Speaker 1: I tell you, welcome to another installment of your favorite show,
Speaker 1: The U Project. Craig, Anthony, Harp, Tippany and Cook's meant
Speaker 1: to be here, but selfishly is not shure. We editing
Speaker 1: it later on behalf of David Knight if where the
Speaker 1: fuck are you? Anyway? The two important people are here, Gillaspo,
Speaker 1: Good afternoon, my friend. How are you good?
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 1: Greg? Did you grow up with a nickname? I feel
Speaker 1: like you were probably AUSTRAIGHTI one eighty.
Speaker 2: I probably had lots of nicknames, but I don't recall
Speaker 2: what they were, and they probably weren't pleasant. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Were you a I know this is not what we're
Speaker 1: talking about, but we'll get there. Were you an academic kid,
Speaker 1: a sporting kid? Were you intense? Were you a fucking
Speaker 1: trouble maker? You can figure out what I was, it's
Speaker 1: not hard, But what were you?
Speaker 2: I was lucky enough to be fairly academically gifted to
Speaker 2: the point where I didn't really have to do much,
Speaker 2: and so I didn't really really yeah, so all the
Speaker 2: way through, and it was a rude shock when I
Speaker 2: got to university. Actually, and suddenly in university you're you're
Speaker 2: there with a whole bunch of people who are similar
Speaker 2: and suddenly you do have to do something or you're
Speaker 2: just not going to pass. That was a bit of
Speaker 2: a shock for me. And I know that sounds really
Speaker 2: like egotistical or whatever, but it just it's the way
Speaker 2: it was for me. And I was really really lucky
Speaker 2: in the teachers I had because a lot of them
Speaker 2: recognize that, and just to stop me being a pain
Speaker 2: in class, which I would tend to be if I
Speaker 2: got bored, they would find things to, you know, keep
Speaker 2: me out of everyone's way.
Speaker 1: I guess that's funny. This is I know, this wasn't
Speaker 1: where we're to go, and we might end up where
Speaker 1: we were going to go. But like, you're really involved
Speaker 1: in education with free schools, dot organ all the other stuff.
Speaker 1: You're great, other great stuff you do, and you've got
Speaker 1: forty seven children of your own, And do you think
Speaker 1: that being this is like almost a contrary question, but
Speaker 1: do you think that sometimes being gifted is not the
Speaker 1: advantage that it might seem like academically, intellectually, creatively, you know,
Speaker 1: in a sporting sense, I feel like it's an advantage,
Speaker 1: but for some people it ends up becoming a disadvantage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a really great quote about talent which I've
Speaker 2: completely forgotten, which basically something like what you just said there,
Speaker 2: which is and I feel that applies in most domains.
Speaker 2: You know, most people have something that they're naturally quite
Speaker 2: good at, or better than the average brown bear. And
Speaker 2: in that something, I guess you either learn to use
Speaker 2: that as an advantage and really excel at it's because
Speaker 2: natural talent only takes you so far, you know, if
Speaker 2: you imagine it sort of like where your talent is
Speaker 2: at level nine and everyone else starts at level two.
Speaker 2: Eventually they get to level nine with enough training and persistence,
Speaker 2: and we'll go past you to level ten, eleven, and
Speaker 2: twelve because they've had to work really really hard to
Speaker 2: get to level nine and they know how to improve
Speaker 2: from level nine, whereas you have always been at level
Speaker 2: nine and you know nothing about getting to level ten.
Speaker 2: So I think, yeah, it can be a distinct disadvantage
Speaker 2: if you want to excel in the thing that you're
Speaker 2: naturally talented at.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I feel like like I was, I mean, I
Speaker 1: wasn't dumb, but I certainly wasn't academically gifted, right, not
Speaker 1: athleticly gifted, not physically gifted, and because I was so mediocre,
Speaker 1: you know, fat kid morbidly ob saw that stuff because
Speaker 1: I was so mediocre and I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: like I took my time. But it was about fourteen
Speaker 1: I had this epiphany, which probably had something to do
Speaker 1: with testosterone and girls and social fucking isolation and a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of things, and realizing that I was going
Speaker 1: to fail school if I didn't actually do so. All
Speaker 1: of these kind of things kind of intersected. But I
Speaker 1: think for me, being mediocre was highly motivating because it
Speaker 1: started with losing weight and I successfully changed my body
Speaker 1: like dramatically in about four months. And while the physical
Speaker 1: change was good, it kind of opened a door in
Speaker 1: my brain that went, oh, what else could I do?
