Speaker 1: I get its Welcome to another installment of You Project.
Speaker 1: This is about take four. Not really. We've had a
Speaker 1: We've had an interesting start to the the morning we
Speaker 1: let down our guest. We were tardy, we were late.
Speaker 1: We were late to our own show. Tiff was going
Speaker 1: to be it may as well we are, say, yeah,
Speaker 1: it might as well be. Andrew Matthews, Welcome to the
Speaker 1: You Project. Quick, let's get this bloody thing started. How
Speaker 1: are you well, Craig. Nice to be here, Thanks Tiff,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for agreeing to join us. Where are you?
Speaker 1: Are you in the Sunshine State Now?
Speaker 2: I'm in the Sunshine State, Trinity Beach in far North Queensland,
Speaker 2: between Cans and Poor Douglas.
Speaker 1: That must be tough for you. Are you okay? Get that?
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful part of the world. It's just spectacular.
Speaker 2: We're on the big record here.
Speaker 1: I reckon when your your thing is well, amongst other things.
Speaker 1: But one of your core focuses and talking points is
Speaker 1: happiness that you have a geographical advantage where you are.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure that that's fair.
Speaker 2: Well, we created it. We came from Adelaide, which was
Speaker 2: also delightful. But because I'm spending my life writing books,
Speaker 2: and I travel a lot. So my wife Julie and
Speaker 2: I decided perhaps we could have a nice, beautiful place
Speaker 2: to come back to when we're not traveling, and we
Speaker 2: found this little beach called Trinity Beach, which is about
Speaker 2: twenty minutes north of Cairns.
Speaker 1: Before you were an international speaker and author and all
Speaker 1: things happiness, man, what did you do? What did you
Speaker 1: do before all of this blug buddy megastart and time
Speaker 1: and the money? By the way, do you need a
Speaker 1: hand with the money? Is it burdensome?
Speaker 2: We'll get to that later. I began a law degree
Speaker 2: because I thought that was the responsible thing to do.
Speaker 2: But I didn't like that. And my passion was always
Speaker 2: drawing and drawing portraits, painting, and so I studied art
Speaker 2: then about and I was an artist. I used to
Speaker 2: paint portraits. I did some cartooning for international magazines that
Speaker 2: you may have heard of. Used to do some work
Speaker 2: for Playboy when I was a late nineteen year old. Wow,
Speaker 2: I did the clean cartoons.
Speaker 1: Allegedly your honor.
Speaker 2: When I was twenty five, I made a shocking discovery,
Speaker 2: and that was that the happiest people I knew had
Speaker 2: bigger problems than me, and that made no sense. I
Speaker 2: was trying to figure out what is it with happy people?
Speaker 2: How do they think? How do they deal with challenges?
Speaker 2: And what is it that they do that I don't?
Speaker 2: And I began to read a lot and study a
Speaker 2: lot and do a lot of s m and rs.
Speaker 2: And that eventually led to my first book, Being Happy,
Speaker 2: And that's where it all began.
Speaker 1: Wow, what's the intersection, Andrew or the relationship between and
Speaker 1: I know there's a million kind of variables around happiness,
Speaker 1: but happiness and say contentment the absence of anxiety, Like
Speaker 1: how do we is one person's personal understanding of happiness
Speaker 1: someone else's calm, Like sometimes I feel really content and
Speaker 1: I feel very like just where I'm meant to be,
Speaker 1: but I might not feel that giddy you for it
Speaker 1: kind of happiness vibe.
Speaker 2: You know, happiness is a difficult way because it really
Speaker 2: doesn't cover everything we wanted to cover. But if you
Speaker 2: talk about contentment, then that perhaps implies that you know,
Speaker 2: we're not leading a very act of life. Or if
Speaker 2: we talk about joy, then no one's going to be
Speaker 2: joyful all the time. And so when people might say, well,
Speaker 2: is happiness really the goal. It's more than that. It's
Speaker 2: about finding meaning in life. It's about feeling that we
Speaker 2: can't wait to get out of bed in the morning,
Speaker 2: which is more than just a superficial happiness. It might
Speaker 2: be about feeling that we're doing something to make the
Speaker 2: world a better place. And so I find that all
Speaker 2: of those things contribute to what one person is going
Speaker 2: to say, well, that represents happiness, and another person will say, well,
Speaker 2: happiness is just sort of a superficial thing. So what
Speaker 2: I like to do, Craig is look at things that
Speaker 2: we can do, strategies that we can have that can
Speaker 2: make our life better.
Speaker 1: And that may.
Speaker 2: Involve looking at things we're grateful for. It might involve
Speaker 2: doing some things that we find that we really love,
Speaker 2: even if we can't be doing everything we love because
Speaker 2: we've got to pay the rent and have a job.
Speaker 2: It might mean that we're dedicated to raising extraordinary children.
Speaker 2: So there can be a whole lot of things that
Speaker 2: contribute to saying my life has meaning and I'm happy
Speaker 2: to be who I am. I don't want to be
Speaker 2: anyone else. And so what I seek to do in
Speaker 2: my books, what I write from my first book, Being
Speaker 2: Happy Right through to my latest book, which bouncing back
Speaker 2: Looking at Resilience, is to come up with very simple strategies,
Speaker 2: things that we can bear in mind that can make
Speaker 2: us stronger, more resilient, and happier each day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I love that. The interesting thing about
Speaker 1: trying to create any outcome for any person is like
Speaker 1: if somebody you know me as an ex size scientist,
Speaker 1: like somebody you know, ten people come to me and
Speaker 1: say I want to be stronger. You know they've all
Speaker 1: got the same goal. Well, they're all going to need
Speaker 1: a different approach or a different program, or a different
Speaker 1: protocol because they're all in different places. They've all got
Speaker 1: different physiology, they've all got different issues medically perhaps, and
Speaker 1: so even though they all want the same outcome, they're
Speaker 1: all going to have to take a different path. Is
Speaker 1: it similar with happiness? Do you think?
