Speaker 1: I'll get a Tim Craig, Anthony Harper. What's your middle name? Mate, mazee?
Speaker 1: What's your middle name?
Speaker 2: Ricardo?
Speaker 1: Andrew Ricardo? Wow? Maeh, up there, up there in the
Speaker 1: thriving metropolis, meet down here in Melbs. It is the
Speaker 1: you project. A shes us Hi, mate, how are you good?
Speaker 2: We're recording.
Speaker 1: We're just I'm telling everyone what I did.
Speaker 2: I've just thrown Harps under his own typ bus. We
Speaker 2: were in flow about ten minutes into it. I don't
Speaker 2: know whether it was a mistake or whether I was
Speaker 2: just mowfully, but Harps when jeez, mate, sorry, can we
Speaker 2: start again?
Speaker 1: I haven't pressed record? You looked mortified. I just laughed.
Speaker 2: I said, let's go again.
Speaker 1: Do you know what the dumbest thing that Melissa did
Speaker 1: was she gave me control over when the recording starts
Speaker 1: and stops, And like, why would you give me that
Speaker 1: much power? You know, I'm an idiot, you know, I just.
Speaker 2: Press the red button, don't touch anything else.
Speaker 1: I don't want to ask you the same questions that
Speaker 1: I asked you the first time round, So I'll just
Speaker 1: I'll just start with this. How's your twenty twenty four been?
Speaker 1: What did you learn are you Are you exhausted? Are
Speaker 1: you excited? Are you a bit of both?
Speaker 2: Let's answer that reverse. I am crawling, dragging myself like
Speaker 2: got white on my fingers, is just pulling myself to
Speaker 2: the line.
Speaker 1: Mate.
Speaker 2: In fact, I caught up with one of the clients
Speaker 2: I trained this morning of training for a number of years,
Speaker 2: is it see Over Big Company. I met him at
Speaker 2: Bondi Beach. You know, you're a personal trainer. You're never
Speaker 2: not a personal trainer. So even when I do work
Speaker 2: with my exec clients, I'd still go for a walk,
Speaker 2: throwing a few push ups, a few cheneis. And I
Speaker 2: saw him at the beach. I'll work with him for
Speaker 2: ten years, and you know, there's his public face and
Speaker 2: he's a well known person, and then here's he's personally.
Speaker 2: He's a good guy. And I looked at him, I
Speaker 2: could see he was just tired. So I rocked up
Speaker 2: to him and I just went nothing, I just g
Speaker 2: I hugged him. I said, this looks like exactly what
Speaker 2: you need to see. Yeah, I do, but probably not
Speaker 2: from you, and not while everyone's watching. He hugged me
Speaker 2: and he just laughed. He said, yeah, I think I
Speaker 2: did need that. I think that just sums up the center.
Speaker 2: But we all need a bloody good hug because I
Speaker 2: was reflecting on this after our conversation ten years ago.
Speaker 2: You'd remember this December early December, the engine would stop,
Speaker 2: like for you and I when we put our keynote
Speaker 2: hats on, you wouldn't do many keynotes in December. I
Speaker 2: did four last week ups, like who are these people
Speaker 2: still doing keynotes? A couple of weeks before Christmas? So
Speaker 2: we're now working right towards the end. And I blame
Speaker 2: a lot of the COVID because we're much more tech
Speaker 2: set up at home, so we don't have that natural
Speaker 2: downtime at the start of the day. And then if
Speaker 2: you do go to the office, you've already been working on.
Speaker 2: You take a few hours, and then we're getting back
Speaker 2: on at night. So I just find there's this residual
Speaker 2: fatigue now everyone is technical term wrecked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's so interesting. So I don't know if
Speaker 1: I've ever unpacked this with you, but i'd love your thoughts. Right,
Speaker 1: So we it's a little bit nine nineties and nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties now. But work life balance, the idea of work
Speaker 1: life balance theoretically is like, if you work this much
Speaker 1: and you don't work this much, there's this much at work,
Speaker 1: this much not at work, and there's it's almost like
Speaker 1: there's a formula or an equation.
Speaker 2: And I hate the term.
Speaker 1: I vomit.
Speaker 2: And someone goes, we need a work life balance program.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hate it, and I'm like, yeah, here's the
Speaker 1: problem though, or works not equal and you could do
Speaker 1: ten hours of something you fucking hate, and I do
Speaker 1: fifty hours of something I love, and your job's worse
Speaker 1: for you than mine. In fact, my job's good for me.
Speaker 1: It actually energizes me, stimulates me, grows me, develops me.
Speaker 1: And I'm doing fifty or sixty hours, and through your
Speaker 1: lens you might go, oh my god, that is way
Speaker 1: too much. But ten hours, Well, imagine having a job
Speaker 1: that's only ten hours. It's like, yeah, well it depends.
Speaker 2: I'd rather do seventy hours where I'm engaged and feel
Speaker 2: like I'm growing and stretching and get tired. There's times
Speaker 2: in all of our lives where you push it. The
Speaker 2: original research I saw on that was back I had hair.
Speaker 2: Harps were in the nineties, Like you know when they
Speaker 2: show Homer Simpson with hair and everyone just last year
Speaker 2: got those two little strands. But the research is on
Speaker 2: work life balance, and they were researchers and I under
Speaker 2: underscore that, but they weren't pracademics like you are practical.
Speaker 2: They were researchers in a lab. So they said, hey,
Speaker 2: we've got the data. You should sleep eight hours. How
Speaker 2: many of your audience sleeps eight hours a night? You
Speaker 2: should work eight hours and then recreate eight hours. It's
Speaker 2: absolutely setting you. There's times during coming into holidays, mate,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to work much at all. I'm pulling
Speaker 2: the roller door down for three three weeks. But there's
Speaker 2: times and you're the same. We bang out sixty seven
Speaker 2: hour weeks and we love what we do and you
Speaker 2: just get on with it.
Speaker 1: Hey, but how do you do?
Speaker 2: How are you? You're asking everybody else how are you?
Speaker 1: Where are you? I am good, I'm like all the
Speaker 1: stuff that people would typically ask about work and UNI
Speaker 1: and study and all good. I've just got a very
Speaker 1: close friend who's really crooked at the moment. So that's
Speaker 1: taking a bit of my internal kind of energy, of
Speaker 1: my emotional and psychological attention, I guess. So I'm I'm
Speaker 1: trying to be really supportive there. But other than that,
Speaker 1: I'm good. I'm I feel surprisingly calm and not exhausted.
Speaker 1: It might hit me, but I tend to I don't
Speaker 1: really kind of have a big end of year assessment
Speaker 1: new year's strategy. Not that that's bad, I guess I
Speaker 1: get a little bit more reflective. But you and I
Speaker 1: are going to talk about, you know, almost having a
Speaker 1: bit of a look at the year in review and
Speaker 1: maybe setting us up ourselves up for another year. And
Speaker 1: this is the time of the year for a lot
Speaker 1: of people where there is introspection and reflection and some
Speaker 1: kind of I guess almost assessment where we try to.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes when we get away from work, whether
Speaker 1: that's literally or metaphorically or geographically away, I think we
Speaker 1: can get a level of perspective that we can't always
Speaker 1: achieve when we're in the middle of whatever it is.
Speaker 1: We're typically in the middle.
Speaker 2: Of absolutely and a nice segue to get us back
Speaker 2: on track. We're like Daryl and Dale and the Castle.
Speaker 2: How's Buck, Dad? Yeah, he's okay. Sometimes we talk for hours. Yes,
Speaker 2: the power of self reflection. I've done this the last
Speaker 2: five or six years. Personally, I do it with all
Speaker 2: my clients and we were chatting aback getting on and
Speaker 2: doing something before the end of the year. I thought
Speaker 2: this would be a really good one to do. It's
Speaker 2: a bit like driving a car, is the analogy. Eighty
Speaker 2: five ninety percent of your vision is looking out the
Speaker 2: front window and to the side, and they go about
Speaker 2: five to ten percent in the review and maybe five
Speaker 2: and the side mirrors. So the point of the analogy is,
Speaker 2: let's look back in the review mirror on the year
Speaker 2: that's been and yeah, most of you are feeling tired,
Speaker 2: like my client this morning, need a bit of a hug.
Speaker 2: But there's some good research on this. So when you
Speaker 2: look at goal achievement, the process of setting achieving goals,
Speaker 2: but most of it looks moving forward. In the last
Speaker 2: few years, there's been more around this accomplishment focus about
Speaker 2: reviewing and reflecting your goals. And when I dug into
Speaker 2: this a little bit a few years ago, I went, hey,
Speaker 2: this is not new. There was a dude back in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty three called John Dewey who wrote about how
Speaker 2: you should reflect and it bridges the gap between experience
Speaker 2: and self awareness. And now we have people doing PhDs
Speaker 2: around all this stuff, and you go, my god, this
Speaker 2: is ninety years ago. Dewey also observed how serious and
Speaker 2: careful consideration leads to personal growth. So I think to
Speaker 2: honor the great man John Dewey. I've done knowing, but
Speaker 2: he sounds like a great man. And to look at
Speaker 2: that goal accomplishment theory. I've been at risk of this
Speaker 2: over the years, half where I've had a year and
Speaker 2: going right, bang, let's bag it, let's go and have
Speaker 2: a break, and I'm going to come out next year
Speaker 2: fresh and go again. What I've found personally and what
Speaker 2: I've found with my clients is that process of looking
Speaker 2: in the review mirror. It does a couple of things.