Speaker 1: Like if I do work, make decisions, be committed, get
Speaker 1: uncomfortable and keep getting uncomfortable, what else could I create?
Speaker 1: So for me, it was like almost that default setting
Speaker 1: of mediocrity was what gave me the drive to not
Speaker 1: be mediocre. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: But it also taught you how to not be mediocre,
Speaker 2: that you had to do things and get results, and
Speaker 2: then when you want to move on from that level,
Speaker 2: that you've achieved, then you know how to do it.
Speaker 2: And I think that's kind of what happened to me
Speaker 2: with university. Like I said, when I got to first
Speaker 2: year UNI and then suddenly everyone else was as smart
Speaker 2: as me. And you know, my undergraduate degree, my first
Speaker 2: undergraduate degree, I think I came in with a solid
Speaker 2: four average or something like that, you know, going with
Speaker 2: the thing of four's open doors. I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's the same everywhere in Australia to four as.
Speaker 1: A path here, and.
Speaker 2: That was a bit of shock to the system. But
Speaker 2: by the time I went on to do higher degrees,
Speaker 2: I'd kind of figured out what I should have known
Speaker 2: all along and what probably other people who had to
Speaker 2: work really hard to get to that level did know,
Speaker 2: which is how you improve, how you learn more, how
Speaker 2: you do things more efficiently, how you how you get better.
Speaker 2: And so you know, by the time I did other degrees,
Speaker 2: you know, I was able to get sevens and and
Speaker 2: because I'd learned how to do that, whereas never before
Speaker 2: in my life had I had to learn that. And
Speaker 2: that's kind of what I mean is if if you
Speaker 2: start from from what you're talking about, we start at
Speaker 2: a place where you're saying, well, I don't think anything
Speaker 2: about the way I look or my physique or whatever
Speaker 2: is good enough, and I'm going to learn how to
Speaker 2: improve it. And then you do. Then it becomes something
Speaker 2: that you become really really good at improving, whereas someone
Speaker 2: who's born looking like an Adonis and has to do
Speaker 2: nothing is never going to learn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I went to school with some kids. Some of
Speaker 1: them done great, have done great, But yeah, a few
Speaker 1: that I went to school with do I bump into
Speaker 1: every now and then? Who are these like athletic freaks?
Speaker 1: You would not recognize them as athletic freaks now, no disrespect,
Speaker 1: you know, And you're like, oh, because I used to
Speaker 1: look at these guys and go, fuck, I wish I
Speaker 1: look like that, you know, or I wish I had
Speaker 1: that sporting ability.
Speaker 2: Or yeah, I mean you see it all the time.
Speaker 2: You see kids who are eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old
Speaker 2: are absolutely perfect physiques that they have done absolutely nothing
Speaker 2: to earn. They chugged down Coca cola and Mars bars
Speaker 2: every second minute. They you know, seem to be completely
Speaker 2: impervious to putting on weight. They have a sculpted physique
Speaker 2: and are actually doing nothing to achieve that, and so
Speaker 2: when the biochemistry catches up with them and their body
Speaker 2: metabolism stabilizers in their twenties, suddenly they have no recipes
Speaker 2: for how to change the inevitable and fairly swift decline
Speaker 2: that occurs. Then. So whereas someone like you, perhaps who
Speaker 2: worked to get to that point, understands the rules and
Speaker 2: understands how to change them.
Speaker 1: Well, I think, but for some people, like we have
Speaker 1: a lot of people who listen to this show who
Speaker 1: I think, they get a little bit inspired and motivated,
Speaker 1: and not because I'm a great communicator or brilliant, but
Speaker 1: because they go, ah, harps is normal and he failed this,
Speaker 1: and he is. You know, for all the things that
Speaker 1: I've tried, most of them didn't work. Some did you know,
Speaker 1: even with this show, I've said.
