Speaker 1: Get a team. I'm always talking to people about this
Speaker 1: idea of conscious living. You've heard me talk about conscious living,
Speaker 1: intentional living, and I guess the other end of that
Speaker 1: kind of spectrum is sleepwalking through life, unintentional unconscious living.
Speaker 1: And I think, to an extent, to different levels, at
Speaker 1: different times in our life, we move through phases of
Speaker 1: consciousness and unconsciousness, and you know, where we're more focused,
Speaker 1: we're more awake, in inverted commas, we're more aware, and
Speaker 1: then other times when we look up and it's been
Speaker 1: a year and it feels like five minutes, it's like
Speaker 1: at it I get here. And one of the things
Speaker 1: I've said many times on this show is people who
Speaker 1: say to me, after decades of doing life, you know,
Speaker 1: and then at forty or fifty or sixty, they say
Speaker 1: to me, referring to where they are at their current
Speaker 1: point of their journey, this wasn't my plan. This wasn't
Speaker 1: my plan. I'm not where I wanted to be. And
Speaker 1: when I say, and you've heard me say this before,
Speaker 1: but this will be a springboard for the rest of
Speaker 1: the conversation. When I say to them, well can I
Speaker 1: see the plan, they look at me quizzically, and I say, well,
Speaker 1: you said this wasn't my plan. Where I'm at now,
Speaker 1: can I see the plan that you're talking about? And
Speaker 1: of course there's no plan. And for many of us,
Speaker 1: while we are making a level of decisions or a
Speaker 1: degree of decisions and living with some kind of focus
Speaker 1: and intention, maybe this is not relevant for you, so
Speaker 1: tune out. But for some of you, and especially for me,
Speaker 1: over the years, there have been times where I was
Speaker 1: unconsciously doing things on a daily basis that were somewhere
Speaker 1: between suboptimal and fucking terrible. Creatures of habit, we do
Speaker 1: a lot of things without really paying attention. It's like
Speaker 1: my analogy is riding a motorbike. So for me, I
Speaker 1: started riding motorbikes when I was a kid, and I
Speaker 1: started in the dirt in the bush. Then I started
Speaker 1: riding motorbikes on the road when I was eighteen, which
Speaker 1: was forty three years ago. So I can get from
Speaker 1: A to B. I can go on a one hour
Speaker 1: ride where I've got to go somewhere, especially if it's
Speaker 1: somewhere I've been before and it's familiar. I can get
Speaker 1: there and I can't remember specifically putting on the indicator
Speaker 1: pulling in the clutch, putting on the front brake, the
Speaker 1: rear brake, twisting the throttle because I'm paying attention to
Speaker 1: the traffic and the road. But in terms of all
Speaker 1: of the things that I do on autopilot, which is
Speaker 1: riding the motorbike and using all of the various bits
Speaker 1: and pieces on the aforementioned motorbike, I can do it
Speaker 1: without thinking. Now, if doing stuff without thinking in inverted
Speaker 1: commas produces a good outcome, if it's a good habit
Speaker 1: that producers a good outcome, well then that's great. So
Speaker 1: me being able to ride a motorbike without thinking about, Oh,
Speaker 1: I've got to move my fingers on my left hand
Speaker 1: pull in the clutch. I've got to move my fingers,
Speaker 1: and I've got to get my thumb to pull this
Speaker 1: thing across to the left to turn on the left indicator.
