Speaker 1: Good dight team. It's harps hope, you bloody terrific. Ah.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk to you about the very
Speaker 1: common habit of getting stuck, that is spinning our wheels,
Speaker 1: that is living life or part of our life in
Speaker 1: a perpetual holding pattern, thinking about doing different while not
Speaker 1: doing different, talking about doing different and better while not
Speaker 1: doing it, talking about transformation and improvement and growth and
Speaker 1: learning and unlearning and becoming the best version of ourselves
Speaker 1: and exploring our talents and our potential and building our
Speaker 1: best whatever, while simultaneously not fucking doing it. Ah. And
Speaker 1: let's be honest. Let's be honest. That's a lot of
Speaker 1: people a lot of the time. And that's not me
Speaker 1: being critical. That's me being an observer of people. Also
Speaker 1: myself being one of those people. So there've been many
Speaker 1: times in my life when I have been I've been,
Speaker 1: I guess, trapped in a kind of a holding pattern,
Speaker 1: a holding pattern of mediocrity, like a groundhole day like
Speaker 1: same shits, same stuff, same doing the same things with
Speaker 1: my business or my brand, or my money, or my body,
Speaker 1: or my relationships or my spiritual life or my mental
Speaker 1: health or my emotional health or my academic pursuits, my learning, commitment,
Speaker 1: my training, my nutrition, doing stuff that didn't work, but
Speaker 1: nonetheless getting up each day and essentially doing a version
Speaker 1: of what didn't work the last day, month, year, decade sometimes.
Speaker 1: So I'm very interested in, as you are well know,
Speaker 1: I'm interested in human potential. I'm interested in possibilities. I'm
Speaker 1: interested in what we can do, what I can do,
Speaker 1: what you can do when you and me get out
Speaker 1: of it own way, when I can get out of
Speaker 1: my destructive habits, my self destructive self talk, thinking, my
Speaker 1: shitty lifestyle, not so much these days, but at times,
Speaker 1: my relationships, my operating system, not just relationships with people,
Speaker 1: but relationships with food, relationships with my body, relationships with
Speaker 1: all of the things that I do, habits and behaviors,
Speaker 1: and stepping into out of the self destruction and the
Speaker 1: overthinking and the self doubt and the imposter syndrome, and
Speaker 1: slowly stepping into self awareness and self genuine self improvement
Speaker 1: and self regulation and self optimization for that matter. So
Speaker 1: many years, for many years I worked with people who
Speaker 1: came to me to get in physically, and then more
Speaker 1: recently last decade or so, you know, mentally and emotionally,
Speaker 1: but who were stuck and stuck physically sometimes or stuck
Speaker 1: mentally or emotionally all three, or socially and or socially
Speaker 1: practically behaviorally, you know, just in this normal operating system
Speaker 1: that doesn't work. So there's there's a there's a degree
Speaker 1: of unconsciousness that all of us in habit, and as
Speaker 1: the name suggests, we're not aware of it. That is,
Speaker 1: we unconsciously do a lot of things, and we do
Speaker 1: a lot of things that really will require very very
Speaker 1: low level decision making in that you know, we've got
Speaker 1: to open the fridge to get the thing out to
Speaker 1: put it in our mouth, but it's almost like we
Speaker 1: do that without thinking, without choosing. It's just a habit,
Speaker 1: it's a pattern, that's a ritual, it's a behavior. I
Speaker 1: feel shit. I'm not hungry, I'm not actually hungry, I
Speaker 1: don't actually need food, but I'm having a bad day.
Speaker 1: So now I'm grabbing chocolate. Now I'm eating chocolate. I
Speaker 1: feel a bit flat, I feel a bit anxious. Now
Speaker 1: I'm grabbing booze. I fit whatever. And so we have
Speaker 1: a propensity and a tendency, many of us, to do
Speaker 1: things for an extended period of time, sometimes decades that
Speaker 1: clearly do not work for us. And when I say
Speaker 1: do not work, I'm saying do not work on the
Speaker 1: understanding or the premise that we want to be better.
Speaker 1: We don't want to be unhealthy. We don't want destructive habits.
Speaker 1: We don't want to overthink. We don't want to overdrink.