Speaker 2: It's true, but that's true of everything, and anyone who
Speaker 2: tells your story there is they were an overnight success. Yeah,
Speaker 2: probably one lotto, because I don't know of anyone else
Speaker 2: that's an overnight success that hasn't put in twenty work,
Speaker 2: twenty years of failure to get there. It's just it's
Speaker 2: the persistent that succeed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I did. Six hundred were fifth, ten hundred,
Speaker 1: and I think today this episode is one five five eight.
Speaker 1: And I did at least six hundred episodes that I
Speaker 1: lost money on, even though the show was pretty good
Speaker 1: and we were getting good feedback and it was growing.
Speaker 1: But by the time I, you know, like I built
Speaker 1: a studio at home, and I did all these things,
Speaker 1: and I paid Melissa who works with me, and Tiff,
Speaker 1: and you know, by the time we paid everything and everyone,
Speaker 1: we were still losing money for like two years, which
Speaker 1: is not the longest apprenticeship in the world. But we
Speaker 1: did three shows before the U Project that didn't work.
Speaker 1: So by the time this thing actually became sponsored and
Speaker 1: consistently sponsored, in in the black and a consistently decent audience.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it was four years. And people say to
Speaker 1: me all the time, not all the time, but at
Speaker 1: least fifty times I've had someone say to me, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I tried a podcast, but you know, the market's just saturated.
Speaker 1: It wasn't going to work. And they did, like the
Speaker 1: average podcast does seven episodes. That's how long the average
Speaker 1: podcast lasts. And when I ask people how many episodes
Speaker 1: they did, it's never more than twenty or thirty. It's
Speaker 1: usually less than ten, and I go, I did, including
Speaker 1: my other you know, I did hundreds before it even
Speaker 1: and it also I'll let the audience figure out whether
Speaker 1: or not I'm any good at this. But before I
Speaker 1: got to a point where I thought, well, I'm not
Speaker 1: shit at this, it was still hundreds of episodes, you know, yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 2: I look, I could tell you the same story over
Speaker 2: and over again, but I'll tell you a similar story
Speaker 2: about my son James, who you've interviewed. I think, yeah, yeah, Now, James,
Speaker 2: he does that clean bill side where he's rung every
Speaker 2: doctor in Australia and every dentist in Australia, and he
Speaker 2: does it every six months. And that's you know, that's
Speaker 2: twenty thousand, thirty thousand, forty thousand people. He's paying people
Speaker 2: to ring them. He's paying it out of his own pocket.
Speaker 2: He's been doing it for four or five years and
Speaker 2: losing money hand over fist. No one's getting him to
Speaker 2: do it. He's basically providing a public service. And yet
Speaker 2: suddenly people are asking him can they purchase his data
Speaker 2: and can they purchase subscriptions to his data? And in
Speaker 2: the last few months he started getting serious orders for
Speaker 2: something that for the last four or five years, he
Speaker 2: was losing serious amounts of his own hobby money in
Speaker 2: essence running and it was just out of sheer persistence
Speaker 2: of knowing that this is something that had value, knowing
Speaker 2: that it needed to be done, and just persisting. That
Speaker 2: got him too a point where now when his siblings
Speaker 2: hear about him making yet another sale and you know,
Speaker 2: making more in a sale than he makes than they
Speaker 2: make in a year, you know, they're they're regarding him
Speaker 2: as an overnight success when he's anything but because you've
Speaker 2: had to really really grind and just like you with
Speaker 2: the podcast, do that for so long. And the same
Speaker 2: thing happened with me with the Sweet Poison books, which
Speaker 2: were the first thing that sort of got me the
Speaker 2: publishing deals and so on. Is for the first two
Speaker 2: years of Sweet Poison being out there, I think they
Speaker 2: sold maybe two thousand books. You know, there was word
Speaker 2: of mouth, I guess, going around it. There was no
Speaker 2: real evidence that anyone cared. And then suddenly, all of
Speaker 2: a sudden it just took off and people would look
Speaker 2: at that and say, overnight success. Sure, but what about
Speaker 2: the three or four years you pore that?