Speaker 2: I think that there are some common denominators that work
Speaker 2: for each us. When we start to say to ourselves,
Speaker 2: for example, happiness is not an accident. Happiness is something
Speaker 2: that you choose, that you look for good things. Yes,
Speaker 2: then you start to say, if if I say, what
Speaker 2: do I really love about my friend Craig, then I
Speaker 2: start to see good things in you, and our relationship
Speaker 2: gets better and I'm happier for having you in my life.
Speaker 2: It's because it's the question that I ask myself. So
Speaker 2: one of the things that I think is really clear
Speaker 2: is that happy people focus on what they have, and
Speaker 2: unhappy people focus on what's missing. And so when we
Speaker 2: make that kind of a transition, that doesn't matter who
Speaker 2: we are, or whether we're weak or strong, or whether
Speaker 2: we have money or we don't, or whether we're employed
Speaker 2: or whether we're not. Suddenly we start to say, well,
Speaker 2: I'm now starting to see these things that I wasn't appreciating.
Speaker 2: So that might be one thing, or it might be,
Speaker 2: for example, that we quit criticizing ourselves. People say, do
Speaker 2: I need to like myself? And you do. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: at the moment hard to love myself, but we create
Speaker 2: the life that we feel we deserve. So when we
Speaker 2: start to say, okay, I'm not perfect, but I've done
Speaker 2: my best with what I knew. When we forgive ourselves
Speaker 2: a little bit, then we start to allow ourselves to
Speaker 2: have a better life than before we started saying okay,
Speaker 2: I can be kinder to myself. It may be something
Speaker 2: like the people that we spend our time with, you know,
Speaker 2: we become like the people that we're around, and sometimes
Speaker 2: we need to say, Okay, my family is not that uplifting,
Speaker 2: but I need to find some people. I need to
Speaker 2: find a podcast once a day that can uplift me,
Speaker 2: and so that will make a difference. So we go
Speaker 2: looking for great Harper.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'm not the answer. I'm just pointing people
Speaker 1: towards the answer. I'm pointing them towards you. I think
Speaker 1: part of that too. I love what you're saying about.
Speaker 1: Like we may not in the moment love ourselves or
Speaker 1: feel like that, but I think it's the difference between
Speaker 1: self loathing and self awareness. Like self awareness is well
Speaker 1: I could have done that better and I'll do it better,
Speaker 1: and self loathing is I'm a fucking idiot. I always
Speaker 1: do this. I'm always a more moron, right, Where there's
Speaker 1: that kind of I'm killing myself constantly, yes, versus that
Speaker 1: recognition that all right, this is not optimal? What is
Speaker 1: optimal and leaning into it with curiosity Maybe.
Speaker 2: Yes, Craig, and that whole idea of improvement not perfection
Speaker 2: helps that we say, if I can be just a
Speaker 2: little bit better tomorrow, then I can focus on what
Speaker 2: I've done better rather than say this is where I
Speaker 2: fall short against my brother or my neighbors.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And I think also when you're talking, you're
Speaker 1: thinking about you know, like you were. You didn't say
Speaker 1: the words, but gratitude and awareness for I have. Like
Speaker 1: one of my I guess privileges Andrew, is that I
Speaker 1: work with a few people with different disabilities, and you know,
Speaker 1: they have actual challenges. I don't have any actual challenges, right,
Speaker 1: and when I'm around them, it just and I you know,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't need to, but sometimes I still need to
Speaker 1: be around them to appreciate what I have. And even
Speaker 1: down to I think about this a lot. This is weird.
Speaker 1: I even think like I can get up out of
Speaker 1: this chair and I can walk down the stairs to
Speaker 1: my kitchen. Most people can't or not most, but there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people that can't do that. I can
Speaker 1: go turn on a tap and there's cold water. Billions
Speaker 1: of people can't do that. I can. I can press
Speaker 1: a button and the room gets cool. You know. It's
Speaker 1: like just having the things that we never think of,
Speaker 1: you know, we just take so much stuff for granted
Speaker 1: that if they were removed from our life. All we
Speaker 1: would want is to have those things back.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it's it's a It's a fascinating insight into
Speaker 2: the human condition, isn't it?
Speaker 1: And the way that, you know, part of my research
Speaker 1: is are around a thing called metacognition, which I'm sure
Speaker 1: you know is just thinking about thinking, and it's it's
Speaker 1: interesting just just to lean into that, just that question
Speaker 1: of why do I, Why do I think like this?
Speaker 1: Why do I Why am I really grateful or uncrateful?
Speaker 1: Just and not self loathing, but just curiosity. How come
Speaker 1: when I'm talking to Andrew, I'm trying to impress him?
Speaker 1: What's that about? Yes, you know, like just that recognition
Speaker 1: of what is happening mentally, emotionally, behaviorally in the moment.
Speaker 1: You know that. I think that the whole conversation around
Speaker 1: what is happiness? How do I create it? Or how
Speaker 1: do I create misery? It's a real deep dive into
Speaker 1: like introspection and personal reflection, I think.
Speaker 2: And what you're saying, Craig, is that happiness isn't out there,
Speaker 2: It's in here. It's in our head. Yeah, and as
Speaker 2: soon as we change, and sometimes it can be a
Speaker 2: tragedy or an almost tragedy or a disaster that makes
Speaker 2: us reassess, yes, you know how blessed we are. And
Speaker 2: as you know, as we are in our case living
Speaker 2: in Australians and many of your listeners listening around the world,
Speaker 2: we have these incredible advantages, but we take them for granted.