Speaker 1: We don't want to overeat. We don't want to be
Speaker 1: the procrastinator. We don't want to be the excuse maker.
Speaker 1: We don't want to be the avoid or the denier.
Speaker 1: We want to take ownership, we want to take charge.
Speaker 1: We want to optimize our genetics, optimize our potential, optimize
Speaker 1: our IQ, our intellectual capacity, optimize our creativity. We talk
Speaker 1: all the time, especially in the personal development, self help space,
Speaker 1: human performance, human behavior, we talk all the time about optimization,
Speaker 1: that is, getting the most out of ourselves. But truly, truly,
Speaker 1: as unpopular as this might be, or as uncomfortable as
Speaker 1: this might be for some to hear, and I don't
Speaker 1: know you, so clearly it's not personal, or clearly you're
Speaker 1: one of many listenings, so I'm not targeting you. So
Speaker 1: all I ask you to do is consider what I'm
Speaker 1: about to say, and that what I'm about to say
Speaker 1: is that some of you have probably been doing things
Speaker 1: that don't work for a very long time, and maybe
Speaker 1: lots of things that don't work. And if on some
Speaker 1: level you've kind of resigned yourself to that fact and
Speaker 1: you're kind of okay with it, then okay. However, if
Speaker 1: you're not okay with it, if you are sick of
Speaker 1: being the one day soon person, the almost person, and
Speaker 1: to so much self help and personal development, behavioral change
Speaker 1: in neuroscience and neuropsychology and nutrition, and I've read every
Speaker 1: fucking thing and listen to every fucking thing, But here
Speaker 1: I am, and I'm still in groundhole day. I'm still
Speaker 1: spinning my wheels, I'm still going nowhere fast. I'm still
Speaker 1: in a perpetual holding pattern of mediocrity and dissatisfaction and
Speaker 1: wasted time, talent, and energy. If that's you, then then
Speaker 1: one you need to figure out if you're really desperately,
Speaker 1: passionately committed to changing that, and then two, whether or
Speaker 1: not you are genuinely willing to pay the price of
Speaker 1: whatever is required to create that shift on planet you.
Speaker 1: And this is the big kind of gap. This is
Speaker 1: the chasm between the idea and the action and the idea.
Speaker 1: Everyone's in love with the idea. Everyone's in love with
Speaker 1: the idea of better. Everyone's in love with the idea
Speaker 1: of lean and and functional and successful and joyful and
Speaker 1: wealthy and focused and fulfilled. We love all that shit
Speaker 1: because who doesn't want that. We all want that or
Speaker 1: a version of that. I rarely speak to people who
Speaker 1: say I am totally content. I don't want anything else.
Speaker 1: This is a whole other conversation out by the way.
Speaker 1: But I'm there. I don't need any more. I'm happy.
Speaker 1: I'm content, you know, for the most part, not anxious.
Speaker 1: Life's great. That's generally not the case, and there's another conversation,
Speaker 1: as I said, to be had around that. But for
Speaker 1: the moment, I want to talk to you about whether
Speaker 1: or not you are genuinely ready. Firstly, I'm going to
Speaker 1: operate on the assumption that you are at the very
Speaker 1: least interested in getting unstuck, interested in getting out of
Speaker 1: your own way, interested in stepping out of the rules
Speaker 1: and habits and rituals and the perpetual holding pattern that
Speaker 1: you may be in in some areas of your life
Speaker 1: that doesn't work or don't work, to step out of that.
Speaker 1: So Firstly, let's talk about what are the drivers? What
Speaker 1: are the things which cause us to get stuck? And
Speaker 1: so this list is not in terms of significance or important.
Speaker 1: They are all equally important. And some of these may
Speaker 1: relate to you, some of them may not. It's seven
Speaker 1: or eight or nine maybe, And some of them seem
Speaker 1: like overly simple. Well, come on, Craig, I need more
Speaker 1: than that. I need some deeper science. I need something
Speaker 1: more profound than that. I need something more wise and
Speaker 1: insightful and deep than laziness. For example, this sounds funny,
Speaker 1: but I just meet people who are fucking lazy, and
Speaker 1: that's why they're stuck. It's not even that they're scared.
Speaker 1: They're just lazy. They just don't They just don't want
Speaker 1: to do the work. They like the idea of the outcome.