Speaker 1: What why do you I mean, just specific to that,
Speaker 1: What do you think that was about? Like? Why did
Speaker 1: that catch fire when it had been, you know, in
Speaker 1: a holding pattern for so long. I think that there's
Speaker 1: things going on under the surface that you can't see,
Speaker 1: that you don't feel like. All I did was go
Speaker 1: out and do every radio spot I could possibly think of,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd pitch things left, right and center.
Speaker 2: Every day. I got told told no more times than
Speaker 2: you've had hot dinners, and it didn't stop me continuing
Speaker 2: to ask. I'd write something about sugar, There'd be a
Speaker 2: story in the media, there'd be something about something in
Speaker 2: a canteen, people you know, eating this, that or the other,
Speaker 2: and I'd pitch it at everyone I could think of,
Speaker 2: and sometimes they do an interview with me, and there'd
Speaker 2: be no obvious effect of that, because how would you know.
Speaker 2: But I think what happens is under the surface enough
Speaker 2: people here at enough times, from enough different people that
Speaker 2: it suddenly translates into an obvious movement.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, it's funny how you think. I mean,
Speaker 1: we have these I know, we're not talking about our
Speaker 1: intended topic. Fuck it, it's funny how you have these
Speaker 1: ideas of what will work and what won't and how
Speaker 1: things might transpire. I did a I was like fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago. Now I did a maybe twelve years ago.
Speaker 1: I've done a few random interviews, probably like yourself on TV.
Speaker 1: I've worked in radio a lot, but bits and pieces
Speaker 1: of Telly. And I got interviewed on Channel ten on
Speaker 1: the Morning show with David and Kim. It was it
Speaker 1: was a national show. I think I got into. I
Speaker 1: don't even know what the topic was, but it was
Speaker 1: on my at that stage. It was very health fitness
Speaker 1: exercise based. I did that and then after I did
Speaker 1: the interview, I got called up to the executive producers.
Speaker 1: One of the people on the floor with a clipboard
Speaker 1: and the fucking microphone like the Hungry Jack's headset came
Speaker 1: and said, oh, the executive producer once talked to you,
Speaker 1: and I go, that sounds terrifying. Anyway, I went. It
Speaker 1: was a lady called Sandy.
Speaker 2: I met her.
Speaker 1: She goes, what Telly have you done?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What have you done? And I said none, really, like
Speaker 1: nothing other than just random interviews. And she goes, oh,
Speaker 1: she goes, would you would you like to come back
Speaker 1: next week and do another spot? And I went sure,
Speaker 1: which I didn't really know was an audition, and I
Speaker 1: came back and did another spot and then she asked
Speaker 1: me if I want to be a regular, right, But
Speaker 1: my long winded point is I went, fuck, this is it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to kill now. I'm on National Telly. I'm
Speaker 1: a big deal. Now. It didn't change one thing. Like
Speaker 1: it didn't like I thought, I'm going to be so
Speaker 1: big in about two weeks. And I mean, you know
Speaker 1: a few people like it had.
Speaker 2: That's what I thought when you started having me on
Speaker 2: the You project.
Speaker 1: Great, No, it's.
Speaker 2: It's a Maine shade. I'm set now, Bloody Craig half
Speaker 2: was talking to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's not happening, but it is. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you back to the back to the you
Speaker 1: know you coming up being a gifted academic or at
Speaker 1: least you know, having that intellectual advantage, which is that's
Speaker 1: just what you're born with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wasn't anything I did. And that's the only
Speaker 2: thing is is you know, you say something like that
Speaker 2: and people think you're big, noting yourself, and it's kind
Speaker 2: of the opposite because I didn't do anything for that.
Speaker 2: I got born. I mean, if we look at a
Speaker 2: biological example, Actually it was my mother who did it,
Speaker 2: because she stored enough of the right kind of fat
Speaker 2: in her buttocks to give me a brain capable of
Speaker 2: doing those things that higher speeds. And you know, that's
Speaker 2: the biochemistry of it all and worth knowing. By the way,
Speaker 2: if you're number two child in a rush or number
Speaker 2: three child in a rush, is it all the good
Speaker 2: stuff might have been used up on the first child.
Speaker 2: I am an eldest child, by the way.