Speaker 2: And so happiness, I believe, becomes something where because it's
Speaker 2: not something that you find. It is something that you
Speaker 2: create by being grateful, by having a purpose, by being kind.
Speaker 2: We notice that the kindest people are the people and
Speaker 2: so we do those things and we find that we're
Speaker 2: feeling better and more blessed. But when people talk about
Speaker 2: finding happiness, it is not something that just drops in
Speaker 2: your lap very often. I mean, perhaps there are some people,
Speaker 2: some of us who grew up with maybe parents who
Speaker 2: are wonderful role models and they did so many of
Speaker 2: the things that work, but many of us didn't. And
Speaker 2: so it comes back to what you're talking about, saying,
Speaker 2: how do I think and why do I think like that?
Speaker 2: And can I realize that there's a better way to think?
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and yeah exactly Andrew. And then what's the
Speaker 1: space between the thing that's happening and my story about
Speaker 1: the thing that's happening. So the objective reality and my
Speaker 1: subjective interpretation, you know, that's the special bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then there's this idea that the challenge of
Speaker 2: life is to be happy with what you have while
Speaker 2: you pursue what you want and and and I think
Speaker 2: that you know, that is a big one because some
Speaker 2: people have goals, and it's great to have goals for
Speaker 2: a lot of reasons. Number one is we feel like
Speaker 2: we're taking control of our life. Even you know, you
Speaker 2: join a gym, you feel better. You haven't even done
Speaker 2: anything yet, But the reason you feel better is because
Speaker 2: you have this sense that I'm taking control of a
Speaker 2: part of my life. But we see many people who achieve,
Speaker 2: but but they're always putting such a load on themselves
Speaker 2: as I've got to achieve more and more and more,
Speaker 2: so they're never happy with where they are. And wow,
Speaker 2: so that's the challenge.
Speaker 1: That's so true, you know, I think, I mean, I
Speaker 1: can only speak for me. But in the life that
Speaker 1: I grew up in the seventies, eighties and nineties, like
Speaker 1: I was either directly or indirectly taught that success equals
Speaker 1: happiness and success equals things stuff, how much money I
Speaker 1: earn what I drive, where I live, what people think
Speaker 1: of me, my brand. You know, it's all about this
Speaker 1: external stuff that you referred to before. So if I
Speaker 1: change these things in my external world, my internal world
Speaker 1: will be great. And then I go on this endless
Speaker 1: quest for a bigger and bigger and bigger plasma TV
Speaker 1: till I've got a fucking two hundred inch TV and
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is twice the size of my last TV.
Speaker 1: Why am I not happier? Because I think we think
Speaker 1: that some kind of you know, phiz shift will create
Speaker 1: some kind feel some emotional, psychological, spiritual void. And even
Speaker 1: though we I think inherently I'll shut up after this,
Speaker 1: I think we inherently know that's not true, but we
Speaker 1: don't seem to learn because we keep striving for this
Speaker 1: stuff that doesn't really feel that void.
Speaker 2: One of the dangers of that is that as we
Speaker 2: get on this path to being more successful, which we
Speaker 2: think is going to make us happier, we inevitably start
Speaker 2: to gravitate and mix with people who are doing even
Speaker 2: better at what we think is what we need to
Speaker 2: do than we are. Because that's what happens, and you're
Speaker 2: around richer people with bigger mansions and more expensive cars,
Speaker 2: and so you actually get further and further behind as
Speaker 2: you come into contact with these people that you think
Speaker 2: are doing even better than you thought you needed to
Speaker 2: do so. But hopefully at some point we decide, okay,
Speaker 2: I've got that. Now, I realize what my priorities are
Speaker 2: and I can only eat so much, and I can
Speaker 2: only drive one car at a time, and people and
Speaker 2: contributing and finding meaning become more important than having the
Speaker 2: biggest whatever it is we were.
Speaker 1: After, I think like understanding that that our thoughts and
Speaker 1: what we focus on. As she spoke about before, it's
Speaker 1: like where my attention is, well, that's where you know,
Speaker 1: where my mind is, that's where my emotions are, where
Speaker 1: my emotions are, that's where my body is. And if
Speaker 1: i'm if i'm you know, if I think that Tiff
Speaker 1: did something that she shouldn't have done, and let's say
Speaker 1: she didn't actually do anything, I just think she did,
Speaker 1: and so I'm mad at Tiff for an a row reason.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling myself a story about Tiff even though
Speaker 1: Tiff didn't do anything, but I believe that she did.
Speaker 1: And now you know, my blood pressures up my heart
Speaker 1: rates up, my breathings up, my sympathetic nervous system switched on.
Speaker 1: I'm in this state of anxiety and stress and anger
Speaker 1: and I've created it at all. I've created at all,
Speaker 1: and Tif's done nothing. So I literally am making myself stressed.
Speaker 1: It's not even about the situation. It's about a story
Speaker 1: in my head.
Speaker 2: And nothing and nothing is real. And we come back
Speaker 2: to that idea that that happiness is not out there,
Speaker 2: it's between ears. And the other thing that comes up
Speaker 2: for me Craig is that even if she did, if
Speaker 2: Tiff did do something.
Speaker 1: Which she does a lot, by the way, Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot, then you don't forgive people for their benefit.
Speaker 2: You forgive people for your benefit. If I work for
Speaker 2: you and you give me the sack and I say,
Speaker 2: I'm never going to forgive Craig because he's ruined my life,
Speaker 2: then I'm the one that's suffering. I'm the one that's
Speaker 2: lying awake at night. You know, you're probably at the
Speaker 2: movies or something, and I think I'm punishing you by
Speaker 2: not forgiving you. Yes, But so what we learned there
Speaker 2: is you don't forgive people for their benefit. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: forgive people for your benefit. That's when you tipped her
Speaker 2: something that's real.
Speaker 1: Oh she's problematic. I only have her on the show.
