So we are not
Speaker 1: looking to blame anyone or offend anyone, or to be
Speaker 1: what's the word insulting, but rather to say, okay, this
Speaker 1: is what I've got to work with. Now. If you're
Speaker 1: listening to me, and well, you are listening to me,
Speaker 1: of course, so that was a stupid thing to say.
Speaker 1: But if you're listening to me and you're thinking, yeah,
Speaker 1: that I get it. But so my coaching for you
Speaker 1: is whatever you have to deal with, whatever situation, circumstance, environment, genetics, resources,
Speaker 1: whatever you've got that is beyond your control, then let's
Speaker 1: not waste time or energy or emotion on that easier
Speaker 1: said than done. Yes, Let's now bring our attention and
Speaker 1: focus and intellect. Let's bring that to the things that
Speaker 1: are in your control. Is what you put in your
Speaker 1: mouth for the rest of the day. In your control
Speaker 1: is whether or not you expend x amount of energy
Speaker 1: or two X or three X or four x today.
Speaker 1: Is whether or not you move a little bit or
Speaker 1: a little bit more or a lot or somewhere in between.
Speaker 1: Is that in your control. I don't know the answers
Speaker 1: to these you do. Is it possible that you make
Speaker 1: better decisions today than you made yesterday? Is that possible? Right?
Speaker 1: These are good questions, These are empowering questions, and these
Speaker 1: are questions that help us get out of the I
Speaker 1: fell off the wagon. Life's not fair? How come shit
Speaker 1: happens to me? It gets us out of that victim
Speaker 1: mindset and gets us into the I'm in charge of
Speaker 1: me mindset. And yes, there are bad things that happened
Speaker 1: to me at times, and yes there's shit that has
Speaker 1: and will continue to go on in my life that
Speaker 1: is beyond my control. And there'll be shitty people and
Speaker 1: great people and beautiful people and shitty situations and amazing situations.
Speaker 1: We acknowledge all of that. We're never pretending that life's
Speaker 1: a fucking Disney movie or you're a character in a
Speaker 1: Disney story. But what we are doing is we're saying,
Speaker 1: all right, wherever I am, whatever I've got to work with,
Speaker 1: whatever my capacity is, I am going to optimize everything
Speaker 1: I can. So back to the message. When I am
Speaker 1: writing a message, when I am sharing a thought or
Speaker 1: an idea on the podcast, whether I'm putting something up
Speaker 1: as a podcast or as a whiteboard post or an
Speaker 1: Instagram or LinkedIn or Facebook post. Sometimes I put stuff
Speaker 1: up just for shits and giggles, you know that. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's just about having fun and being silly and might
Speaker 1: make someone smile or laugh. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: when I'm putting up for one of a term better
Speaker 1: term personal development or human behavior or psychology kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: I think, is this real? Is this helpful? Is this strategic?
Speaker 1: Could this idea? Could this strategy? Could this story? Could
Speaker 1: this bit of information help someone solve a problem? Because
Speaker 1: unlike many people, and I'm not better or worse, I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, unlike many people in this space, my priority
Speaker 1: is not to make people feel good in the moment.
Speaker 1: I'm not interested in making someone temporarily happy or feel positive.
Speaker 1: If I do, that's great, but that's not my number
Speaker 1: one goal. My one goal is that I might help
Speaker 1: people have a moment of awareness or realization or motivation
Speaker 1: or inspiration that might then lead to some action, a decision,
Speaker 1: some action, some change, some real world benefit. My objective,
Speaker 1: you know, is not to protect everyone's feelings. It's not
Speaker 1: to say what is comfortable. It's not to say what
Speaker 1: everyone wants to hear. Having said that, I don't want
Speaker 1: to say things just to be blunt, or just to
Speaker 1: be overly direct, or just I don't want to offend anyone.