Speaker 1: That is hilarious. So it's all about your mum's buttocks everyone,
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's what kind of fat she stores in a bum.
Speaker 1: Wow, that is just all kinds of weird. But I
Speaker 1: was thinking about, Look, you're exactly right, and it's like,
Speaker 1: there are some things that like, I think I'm natural.
Speaker 1: I'm a reasonably articulate, I'm reasonally good communicator, And even
Speaker 1: when I was a young fat kid, I was probably
Speaker 1: a better communicator than most of my peers in terms
Speaker 1: of I could hold conversations with grown ups and you know,
Speaker 1: and kind of be right there in the middle of
Speaker 1: it and have been needed to be, didn't you because
Speaker 1: you know it was going to be all to otherwise.
Speaker 1: That's reminds you of something that a mate said to
Speaker 1: me when we were, you know, eighteen year olds. And
Speaker 1: he was a fairly wealthy family and his parents bought
Speaker 1: him a pretty flash car when he was an eighteen
Speaker 1: year old. And I managed to buy my own Hold
Speaker 1: and Gemini out of my earnings at working at the
Speaker 1: sports store, and no one was was a secondhand blue
Speaker 1: nurse's car, you know, one of those really nice pale
Speaker 1: blue Hold Geminis. And he used to say, have a
Speaker 1: go at me and say, you know you're never going
Speaker 1: to pick up in that car, right, And I said
Speaker 1: to him, mate, if a girl interested in me when
Speaker 1: I'm driving this car, then she's interested in me, not
Speaker 1: the car. That is. That is very good retort and
Speaker 1: true that is.
Speaker 2: Whereas with him lingering down, is it the Ferrari or
Speaker 2: is it the guy driving the Ferrari?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, well yeah, did he literally have a Ferrari?
Speaker 2: Yes, he did literally had a Ferrari? Oh my god,
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: That that's I mean, there's wealthy and then they're stupid
Speaker 1: wealthy or maybe stupid debt, who knows. I was going
Speaker 1: to ask you, though, do you think that like we're
Speaker 1: talking about kids or we do talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about kids being you know, resilient and like, because I
Speaker 1: mean my mum and dad I had a great childhood.
Speaker 1: But I certainly wasn't molly coddled on any level. You know,
Speaker 1: I was an only kid, but Mum and dad worked
Speaker 1: all the time. I let myself in at four o'clock
Speaker 1: when I got home, or three forty five when I
Speaker 1: got home. Mom and Dad got home at six. And
Speaker 1: in the country kid, I was one of them. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean like I had everything I needed. I
Speaker 1: didn't live in a house with any violence or any
Speaker 1: alcoholism or any abuse. So I was very fortunate. But
Speaker 1: you know that, like there wasn't any kind of doting,
Speaker 1: so to speak. And so when by the time when
Speaker 1: I was doing Year twelve, like a couple of months in,
Speaker 1: Mom and Dad sat me down because we moved a lot.
Speaker 1: I thought Dad was a drug dealer, but he wasn't.
Speaker 1: But we moved a lot. No, he worked in retail.
Speaker 1: Then he got off at a job in Tasmania, a
Speaker 1: state manager for an organization called Brashes, which you might
Speaker 1: remember Brashes Yeah still yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, they moved.
Speaker 1: I was seventeen, so I stayed and that was the
Speaker 1: last time I lived with him. I was seventeen years old,
Speaker 1: and I lived essentially, I boarded with a family, but
Speaker 1: essentially lived by myself. But so when I came out
Speaker 1: and I started working, I was already resilient. I was
Speaker 1: already making decisions, I was already sustaining, and I was
Speaker 1: seventeen years old. Then at eighteen, I moved to Western
Speaker 1: Australia by myself. Worked on a construction site through the
Speaker 1: day and worked in gyms at night, and then worked
Speaker 1: in pubs three nights a week. After that, I had
Speaker 1: three jobs when I was eighteen. And not saying that's
Speaker 1: good or bad, but I feel like sometimes now maybe
Speaker 1: where over I don't know, over molly coddling or protecting
Speaker 1: our kids to the point where when they do leave
Speaker 1: the nest, maybe they don't have the resourcefulness and resilience
Speaker 1: that's going to hold them in good stead.