Speaker 1: She's like my community outreach project, you know, like you
Speaker 1: just pick one person. She's my person, so I'll just
Speaker 1: help her out. I was thinking about, you know, this
Speaker 1: idea that we're talking about, how success is stuff. And
Speaker 1: I remember Andrew when I first started. So I started
Speaker 1: working in gyms when I was eighteen. I didn't go
Speaker 1: a university for the first time until I was older,
Speaker 1: but I started working in gym's at eighteen, and I'm
Speaker 1: having all of these conversations with actual grown ups. I
Speaker 1: was a teenager. And then so I opened the first
Speaker 1: personal training center in Australia and all this stuff. But
Speaker 1: I started working as a PT as a personal trainer
Speaker 1: at twenty three, which was nineteen eighty six when there
Speaker 1: weren't any and I started to get wealthy clients, and
Speaker 1: was what I didn't expect was so so I'm still
Speaker 1: a kid and I'm talking to all of these wealthy people,
Speaker 1: you know, business owners, entrepreneurs, actors, athletes, models, all of
Speaker 1: these successful people that I would have had previously on
Speaker 1: a pedestal. And now I'm getting to know the person
Speaker 1: behind the brand or the fame or the money. And
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, oh, wow, well way more problems than me,
Speaker 1: Like you're like. I remember just having this like epiphany
Speaker 1: as a young man, thinking ah, and realizing that on average,
Speaker 1: the wealthier people that I dealt with. Now this is
Speaker 1: not categoric, this was just my experience and not all
Speaker 1: but on average they were more stressed and more anxious,
Speaker 1: and I would say less happy than my in inverted
Speaker 1: commas normal clients. And I went, Ah, that doesn't equal that,
Speaker 1: not necessarily anyway. So that was a moment of insight
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He reminds me of a friend I had, Jim,
Speaker 2: who had a very big business, and he and his
Speaker 2: wife used to take big, expensive holidays, and they had
Speaker 2: a very big, expensive art collection, and their whole life
Speaker 2: seemed very big and spectacular. And then he sold his
Speaker 2: business to a very big client or a big organization
Speaker 2: that didn't pay the second big installment, and then he
Speaker 2: went through a very big court case which was followed
Speaker 2: by a very big divorce. And I came across him
Speaker 2: in the supermarket some time after that, and he was
Speaker 2: now living in a little apartment with a little dog.
Speaker 1: Oh Wow.
Speaker 2: He said, you know, I had this big lifestyle and
Speaker 2: he said, now I'm back to I just was left
Speaker 2: with enough after the court case and the divorce and
Speaker 2: everything else. I've just got a little apartment and a
Speaker 2: little dog. And he said, you know, I've never been
Speaker 2: happier in my life. It's so simplified. And you know,
Speaker 2: so it's not about having all the big, expensive stuff.
Speaker 2: And I suppose, although we see it from a distance
Speaker 2: and it's a generalization, Hollywood is kind of the the
Speaker 2: illustration of the craziness of you can have a whole
Speaker 2: lot and appearances can be wonderful, but it can be
Speaker 2: a little bit shaky underneath.
Speaker 1: It's very I mean that that whole idea of you know,
Speaker 1: I remember growing up in rural Victoria and do you
Speaker 1: know what a bogan is, right I do. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: lots of Bogans Bogan Central where I grew up. God
Speaker 1: bless everyone in the tri Valley. Not all Bogans, but
Speaker 1: a fair few. And there used to be a lot
Speaker 1: of panel vans and utes back in the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 1: and they had this sticker on the back and it
Speaker 1: said he who dies with the most toys wins right,
Speaker 1: And I kind of grew up in that, Oh well,
Speaker 1: if some stuff is good, then more stuff is better
Speaker 1: and the most stuff is best.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember when my business took off in you know,
Speaker 1: when I was in my late twenties and I started.
Speaker 1: I opened a gym, and I opened another gym and
Speaker 1: another gym. I ended up I had four gyms and
Speaker 1: lots of employees, and things were, you know, And I
Speaker 1: always liked cars, and I always had shitty cars because
Speaker 1: I had no money. Then I got my first decent car,
Speaker 1: which was nice, and it was nice and I kind
Speaker 1: of enjoyed it. But then I got another car, which
Speaker 1: was super nice. And then that car gave me so
Speaker 1: much anxiety because well, I should say more accurately, I
Speaker 1: gave myself so much anxiety. I didn't want to drive
Speaker 1: it anywhere. I didn't want to leave it anywhere. Before
Speaker 1: i'd go in anywhere, i'd walk around it, I'd do
Speaker 1: a bloody scratch check. Then i'd come out. I'd look
Speaker 1: out the window of wherever I was thirteen times an
Speaker 1: hour to make sure no one would Oh God, it
Speaker 1: just I was the problem, not the car. I was
Speaker 1: the problem. But I remember again having another epiphany. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what I buy if at best it's going
Speaker 1: to have a short term impact on my emotional state,
Speaker 1: and over the long term, if it's something that can
Speaker 1: be damaged by others, it's probably going to give me
Speaker 1: more grief than joy. So I stopped doing that quite
Speaker 1: a long time ago. But it's interesting.
Speaker 2: Because it is. I think. I remember Robert Kiyosaki is
Speaker 2: saying once that, and he's a he's a money guy,
Speaker 2: and he was saying something about the first Porsche he bought,
Speaker 2: and he said, I loved that car unconditionally for a week.
Speaker 1: So true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Well, so it's not it's not about the stuff.