Speaker 1: Then I've got to push that thing in with my
Speaker 1: left thumb to cancel the indicator. Then I've got to
Speaker 1: click up this thing or click down this thing with
Speaker 1: my left foot to change the gears. And then I've
Speaker 1: got to twist this thing here with my right hand
Speaker 1: to accelerate or open up the throttle. Then I've got
Speaker 1: to push my right foot down on this thing over
Speaker 1: here to put on the rear brake. I've also got
Speaker 1: to put on the front and rear brake. That's right
Speaker 1: hand and right foot at the same time. So it's
Speaker 1: imagine if I had to think all of that through
Speaker 1: while I was on a motorbike riding somewhere, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to pay attention to what's in front of me,
Speaker 1: to the changing environment, to the changing variables in front
Speaker 1: of me that I need to navigate and deal with
Speaker 1: when I'm on a motorbike. Right, So there's a degree
Speaker 1: of I guess what's that auto pilot. There's a degree
Speaker 1: of repetition, there's a degree of habit that can be
Speaker 1: really valuable. But then at the other end of the scale,
Speaker 1: there's the stuff that we do. We're essentially barely conscious,
Speaker 1: we're just doing stuff that doesn't work for us. So
Speaker 1: day after day we're doing the thing that didn't work
Speaker 1: the day before. We're on a kind of an autopilot
Speaker 1: of self destruction. If not self destruction, at the very least,
Speaker 1: we're wasting our talent, we're wasting our potential. We're not
Speaker 1: optimizing our time or our energy, or our genetics, and
Speaker 1: we're not doing the things that produce the results that
Speaker 1: we would love to see in our life. And one
Speaker 1: of the challenges with that is that your life and
Speaker 1: my life has its own energy. Like my life's already
Speaker 1: up and running, you know, And by life, I mean situation, circumstance, environment, job,
Speaker 1: other people, relationships, you know, habits, behaviors. My life kind
Speaker 1: of as a thing that I inhabit. It's kind of
Speaker 1: got its own It's like a river that's already flowing.
Speaker 1: It has its own energy, it has its own momentum,
Speaker 1: it's moving in a certain direction, good or bad. And
Speaker 1: to a point, my life is already happening. And there
Speaker 1: are times when I am I am the author of
Speaker 1: the story, or I am the driver of the bus
Speaker 1: or the boat in the river and I am steering
Speaker 1: the SS craig, or there are times when it's almost
Speaker 1: like I'm up the back of the bus or the
Speaker 1: boat and I'm a passenger in my own life. And
Speaker 1: I look up five minutes later, and it's been two years,
Speaker 1: and now I've been doing things unconsciously, unintentionally but nonetheless
Speaker 1: automatically that don't serve me, that are not optimal that
Speaker 1: don't work for me. And now I'm two years older,
Speaker 1: and the thing that I wanted two years ago, or
Speaker 1: the things If you had have asked me in this
Speaker 1: hypothetical two years ago, Craig, would you like to be
Speaker 1: a bit fitter and healthier? I would have said yes.
Speaker 1: And if you had asked me two years ago, Craig,
Speaker 1: would you like to be a little bit stressed and
Speaker 1: a little bit more calm calm? I would have gone shit, yere?
Speaker 1: And what about would you like to be a bit
Speaker 1: more productive? Would you like to be a bit more efficient?
Speaker 1: Would you like to waste less time? Would you like
Speaker 1: to be more effective and productive and less busy? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would love all of that. Would you like your
Speaker 1: relationships to be or some of your relationships to be
Speaker 1: a little bit healthier? Would you like a little would
Speaker 1: you like a better return on your energetic investment? Oh?
Speaker 1: I would love that too. Now in this hypothetical, I
Speaker 1: wanted all that stuff two years ago, But in the
Speaker 1: interim I haven't done anything to create that. It's just
Speaker 1: something I wanted because I've just been in the flow.
Speaker 1: I've just been in the momentum and the energy of
Speaker 1: my own life, and I've been telling myself stories, and
Speaker 1: the stories are how busy I am and how much
Speaker 1: time I don't have, and how I will do it.
Speaker 1: But I will do it soon when the mystical, mythical,
Speaker 1: magical right time comes. And that's not this week, and
Speaker 1: it's probably not this month or year, but it's coming soon.
Speaker 1: And when that time comes, and I'm going to change
Speaker 1: my life, I'm going to step in underapa bah bah
Speaker 1: bah and then I'm sixty. Now, I'm not for one
Speaker 1: moment suggesting that living this kind of conscious life where
Speaker 1: we are designing and creating and we're stepping out of
Speaker 1: the sleep walking into the conscious creation kind of model.