Speaker 1: They like the idea of the destination, but they are
Speaker 1: not ready to get up every day and walk the path,
Speaker 1: or drive the path, or take the path, or or
Speaker 1: take the journey. Like the destination, the idea of the
Speaker 1: outcome is brilliant, but the idea of doing what's required
Speaker 1: to create that outcome, they're like, ah soon. And so
Speaker 1: you know, if laziness is the overriding kind of factor,
Speaker 1: then we're stuck. And so that and I think sometimes
Speaker 1: that that kind of general apathy, laziness, apathy, lack of motivation,
Speaker 1: perhaps they're tied in together. And my my thoughts, this
Speaker 1: is not science, this is my thoughts. I think that,
Speaker 1: as I've said a lot on this show, there's almost
Speaker 1: like a psychological and or emotional tipping point for a
Speaker 1: lot of us, and that is we kind of just go.
Speaker 1: We just kind of trudge along in blah, you know,
Speaker 1: in Blasville, in mediocrity in three out of ten, and
Speaker 1: it's not fulfilling or rewarding or awesome or joyful, but
Speaker 1: it's also not complete shit. It's okay. There are moments
Speaker 1: of okayness, and you know, until we get to that
Speaker 1: point where we associate more pain, we're staying in it
Speaker 1: than getting out of it. Most of us will stay
Speaker 1: in it. And you can see as an observer of
Speaker 1: human behavior, you can see people staying in things, sometimes
Speaker 1: relationships or jobs or situations or circumstances, environments or patterns
Speaker 1: or habits, staying in things that really don't work, but
Speaker 1: on some level they're scared of the option. They're scared
Speaker 1: of the work, They're scared of the unknown, They're scared
Speaker 1: of the uncertainty. Should they shut the door on that
Speaker 1: thing and step away and head in a new direction
Speaker 1: with no safety in it? So fear comes into it, laziness, apathy, fear. Mindset. Now,
Speaker 1: when I talk about mindset, clearly we could and we
Speaker 1: have done many shows on this, but it's you know,
Speaker 1: being aware that my mind is not in charge of me.
Speaker 1: I am in charge of my mind. And yes I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about my brain here. My brain is different,
Speaker 1: is a different animal. But in terms of managing regulating
Speaker 1: my thoughts, what I pay attention to, what I focus on?
Speaker 1: Am I the problem person? Am I the solution person?
Speaker 1: Am I making good decisions? How do I process the
Speaker 1: world around me? What is the thing that happened? What
Speaker 1: is my story that I'm telling myself about the thing
Speaker 1: that happened? Why do I think the way that I think?
Speaker 1: Where does my thinking come from? What role does my
Speaker 1: programming play in my current internal paradigm, in my internal framework?
Speaker 1: What role does my programming play in terms of how
Speaker 1: I live and what I do and my values and
Speaker 1: so on. So, becoming aware of these internal kind of
Speaker 1: drivers that influence perhaps determine whether or not we stay
Speaker 1: stuck or we move self doubt. Self doubt is like
Speaker 1: almost a pandemic, you know, aversion to discomfort spoken about
Speaker 1: a lot of times. People want the work, they don't
Speaker 1: want the pain, self limiting thinking, crap, self esteem, and
Speaker 1: so on. And the truth is that at some stage,
Speaker 1: should we really want to move forward, we need to
Speaker 1: feel what we feel. Feel lazy, feel not good enough,
Speaker 1: feel like a fraud, feel like an impostor, but nonetheless
Speaker 1: start the ball rolling. I've spent most of my life
Speaker 1: still feeling like the insecure, fat kid that got picked
Speaker 1: last for every sporting team. At some stages, I feel
Speaker 1: like that. I don't feel like literally that, I just
Speaker 1: that those emotional and psychological remnants live on. You know.
Speaker 1: I could be in the middle of, like right now,
Speaker 1: sharing this with you, at the same time feeling like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is shit and no one's going to enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Like that. Self doubt never fully goes away from me,
Speaker 1: that imposter syndrome, not good enough, not smart enough, not
Speaker 1: academic enough, not lean enough, not likable enough, not fucking
Speaker 1: it what. That stuff never fully goes away. It doesn't
Speaker 1: dominate me, it doesn't render me paralyzed. But but do
Speaker 1: I ever feel supremely confident? Never? I never feel that
Speaker 1: I feel somewhat confident. I feel content and pretty calm
Speaker 1: and pretty satisfied most of the time. But what I
Speaker 1: know is that the psychological awareness that I can do things,
Speaker 1: I'm not useless. I can succeed, I can write well,
Speaker 1: I can speak well, I can talk to an audience.