Speaker 2: It's about if, if, if we if we look for
Speaker 2: good things in people and we believe that life will
Speaker 2: turn out well, and we we live life as best
Speaker 2: we can one day at a time, which I think
Speaker 2: helps a lot, then then regardless of how much stuff
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, you know, people say money doesn't matter,
Speaker 2: but there is a you've got to have the money
Speaker 2: to pay the rent, and we know what it's like
Speaker 2: when you don't, of course, but once once you have
Speaker 2: the essentials taken care of, an exponential increase in money
Speaker 2: doesn't make a lot of difference to our peace of
Speaker 2: mind one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Hey, you and I are both similar in that we
Speaker 1: stand in front of audiences a lot. And I watched
Speaker 1: some of you doing your thing on stage. I'm amazing.
Speaker 1: I love watching other speakers because it's so you know,
Speaker 1: there are so many ways to do the same thing,
Speaker 1: which has build an audience, connect with an audience, develop, rapport, trust, respect, entertain,
Speaker 1: educate and inspire all that stuff. There's so many there's
Speaker 1: no set path, but you you if you haven't seen it, everyone,
Speaker 1: you need to go and have just go on to
Speaker 1: Andrews Andrew Matthew's website, have a look at him doing
Speaker 1: his thing where he's talking and drawing at the same
Speaker 1: and it's like that amalgamation, that synergy of the visual
Speaker 1: stuff that you draw while delivering this flawless presentation that
Speaker 1: is amazing. How long did it take you to get
Speaker 1: good at that?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: Maybe, I mean maybe that was just your natural thing,
Speaker 1: because you're an illustrator and an artist anyway, right, so
Speaker 1: maybe that does having a pen or a marker or
Speaker 1: something in your hand give you comfort.
Speaker 2: I've been drawing since I was five, and I say,
Speaker 2: to the when I speak, I say, people wonder where
Speaker 2: I learned to draw. I learned to draw in school
Speaker 2: during mathematics, but so my training is in classical drawing.
Speaker 2: But at the same time I was doing cartooning. And
Speaker 2: what I found was when I first started giving presentations
Speaker 2: on happiness, and I would draw a little cartoon here
Speaker 2: or there, and of course what I didn't know was
Speaker 2: that people were transfixed because I'd be facing the flip chart,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't see it, and I'd turn around they were
Speaker 2: back to normal. Then on occasions I would see video
Speaker 2: of the faces of the people, and my wife, Julie,
Speaker 2: who's my publisher, she would say, you need to do
Speaker 2: more of this because people really like it. And so
Speaker 2: it evolved where when I give presentations, I draw cartoons
Speaker 2: throughout my presentation, and I use cartoons through my presentations.
Speaker 2: And see what I noticed is that whether you're talking
Speaker 2: to brain surgeons or prisoners, and I speak to both,
Speaker 2: they're so relieved when the message is simple and easy
Speaker 2: to get, and pictures help us not only to understand
Speaker 2: the message, but to remember it. So it's been my
Speaker 2: joy to incorporate cartoons throughout and I guess it's become
Speaker 2: my signature. But people also like it because they see
Speaker 2: the cartoons in my books, so and maybe maybe they think, well,
Speaker 2: if there's cartoons in there, he can't be a total
Speaker 2: wanker or something. I don't know. I mean people people
Speaker 2: like to see to see something that's not so serious.
Speaker 1: And also it's it's organic, right, and it's you in
Speaker 1: real time. It's not you bringing up a slide of
Speaker 1: something that you drew a year ago. It's like, this
Speaker 1: is you on stage creating. This is you with a
Speaker 1: blank piece of paper creating something in real time while
Speaker 1: fucking talking to a thousand people. That's quite the skill.
Speaker 2: It takes. Yeah, it takes some practice to do that.
Speaker 2: But you bring up an interesting point. I can bring
Speaker 2: up the best cartoon that I've ever done, that I
Speaker 2: created last year, and it won't get nearly nearly the
Speaker 2: reaction of something that I create in the next minute,
Speaker 2: where people just see it evolved. But I also when
Speaker 2: I draw or that I start at the at the
Speaker 2: like the wrong place, so that people aren't even sure
Speaker 2: where I'm going.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, you know that that is like if I
Speaker 3: went to see I don't know, bloody Bruce Springsteen and
Speaker 3: he's out on stage and he presses a button and
Speaker 3: then the recording.
Speaker 1: Of his voice comes on. You know, it's I don't
Speaker 1: want that. I want to hear seventy five year old
Speaker 1: Bruce sing. Right, Yeah, that's yeah, that's so so interesting.
Speaker 1: How much I don't know about this? Is this is
Speaker 1: an in house question, right, So it depends on my week.
Speaker 1: But I do about one hundred and twenty presentations a year,
Speaker 1: and they vary from thirty forty five sixty minute keno
Speaker 1: through to full day workshops and stuff. And this is
Speaker 1: just my personality in the way that I work best.
Speaker 1: But I've got to be structured and planned to a point.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm very much probably more way more
Speaker 1: than most and probably to my own detriment sometimes, but
Speaker 1: I like to go in with some prep, you know,
Speaker 1: but more I want to build a connection with the audience.
Speaker 1: Do you how much of you yours? Is Is it
Speaker 1: like the same every time? Do you ever get halfway
Speaker 1: through and go I'm going to turn left instead of right? Like?
Speaker 1: Is it performative? Is it? You know, not that it's
Speaker 1: right or wrong, But I'm just interested in the different
Speaker 1: styles that presenters. Tiff by the way. It has just
Speaker 1: started presenting career. She did one yesterday and killed didn't you?
Speaker 1: Tif had a wonderful time. Thank you. Are we allowed
Speaker 1: to say who with? Yeah? Yeah, Victoria's Victoria Police. Yeah
Speaker 1: She's So she's just getting her speaking career underway. So
Speaker 1: I'm interested in your kind of method if you'd like
Speaker 1: to share.
Speaker 2: Sure. A lot of what I speak about, and I
Speaker 2: will speak to computer companies and I will speak to
Speaker 2: you know, maybe Honda or Shell or or Intel or
Speaker 2: and then I will speak to banks and in high schools.