Speaker 2: It just gives you some time to catch up and
Speaker 2: make meaning of the year you've had. Two You then
Speaker 2: can process yeah, wow, there's a bunch of areas in
Speaker 2: my life, and we'll take people through a framework where
Speaker 2: I've absolutely overachieved. I just haven't slowed down and caught up.
Speaker 2: But there's also a bunch of areas I'm either not
Speaker 2: happy with or there's a little bit more I can do,
Speaker 2: which can then help you set up for the following year.
Speaker 2: So I've found this activity really beneficial.
Speaker 1: Yeah, before we do that, I want to ask you, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if we've had this chatter before, but
Speaker 1: one of the things I often ask audiences is about,
Speaker 1: you know, whether or not they think they're open minded
Speaker 1: and in general terms objective, And everyone goes, yeah, fuck yeah,
Speaker 1: super open minded. I'm super objective.
Speaker 2: I'm not closed minded.
Speaker 1: Who said that? Who told you? Yeah, that's right? And
Speaker 1: you know, then I explained, I said, well, look that
Speaker 1: you know. Your version of the world is a subjective
Speaker 1: version that's not good or bad or broken. That's human.
Speaker 1: I'm the same. Am I open minded? Not really? Am
Speaker 1: I totally objective? Nowhere near it? Would I like to be?
Speaker 1: Do I like the idea, yes I do? But the
Speaker 1: reality is I've got preexisting ideas and beliefs and biases
Speaker 1: and bullshit and issues and programming, And in the middle
Speaker 1: of all of that, I create my own reality, which
Speaker 1: I'm well aware as just mine. But when we are
Speaker 1: reflecting and looking at our year, world's longest fucking set
Speaker 1: up question, by the way, hurry up ups. But when
Speaker 1: we are see that self awareness, when we are looking back,
Speaker 1: how do we find kind of a level of objectivity
Speaker 1: or perspective which is.
Speaker 2: Empowering rather than you know, convenient if I go a
Speaker 2: layer deep from that is part of that question as well.
Speaker 2: How do you do this and be really honest and
Speaker 2: authentic and not bullshit yourself so you're doing a happy shait.
Speaker 2: How I have done that. I've done this with my team.
Speaker 2: I've said to everyone earlier this week, let's do this
Speaker 2: and let's share it, and we shared it in our
Speaker 2: staff meeting as well. That was a way of everyone
Speaker 2: to be open and honance. So if you've got a coach,
Speaker 2: you could do that with them. Pretty hard to do
Speaker 2: with your partner sometimes because they'll have a view, a
Speaker 2: pretty firm view. So as you're leading into Christmas, if
Speaker 2: your window of tolerance the psychologists will talk about in relationships,
Speaker 2: you need a big window of tolerance. If the window
Speaker 2: is closed and it's boarded up, I maybe wouldn't do
Speaker 2: this with your partner until you've had a bit of time.
Speaker 2: I think the main thing would be to share it
Speaker 2: with somebody else on that Sometimes are the people you
Speaker 2: know best, they know you too well, so it's that
Speaker 2: level of connectivity. So that's how I'd answer that is
Speaker 2: if you find that sometimes you bullshit yourself and say
Speaker 2: the stuff you want to because you I don't know
Speaker 2: if you think you're being marked on this. I'd share
Speaker 2: it with someone and say, hey, here's what I reckon.
Speaker 2: What do you think am I aligned with how you
Speaker 2: see the way I show up?
Speaker 1: Yeah? And I think you need to be extraordinarily fucking
Speaker 1: courageous and authentic to do that properly, because people who
Speaker 1: say they want feedback generally they don't want feedback. They
Speaker 1: just want praise, they want endorsement. It's like, oh, do
Speaker 1: you really want to know how you come? Do you
Speaker 1: really want to know what I think? Do you really
Speaker 1: you know? And it's like, oh, it's some of the
Speaker 1: shit that I've got a few people that have given
Speaker 1: me like real feedback over the years, and in the
Speaker 1: moment I didn't fucking love it at all, but part
Speaker 1: of me knew they were right. How do we find
Speaker 1: that person? For a start? Because I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of people will tell you what they think you
Speaker 1: want to hear, which isn't particularly value to you unless
Speaker 1: it's absolutely true. If it is absolutely true, that's good.
Speaker 1: But you know, sometimes it's like, sometimes the things I
Speaker 1: need to do and not the things I want to do.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the things I need to hear. Are not the
Speaker 1: things that I'm comfortable with. Any tips for us on
Speaker 1: the giving or getting side of that equation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I reckon. It all comes back to trust. You've
Speaker 2: got to have a bed rock of trust. It's someone
Speaker 2: you know, someone you've got a connection with, and then
Speaker 2: trust builds that psychological safety. So if you have that
Speaker 2: and this is not hey, harps are on and off site,
Speaker 2: you think Terry's a bit of an asshole. So we're
Speaker 2: going to get you guys to go and build an
Speaker 2: egg cup catcher. Hey, now, your mates, that's not too bad.
Speaker 2: That's a fucking horrior like you've been there, I've seen it. Well,
Speaker 2: let's do another one another day. The worst team building
Speaker 2: activities ever, I reckoned. You could put that out to
Speaker 2: your audience and get some good ideas. So it's not that,
Speaker 2: but it's actually, hey, let's have a robust conversation and
Speaker 2: if you've got that bank of trust, and Brene Bras
Speaker 2: says it beautifully, trust is like a marble jar. It
Speaker 2: can take a long time to fill up the jar.
Speaker 2: One swoop can knock it over. So the person you
Speaker 2: would be looking for is someone that you know, someone
Speaker 2: that you've built up that marble jar of trust for
Speaker 2: a period of time. But you pointed on something really interesting.
Speaker 2: Every person I work with, every coaching client at the start,
Speaker 2: I'll we do a whole medical bloods, all that stuff.
Speaker 2: When we go deep with them, I go, look, how
Speaker 2: do you like feedback? And they look back me be
Speaker 2: a little bit O, what do you mean? I said, well,
Speaker 2: do you like feedback? Because I've spent twenty five years
Speaker 2: in the world of a late sport and feedback is immediate, honest, open.
Speaker 2: Sometimes people don't like that. Ah no, mate, I love feedback.
Speaker 2: You know. I work in an executive team and then
Speaker 2: you flex it and then you give them feedback and
Speaker 2: you look like you've slapped them and go, look are
Speaker 2: you okay? No one's ever spoken to me like that
Speaker 2: in my life. I said, you told me you like
Speaker 2: really open, honest feedback. Said yeah, I've had nothing like that.
Speaker 2: And then underneath you, Paul, oh that's goods. You're the
Speaker 2: top of an organization chart and your feedback is mostly
Speaker 2: what you want to hear. So getting the right feedback
Speaker 2: from someone you trust, but then also being open to
Speaker 2: it one thing to say, hey, I want feedback, but
Speaker 2: then are you going to do anything about it? Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's having a real insight into and not
Speaker 1: in a self loading way. I think this is important.
Speaker 1: I think some people think that when you go introspective
Speaker 1: and self reflective that it's like finding your faults. No,
Speaker 1: for me, it's not about that. It's really just about
Speaker 1: me understanding me and me, you know, and to the
Speaker 1: you know, to the topic of my PhD, which is
Speaker 1: trying to understand how others understand you or perceive you
Speaker 1: or experience you. You know, when I explain this, when I
Speaker 1: go you know, in corporate land and other spaces where
Speaker 1: I talk about you know, metaperception and theory of mind
Speaker 1: and meta accuracy and all of these things about understanding
Speaker 1: how others think broadly and then specifically how others see
Speaker 1: me or experience me. And you know, so many times
Speaker 1: I've been told so much shit about me that is
Speaker 1: really quite somewhere between a bit uncomfortable and fucking brutal.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, I think, well,
Speaker 1: I think, look, if that's true or not, I still
Speaker 1: need to know it, because if ten twenty people think
Speaker 1: I'm a fucking idiot because of this. But I'm not
Speaker 1: a fucking idiot, but enough people think it, then one,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm a fucking idiot. And two, at the very least,
Speaker 1: I need to understand that I'm doing or saying something
Speaker 1: which comes across as I'm an idiot. So and it's
Speaker 1: not about being a people pleaser. But if you move
Speaker 1: through the world with zero awareness of how other people
Speaker 1: experience you, or experience this moment in time, or experience
Speaker 1: this conversation or this situation, and part of your job
Speaker 1: is dependent on interpersonal connection, well you're fucked. I give
Speaker 1: you a quick.