Speaker 1: It's never my goal to offend anyone, right, But you
Speaker 1: have to understand that offense. Offense the noun is that
Speaker 1: was bossy. You have to understand, Okay, I suggest that's
Speaker 1: maybe a good idea to think about the fact has
Speaker 1: that that offense the noun is an individual experience that
Speaker 1: we have as a result of a personal reaction to
Speaker 1: a stimulus, which is why so an internal response to
Speaker 1: an external thing, which is why I can say fuck
Speaker 1: with and one of you gets offended, nine of you
Speaker 1: do not get offended. And of the nine that don't
Speaker 1: get offended, three of you think that's a little bit amusing,
Speaker 1: and two of you roll your eyes and whatever. And
Speaker 1: the reason that we have all of those different experiences
Speaker 1: and responses is because it's not about the stimulus. It's
Speaker 1: about how you, the individual, respond to that stimulus. Now,
Speaker 1: whether or not that stimulus is a beautiful movie that
Speaker 1: you're watching, or a sunset on the horizon, or something
Speaker 1: that you put in your body, or a word that
Speaker 1: you hear on a podcast, or a piece of information,
Speaker 1: all of these things are individual personal responses to some
Speaker 1: kind of inbound data or information. My overarching driver is
Speaker 1: in this space anyway, in this personal development space, is
Speaker 1: to present information and ideas that I believe potentially the
Speaker 1: most helpful. Do. I want it to be funny, if
Speaker 1: I can do. I want it to be a little
Speaker 1: bit like, oh oh, so people might share it? I do?
Speaker 1: I do, of course. I want all the normal things.
Speaker 1: I want lots of people to read it. I want
Speaker 1: people to like it. I want to get a million
Speaker 1: fucking followers. I want all those things that people who
Speaker 1: are on social media want. But will I compromise myself
Speaker 1: to get a million followers and share shit that I
Speaker 1: don't believe is true or helpful or empowering. No, I won't, No,
Speaker 1: I won't. But fortunately I don't think it needs to
Speaker 1: be one or the other. I mean, I believe that.
Speaker 1: Of course. Sometimes you know when you're helping someone or
Speaker 1: you're trying to help someone, and you know this because
Speaker 1: you've done it and you've maybe had it done to you.
Speaker 1: But sometimes the help that you're giving somebody in that
Speaker 1: moment doesn't feel like help to the receiver. Here with me,
Speaker 1: And look, do I ever get it wrong? Do I
Speaker 1: say things that might be at their core true but
Speaker 1: don't land Well, of course I do, of course this
Speaker 1: particular post that I'm talking about. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that people that don't like my stuff
Speaker 1: are precious and they need to get their shit together,
Speaker 1: because clearly I'm flawed, and clearly I get a lot
Speaker 1: of things wrong. But what I am saying is that
Speaker 1: being addicted to feel good pseudobabble, pseudo psychology, personal development fluff,
Speaker 1: that's not a way to grow, learn evolved, that become better.
Speaker 1: That's not how we get the best out of ourselves.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we get the best out of ourselves is by
Speaker 1: hearing something or reading something, or individually ourselves becoming aware
Speaker 1: of something and acknowledging that's something that is not what
Speaker 1: we want to acknowledge, but what we need to acknowledge
Speaker 1: to be able to, as I always say, grow, learn, evolve, adapt,
Speaker 1: become the better version of us. You know, there are
Speaker 1: often there are times in a meeting when I'm with someone,
Speaker 1: or sometimes even in presentation where I'll say to the audience,
Speaker 1: which could be a person or a thousand people, when
Speaker 1: someone asks a question or we end up in a
Speaker 1: certain place in the conversation or the interaction where I say,
Speaker 1: I can tell you what you want to hear, or
Speaker 1: I can tell you what I believe to be the truth.
Speaker 1: One of those is going to be comfortable. One of
Speaker 1: those is going to be uncomfortable. What would you prefer
Speaker 1: or what would you like to hear? Sometimes people go
Speaker 1: tell me what I want to hear, because sometimes and
Speaker 1: obviously most times, say tell me what I need to hear.