Speaker 1: I can build a business and brand, while also knowing
Speaker 1: that I've fucked up a lot of things and all
Speaker 1: of that. But that knowledge that I can do well, oh,
Speaker 1: exists at the same time with those feelings, those emotions
Speaker 1: of inadequacy and self doubt and periodic self loathing. And
Speaker 1: that's not weird or broken or terrible. That's normal. Even
Speaker 1: the people that I've worked with that many of you
Speaker 1: would know that are high performers in the areas of
Speaker 1: sports or politics, or media or entertainment or the creative arts.
Speaker 1: Some of the people that I've worked with that are
Speaker 1: wildly successful are also insecure, also riddled with self doubt,
Speaker 1: also have self esteem issues, also could talk themselves into
Speaker 1: analysis paralysis in a second. So if any of that
Speaker 1: is you, that is not a reason to not succeed.
Speaker 1: You can be scared and successful. You can be inherently
Speaker 1: kind of naturally lazy while choosing to be active and proactive.
Speaker 1: You can do that. You can override things. My genetic
Speaker 1: default setting is endomorphic, which is I gain fat very easily.
Speaker 1: But my genetics don't need to be my destiny because
Speaker 1: what I'll look, feel, and function like is about twenty
Speaker 1: to thirty about my genetics. The rest is about what
Speaker 1: I do, and what I do is optional. What I
Speaker 1: eat is optional, how I live is optional. How I
Speaker 1: move my body, whether or not I drink booze or
Speaker 1: use drugs, or how I sleep or how much I sleep,
Speaker 1: or how I put all this shit together. My my
Speaker 1: overarching values, my overarching operating system for life. There are
Speaker 1: we can rationalize anything if we want, if we want
Speaker 1: to come up with a reason why we're not succeeding
Speaker 1: and life's not fair and my mum did this or
Speaker 1: my dad. And I'm not trying to be disrespectful to
Speaker 1: people who've been through legit trauma. Of course we recognize
Speaker 1: that and respect that. But at the same time, guess
Speaker 1: what a lot of people have been through trauma and
Speaker 1: a lot of people have been through some horrible shit.
Speaker 1: I interviewed Joelsarti the other day, who's speaking on our program,
Speaker 1: who went to Afghanistan, served for Australia in the military,
Speaker 1: spent eight months there on an active tour, came back,
Speaker 1: was having a quick break before he went back to Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: fell over railing railing on some stairs, broke his neck,
Speaker 1: broke his neck is a quadriplegic. Now, if anyone's got
Speaker 1: a reason to get stuck, it's that, dude. If you
Speaker 1: want to rationalize doing nothing, feeling sorry for yourself, being
Speaker 1: in a holding pattern, you know, getting stuck in all
Speaker 1: kinds of ways, you would look at, at least from
Speaker 1: the outside looking in, and look at that scenario and
Speaker 1: what happened to Jijol and go, man, I get it,
Speaker 1: I get it. But guess what, He's not stuck in
Speaker 1: the middle of the mess and the mayhem and the
Speaker 1: pain and the dysfunction and the physiological limitations and all
Speaker 1: of the challenges, massive challenges of adapting to a brand
Speaker 1: new life in a body that doesn't work as it
Speaker 1: once did. In the middle of all of that, he's
Speaker 1: growing and he's learning and he's developing skills and insight
Speaker 1: and awareness, and he's courageous and he's doing fucking amazing shit,
Speaker 1: and you can do too. We all can. It doesn't
Speaker 1: mean we can all do anything. We can't all run
Speaker 1: one hundred meters in ten seconds. We can't all win
Speaker 1: a Grammy. We can't all become president or prime minister.