Speaker 2: Story and to give you an example on how this
Speaker 2: can work. I used to work at a consulting firm
Speaker 2: and one of the big leaders there said, to be made,
Speaker 2: can you come and watch me speak? I said, yeah, where.
Speaker 1: Are you on?
Speaker 2: He told me he was at this conference and he
Speaker 2: was representing the firm for a client industry forum. And
Speaker 2: I watched him speak and then in Craig Harper language,
Speaker 2: he was a fucking train wreck. It was horrible, like
Speaker 2: it was all slide, slide, slide, and then let me
Speaker 2: tell you this, and here's there was no vulnerability, no storytelling,
Speaker 2: no connection and I said to him, okay, so you
Speaker 2: want some feedback and to understand the hierarchy and a
Speaker 2: consulting firm. If I've been here for a long time,
Speaker 2: fifteen twenty years, even though I was a partner, I've
Speaker 2: called a junior burger. Because I'm a lateral higher. It's
Speaker 2: almost an alien. So I asked him for permission. I said, look,
Speaker 2: you've asked me for feedback. I've taken some notes. Now
Speaker 2: can I give you feedback as someone who's got fifteen
Speaker 2: or twenty years domain expertise as a speaker, not as
Speaker 2: someone who's just joined the firm. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: And I hear him and he'd given me permission, and
Speaker 2: we get on well. And he looked at me after
Speaker 2: and he said, I've never been given feedback like that
Speaker 2: in my life. So I've got two questions for your
Speaker 2: Number one is how are you feeling? And he said
Speaker 2: it's horrible. He said, I feel vulnerable, I feel exposed,
Speaker 2: and it's horrible. I said, what is your learning? He said,
Speaker 2: my learning is God. I wish i'd done this years ago.
Speaker 2: He said, I've been speaking like that for twenty years.
Speaker 2: I said, you're killing me. He said, not twenty years
Speaker 2: I said, can you imagine how many people have walked away?
Speaker 2: Because I said to him, you come across as a
Speaker 2: bit of a dick because all your stories start with I.
Speaker 2: There was no interconnectivity, no turn and talk. How about
Speaker 2: we just have a drop in intensity, turn talk to
Speaker 2: the next you, person next to you? How do you
Speaker 2: show up? So there's no connectivity, I said, you've only
Speaker 2: had people in your chorus telling you are you doing
Speaker 2: a great job because of the organization chart. That was
Speaker 2: a really good example in life. I see this guy.
Speaker 2: I saw him when I was overseas recently. He said,
Speaker 2: you remember that time made? How could I forget? I said,
Speaker 2: it looked like you looked like I've never seen you
Speaker 2: look before. He said, yeah, because I've never felt like that,
Speaker 2: probably since school. And I didn't get picked because he said, yeah,
Speaker 2: I wasn't great at sport because I am a bit
Speaker 2: of an intellect. And that was just a beautiful example
Speaker 2: when you ask for feedback and you've got that connectivity it.
Speaker 2: I did it from a place of care and compassion,
Speaker 2: and I just said to me, if I don't give
Speaker 2: you this feedback and you don't do anything on it,
Speaker 2: you're going to have a lot of people walk away
Speaker 2: and that go, you're a bit of a dick, But
Speaker 2: I know you. You're actually a good guy. Anyway, fast
Speaker 2: track what have been now six years later, presenting in
Speaker 2: a totally different way. He's engaging, he's asking questions, he's
Speaker 2: actually thinking about the audience and how his message is
Speaker 2: going to land, rather than just giving a slide deck
Speaker 2: verbal triage and just spraying everyone with a bunch of slides.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a beautiful story, man, because it's like you
Speaker 1: pulled back the curtain and you showed him something that
Speaker 1: only you could show him, or only somebody who had
Speaker 1: your awareness and understanding and integrity could show him. But
Speaker 1: that's whether he knew it or not, that was the truth.
Speaker 1: And you pulled back the curtain and showed him the truth.
Speaker 1: And that good on him, though, I mean good on
Speaker 1: him for taking that on board and then doing something
Speaker 1: with that. And I think when you like, if you
Speaker 1: do it the right way, even if it's really direct.
Speaker 1: I tell people regularly, I don't care about your feelings
Speaker 1: for the next five minutes. I don't I care about
Speaker 1: your health for the next five decades. That's what I
Speaker 1: care about. If you get a bit upset called I
Speaker 1: don't care. It doesn't mean I don't care about you,
Speaker 1: but I don't give a fuck about your emotional state
Speaker 1: for the next two or three minutes. It's not my
Speaker 1: job in life to make you feel okay. That's not
Speaker 1: my purpose. That's your job, right, or maybe I don't
Speaker 1: know anyone not mine. My job is to help you
Speaker 1: step in, to see what is, to see reality, to
Speaker 1: to I can get your hands dirty, to you know,
Speaker 1: look behind the curtain that I'm pulling back for you.
Speaker 1: Because this might not be what you want to hear.
Speaker 1: But from where I stand, and I'm a lot more
Speaker 1: objective about you than you. You know, this is this
Speaker 1: is true. You're not accidentally eating all that shit. You're
Speaker 1: choosing it. This is You're not you don't look or
Speaker 1: function the way you do because of some fucking factor
Speaker 1: that's out of your control. Right. This is you. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you're a bad human. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: you're terrible or flawed or broken. I'm saying that you
Speaker 1: are doing shit which is essentially high level self sabotage.
Speaker 1: Now I can tell you poor you, and I can
Speaker 1: give you a metaphoric or a literal BackRub and I
Speaker 1: can fucking join in the pity party or I can
Speaker 1: go No, that's bullshit. And if you don't open your eyes,
Speaker 1: you're going to be in the same place or worse
Speaker 1: in one, two, five years. And if you surround yourself
Speaker 1: with a fucking fan club and people pleases, which is
Speaker 1: what you're currently doing, it's gonna it's going to end bad.
Speaker 2: You're just going to have more people at your funeral,
Speaker 2: and your funeral is going to come a lot earlier
Speaker 2: the premise with what you were talking about with your clients.
Speaker 2: And I know you do this. You're similar to me,
Speaker 2: like people might. Ah, he's been a bit of a preck,
Speaker 2: but we're a friendly preck.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It's done with heart and it's done with compassion when
Speaker 2: you have permission. So even though this guy had said, hey,
Speaker 2: come and watch me, I watched him. I made the
Speaker 2: notes and then I said, all right, do you want
Speaker 2: me to like, can we just strip the hierarchy and
Speaker 2: can I just really give it to you the permission?
Speaker 2: So he'd asked me to go there, and then I
Speaker 2: framed it again so he'd put in the place that
Speaker 2: I could be open with him and talk. I think
Speaker 2: that's really important that we all have people around us
Speaker 2: like that Harps, because otherwise you can start to believe
Speaker 2: the bullshit right, and you're in a bubble. I reckon
Speaker 2: that it'd be horrible to be going along for years
Speaker 2: and never get feedback, and combine that with no self reflection,
Speaker 2: you're just going to be bouncing around pissing somebody laugh
Speaker 2: hundred percent.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've told you this, I might
Speaker 1: have bet my audience, but bear with the audience. It's
Speaker 1: nearly two thousand episodes, so there's a bit of repetition unavoidable.
Speaker 1: But one of my stories is I used to one
Speaker 1: hundred years ago do vic Fit Bickfit lecturing. So the
Speaker 1: fitness industry courses SIRT three and four boys and Girls,
Speaker 1: and one of the you know, we always had feedback sheets.
Speaker 1: That feedback was mostly positive. I say, mostly, I'm smiling.
Speaker 2: I've heard this story.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, but the common you know, like not not
Speaker 1: like seventy percent, but maybe fifteen percent, was you're scary,
Speaker 1: you're intimidating. And so I walk into the class with
Speaker 1: those feedback sheets and go, who fucking wrote this? No?
Speaker 1: I didn't. I wanted to just for a joke. For context,
Speaker 1: you're a bodybuilder.
Speaker 2: When I first met you, you're still a big, strong
Speaker 2: lab Now you were Jack's I can imagine you what
Speaker 2: the front?
Speaker 1: All right? Who fucking wrote this up? Now I've got
Speaker 1: your fucking feedback sheets right in front of me. All right,
Speaker 1: these people wait for me after glass, there's none of that.
Speaker 1: But it's like when I first got it and I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: they're a bit precious. And then I'm like, oh, he's
Speaker 1: another one. Oh he's another one. Oh here's another one.
Speaker 1: And then I ended up talking to Tara, who was
Speaker 1: working with me in that space, and she's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course. And I'm like, what do you mean? What
Speaker 1: do you mean? She's like, well, you know, you're intimidating.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not intimidating, and she's like, you're you're intimidating.