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting for one second that it's easy, that
Speaker 1: it's comfortable, that it's convenient or fast or painless, as
Speaker 1: I always say. But if you are a person who
Speaker 1: has listened to a lot of my stuff, or listen
Speaker 1: to a lot of self help or personal development or
Speaker 1: behavior or psychology in whatever format, whatever forum, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's whatever video, audio, audiobooks, something that you're reading physically,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. But at some point, if we really
Speaker 1: are going to be the change that Gandhi talks of,
Speaker 1: if we're really going to be the change, then we
Speaker 1: need to step out of this unconscious kind of repetition.
Speaker 1: You know, this this propensity that we have to choose
Speaker 1: instant gratification over growth to be able to go. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm going to do this. This is not the
Speaker 1: thing I feel like doing because this isn't fun or
Speaker 1: you're comfortable. I don't feel like doing it, but I
Speaker 1: know that I need to do it because I don't
Speaker 1: want to be living in this groundhog day that I've
Speaker 1: been in for the last ten years. And also, I
Speaker 1: know I have more I know I have more talent.
Speaker 1: I know I have more potential. I know I can
Speaker 1: do better with my genetics. I know I can do
Speaker 1: better with my time. I know that I can create
Speaker 1: better relationships. I know that I can learn how to
Speaker 1: be a better communicator. I know that my life is
Speaker 1: telling me, my data, my results are telling me that
Speaker 1: what I'm doing is suboptimal. It is not optimal. I
Speaker 1: don't want to be an Olympic athlete. I don't want
Speaker 1: to run one hundred meters in ten seconds. I don't
Speaker 1: need to be a billionaire. I don't need to cure cancer.
Speaker 1: I don't need to join the space program. I don't
Speaker 1: need to be elite in general terms, but what I
Speaker 1: would really like I would like to be a better
Speaker 1: version of me. I want to be the one who
Speaker 1: is creating opportunities, not hoping opportunities come along, or not
Speaker 1: waiting for an opportunity to present itself. I want to
Speaker 1: be the creator of opportunities. I'm going to make decisions
Speaker 1: and do things, and I'm going to do a stock
Speaker 1: take on my current life, and I'm going to do
Speaker 1: a stock take on my current habits and behaviors. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to assess brutally and honestly and courageously what
Speaker 1: I'm doing that works and what I'm doing that doesn't work,
Speaker 1: based on who and how I want to be. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to bang on this about this today, but
Speaker 1: you know, this idea of stepping out of the sleepwalking
Speaker 1: model of life and into like for want of a
Speaker 1: better term, living fully awake, for me, it just means
Speaker 1: abandoning the autopilot and embracing conscious choosing, conscious behaving, and
Speaker 1: rejecting that that allure of quick fix and magic pills
Speaker 1: and instant gratification in favor of something that's going to
Speaker 1: create the best version of you over the long term,
Speaker 1: and recognizing that you know, while your past has shaped you,
Speaker 1: it doesn't need to define you. Past you doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be future you. What you did yesterday doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be what you do today. It's about creating a
Speaker 1: life with intention and purpose. So sometimes I share stuff
Speaker 1: like this and I just jump off, and I feel
Speaker 1: like maybe a flaw in the way that I teach
Speaker 1: and coaches that I don't I don't leave you with
Speaker 1: perhaps some thoughts or suggestions or practical stuff. So that's
Speaker 1: my bad, and I'm going to try to do that
Speaker 1: a little bit more. And so here's here's something. Here's
Speaker 1: a version of what I do with clients coaching clients.
Speaker 1: And I've done a version of this with me many
Speaker 1: times times, and so using a one to ten scale.
Speaker 1: And this is very much bro science. This is Craig science.