Speaker 1: But they feel somewhat obligated. But this is the challenge,
Speaker 1: isn't it. It's like when someone like me says, there's
Speaker 1: no wagon and you're not falling off a wagon, but
Speaker 1: there are choices and there are actions, and there are
Speaker 1: consequences to those choices and actions, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: that's not a theory or an idea, that's practical reality.
Speaker 1: We know that what is bullshit is wagons and fucking
Speaker 1: falling off them. But instead of acknowledging what is like,
Speaker 1: somebody else wrote to me, are you okay? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I haven't looked yet. Maybe there's a response, which is fine,
Speaker 1: And again that's not a criticism for me, I'm just curious.
Speaker 1: I actually wrote back to that person and said, what
Speaker 1: about my post made you ask that question? Again? This
Speaker 1: is the person's not right or wrong. They're curious or
Speaker 1: I'm curious about the question, and it's all good. But
Speaker 1: isn't it funny that when someone just says what is right?
Speaker 1: People can very easy. Now I'm not talking about stuff
Speaker 1: that's contentious or in debate, but you know, we know
Speaker 1: there are no pretend wagons that people fall off. We
Speaker 1: know that, so this is unequivocal. We also know that
Speaker 1: every human makes decisions and every human makes takes action.
Speaker 1: We also know that every human produces good and bad results.
Speaker 1: That's all I'm talking about. You know like the propensity
Speaker 1: that we have to be enamored by confirmation bias, that is,
Speaker 1: to only pay attention or respect or align with stuff
Speaker 1: that we want to hear, stuff that is comfortable, stuff
Speaker 1: that is familiar, stuff that for us makes us feel
Speaker 1: better about what we already think or what we already do.
Speaker 1: This is the opposite of growth. This is the opposite
Speaker 1: of personal development. Living in the echo chamber is a
Speaker 1: recipe for failure. It's a recipe for you being controlled
Speaker 1: by an ideology, a philosophy, a cult, a group, a
Speaker 1: mindset that you didn't create, but rather you inhabited or
Speaker 1: you adopted from other people. Thinking critically, not responding emotionally
Speaker 1: easier said than done. Before you send me a message,
Speaker 1: I'm with you? Am I ever emotional? Sure? Am? Do
Speaker 1: I ever respond poorly? Sure? Do? Do I respond out
Speaker 1: of emotion and say or do dumb shit? Sure do?
Speaker 1: Probably done it already three times, ten times in this
Speaker 1: little monologue that I'm sharing with you. But when I'm sharing,
Speaker 1: this is what I'm thinking? Is this real? Is this
Speaker 1: truthful as I understand it? Might this help someone solve
Speaker 1: a problem? Might this get a nose or two out
Speaker 1: of joint. I think about that all the time. I
Speaker 1: rewrite something so many times because I'm not interested in
Speaker 1: disjointed noses. I'm not interested in confrontation. I'm not interested
Speaker 1: in problems. They're going to come right, and I'm not
Speaker 1: scared of confrontation. But I'm trying to share what I
Speaker 1: believe to be insights and wisdom and knowledge, not mine.
Speaker 1: I'm just a conduit. I didn't invent any of this shit.
Speaker 1: By the way, I'm not the wisdom. I'm just pointing
Speaker 1: you towards the wisdom. I'm trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: I can share this in a way which resonates, which
Speaker 1: people understand, which people see themselves in that. You know
Speaker 1: the old teach a man to fish, or teach a
Speaker 1: person to fish, and you feed them for a lifetime,
Speaker 1: I think, or something like that, and teach someone or
Speaker 1: do the fishing for them, and you feed them for
Speaker 1: a day. I'm like, I want to teach people to fish.
Speaker 1: I want to teach people how to manage themselves. I
Speaker 1: want to teach people, or encourage and support people to
Speaker 1: be real and to be strong and to be resilient,
Speaker 1: and to be self aware and to be brave enough
Speaker 1: to go. You know what, there's no wagon. There's me
Speaker 1: and my choices. There's no wagon. There's me and my actions.
Speaker 1: There's no wagon. There's me and my results.