Speaker 1: She goes, you're a sweetheart, but you're scary to people
Speaker 1: who don't. I'm like, how am I scary? And then
Speaker 1: she unpacked thirty seven ways I'm scary. I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: So that just helped me, you know, because that was
Speaker 1: never my intention, Like.
Speaker 2: How do you temper that? How did you change that.
Speaker 2: So after that feedback, did you do anything at the
Speaker 2: start and then I'll tell you funny sorry about a
Speaker 2: lady who's really changed perception at the start of the presentation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I asked a lot more questions and
Speaker 1: I was just I realized that I was, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm talking to students who don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: a bicep from a carbohydrate, right, or inflection from extension
Speaker 1: or whatever. Right. So I'm I probably I may have
Speaker 1: spoken a little over their head. I don't think I did,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I just I kind of in a nice way,
Speaker 1: dumbed it down, softened it, made it more interactive, tried
Speaker 1: to consciously be a little bit more doory teller, a
Speaker 1: little bit more fun, a little bit less. You know,
Speaker 1: my way or the highway.
Speaker 2: Do you know a lady named nin James no means
Speaker 2: in America now she started on the keynote circuit in Australia.
Speaker 2: Gotta be fifteen. I think I was at the Ausy
Speaker 2: Creek to him, that's more than that to be be
Speaker 2: nearly twenty years ago. And I saw it mean and
Speaker 2: double E N James j A M E. S So
Speaker 2: NaN's this little pocket rocket. We're at this HR conference
Speaker 2: in Brisbane. She was the opening keynote and I was second,
Speaker 2: so I got in, thought I'll watch Nane. I've heard
Speaker 2: purchase a good speaker. She gets on stage, she goes, Hello,
Speaker 2: I'm Nane James, and I've got a squeaky voice and
Speaker 2: big tits, So get over it. There's there's eight hundred
Speaker 2: and nine hundred people in Brisbane hysterical. Her opening line was, Hello,
Speaker 2: my name is nine James. I've got big tits and
Speaker 2: a squeaky voice. Now get on with that, now, mate.
Speaker 2: She did have a very squeaky voice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I knew what. I knew that was coming.
Speaker 2: I could see your little giggle. But she had she
Speaker 2: she had, she had, she had both. She was spot on.
Speaker 2: But what it did, because I'm sitting at the back
Speaker 2: before she did this, I'm going, my god, she's she
Speaker 2: got big boobs, very big boobs. And she started to
Speaker 2: speak helo and I'd heard she had a squeaky voice.
Speaker 2: But when she did that, I then just totally giggled
Speaker 2: and then forgot about it. And not once during the
Speaker 2: rest of that presentation did I think she had a
Speaker 2: big voice or squeaky Yeah. So She totally disarmed people
Speaker 2: at the start, So I learned a lot from that.
Speaker 2: So I think given feedback, Yeah, if you can do
Speaker 2: something in the first thirty sixty ninety seconds that gets
Speaker 2: people engaged or amused or laughing, it's like a super power.
Speaker 2: It was an icebreaker. It was a hey, don't just
Speaker 2: sit there and start thinking about physical characteristics on my voice.
Speaker 2: It was beautiful, absolutely beautiful the way she did it,
Speaker 2: and it came from she'd obviously had feedback that some
Speaker 2: people were just thinking about that, so she totally cut
Speaker 2: it out by running at it at the start. So
Speaker 2: she was aware enough and she'd had feedback from people
Speaker 2: and could process that and realized that that was going
Speaker 2: to make a difference by bringing that up at the start.
Speaker 1: That's so funny that she would get the voice. I get.
Speaker 2: But who's giving you feedback about your breasts now? Before
Speaker 2: any on the sheet. Let's put context. This is twenty
Speaker 2: or so years ago, so I think you could say
Speaker 2: that without people going, oh, you can't say that. So
Speaker 2: the world is a little bit more politically correct now.
Speaker 2: But she did a beautiful introduction and then just took
Speaker 2: away from any distraction from her presentation. And she's a
Speaker 2: wonderful presenter.
Speaker 1: Now i'd be doing you and me and this service
Speaker 1: if I didn't talk about the fact that for our
Speaker 1: listeners that were coming towards the end of the year.
Speaker 1: I think we spoke about that in our first unrecorded
Speaker 1: attempt of this show, and so I guess I want
Speaker 1: to just hear your thoughts and ideas and perhaps strategies
Speaker 1: for our listeners who are thinking about, you know, reflecting
Speaker 1: on the year that was planning potentially for the year
Speaker 1: to come. And you know, we know different things work
Speaker 1: for different people. There's no five step fucking plan that's
Speaker 1: universally brilliant. But what do you want to tell our
Speaker 1: listeners that are you know, thinking about the next kind
Speaker 1: of twelve months on planet them?
Speaker 2: Let's start with Charles Dickens. So I want to try
Speaker 2: and sound a lot smarter than I am, harp. So
Speaker 2: I've got a Charles Dickens, quite reflect upon your blessings,
Speaker 2: of which every man and woman has plenty, not on
Speaker 2: your last misfortunes, of which we all have some.
Speaker 1: For years.
Speaker 2: I'd get to this time with you and go right,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to have a holiday freshen up and
Speaker 2: my goals are this year I'm gonna And for a
Speaker 2: lot of people it's the same thing year after year.
Speaker 2: Get fit, lose weight, stop smoking, learned French, spend all
Speaker 2: the time with the kids. And we know fifty percent
Speaker 2: of goals after two weeks are thrown out. By the
Speaker 2: end of January it's eighty to eighty five percent I've
Speaker 2: thrown out a couple of years ago. I started doing
Speaker 2: this with a few clients and they thought, jeez, this
Speaker 2: is really good. Let's look in the rearview mirror and
Speaker 2: how have you gone this year? So, no matter how
Speaker 2: tired you are, just to spend a bit of time.
Speaker 2: I'll send you the worksheet. You can put that on
Speaker 2: your show notes so people can download it. So I've
Speaker 2: just got a little sheety review mirror, the review mirror
Speaker 2: likeble and there's eight areas. So why don't we pick
Speaker 2: one or two of these? You and I can do
Speaker 2: it together as well. So the eight areas are you
Speaker 2: reflect on how have you gone on your work slash career?
Speaker 2: How have you gone around learning and development?
Speaker 1: So what have.
Speaker 2: You learned and grown? And it's not just work related,
Speaker 2: how are you going with your finances? And I find
Speaker 2: those first two really lead to better finances if you're
Speaker 2: focusing on it. How are you going with community and spirituality?
Speaker 2: And spirituality I don't mean just religion, but spirituality that
Speaker 2: you're connected to a purpose or other things greater than you.
Speaker 2: Health and fitness, family and relationships. And I've added too,
Speaker 2: So they're the six that you see a lot of these.
Speaker 2: You know you'd look at the goal wheel. So work slash, career,
Speaker 2: L and D, financewers, community, health and fitness, and relationships.
Speaker 2: I've added passion and play. All of us have a
Speaker 2: little kid inside, and so often you get the end
Speaker 2: of the year and if it's been all work, no
Speaker 2: play makes people very dull. And I've added recovery because
Speaker 2: I just can't help it in the work that I do.
Speaker 2: Very similar to you. Stress is awesome, but you've got
Speaker 2: to build in a recovery strategy. So they're the eight.
Speaker 1: And what I get.
Speaker 2: Everyone to do is just to give yourself a subjective
Speaker 2: ranking on it. And then if you've got that friend
Speaker 2: that we're talking about, that trust and psychological safety, I
Speaker 2: reckon get them to do it independently and then match
Speaker 2: the sheets together. So just go zero to ten on
Speaker 2: each of those eight areas where are you at? So
Speaker 2: let's pick one, Harps, you can do one, and then
Speaker 2: maybe you can flip it on me. And then rather
Speaker 2: than just giving yourself a number, okay, do that, but
Speaker 2: then put four or five bullet points underneath each one,
Speaker 2: and again the focus on this for everyone looking back
Speaker 2: in the rearview mirror. What has worked? Don't don't do
Speaker 2: the hay, I need to work on this. It's hey,
Speaker 2: what are you really proud of? Or what have you achieved?
Speaker 1: All right, So I'm going to go I'm going to
Speaker 1: pick I could you pick one for me? You pick
Speaker 1: one for me? Because I feel like, because whatever, I
Speaker 1: could pick any of those and I've still got work
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: I'm going to pick a random one because it's easy
Speaker 2: to go, work and L and D because I know
Speaker 2: a lot about that. What what do you do for hobbies?
Speaker 2: Passions and play? So let's go.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, yeah, great, So you want me to start
Speaker 1: or no?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So give yourself a score first of all out
Speaker 2: of ten.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to give myself an eight, which is
Speaker 1: very braggy, make brag start, but can I can I
Speaker 1: give you my all right? So I'm going to give you.