Speaker 1: You're not going to find this on the interwebs. You'll
Speaker 1: find a version of the interwebs. But this is a little,
Speaker 1: very simple model that I created. So let's say we're
Speaker 1: using a one to ten scale. If you want to
Speaker 1: write this down one to three. If you're scoring any
Speaker 1: of these particular areas that I'm about to dive into
Speaker 1: you with If you're scoring any of them are one
Speaker 1: to three, then that probably needs well, that definitely needs
Speaker 1: urgent attention. So you go and crap at that you
Speaker 1: can do better again, No self loathing, just honesty, your
Speaker 1: self awareness, courage. We're not beating ourselves up. We're just going, yep,
Speaker 1: I do this that shit, I can do better. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do better. Not I hope I do better, not
Speaker 1: I want to do better. I'm going to fucking do better.
Speaker 1: And this is how I'm going to do better. So
Speaker 1: one to three, that thing is, it needs urgent attention.
Speaker 1: Four to six on the infamous Craig Harper scale is
Speaker 1: it's not bad. It's not great, it's not terrible. It's average.
Speaker 1: It could better, but it's okay. It's not dire straits.
Speaker 1: Seven to eight is that's pretty good in that era
Speaker 1: of my life with that particular task or that particular
Speaker 1: variable or that particular factor that I need to address
Speaker 1: to be the best men, to live consciously and to
Speaker 1: step out of the sleepwalking paradigm. I'm giving myself a
Speaker 1: seven to eight or an eight whatever on this, which
Speaker 1: is pretty good. And if you're scoring yourself a nine
Speaker 1: or a ten, we'll get you out. But a cup
Speaker 1: you can probably give yourself a big pass on that
Speaker 1: or a pat on the back. And so that some
Speaker 1: of the and you can come up with your own
Speaker 1: I guess assessment protocol in terms of assessment variables, the
Speaker 1: things that you want to assess. So when I, by
Speaker 1: the way, when I sit down with someone and I
Speaker 1: do this, I really say to them, look, don't overthink it.
Speaker 1: Don't overthink it, like, just what is your number? And
Speaker 1: so with you, I'm going to say to you same.
Speaker 1: You know we can we can wax and win and
Speaker 1: go oh well what about this? What about or we
Speaker 1: can just instinctively we know, we know, don't we Like
Speaker 1: if you said to me, the first one on my
Speaker 1: list is overall physical health, and by that I just
Speaker 1: mean everything. So I mean I mean your body composition,
Speaker 1: I mean your cardiovastioncal fitness, I mean your your immune system,
Speaker 1: your posture, you know everything, your overall physical health. So
Speaker 1: if you said to me, Craig, what's your number, I'm
Speaker 1: going to go seven or eight. And it would really
Speaker 1: take me a while to figure out why I'm saying that.
Speaker 1: But I kind of instinctively and intuitively know I'm not perfect,
Speaker 1: but I'm not shit. I'm pretty good for a sixty
Speaker 1: one year old bloke. I could do a few things
Speaker 1: a little better, and I could. I could sit down
Speaker 1: now and tell you how I could make myself a
Speaker 1: nine or a ten and so on. So number one
Speaker 1: is overall physical health, So one to ten, remember that
Speaker 1: little rating system. Number two is diet, and these are
Speaker 1: of course, of course I'm saying this stuff. And that
Speaker 1: could be not only what you eat the content of
Speaker 1: your diet, but the quality of your diet. It could
Speaker 1: be energy in and out. It could be calories, overall calories.