Speaker 2: A lot of the concepts are similar, yep. But the
Speaker 2: examples that perhaps somebody like last week I spoke to
Speaker 2: her a group of they run service stations in New Zealand,
Speaker 2: so they came to Brisbane and they had me speak
Speaker 2: to speak about enjoying work particularly, So a lot of
Speaker 2: the principles are similar. But the examples, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: these are guys. They're dealing with leaking petrol tanks and
Speaker 2: competition from unmanned service stations and staff that don't show up.
Speaker 2: So I'm drawing on examples that they relate to. So
Speaker 2: I do my researches. But the principles of enjoying your work.
Speaker 2: Still come back to things like, well, you want a
Speaker 2: you want to do your best because that's how you
Speaker 2: feel best about you, That's how you get a reputation.
Speaker 2: Don't complain because people want to be and so on.
Speaker 2: So it's the framework is similar, but the examples will
Speaker 2: be different. And usually I will just do an hour presentation.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I will do day presentations. But my experience is
Speaker 2: people are always most sided in the first hour, and
Speaker 2: I like to leave them that they wish I'd stayed longer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not the worst plan. What's one thing that
Speaker 1: you've over the last however long, ten twenty years, something
Speaker 1: that you were wrong about. I like this idea. So
Speaker 1: I talk about learning. I'm an educator, but I also
Speaker 1: talk about unlearning. And you know, there's I've gotten a
Speaker 1: million things wrong in the last thirty years, and for me,
Speaker 1: I always like to share that with people because people
Speaker 1: think you know, you get everything right, or you know everything. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm fucking up thirteen times a day, So don't look
Speaker 1: to me as the high water mark. But something that
Speaker 1: you've got wrong or maybe and or changed your mind
Speaker 1: about over the last while.
Speaker 2: I think about I don't have to be perfect and
Speaker 2: I don't have to know it all. When I wrote
Speaker 2: my first book, Being Happy, I was thirty, and I
Speaker 2: was younger than a lot of my readers, and I'm
Speaker 2: not a psychologist, so I thought I had to work
Speaker 2: really hard to appear like I was an expert. And
Speaker 2: the more I did that, the more people questioned my authority,
Speaker 2: and the more even though my book kept selling, but
Speaker 2: if I was maybe giving a presentation or maybe chatting
Speaker 2: with someone like you. The more that I tried to
Speaker 2: have all the answers and be really smooth and make
Speaker 2: everything perfect, the less I found that people I guess
Speaker 2: warm to me, maybe because I thought I had to
Speaker 2: be clever, And now I realized that everything doesn't if
Speaker 2: people can see my faults and my frailties and I
Speaker 2: can share things that I got wrong and all the books,
Speaker 2: that the manuscripts I sent to publishers that didn't get published,
Speaker 2: and that people just want. People want us to be
Speaker 2: real and people. People don't want anything that's that's especially polished.
Speaker 2: And I think evidence of that now can be seen
Speaker 2: on social media, where many of the clips that go viral,
Speaker 2: almost all of them, they're not highly polished they're just
Speaker 2: where someone happens to be either real or funny or
Speaker 2: surprisingly witty, and it's not super prepared. So I think
Speaker 2: that that I would I would have done differently. Also,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have worked so hard. Yeah, wow, I've worked
Speaker 2: too hard. But you know, yeah, I'm sure you do.
Speaker 2: You know what I What I like is so as
Speaker 2: I said to you before we started rolling, So I'm
Speaker 2: doing my PhD in neuropsychology and I'm five years in
Speaker 2: and I'm near the finish line and blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: But like, I value your insights maybe more right, because
Speaker 2: you've got all this lived experience. And which is not
Speaker 2: to say that you don't understand psychology or physiology or
Speaker 2: neuroscience to a level anyway.
Speaker 1: It's not about that. But it's like sometimes a couple
Speaker 1: of things. Sometimes I'm talking to somebody who's an academic
Speaker 1: or an intellectual genius who just might know all this
Speaker 1: stuff about the neurochemistry of the brain and happiness and
Speaker 1: the reward system and all this stuff, and I look
Speaker 1: at him and I go, you're fucking miserable. So I'm
Speaker 1: not listening to you, right, I'm not listening to you
Speaker 1: because you might understand the theory of happiness, but you're
Speaker 1: not living it, so I'm not interested. And then the
Speaker 1: other thing is, you know, when it comes to the
Speaker 1: brain and the mind and the complicity the complexity of
Speaker 1: happiness and joy and hormones and biochemistry and sociology, and
Speaker 1: it's just there's no three step plan. It's like the
Speaker 1: more that, like my PhD is in a thing called
Speaker 1: meta perception, which is about your ability to understand the
Speaker 1: andrew experience for others. So the core question at the
Speaker 1: middle of my research is what's it like being around
Speaker 1: me for the rest of the world. And I could
Speaker 1: unpack that with you, but I won't bore you. But
Speaker 1: you know, I'm driving I'm studying like a drop of
Speaker 1: water in an ocean of psychology and science and research,
Speaker 1: you know. And even though I'll come out with a
Speaker 1: doctorate in psychology, you're not really broadly studying anything. You're
Speaker 1: very very specifically studying a one construct, like I said,
Speaker 1: in this ocean of ideas and stuff, you know. And
Speaker 1: then it bugs me when people discount stuff that's I
Speaker 1: guess just learned experience or anecdotal or like all of
Speaker 1: the stuff that you've been through and I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: done your own research research as well, but like your
Speaker 1: life is your classroom, you know, the research that you've
Speaker 1: done working with real humans in real time and creating
Speaker 1: real outcomes, that's more valuable research, I think in many
Speaker 1: ways when you're connecting with a general public audience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, more people like simple things that they can understand. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what I seek to do is I always felt that
Speaker 2: my advantage was that I didn't have an academic background,
Speaker 2: so I didn't have to be true to any particular methodology,
Speaker 2: or I didn't have to introduce things that I thought
Speaker 2: my peers thought that I should substantiate so true, So
Speaker 2: I could just grab any story or any example from anybody,
Speaker 2: and I could maybe put it into two paragraphs and
Speaker 2: with a cartoon and then and then. One of the
Speaker 2: joys for me of writing is is using as simple
Speaker 2: language as I can. When I teach or workshops on writing,
Speaker 2: I say, imagine that you're writing for a twelve year
Speaker 2: old girl in Singapore, for whom English is her second language,
Speaker 2: then you're going to write better. So that's that's what
Speaker 2: I seek to do. So for me, it is about simple,
Speaker 2: simple ideas, simple language that anyone can understand and at
Speaker 2: the same time what you're doing obviously you're fascinated at
Speaker 2: getting to understand all of this about how it is
Speaker 2: for other people being around Craig Harper, and so that
Speaker 2: is that is fueling your joyous life and your experience.