Speaker 2: Well, there's quite a lot written about this, and I
Speaker 2: think I probably went over some of it in the
Speaker 2: teen Brain book. That adolescence has been extended. So it's
Speaker 2: probably a result of the extension in first age of
Speaker 2: first birth. So age of first birth for females in
Speaker 2: Australia has massively increased in the last twenty or thirty years.
Speaker 2: So when Lizzie, my wife, and I had our first
Speaker 2: child at I think she was twenty five, that was
Speaker 2: relatively late for our generation. So that was, you know,
Speaker 2: in the nineties, and that was relatively late. You know,
Speaker 2: a lot of her friends had already had their first child,
Speaker 2: you know, twenty three, twenty four years old. You say
Speaker 2: that to a twenty three or twenty four year old
Speaker 2: now and they will think you're insane. They do not
Speaker 2: have an expectation that they will be having children until
Speaker 2: their mid thirties if then, And that reflects what's going
Speaker 2: on in the population in general. According to the ABS statistics,
Speaker 2: at least when I wrote teen Brain, which is a
Speaker 2: few years ago now this is probably much higher than this,
Speaker 2: But when I wrote that, I think was something like
Speaker 2: thirty three point five. So is the average age of
Speaker 2: the mother at their first child. So it's that extension
Speaker 2: of childhood from on average mothers having their first child
Speaker 2: in their low twenties to their low to mid thirties
Speaker 2: means that there's an extended period where the child is
Speaker 2: probably effectively being looked after by their parents, and probably
Speaker 2: having their housing provided by their parents. And that's a
Speaker 2: consequence of the economy that's been built by honest so
Speaker 2: quite honestly quite weird tax policy where we subsidize the
Speaker 2: investment in property, and all of that added together means
Speaker 2: that adolescence doesn't finish at eighteen or anything like it,
Speaker 2: or seventeen in your case, it's more normal to be
Speaker 2: thinking about a thirty year old as what you were
Speaker 2: at seventeen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when I was eight or eighteen and a half,
Speaker 1: this is not a good childhood, but I mean it
Speaker 1: just was mine. Like I was quite big, I was
Speaker 1: a bodybuilder. I was working in gyms, I was working
Speaker 1: on construction all day. When I was eighteen and a half,
Speaker 1: I was working in pubs three nights a week getting
Speaker 1: punched in the face like, which is no surprise at
Speaker 1: the job.
Speaker 2: They said that our craig, listen, we just want to
Speaker 2: stand over there and get punched in the face.
Speaker 1: Well, we want you to stand over there and be
Speaker 1: large and intimidating and don't let dickheads in. I mean
Speaker 1: that was my brief, right, or get rid of dickheads, right, whatever,
Speaker 1: But you think about putting a teenager in that position
Speaker 1: now like you wouldn't even you wouldn't dream of it.
Speaker 2: Do you think that?
Speaker 1: Okay, So I just want to talk for a moment
Speaker 1: about potential and with children, helping them develop their potential,
Speaker 1: whether that's academic, whether that's you know, a commercial potential,
Speaker 1: physical potential, you know, relationships, communication. I feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: if we're we're delaying their development so to speak, or
Speaker 1: they're you know, they're basically becoming twenty five year old teenagers,
Speaker 1: what's that doing to their capacity for growth and learning
Speaker 1: and optimizing their either intellectual potential or whatever.
Speaker 2: It's It's probably not doing much if you consider that
Speaker 2: the generation that that is happening to, and this, you know,
Speaker 2: we are going to work our way back around to
Speaker 2: a bit of a topic here that the generation that
Speaker 2: that is happening to are not like any other generation,
Speaker 2: and they're not like their parents either, And there's a
Speaker 2: tendency for parents these days to think that criticism of
Speaker 2: you know, kids that age is just the usual you
Speaker 2: know kids these days type criticism you know that you
Speaker 2: get from every older generation is ah, these rat bag
Speaker 2: you know, you got it in the sixties and the
Speaker 2: seventies and the eighties and so on. But there is
Speaker 2: a fundamental difference with this generation, and it started thirteen
Speaker 2: years ago and we are just now starting to see
Speaker 2: it make a difference. And the thing that happened thirteen
Speaker 2: years ago is the iPad was released. And this is
Speaker 2: not to say that, you know, Apple is the enemy
Speaker 2: of the universe, it's just that they were the first.