Speaker 1: I reckon this is the trickiest one. Community and spirituality.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm giving you, done right right, So for me,
Speaker 1: I'm going to start right so passion and play. I
Speaker 1: talk about this a lot. I talk about strategic fun,
Speaker 1: which sounds unfun, but you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: I ask people when I'm coaching, which especially when you're
Speaker 1: coaching a fifty year old bloke, can you go, so,
Speaker 1: do you like having fun? And they look at you
Speaker 1: like You've just asked them the stupidest thing of all time,
Speaker 1: and they go, what do you mean? I go, fucking
Speaker 1: do you like fun? Do you like laughing at silly?
Speaker 1: Do you like fun? And laughed? Yeah, I'm like cool,
Speaker 1: So what's your fun plan or strategy? They're like what,
Speaker 1: I'm like, what's your So you've got a business plan,
Speaker 1: you've got a health plan, you've got a fucking career plan?
Speaker 1: You got I go, tell me about fun? And it's
Speaker 1: like there's no real So I like and not that
Speaker 1: it needs to be, you know, fucking operationalized on a
Speaker 1: daily basis with it. I'm laughing at ten and I'm
Speaker 1: laughing at twelve, and I'm laughing at two, but just
Speaker 1: so that we're perhaps integrating stuff into our day to day,
Speaker 1: which is there's no point to it other than fucking fun.
Speaker 1: There not creating any measurable outcome. It's not about a
Speaker 1: KPI or you know, maybe the KPI's laughter. Maybe the
Speaker 1: KPI is dopamine. Maybe the KPI is fucking getting a
Speaker 1: cuddle or playing with your dog or you know. So
Speaker 1: every day I train with one of my best mates,
Speaker 1: and that's not some days. That's three hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: five days of the year unless one of us is
Speaker 1: away seven days a week. Unless someone's away every day,
Speaker 1: that's amazing every day, every day. So we would probably
Speaker 1: see each other because I travel a bit, he does
Speaker 1: a bit, but I'd probably see him three hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty days a year. And I would say our training
Speaker 1: to talking shit ratio is thirty seventy. Right, So we
Speaker 1: talk shit, we have fun, we hang out, we spot
Speaker 1: each other, We talk about the fucking meaning of life
Speaker 1: and silly shit. He sends me fucking ten videos a
Speaker 1: day that I wouldn't want to watch, right, I did
Speaker 1: that today already I trained with another friend as well.
Speaker 1: I rode my motorbike to the gym. I've got a
Speaker 1: bunch of bikes. I rode one of my bikes to
Speaker 1: the gym, which for me is fun. And because I
Speaker 1: live eight hundred meters from the beach, I walk to
Speaker 1: the beach every day and I I just it's just
Speaker 1: me time, and it's it's not fun per se, but
Speaker 1: it's it's I guess that kind of morphs into recovery.
Speaker 1: But for me just having because I'm like you, my
Speaker 1: life is intense. I'm with a lot of people, like
Speaker 1: I told you today, I'm doing three three podcasts. I've
Speaker 1: had meetings, I've had UNI stuff. I've had coaching a
Speaker 1: couple of people, which is very cognitively intense where this
Speaker 1: is not, and some people with some real issues. So
Speaker 1: me being a fuck wit and funny isn't appropriate. So
Speaker 1: you've got to put on the serious hat and be
Speaker 1: a proper grown up, you know. And then so I
Speaker 1: might have eight or nine or ten hours a day
Speaker 1: some days which have very intense and very very cognitively
Speaker 1: and emotionally expensive, but I need to offset that with
Speaker 1: some complete bullshit. So and I'm really good at doing that.
Speaker 1: I don't and I don't say I'm good at many
Speaker 1: things because I am not. But that the proof of
Speaker 1: that is that I rarely get stressed or anxious, like rarely.
Speaker 1: I sleep like a fucking champion, don't get sick, I
Speaker 1: don't get sick much much would But yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: get sick much. I don't feel anxiety. I don't feel stressed.
Speaker 1: And I think that's part of just like I've been
Speaker 1: choosing hardship for forty years because I've said this to
Speaker 1: maybe you before, but I've definitely said it twenty times
Speaker 1: on this show. Because when I was growing up, mate,
Speaker 1: I wasn't super fucking great at anything. Like all my
Speaker 1: friends were either great athletes or great academics or great this,
Speaker 1: great creatives or great whatever. I wasn't in it any
Speaker 1: of those groups. I was like mister five out of
Speaker 1: ten and everything. And so for me, my mediocrity became
Speaker 1: my platform to resilience and strength and work ethic and grinding,
Speaker 1: and then that became my superpower, like just my ability
Speaker 1: to keep going like that that's kind of set me up.
Speaker 1: So that's so I think things that would stress. I
Speaker 1: spoke about this the other day, like when my gym,
Speaker 1: when the guy was talking about that. I trained today
Speaker 1: I think you know the story. He died five years
Speaker 1: ago at the gym.
Speaker 2: Do you know that story had a heart attack.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so he had. He actually had a cardiac
Speaker 1: arress so his hearts. There was no heart attack per se,
Speaker 1: but his art, of course stopped beating. And I don't
Speaker 1: know why, but in the middle of that, I was
Speaker 1: completely calm, and everyone else in the gym was freaked
Speaker 1: the fuck out. Nobody would help, nobody would come, and
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but for whatever reason, I'm very thankful.
Speaker 1: I don't really get stressed very much.
Speaker 2: You know, it's relative because you've stressed yourself a lot.
Speaker 2: That's called resistance training, it's called presenting, it's called starting
Speaker 2: multiple podcasts, it's called starting a heap of businesses. The
Speaker 2: biggest misknowment of people go, I need to get rid
Speaker 2: of stress in my life. No, you don't. You need
Speaker 2: to have short, sharp, regular hits of stress, and then
Speaker 2: you need to downregulate and chill the fudge out physically
Speaker 2: and psychologically. And that's how you get your growth. And
Speaker 2: it's not just growth in the gym, it's growth cognitively,
Speaker 2: growth in your relationships. Like I heard someone say recently, oh, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's stress in our relationship with God. If you've got kids,
Speaker 2: you've got a partner, you're trying to function in your
Speaker 2: head let alone someone else's. There's always going to be stress.
Speaker 1: Well what's the drop? So you know what?
Speaker 2: I love asking you that question on the spot. I
Speaker 2: didn't send you this this list before. You just go
Speaker 2: on bang bang bang bang bang. So you build hobbies,
Speaker 2: passion play into your life, and you've obviously worked out
Speaker 2: a way to do what you do and a bang
Speaker 2: out three hundred podcast in a year, crazy mofo, because
Speaker 2: you've got a way to down regulate. So I've got
Speaker 2: one other question on that, and this is this is
Speaker 2: for the learning for your audience as well. How did
Speaker 2: you feel when you rattled off your answer on that
Speaker 2: eight out of ten all those areas So in that
Speaker 2: process of self reflecting, get a bit better on me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel content. I don't feel like there's no
Speaker 1: arrogance orry ego in that I'm I'm quietly like for me.
Speaker 1: Of course, I know that I'm not objective, but I
Speaker 1: think I am pretty good in terms of self assessment.
Speaker 1: I've spent five years studying it as my PhD and
Speaker 1: other things but i'm you know, when I do a gig,
Speaker 1: I finished the gig, and I'll talk to Melissa, who
Speaker 1: runs my life, and she'll go, how was it? And
Speaker 1: I'll literally give her a number, and it's an out
Speaker 1: of ten assessment. And if I've crushed, it might be
Speaker 1: an eight and a half or a nine, or if
Speaker 1: I was dog shit, which I'm not too often dogshit
Speaker 1: these days, but it could be a four. But if
Speaker 1: I was just like okay, but I wasn't super happy,
Speaker 1: it'll be a six, you know. And so that when
Speaker 1: I say I'm an eight or an eight and a
Speaker 1: half in this, there's no real arrogance attached to that.
Speaker 1: That's just my my experience of it. But there are
Speaker 1: other things on that list that I wouldn't give myself
Speaker 1: that score.
Speaker 2: Side note, I'm going to start giving myself a score
Speaker 2: out of ten. Every presentation that's a that's a gold one.
Speaker 2: So pick one or two others where you don't score
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: I would say, not work, but more business development, like
Speaker 1: I am, I'm shit at I'm shit at business development.
Speaker 1: I just because like I don't I'm not driven to
Speaker 1: make lots of go I make good money anyway, and
Speaker 1: I'm very grateful and there's no ego in that. It's
Speaker 1: like and for a long time I didn't make a
Speaker 1: lot of dough and then I ended up with personal
Speaker 1: training centers that was more just great timing than great
Speaker 1: business skills because I literally had the only one in Australia. Right,
Speaker 1: So if you've got the only one of something, then
Speaker 1: you fail. You're fucking terrible. Right. So you remind me
Speaker 1: of Frank Walker National Tiles. If all you do is tiles.