Speaker 2: You know enough that you're not doing it to impress anyone.
Speaker 2: You're doing it because this is this is something that
Speaker 2: you want to get to the bottom of. So that
Speaker 2: can be a great thing for you. But then when
Speaker 2: you take that the messages that you've gotten hold of
Speaker 2: to your audience, obviously you simplify them or you take
Speaker 2: the special little bits that anybody can relate to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the skill. Yeah, And it's like even with
Speaker 1: this with this show, you know, we have thousands of
Speaker 1: listeners every day, and I mean, you're I don't need
Speaker 1: to with you, but sometimes because you're a very good
Speaker 1: communicator and you understand exactly what we're talking about. But
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm like, if I've got someone on who's they're good,
Speaker 1: their knowledge is good, but I'm like, we need to
Speaker 1: change the language of what's going on right now because
Speaker 1: nobody fuck understands this bloke or this lady. You know,
Speaker 1: So like the information is good, but the delivery or
Speaker 1: the language is inappropriate. And it's not that I have
Speaker 1: a dumb audience. I have an educated audience. But when
Speaker 1: you have a really big cross section of people, you
Speaker 1: need to cater to, you know, the lowest common denominator
Speaker 1: in terms of understandability of terms and language. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting. So you've got a new book out
Speaker 1: which is called Bouncing Back, which is is that focus
Speaker 1: on resilience or very coming?
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, very much resilience. I mean, we're all bouncing
Speaker 2: back from something, Craig. We're bouncing back from a relationship
Speaker 2: that could have been better, or a job that we
Speaker 2: lost or a job that we applied for or we
Speaker 2: didn't get, or we're bouncing back often from loss or
Speaker 2: tragedy people that we loved. And I thought the COVID
Speaker 2: experience triggered it a little bit, but it was also
Speaker 2: we're all going to be bouncing back from things almost
Speaker 2: every day, little things. Ben So I wanted to ask
Speaker 2: the question what is it that resilient people do? And basically,
Speaker 2: there's about seven things that resilient and happy people do
Speaker 2: better than people who are not resilient. And I created
Speaker 2: like a lot of little stories and cartoons in Bouncing Back,
Speaker 2: and basically we go through the things that and you
Speaker 2: don't have to learn them all, you don't have to
Speaker 2: do them in any particular order. For example, number one
Speaker 2: is that resilient people find purpose in whatever they're going through.
Speaker 2: They don't say, why does everything happen to me? Often
Speaker 2: what we thought was breaking us is actually making us. Yes,
Speaker 2: and resilient people understand that. So true, that's number one.
Speaker 2: Number two is we accept what we can't change. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of things that we can change. We
Speaker 2: can change our attitude, we can change our work rate,
Speaker 2: we can change where we live, we can change our friends.
Speaker 2: But there are things that you can't change your parents,
Speaker 2: for example. So some people live their life saying, well,
Speaker 2: if I refuse to accept this, then I won't be
Speaker 2: stuck with it. There is the reverse is true. As
Speaker 2: soon as you embrace something that you didn't want, then
Speaker 2: you can move on. So acceptance is power. And so
Speaker 2: those are two of the things that I that I
Speaker 2: looked at in Bouncing Back.
Speaker 1: I love it. We waste sorry to interrupt, we waste
Speaker 1: a lot. We do seem to waste a lot of
Speaker 1: time and energy andrew on things we can't change or undo.
Speaker 1: You know, like how many of us ruminate about things
Speaker 1: that happened five years ago and we're still like our
Speaker 1: mind in the present is trapped in that thing five
Speaker 1: years ago that you know, putting aside traumatic events. But
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, we do have this propensity to
Speaker 1: overthink and ruminate on things we can't change or control.
Speaker 2: You're a sports guy and in one of my books,
Speaker 2: I think it was Following your Heart. It brings up
Speaker 2: for me because you're talking about living in the present
Speaker 2: and everyone says and it's kind of it's just a cliche,
Speaker 2: live in the present. One of the beautiful things about
Speaker 2: sport is that you learn to live in the present
Speaker 2: and let go of stuff. You lost the last set,
Speaker 2: then get on with the next set. You know, yes
Speaker 2: they kicked a goal, now it's your turn to kick
Speaker 2: the next goal, and so letting go of things. Sport
Speaker 2: is a wonderful educator in how to live a better
Speaker 2: life in in so many things. You know, when you relax,
Speaker 2: you perform better. You know, you run faster, you don't
Speaker 2: get hurt.
Speaker 1: Yea.