Speaker 1: We can't just practically, we can't because we can't have
Speaker 1: a million prime ministers at once. But there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff that we can do. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that we can do. So let's have a look
Speaker 1: at some ideas on how to get unstuck. So I've
Speaker 1: got a list for you, because you know the occasional
Speaker 1: list doesn't hurt. Number one is, recognize your stuckness. Like that,
Speaker 1: recognize that you are stuck, that you are trapped, that
Speaker 1: you are in a holding pattern, that you are spinning
Speaker 1: your wheels, whatever metaphor you want to to use, but
Speaker 1: recognize that you are stuck and identify the cause. So
Speaker 1: for a very long time, for example, with my body,
Speaker 1: my stuckness, my holding pattern, my inability to look or feel,
Speaker 1: or perform or achieve the level of health and performance
Speaker 1: and body composition that I wanted for me. The cause
Speaker 1: was food, specifically, my relationship with food, specifically, how I
Speaker 1: thought about food, how I chose food, how I behaved
Speaker 1: with food and around food, how I socialized, how I
Speaker 1: bullshitted myself with food, how I lied to people. People
Speaker 1: would ask me about what I eat, and I would
Speaker 1: be too embarrassed at times to tell them really what
Speaker 1: I ate sometimes, so I would make up some bullshit
Speaker 1: to sound good, And so I was in a holding pattern.
Speaker 1: I was stuck. I had this toxic, destructive relationship with food.
Speaker 1: By the way, food wasn't problem. I was the problem.
Speaker 1: It's just that food was the epicenter of the problem.
Speaker 1: And so that was for me, you know, owning up
Speaker 1: and stepping up and being honest and raw and real.
Speaker 1: And the reason that I share that this was part
Speaker 1: of my journey is because I know other people do
Speaker 1: the same. I know that I don't live on an
Speaker 1: island in this respect. I'm not Robinson Cruzoe. I'm not
Speaker 1: the only person to have done this. I've spoken to
Speaker 1: maybe thousands of people who have very very complicated relationships
Speaker 1: with their body, very complicated relationships with food and with
Speaker 1: exercise and with self esteem and with body image and
Speaker 1: body dysmorphia. And I think the starting point for a
Speaker 1: lot of us, the unstuck, getting unstruck starting point is
Speaker 1: just being fucking honest. I eat shit. I don't need
Speaker 1: the end not ah yeah, but my genetics. But yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, I didn't want to offend anyone, but
Speaker 1: oh it was all I could get my hands on. Ah,
Speaker 1: but it was my birthday. Oh but it was. It
Speaker 1: was you know, and you're fifty there, and now you're
Speaker 1: fifty and you're still telling yourself why you're not doing
Speaker 1: the things that you allegedly want to do. Like, you
Speaker 1: will not accidentally get in great shape. You will not
Speaker 1: accidentally have a fucking awesome body, awesome health, amazing immune system.
Speaker 1: You will not accidentally run a fucking marathon or whatever
Speaker 1: it is that or build a business or build a brand,
Speaker 1: or do an undergrad degree or overcoming it. You'll not
Speaker 1: accidentally do these things. We need to acknowledge the reality
Speaker 1: of us. This is why I'm doing a Part of
Speaker 1: why I'm doing a PhD in self awareness, literally is
Speaker 1: because self awareness with so much of this stuff is
Speaker 1: the starting point. Not self loathing, not self hate, self awareness.
Speaker 1: This is what I'm doing okay, my life's not working
Speaker 1: in this context. What part of the problem am I.
Speaker 1: It's not to say you're always the totality of the problem,
Speaker 1: but let's just be brave for a moment and courageous
Speaker 1: and grown up and mature and let's go, yeah, look,
Speaker 1: at least I'm part of the problem, all right. Number
Speaker 1: two is this, identify the thing that you're not doing
Speaker 1: that you should be doing. So what might that be
Speaker 1: for you? Maybe that is maybe that is you need
Speaker 1: to study thirty minutes every morning. Maybe that is you
Speaker 1: need to start having a cold shower every day. Maybe
Speaker 1: that is you need to commit to some I don't
Speaker 1: know what it is, doesn't matter. It could be something
Speaker 1: to do with your kids or your partner. Could be
Speaker 1: something to do with your career. Could be something to
Speaker 1: do with your physical, mental, or emotional health. It could
Speaker 1: be something to do with a toxic relationship that you
Speaker 1: need to deal with. It could be something to do
Speaker 1: with your lifestyle. It could be a million things. But
Speaker 1: what is the thing that you're not doing that you
Speaker 1: know you should be. Number three is kind of an
Speaker 1: expansion of that, and that is to do a stock
Speaker 1: take or audit on what's working and what's not working
Speaker 1: on planet you. And this is not something that you
Speaker 1: do in three minutes driving to work, listening to the radio,
Speaker 1: looking for a park. This is something that I think
Speaker 1: really we need to take seriously about when we talk
Speaker 1: about living consciously. We spoke before about unconscious stuff and
Speaker 1: how you know. In many ways, for a range of reasons,
Speaker 1: many of us are periodic passengers in our own life. Life.