Speaker 1: It could be your relationship with food. It could be
Speaker 1: the fact that you eat, you don't over eat, but
Speaker 1: you eat sporadically and there's no rhyme or reason and
Speaker 1: you know. Or it could be that you eat when
Speaker 1: you don't need food, and then there are times where
Speaker 1: you do need food you're not eating because you're distracted
Speaker 1: or whatever. But overall, like in terms of how healthy
Speaker 1: or how optimal your diet is for you, what's your
Speaker 1: one to ten score? Next one is cardiovascular fitness or
Speaker 1: aerobic fitness, heart lung fitness, it's really you know, whether
Speaker 1: or not you are seventeen years old or seventy seven
Speaker 1: years old, or eighty seven years old or eighty five
Speaker 1: like my old man. It is really important that you
Speaker 1: are doing something to maintain or depending on your starting point,
Speaker 1: potentially improve your aerobic fitness. And of course that aerobic
Speaker 1: fitness is relative to your ability. We're not talking about
Speaker 1: what's your aerobic fitness compared to a twenty year old
Speaker 1: marathon runner a thirty year old marathon runner. We're saying
Speaker 1: for your potential if you're based on your age, your
Speaker 1: chronological and biological age, and your physiological potential and your
Speaker 1: capacity and your genetics and all of those things. Like
Speaker 1: if if what's possible for you is a ten, where
Speaker 1: are you currently compared to that ten? So aerobic fitness
Speaker 1: strength is my next one. Of course, physical strength, being
Speaker 1: able to move your body, being able to lift stuff,
Speaker 1: being able to get in and out of a chair
Speaker 1: and a car, and being able to get up on
Speaker 1: a ladder without killing yourself if you need to, Being
Speaker 1: able to pick up a kid or a grandkid, being
Speaker 1: able to carry the groceries more than ten feet, and
Speaker 1: all of those things being physically strong, of course, correlates
Speaker 1: to a whole bunch of things that I've told you before,
Speaker 1: I won't tell you again. My next one is job satisfaction.
Speaker 1: Job satisfaction for me is really important. It is important
Speaker 1: that I love what I do for me. It's really
Speaker 1: important that there is a divergence or an intersection of
Speaker 1: me having something that makes a few bucks, that pays
Speaker 1: the bills, that also is a vehicle for me to
Speaker 1: grow and to learn and to develop and build understanding
Speaker 1: and competence, and also a vehicle for me to have fun,
Speaker 1: and also a vehicle for me to build relationships and
Speaker 1: meet awesome people and so on. So for me, a
Speaker 1: job is much more than a thing that I do
Speaker 1: to pay bills for me, Because you know, you think
Speaker 1: about your job or the business that you own, or
Speaker 1: your career or however you want to. You know, the
Speaker 1: time that you spend doing stuff to make money is
Speaker 1: such a huge part of our adult life, our waking hours,
Speaker 1: and for the obvious reasons, but also the not so
Speaker 1: obvious reasons that your work affects everything from obviously your
Speaker 1: bank balance and your ability to pay bills and tick
Speaker 1: all the practical boxes through to your emotional health and
Speaker 1: your mental health and potentially your spiritual health depending on
Speaker 1: your belief system and your immune system, and what is
Speaker 1: happening in your body at a cellular level. If every
Speaker 1: time you step out of the car to walk into
Speaker 1: the office, now your sympathetic nervous systems go on nuts
Speaker 1: because you hate your job, or you don't enjoy your colleagues,
Speaker 1: or you work in a toxic environment or culture. Guess
Speaker 1: what your job is literally fucking bad for your health.
Speaker 1: So what's your job? Out of ten? And we're not
Speaker 1: just talking about how much dough do you make? We're
Speaker 1: talking about all those things I just mentioned now specific
Speaker 1: to money. Out of ten, has your relationship with money?
Speaker 1: I would say my relationship with money is about a
Speaker 1: nine or ten. And that's not because I make heaps
Speaker 1: a dough and I'm amazing with money, but it's because
Speaker 1: it's not, you know, I make enough money, I pay
Speaker 1: the bills, but it's really not something I think about much.
Speaker 1: And that sounds maybe like a lie, it's true, and yes,
Speaker 1: I acknowledge that that is a privilege that I have
Speaker 1: and I'm very grateful for that. But I don't have
Speaker 1: a wife, I don't have four kids. I don't have grandkids.
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of the demands and a
Speaker 1: lot of the challenges that some people have, So for
Speaker 1: me it's very easy. But what's your score for money?