Speaker 2: He's a billionaire. Frank Walker, is he? Yeah, he's literally
Speaker 2: a billionaire. We're trying to get into conference entrepreneur conference
Speaker 2: I'm involved in, and yeah, they said to me he
Speaker 2: is literally he's cleaned up and that's not his voice.
Speaker 2: He did his first radio ad. It's like it's Frank Walker.
Speaker 2: I said, no, I just got to be something different.
Speaker 2: So it's like Frank Walker National Tiles apparently speaks nothing
Speaker 2: like it. It was just a caricature they created with the
Speaker 2: radio station.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I digress.
Speaker 1: I just think for me, like business development all that stuff,
Speaker 1: like I end up like this. This is I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a very little example. I shouldn't even say
Speaker 1: this but fuck it, I'll throw myself under the bus.
Speaker 1: So yesterday I coached this lady who for her to
Speaker 1: be coached by me is not easy, it's not cheap.
Speaker 1: So she'd I guess saved or whatever it's like, and
Speaker 1: booked in a session with me. And I did a
Speaker 1: session with her, and it was good, it was productive,
Speaker 1: she enjoyed it. But we got to the end of
Speaker 1: the time, we got to the end of the hour,
Speaker 1: and she's just there was so much more to go through.
Speaker 1: And I knew that it would take her another you
Speaker 1: know whatever, that she couldn't afford another session next week
Speaker 1: or probably next month. And she was crying and it
Speaker 1: was like it was very emotional. But I knew that
Speaker 1: I'm one of the few people in the world I
Speaker 1: guess that she felt comfortable to just because she trusts me.
Speaker 1: But we're not friends. She trusts me, but we're not family.
Speaker 1: Going to share anything that she shared, right, so it's
Speaker 1: a safe space. And she was just open and vulnerable
Speaker 1: and honest and a little bit fractured. And I couldn't, Andrew,
Speaker 1: I couldn't go. Her name's not Donna, but I couldn't go. Okay, Donna, Well,
Speaker 1: time's up. Have a great life, you know, all the
Speaker 1: best over an now, Craig Harper, you would.
Speaker 2: Be there do it. You would have been there hour knowing.
Speaker 1: You No, no, I can't. And I had an appointment.
Speaker 1: I said, all right, I said, this is what I
Speaker 1: want you to do. I said, January. First week in January,
Speaker 1: send me an update, tell me what's going on. I
Speaker 1: gave him my phone number, which is a big no, no,
Speaker 1: you don't fucking do that. I gave him my phone number.
Speaker 1: I said, send me an SMS. I said, don't be
Speaker 1: the crazy person who rings me at night drunk. Don't
Speaker 1: don't do that or just block you, but send me
Speaker 1: a message. And I said, a day or two after that,
Speaker 1: we'll do another one of these. And she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: but I go no cost, And she's like, really, you
Speaker 1: know so and I know that's not a big deal,
Speaker 1: but I I you know, I for me, it's a
Speaker 1: real dichotomy. I know I've got to make money. I
Speaker 1: know I've got to build a business and brand. Could
Speaker 1: I fucking I can't say well, I can say no
Speaker 1: because I have to. But yeah, so sometimes I'm I'm
Speaker 1: probably less entrepreneurial than actually serves me from a business sense,
Speaker 1: but in terms of my my values and my internal
Speaker 1: sat nav, I'm pretty comfortable with it.
Speaker 2: Can I dig into that a little bit? Yeah, when
Speaker 2: I heard you talk about inadverted Cooma's Donna, that's that's
Speaker 2: the right thing to do. I do Similarly, you don't
Speaker 2: coach and teach and open studios and work with sport.
Speaker 2: We've had a similar career trajectory. You've had much much
Speaker 2: bigger businesses and personal training. But we like people, so
Speaker 2: we're not assholes. But there's a little bit of that
Speaker 2: where I go, Okay, let's tease out, because dichotomis thinking
Speaker 2: is I've got to be nice and I can't make money.
Speaker 2: So it's not either or Either I'm really nice to Donna,
Speaker 2: or I'm a capitalist pig and I'm an asshole and
Speaker 2: I drive around get picked up in a Bentley and
Speaker 2: I hyphenate the surname.
Speaker 1: Harper Smith. That's a great half A smile.
Speaker 2: Smile is much better. So to me, it would be
Speaker 2: not either or, it's and so how can I help Donna?
Speaker 2: And so if you're saying on your BD your business
Speaker 2: development is not as great. You are great at storytelling,
Speaker 2: You're great at building a tribe in a community. You
Speaker 2: are great at having authentic, open conversations. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: one of many regulars who come on and have learned
Speaker 2: a lot, and we want to drink the harps kool
Speaker 2: aid as well as be ourselves. But how do you
Speaker 2: get out of your own way? That would be my thoughts, mate,
Speaker 2: Like there's a U two song I love, get out
Speaker 2: of your own way? How do you do what you
Speaker 2: do best? And then maybe get someone to come in
Speaker 2: and be your business development manager and go turn this
Speaker 2: shit upside down, treat me as a product, and just
Speaker 2: commodetize it.
Speaker 1: This is what I'm like. If I've got I've got
Speaker 1: a workshop, like I did a workshop this week, two nights,
Speaker 1: three nights ago, Tuesday, and I don't know, fuck Tuesday
Speaker 1: or Wednesday anyway, Wednesday night, I did a workshop, so
Speaker 1: two nights ago. And this is how bad I am.
Speaker 1: I've got a bunch of things coming up. I don't
Speaker 1: want to talk about those things that I've got coming
Speaker 1: up to the group because I don't want to look
Speaker 1: like I'm selling them anything I don't want to be.
Speaker 1: I don't want to. I don't want them to think
Speaker 1: that I ran this cheap workshop which was twenty seven
Speaker 1: dollars fifty or twenty seven bucks to the general public online,
Speaker 1: so it was online. I didn't want them to think
Speaker 1: that this was a carrot to get him in the door.
Speaker 1: And look now that you hear everybody, but ah, you
Speaker 1: know which it wasn't that. But I hate that, like
Speaker 1: that makes my skin crawl. And so it wasn't that.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that.
Speaker 2: And do you believe that you help other people genuinely
Speaker 2: to improve their lives? I think.
Speaker 1: I do, but I don't know, Andrew, I have.
Speaker 2: This do you get regular feedback run with me? And yeah,
Speaker 2: I just I feel like the psychologist and something about
Speaker 2: mary Ll But there she goes time she's up. Let's
Speaker 2: delve into that one next time? Shall we just putting
Speaker 2: on that thread? And I know it's your podcast and
Speaker 2: I'll go back to being the guest at the moment,
Speaker 2: otherwise I'll never be a guest on your poty again.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting in this activity and even that that's
Speaker 2: a great example for your listener. Just even that question
Speaker 2: on self reflection on working career, Yeah, what is it
Speaker 2: around business development? Tease that out a little bit. There's
Speaker 2: a real opportunity for you to get someone to come
Speaker 2: in and do it authentically. And even if you're like that,
Speaker 2: you could just sort of step aside, go I don't
Speaker 2: like the money stuff. Say here's Cheryl. Cheryl comes out
Speaker 2: and goes, hey, Harps has got a program on. We're
Speaker 2: at moraban two weeks time. We're going to do all
Speaker 2: this stuff. Come and see me after. It's only five
Speaker 2: hundred bucks. Yeah, change your life.
Speaker 1: Look, you're right, you're right. I mean, I just I
Speaker 1: have I tell you what makes my skin crawl. People
Speaker 1: who present themselves as the answer, like, I fucking hate
Speaker 1: that so much. And people who say this is going
Speaker 1: to piss off a few people because a few people
Speaker 1: that listen to me do this. Oh ah, well fuck it.
Speaker 1: They say, I change lives. Like, no, you don't, bro,
Speaker 1: No you don't. Maybe some people change their life because
Speaker 1: you said something that was of value and well done,
Speaker 1: and maybe you were a tool or a resource or
Speaker 1: just a tool.
Speaker 2: I'd say, just a tool.
Speaker 1: If you go it around saying like change lives, well,
Speaker 1: it's like, literally, I have a look on Instagram. There's
Speaker 1: so many people who talk about how many thousands of
Speaker 1: lives they've changed. I go, I've never changed one. The
Speaker 1: only one I've changed is me. I can't get out
Speaker 1: of bed for people. I can't have discipline and for people.
Speaker 1: I can't make the decisions for people. I can't be
Speaker 1: resilient for people. I can't be brave for people. They've
Speaker 1: got to do all that themselves. And if there's some
Speaker 1: you know, kind of benefit from listening to me and
Speaker 1: then they choose to turn that theory, because all I'm doing,
Speaker 1: all you and me are doing right now, is espousing
Speaker 1: ideas and words and theories. And if someone listens to
Speaker 1: us and then they choose to go and make a
Speaker 1: decision and do a thing and create shift and create
Speaker 1: a positive outcome, will There'll be ninety nine people that haven't.