Speaker 1: That is, life has its own energy, Life has its
Speaker 1: own life force, Life has its own momentum, and life
Speaker 1: happens despite us. Life keeps going on, and the things
Speaker 1: that we are in the middle of have their own
Speaker 1: momentum and energy as well. And sometimes we need to
Speaker 1: get out of that river, that ever flowing river that
Speaker 1: we are sitting in our canoe just being swept that
Speaker 1: we need to paddle to the side. We need to
Speaker 1: get to the metaphoric bank, pull up our canoe and
Speaker 1: our paddle, sit on the metaphoric rock and just take
Speaker 1: a minute. Take a minute, get out of the river,
Speaker 1: get out of the momentum, get out of the busyness,
Speaker 1: get out of the never endingness, even if it's for
Speaker 1: thirty minutes to sit no phone, no computer, no distractions,
Speaker 1: just you thinking about how's my life going? How is
Speaker 1: my life going, How's my body going? What about my rituals?
Speaker 1: What about my social life? What about? What about my sleep?
Speaker 1: What about my self talk? What about my mental health?
Speaker 1: How's that going on? What's that about? What about? What
Speaker 1: about the results that I'm producing? Are they the results
Speaker 1: I want to produce? If not, why not? What am
Speaker 1: I doing? What could I do better? One of the
Speaker 1: challenges for us is that, obviously my world view is subjective.
Speaker 1: All of my experiences are influenced by the goings on
Speaker 1: in my external world, but ultimately created by me. And
Speaker 1: when I say me, I say my brain, my mind,
Speaker 1: my data processing center. I am always doing a subjective
Speaker 1: assessment and interpretation of objective things. Something happens to me
Speaker 1: around me despite me a person, a situation and outcome,
Speaker 1: a result, the weather, some piece of news. Then what
Speaker 1: I do, automatically and almost unconsciously, is I break it
Speaker 1: down and I give it meaning. And one of the
Speaker 1: challenges for us, in the continuity and the never endingness
Speaker 1: of the human experience and the never ending stream of
Speaker 1: information and energy and people and events, is to be
Speaker 1: able to find some space, some metaphoric space, sometimes some
Speaker 1: literal space to say, well, here I am, I'm thirty,
Speaker 1: I'm forty, I'm fifty. How long have I been thinking
Speaker 1: about changing these things? How many times have I had
Speaker 1: the same story or told myself the same or others
Speaker 1: the same story about the same things that I'm going
Speaker 1: to change soon. I'm going to I'm doing it soon.
Speaker 1: But here I am, and now I'm fifty and I'm
Speaker 1: not doing it. What are the things that on planet
Speaker 1: me are not working? And what are the things that
Speaker 1: are working? What are my results telling me? What's my
Speaker 1: life telling me? What are my relationships telling me? Things
Speaker 1: won't accidentally get better? You and I will do the audit.
Speaker 1: We will observe the thing, recognize the thing, we'll take
Speaker 1: ownership of the thing, and then we'll work to change
Speaker 1: the thing that needs to be changed, or we won't.
Speaker 1: That's up to you, that's up to me. All right, team,
Speaker 1: I'm going to interrupt myself there. We're going to call this.
Speaker 1: This went longer than I anticipated, So we're going to
Speaker 1: call this bit where I'm at right now, the end
Speaker 1: of part one. I hope you're enjoying it. I think
Speaker 1: this is a really important conversation. We'll be back tomorrow
Speaker 1: with the end the Conclusion Part two. See then