Speaker 1: For me, money is not something that I'm driven to
Speaker 1: get more of. For me, money is a tool. It's
Speaker 1: a resource that means I can do stuff, help people
Speaker 1: do stuff, build stuff. It's all it is. The next
Speaker 1: one is lifestyle habits and behaviors. So what's your number
Speaker 1: out of ten for your lifestyle? And by that I
Speaker 1: mean I mean things like sleep hygiene, I mean things
Speaker 1: like managing stress and anxiety, or we might just call
Speaker 1: overall balance, life balance, booze, drugs, cigarettes, How many could
Speaker 1: you have? Thirty four coffees a day? Do you drink
Speaker 1: any water? How do you socialize? Is the way that
Speaker 1: you socialize good for you or bad for you? Because
Speaker 1: we can socialize in a way which is actually good
Speaker 1: for our health, It's good for our physical, mental, and
Speaker 1: emotional health. Or we can socialize in a way which
Speaker 1: is toxic and destructive and potentially life threatening, which sounds melodramatic,
Speaker 1: but it isn't because it's true. I've got a few
Speaker 1: to go so one ten mental health kind of touched
Speaker 1: on that a little bit. There close relationships one to
Speaker 1: ten and that could be family, that could be friends,
Speaker 1: that could be your intimate partner, that could be your kids,
Speaker 1: could be your parents, could be a parent, could be
Speaker 1: it could be one relationship that you have one relationship
Speaker 1: in your life that's toxic and unhealthy, and then you
Speaker 1: need to figure out do I want to fix that?
Speaker 1: Do I want to fix that relationship? Can I fix
Speaker 1: that relationship? What's my role in fixing that if I
Speaker 1: want to, or do I need to change the nature
Speaker 1: of the relationship or the dynamics of the relationship where
Speaker 1: that thing that's really affecting me I want to fix it,
Speaker 1: But for a range of reasons, it's not possible because
Speaker 1: it takes two people. So maybe the way that that
Speaker 1: relationship impacts on you or the way that you interact
Speaker 1: with that person. I've had many people in my life
Speaker 1: that needed to be in my life because of a
Speaker 1: particular situational circumstance or role that I was in, and
Speaker 1: so it wasn't optional at that point in time. Those
Speaker 1: people were going to be in my sphere, in my vicinity,
Speaker 1: and I did need to talk with them, interact with them,
Speaker 1: and work alongside them, or coexist with them. And so,
Speaker 1: rather than ending the relationship, which is another option, but
Speaker 1: in this case, I would I would try to figure
Speaker 1: out how do I work optimally with this person, how
Speaker 1: do I need to be not so that I'm compromising
Speaker 1: me and not so that I'm endorsing necessarily their toxic behavior,
Speaker 1: but rather rather than wasting time and energy on something
Speaker 1: that I can't perhaps fix in inverted commas, I'm going
Speaker 1: to figure out out a way to coexist with this person.
Speaker 1: And then, like I said, perhaps the last option there
Speaker 1: is depending of course, there are a range of variables
Speaker 1: around this. But over the years there have been many relationships.
Speaker 1: I don't mean hundreds, but you know more than a
Speaker 1: few relationships that I have ended because I don't think
Speaker 1: that well. I know that that relationship, those particular relationships
Speaker 1: were closer to the unhealthy end, not their healthy end
Speaker 1: of the social scale for me. And then the last
Speaker 1: one is and this is purely dependent on you as
Speaker 1: an individual, but is is you know, the religious and
Speaker 1: spiritual stuff. So, and I've shared many times with you,
Speaker 1: like my spiritual kind of paradigm is just that it's
Speaker 1: far less religious than it once was. I grew up
Speaker 1: in a very religious box, and then I eventually got
Speaker 1: my big toe out, then my foot, then my leg,
Speaker 1: and then I kind of jumped out. Doesn't mean I'm
Speaker 1: anti religion. I'm not. I'm anti some religious behavior. I'll
Speaker 1: give you the tip. But for me, my spiritual practice
Speaker 1: is kindness and love and service, which sometimes I live
Speaker 1: up to that and sometimes I don't. I would probably
Speaker 1: give myself a five or six on that. Sometimes I'm
Speaker 1: a champion and sometimes I'm I let myself down. But anyway,
Speaker 1: there it is food for thought Team Sleepwalking through Life