Speaker 2: And why it mattered that the iPad was released is
Speaker 2: suddenly you had Internet on a stick, in the sense
Speaker 2: that prior to that, if you wanted to access the Internet,
Speaker 2: you really had to be somewhere near a computer, which
Speaker 2: had to be somewhere near a PowerPoint, and somewhere near
Speaker 2: an Internet connection, usually a cable. And what the iPad
Speaker 2: and a few years before the iPhone had done is
Speaker 2: unshackle all of that, so that suddenly you had the
Speaker 2: Internet twenty four seven heaven, anywhere you were. And that's
Speaker 2: a very, very big change if it's coupled with some
Speaker 2: other things that happened around about the same time, which
Speaker 2: is the invention of or at least the getting big
Speaker 2: of things like Facebook, Instagram, first person shooter gaming, online gambling,
Speaker 2: and a high resolution free pornography. Now old fellas like
Speaker 2: us will remember Craig that it wasn't that long ago
Speaker 2: that if you wanted to engage in the looking at
Speaker 2: nude young ladies, you would have to make a trip
Speaker 2: to your local newsagent.
Speaker 1: By a periodical called Mayfair.
Speaker 2: That's right, or Playboy even And you know, have you
Speaker 2: raised ready to undo the CNS house, right? And you
Speaker 2: compare that to what the average seventeen, sixteen, fifteen year
Speaker 2: old boy has access to today twenty four to seven
Speaker 2: in their pocket. And it's just not even on the
Speaker 2: same planet. And I'm not wanting to target pornography. It's
Speaker 2: just that pornography is a terrific example to the people
Speaker 2: who say simulation can't be addictive. So often when I
Speaker 2: talk about addiction to groups, people you know, are quite
Speaker 2: clear on the fact that you know, obviously nicotine is addictive,
Speaker 2: and alcohol is addictive, and cocaine's addictive, and heroin's addictive.
Speaker 2: That's all very clear. These are substances clear as But
Speaker 2: often people will say when I say, okay, well yeah,
Speaker 2: but so gaming apps, and they'll say, oh, yeah, but
Speaker 2: that's that's just a simulation. You know, that's that's not
Speaker 2: real and it's not a substance. No one's injecting that
Speaker 2: into your veins. And pornography is a great example of
Speaker 2: a simulation that is quite addictive. You know, it's got
Speaker 2: a syndrome that we know is related to high levels
Speaker 2: of addiction. And then as people say, oh, that's a
Speaker 2: bit of a stretch, I don't know any porn addicts, well,
Speaker 2: you know, you might be mixing with the wrong crowd,
Speaker 2: because we certainly know about gambling addicts, which is yet
Speaker 2: another simulation addiction. And so it shows that it's possible
Speaker 2: to addict the human brain by simply running a simulation
Speaker 2: that stimulates dopamine, which both of those things do. And
Speaker 2: what we did in twenty eleven is distribute a device,
Speaker 2: a delivery platform which allowed simulations of dopamine stimulation to
Speaker 2: be distributed, so not just pornography, not just gambling, but
Speaker 2: some new fangled ones like the one that simulates oxytocin stimulation,
Speaker 2: which we call social media, or the one that O
Speaker 2: you know, that simulates dopamine stimulation from fear, which is
Speaker 2: what we call gaming. So we did that thirteen years ago.