Speaker 1: So neither of those are because of you and me,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I've got a couple of parallel thoughts I
Speaker 2: want to stitch together and one random thought. You published
Speaker 2: a bunch of books, my first book, which is called
Speaker 2: Flip the Switch in New Zealand. Every time I was
Speaker 2: doing a talk, Andre is a bestilling author of Flap
Speaker 2: the Swatch, So I always kick about Flap the Swatch,
Speaker 2: And I had books, and the company had bought one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty books for a bunch of bankers. And
Speaker 2: this lady said, oh, we sign your book. And I
Speaker 2: made some sort of jokey you don't want me to
Speaker 2: sign your book. It won't be worth anything when you
Speaker 2: try and sell it, and she I bore me, and
Speaker 2: she said, young man, why would you write a book
Speaker 2: if you're not proud to put your name on it?
Speaker 2: And she grilled me. She said, is this book full
Speaker 2: of good content? I said, absolutely? Has this book taken
Speaker 2: you a long time to put together? It's probably ten
Speaker 2: or fifteen years, she said, own it. And when someone
Speaker 2: asked you to sign signed. From that moment, I got
Speaker 2: out of my insecurity, my Phobo, few of other people's opinion,
Speaker 2: my thoughts of my mates from Darbo, Mario, Ego, Dino
Speaker 2: and Lapo. And you can't make this shit up. No,
Speaker 2: it's a big head sign in books thinking he's a hero.
Speaker 2: They're not there, she was, And it was like this
Speaker 2: metaphorical slap. Why don't you own it? Now, let's stitch
Speaker 2: that back together. Your content's awesome. What's your potential? Nina
Speaker 2: James big tits and a squeaky voice, harps, love you
Speaker 2: all coming along here today. You know, I'm a shit salesperson.
Speaker 2: I'm horrible and I have people ask me all the
Speaker 2: time and I don't do it anything. So step aside.
Speaker 2: So if any of you would like to come to
Speaker 2: the program, here's Bugsy. Bugsy's got something to say. You
Speaker 2: totally do it authentically. You don't have to be there
Speaker 2: in your teflon suit and your gold tooth.
Speaker 1: But wait, there's more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so how do you reckon that could work?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, Look, you're right, you're right. I need to
Speaker 1: I need to get better at that. I need to
Speaker 1: get Look, we're going to wrap up, but before we do,
Speaker 1: you need to unpack yours. So yours was a courtesy
Speaker 1: of me telling you what it was, community and security spirture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, before I wrap, can't help it? Go how powerful
Speaker 2: is self reflection?
Speaker 1: Amazing?
Speaker 2: Like just because we created the space and there's trust
Speaker 2: and you went down the rabbit hole and then go
Speaker 2: yeah yeah, well so your reflection as you run the year,
Speaker 2: you could get Bugsy the gold tooth and test on
Speaker 2: suit and you're going to make more money. It's not
Speaker 2: for the money, but more differences, more impact.
Speaker 1: All right, mine? Now, part of me wants to give
Speaker 1: you a cuddle, and part of me wants to tell
Speaker 1: you to fuck off. So you're welcome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so can we talk about the fuck off bit?
Speaker 1: Ha ha, because you're making me deal with shit, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's exactly what I need. Yeah, you're right. It's
Speaker 1: like you are right, Like there's nothing that you're saying
Speaker 1: about me in this moment that is not true. It is,
Speaker 1: it is true. And I still like when I say
Speaker 1: to people I'm still insecure, I'm not saying that because
Speaker 1: that sounds humble, like that is true, you know, I know,
Speaker 1: you know. And there's this, as I've said before, there's
Speaker 1: this ability we humans have to feel inadequate while knowing, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not inadequate, but I feel inadequate, you know. So
Speaker 1: they can coexist, that emotional negative with that intellectual kind
Speaker 1: of positive, you know. And it's I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, but I still get up or before
Speaker 1: I get up, if I'm doing a big gig to
Speaker 1: a big audience, and there's still part of me that goes, well,
Speaker 1: today's the day you're going to fuck it up. It's
Speaker 1: all going to come undone today. Today, I'm like well,
Speaker 1: of course, you know, after seventeen million fucking gigs, this
Speaker 1: will be the shit one and this will be my demise.
Speaker 2: I think if you don't have it, it's that version
Speaker 2: of imposter syndrome I spoke to you about last time.
Speaker 2: If you don't have any imposter syndrome, you're a narcissistic asshole.
Speaker 2: If you have too much imposter syndrome, it's stabilitating. And
Speaker 2: I get this every time I start with a new
Speaker 2: sporting team or a new exec team. I was with
Speaker 2: a big insurance group last week with I've bet the
Speaker 2: Ceobody's executive team. I walk in there every time I
Speaker 2: start one of these gigs and go, what do I
Speaker 2: know about insurance? What do I know about working in
Speaker 2: rugby union? What do I know about doing a podcast?
Speaker 2: But you want enough imposter syndrome that you're alive. It's
Speaker 2: like Locks and the Three Beers. This amount of imposter
Speaker 2: syndrambi is just right. And I think the wrestle with that,
Speaker 2: it's healthy, It's really healthy. And then so back to
Speaker 2: your question, mine was stopped deflecting. Mine was community and
Speaker 2: spirituality that you gave me. I've divided it because I
Speaker 2: think they are quite different in the answer. I'm going
Speaker 2: to give you a community. I've given myself an eight
Speaker 2: spirituality five the community. Back ten years ago, I was
Speaker 2: involved with Combank.
Speaker 1: I'd had a bike ride.
Speaker 2: For two years. We went from Sydney to Newcastle in
Speaker 2: the year two, which was twenty and twelve. Out of
Speaker 2: the twenty four people thirteen, so more than half way
Speaker 2: from Combank. Another guy i'd met, Quentin Boys, ragged me
Speaker 2: up a week after that said mate, can I join
Speaker 2: your bike ride next year? I said, why don't you
Speaker 2: sponsor it? He said, what do you mean? I said,
Speaker 2: you got a little bit more on your balance sheet
Speaker 2: a Combank than I do. My business back then was
Speaker 2: called the Performance Clinic. So we had a coffee put
Speaker 2: an idea together we do a community ride to a
Speaker 2: three day ride. We took it to Matt Common, Matt
Speaker 2: now CEO at that stage he was running retail Bank.
Speaker 2: Matt said, look, I love the idea. We're looking at
Speaker 2: doing something for engagement community. He said, the biggest risk
Speaker 2: though is safety. So mazy, you know, how do You're
Speaker 2: not going to be run through the small business so
Speaker 2: we need someone to work with just It was absolutely
Speaker 2: SERENDI but It's two weekends later. I was up visiting
Speaker 2: my mum and dad at Swansea outside Newcastle where they
Speaker 2: used to live. I'm in Cole's on a Saturday night
Speaker 2: and I run into Bruno Morel, the chairman of Tour
Speaker 2: to Qre Mazy Bruno in the Fruit and Ved section. Mate,
Speaker 2: what are you doing? I said, I'm seeing mom and dad.
Speaker 1: What are you doing?
Speaker 2: I've got a held a holiday house. He said, no way,
Speaker 2: do you bring your bike?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Went for a ride the following morning stitch together the
Speaker 2: idea went back to Matt Common said, yes, that's ten years.
Speaker 1: I go now.
Speaker 2: Can for Cancer is a three day bike ride. Every
Speaker 2: year they do half marathon walks every major city and
Speaker 2: they've got regional ones they can do online. They had
Speaker 2: a swim this year and also a team marathon. That
Speaker 2: little idea has now twenty million dollars that go straight
Speaker 2: towards two to Cure to help fund research for cancer breakthroughs.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's incredible.
Speaker 2: So when we had our ten year this year and
Speaker 2: out on the bike ride there are only four of
Speaker 2: us that have done all ten, I just went, I'm
Speaker 2: so proud of Combak because they get beaten up and
Speaker 2: I've been saying their so it's all about money in
Speaker 2: the banks, and this is something that they do that's
Speaker 2: literally impacted so many people, So twenty million dollars so
Speaker 2: on community, I feel like I really belong with that tribe,
Speaker 2: and I'm so proud of what that group and had
Speaker 2: part of the idea at the start, but to be
Speaker 2: there from the start and see where it's come now
Speaker 2: and how Combank have really made this. It's their biggest
Speaker 2: community activity and now what they're looking at and we're
Speaker 2: helping them behind the scenes on this because they've hit
Speaker 2: about seven thousand employees this year, seven and a half
Speaker 2: thousand employees. To go the next level, they're looking at
Speaker 2: donating plasma to try and get fifteen thousand. So it's
Speaker 2: still the next evolution. So from a community point, I
Speaker 2: feel totally engaged with that. From a spirituality, a very
Speaker 2: good looking, very intelligent, very skillful dude that you put
Speaker 2: me in contact with, Josh Peterman, I interviewed Josh last week,
Speaker 2: So thanks for the connection, and Josh gave a very
Speaker 2: different view on spirituality. It's not about religion, but it's
Speaker 2: about that connectivity and how you connect with the world
Speaker 2: around you. So is Josh's frame. I need to work
Speaker 2: on that, to work on for me, And I make
Speaker 2: the excuse I've got four kids, run a business, do keynotes,
Speaker 2: work with a few sporting teams, love Chattna Harps. But
Speaker 2: it's an area that I'm going to do more work
Speaker 2: on as a reflection. Just is it going to church? No,
Speaker 2: I do go to church twice a year because mum's
Speaker 2: devastated if I don't. It's just more thinking about what
Speaker 2: else is out there? Yeah, exploring that I.