Speaker 2: So that whole idea of being able to let go
Speaker 2: of things and move on. We see and so many
Speaker 2: things in the sporting experience we see a parallel.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and I think that I'm doing a workshop
Speaker 1: this Sunday in Melbourne. Get along everyone. If you're not coming,
Speaker 1: it's that deacon, go to my website. But it's called
Speaker 1: understanding you. Do you like that little plug that I
Speaker 1: just shoved in there, It's called understanding you. And that's
Speaker 1: the the whole like part of a big part of
Speaker 1: kind of my journey now and also with people that
Speaker 1: I work with and teams and athletes and businesses. Is yeah,
Speaker 1: just that like what actually makes me happy, what makes
Speaker 1: me stressed? How do I manage my mind? What impact
Speaker 1: does my mind have on my emotions and vice versa?
Speaker 1: What impact does my emotions and my mind have on
Speaker 1: my body and vice versa? You know, because we're this
Speaker 1: kind of integrated system, We're not one thing where all
Speaker 1: the things. Yeah, and I just think being able to
Speaker 1: open that door on self awareness how I am and
Speaker 1: why I am the way I am, but at the
Speaker 1: same time not overthinking the shit out of everything, right,
Speaker 1: because then we wake up and it's five years later
Speaker 1: and we're still on this deep journey of introspection that
Speaker 1: really doesn't help too much.
Speaker 2: Sometimes, well maybe so, maybe it's from the point of
Speaker 2: view of how we're affecting and either enriching the people
Speaker 2: around us, rather than this is all about me, which
Speaker 2: is which is what I think you're saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll wind up, but just quickly before we go.
Speaker 1: You spoke about purpose a minute ago when we were
Speaker 1: talking about in new book, Bouncing Back. By the way, everyone,
Speaker 1: so go and get nine copies.
Speaker 2: That it's only on Amazon at the moment. It's well,
Speaker 2: where are all your listeners?
Speaker 1: Great, so eighty percent you will take Australia and the
Speaker 1: rest around the world.
Speaker 2: Okay, so Bouncing Back we'll be in bookstores from January,
Speaker 2: but it's already available on Amazon as an ebook or
Speaker 2: as a printed book or as an audible perfect perfect.
Speaker 1: Did you do the audio?
Speaker 2: I did the audio. So if you're listening and you
Speaker 2: think my voice works, okay, then to me do the audio.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't like it when authors get other people
Speaker 1: to do that, especially when I know the author and
Speaker 1: then I listen to the book. I'm like, I wanted
Speaker 1: to hear him or her just quickly. I want to
Speaker 1: talk for a moment about purpose, and then we'll wind up.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that people have said to
Speaker 1: me over the years is something like, how do I
Speaker 1: find my purpose? And my general answer is, well, why
Speaker 1: don't you just choose it? It's not under some ethereal
Speaker 1: rock or some there's not going to be an angel.
Speaker 1: Depend descend on your window with a little scroll, just
Speaker 1: giving you the inside. What are your thoughts around purpose?
Speaker 2: I think, do whatever is in front of you, do
Speaker 2: what do the things you love where possible, But whatever
Speaker 2: is under your nose, do it the best that you
Speaker 2: can do it and watch it lead you toward other opportunities.
Speaker 2: And so our purpose evolves as we put our heart
Speaker 2: and soul into our life and work. And sometimes someone
Speaker 2: will notice us and pluck us from where we are,
Speaker 2: and so that's how our career moves. Sometimes we develop
Speaker 2: our skills and our confidence and we go and do
Speaker 2: that thing ourselves. But my thought is that you give
Speaker 2: your heart and soul to whatever is in front of you,
Speaker 2: even if it isn't ideal. If you're sweeping a shopping center,
Speaker 2: do it your best and watch it lead you to
Speaker 2: something better. And similarly, with relationships, you don't worry about whether, well, okay,
Speaker 2: you know you're on a new date and you say, well,
Speaker 2: I just don't know that Mary is the one. That
Speaker 2: is not the problem. The issue is that you give
Speaker 2: your best who having a joyous time with Mary, and
Speaker 2: it goes for as long as it goes, and maybe
Speaker 2: Mary will be the one, or maybe she won't, but
Speaker 2: you put your your best into whatever is in front
Speaker 2: of you and it leads you somewhere better.
Speaker 1: My dad did exactly what you said with a Mary
Speaker 1: who happens to be my mum, and it worked out
Speaker 1: for him. So there you go, everyone now, Being happy,
Speaker 1: follow your Heart and How Life Works are some of
Speaker 1: Andrew's books. He's only sold eight million copies, So Andrew
Speaker 1: try harder eight million copies in forty eight languages. All right,
Speaker 1: He's got me covered everyone, and his latest book is
Speaker 1: called Bouncing Back. Mate. Do you want to steer our
Speaker 1: audience towards anything, any products or website or where do
Speaker 1: you want to tell people to go?
Speaker 2: Thank you, Craig. So my website is Andrewmatthews dot com.
Speaker 2: Andrew Matthews is all one word and to teaser the
Speaker 2: Matthews So you can join my newsletter. I do a
Speaker 2: newsletter every two weeks and it's a cartoon and maybe
Speaker 2: a few sentences. I don't want to burden you. I
Speaker 2: also have a lot of videos on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram,
Speaker 2: and Facebook. You can join me on Facebook Andrew Matthews
Speaker 2: author and join me contact me, let me know how
Speaker 2: you found this chat with Craig, and let Craig know
Speaker 2: how you found it. Maybe we can do this again.
Speaker 1: I'd love to you're a gun. There's about five percent
Speaker 1: of people I get on who are well, most of good,
Speaker 1: but there's five percent that make my job very very easy,
Speaker 1: and you're in the top one cent. So thank you, sir.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. Well, say goodbye off air, but for
Speaker 1: the moment officially, Andrew, thanks for having a chat. It's
Speaker 1: been really nice. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Craig. My pleasure.