Speaker 1: Grew up in a very religious paradigm, as we've I
Speaker 1: think covered on. But for me, you know, the ever
Speaker 1: present theme in most it's some stage in most theological
Speaker 1: texts is love. And I just think that the way
Speaker 1: you treat people can be a form of you know,
Speaker 1: spiritual practice. How you are, how you show up in
Speaker 1: the world, how you love people, whatever that looks like.
Speaker 1: You know, how you connect, how you communicate, how you listen,
Speaker 1: how you care, how much empathy you have and express
Speaker 1: and not in a strategic sense because you're trying to
Speaker 1: be spiritual, but just because that's an expression of who
Speaker 1: you are and how you are. And you know, for me,
Speaker 1: a part of my spiritual expression is having a purpose
Speaker 1: bigger than me, because I am inherently selfish. So there's
Speaker 1: this model that I kind of developed out of a
Speaker 1: bunch of other models, but it starts with self reflection
Speaker 1: and self awareness, and number seven is self actualization and
Speaker 1: number eight is self transcendence, which is essentially just having
Speaker 1: a purpose bigger than you. So I think, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you do it, mate. I think you're very kind
Speaker 1: and generous, and you're very plugged into people and also
Speaker 1: being like I think you can be. You know that
Speaker 1: I don't think kindness and love always needs to look
Speaker 1: all fluffy and more. You know, sometimes kindness is going
Speaker 1: Hey mate, I know you don't want to hear this,
Speaker 1: but this is what I think. And I know a
Speaker 1: fair bit about this stuff. And I'm telling you because
Speaker 1: I would love you to live twenty years longer than
Speaker 1: you're probably going to at this point in time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. I like how you flip the coaching and.
Speaker 1: I don't think it needs to be well, where's your DreamCatcher? Bro?
Speaker 1: Where are your fucking sandals? And it doesn't need to be.
Speaker 1: It doesn't like I you know that idea is not
Speaker 1: a bad idea, but I don't think that like I
Speaker 1: think that the I think if you can walk, can talk,
Speaker 1: and live for the most part your values, and if
Speaker 1: your values part of them are rooted in love and
Speaker 1: kindness and generosity, and when appropriate selflessness go, that's just
Speaker 1: you know, that's you just being a conscious, aware, evolved,
Speaker 1: spiritual being, just walking around in a biological spacesuit.
Speaker 2: Two things on that. One is I'm totally on purpose.
Speaker 2: I've got a clear purpose, and we know the research
Speaker 2: on purpose, a clearly articulated personal purpose. It's got to
Speaker 2: be bigger than you, future focused and excite the living
Speaker 2: daylights out of it. So with work and sport, I'm
Speaker 2: totally on purpose. What I take out of what you've said,
Speaker 2: I need to build in more time. How ironic is
Speaker 2: this I'm getting on to say, Hey, we've all got
Speaker 2: to look in the review mirror my reflection on our reflection.
Speaker 2: I just need to spend a bit more time and
Speaker 2: create some space to think a bit more about the
Speaker 2: connectivity and.
Speaker 1: What is that? Yeah, yeah, like this is what I
Speaker 1: think about. Like right now, a whole lot of people
Speaker 1: are hearing you for the first time, and I know
Speaker 1: you're going to share this on your show. So there'll
Speaker 1: be some people who are hearing me for the first
Speaker 1: time and they can never ever hear you or me
Speaker 1: for the first time again, ever again. You know, there's
Speaker 1: only one first time. There's only one first impression, and
Speaker 1: without being manufactured and strategic, it's like when somebody it's
Speaker 1: like today, this is what I was thinking about, how
Speaker 1: a tiny thing for me can have a massive impact
Speaker 1: on someone else. Right. So, I don't know if we've
Speaker 1: shared it, because we started this podcast twice. I don't
Speaker 1: think we talked about Joe Ingles on this, but I
Speaker 1: interviewed Joe Ingles, who is an NBA player, and one
Speaker 1: of my friends their kid is a budding basketball or
Speaker 1: a young girl and names Indy Luski. Shout out to Indy,
Speaker 1: and she's twelve and she's in a state team and
Speaker 1: she's still a state team for football, and she's a
Speaker 1: fucking little superstar. Right. Sorry for saying fuck to her, mum,
Speaker 1: but I thought, how good would it be if I
Speaker 1: could get an NBA player, one of Australia's best ever
Speaker 1: basketball is a multiple time Olympian blah blah blah, to
Speaker 1: give a shout out to this little girl. And I
Speaker 1: said at the end we finished, I said, mate, I
Speaker 1: hate to be cheesy, it's not for me, but is
Speaker 1: there any chance? And he goes, of course, and so
Speaker 1: he goes, I'll just I'll just do it into my
Speaker 1: phone when we finish, and i'll send you the video.
Speaker 1: So he did this beautiful video where he goes, hey, Indy,
Speaker 1: you know it's Joe Ingles blah blah blah. You know,
Speaker 1: I hope you're great. I've heard about you. You're killing
Speaker 1: you know. And so it's thirty two seconds. I think now.
Speaker 1: It took him thirty two seconds, and it took me
Speaker 1: a bit of discomfort to ask him because I didn't
Speaker 1: want to fucking ask him. Well, it's just made her year,
Speaker 1: Like her mom like just was.
Speaker 2: Like, oh my good, best Christmas present you could possibly
Speaker 2: give a young girl who's in the sport.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, and it's like, yeah, how good.
Speaker 1: And I just made me happy to make her happy,
Speaker 1: Like that almost gave me more joy than actually the podcast,
Speaker 1: and I love the podcast. He's great. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, I think that's how that that
Speaker 1: spiritual component to your life can operate. It doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be overtly fucking Dreamcatchery or caf Tanny or you know,
Speaker 1: it's like I don't. Yeah, And in fact, you know,
Speaker 1: the irony is that telling people that you are spiritual
Speaker 1: is fundamentally not spiritual because there's ego in that. You know,
Speaker 1: there's there's self in that. You know, there's like it's
Speaker 1: so such it's quite ironic.
Speaker 2: See, we've got deep, haven't we. We've reflected and.
Speaker 1: Haven't we look at us?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just want to tell you that I love you, Andrew.
Speaker 1: And I just want to tell you, hey, mate, Tell
Speaker 1: my group we're going to wind up. We're got to
Speaker 1: wind up. Kids, I'm taking up your whole night. Tell
Speaker 1: my people how they can connect with you.
Speaker 2: On socials at Andrew May is my handles and our
Speaker 2: website is performance Intelligence dot com.
Speaker 1: Perfect. I appreciate you. You're always a superstar. You're very
Speaker 1: generous with your knowledge and your insight and your time.
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry I made you do a quarter of
Speaker 1: a podcast only to start again to do another podcast.
Speaker 1: My apologies.
Speaker 2: A really good test, am I practicing relaxation?
Speaker 1: That was good.
Speaker 2: I really enjoy our chats. And just in finishing for
Speaker 2: your audience, we've ducked and dived and dodged and all over.
Speaker 2: But the red thread through all of this is reflect.
Speaker 2: The red thread through all this is don't just roll
Speaker 2: into Christmas and whatever you're doing in Christmas and then
Speaker 2: just go right. I've got to set goals for a
Speaker 2: new year. It really is powerful to look back a
Speaker 2: little bit. And this could be linked gratitude as well
Speaker 2: and appreciation for what you've got. I've just found out
Speaker 2: the lone few years mate, it's really helped me and mcclent.
Speaker 2: So for your audience, just that discipline. We'll send that
Speaker 2: link so they can go to your show notes. Just
Speaker 2: spend twenty minutes, thirty minutes, grab a cup of two
Speaker 2: or a coldie over Chrissy, and just look back in
Speaker 2: the review mirror before we ramp up for the year ahead.
Speaker 1: Perfect finish, mate, Thank you. I'll talk to you off air,
Speaker 1: but for the moment. Thanks for being on the New
Speaker 1: Project again.
Speaker 2: Pleasure buddy,