Speaker 2: So no parent today can say they know what it's
Speaker 2: like to be a teenager today. Because no parent today
Speaker 2: grew up surrounded by addiction. No parent today grew up
Speaker 2: with addiction available twenty four to seven, and that's very,
Speaker 2: very different. And remembering that the only time you can
Speaker 2: really become addicted as a human is those ten years
Speaker 2: between the start of puberty and your early twenties, because
Speaker 2: that's the only time the brains defenses against addiction are down,
Speaker 2: then no parent of life today can understand what it's
Speaker 2: like to have grown up in an age where addiction
Speaker 2: was available for all of those ten years. So we've
Speaker 2: gone from a situation where in our day as teenagers,
Speaker 2: if you wanted to get addicted to something, you had
Speaker 2: to be pretty damn risk, high risk taker to You
Speaker 2: had to find a way to get access to something
Speaker 2: that was potentially addictive, and you had to be able
Speaker 2: to do it regularly, so adventurous and the high risk
Speaker 2: takers were the ones who became addicts, which was very
Speaker 2: very small percentage of the population. Now, if you want
Speaker 2: to become an addict, and even if you don't, all
Speaker 2: you have to do is turn on your phone and
Speaker 2: you have total privacy to do that anywhere, anyhow, anytime. Now,
Speaker 2: the kids these days aren't kids these days. They are
Speaker 2: a completely different beast because they're the first humans where
Speaker 2: every single one of them has been exposed twenty four
Speaker 2: to seven to addiction. Now, the interesting thing is it's
Speaker 2: taken us thirteen years, but we are finally seeing every
Speaker 2: single day in the paper. Every day, every time I
Speaker 2: pick up the paper, I see yet another story about
Speaker 2: social media addiction and how the government wants to limit
Speaker 2: the age of access and all that good stuff. Well,
Speaker 2: that's all really fabulous. None of it will have any
Speaker 2: effect because that is not the primary source of addiction
Speaker 2: and it's not going to change anything making a rule
Speaker 2: about whether someone has to be seen in order to
Speaker 2: access it. But the good news is at least they're
Speaker 2: acknowledging that there's a problem.
Speaker 1: So if social media is not, what are you saying
Speaker 1: when you say it's not the.
Speaker 2: Source of addiction, Well, it is a source of addiction,
Speaker 2: but it's it's It would be sort of like saying,
Speaker 2: you know what we're going to do. We're going to
Speaker 2: go into this room full of alcoholics and cocaine addicts
Speaker 2: and we're going to stop them smoking. Okay, good, that's
Speaker 2: a good thing. And yes, you are removing an addiction.
Speaker 2: But is it the primary problem? No, it isn't. Is
Speaker 2: it a pathway to the problem, Yes it is, and
Speaker 2: yes it's great that we're talking about it. And yes
Speaker 2: it's great that we're recognizing that it's possible to create
Speaker 2: addiction using something as innocuous as a social media app.
Speaker 2: But there's a long pathway to go there.
Speaker 1: And and interestingly, while obviously you know, booze and drugs
Speaker 1: create you know, where we're putting a physical thing in
Speaker 1: our physical body and creating a physiological response, We're still
Speaker 1: creating a physiological response even with a virtual stimulus.
Speaker 2: Right, absolutely, you know, it's still like it's.
Speaker 1: Like oxytocin and or dopamine is what people are addicted to.
Speaker 1: It's just that the pathway is different.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I look, I mean not to get too
Speaker 2: graphic for your audience, but looking at pornography generally creates
Speaker 2: a real world physiological response. So that's an example of
Speaker 2: having nothing other than your imagination essentially, Yes, you know,
Speaker 2: with some visual aids getting a real world biochemical response.
Speaker 1: Who's there's there's a new term for pornography. Okay, kids,
Speaker 1: we're going to call these everyone jrop this down. Visual aids.
Speaker 1: There's a physical logical response boys and girls, and the same.
Speaker 2: Thing happens less obviously. I guess every time you stimulate dopamine,
Speaker 2: and it's relatively easy to stimulate dopamine, all you've got
Speaker 2: to do is simulate something that stimulates don't mean in
Speaker 2: the real world, but do it a lot more quickly
Speaker 2: and a lot more frequently. And so when you play
Speaker 2: a first person shooter game, that's simulating what it's like
Speaker 2: to be an armed combat in the real world, which
Speaker 2: believe me, would stimulate dopamine. But you get to do
Speaker 2: it a thousand times a day rather than once in
Speaker 2: your lifetime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but also the downside of first person shooter games
Speaker 1: is not just dopamine, but you know, adrenaline and cortisol,
Speaker 1: which you know enough of that over a long enough
Speaker 1: time is shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, look there are downsides to all of this stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean to the substances. There are you know, lots
Speaker 2: of downsides because they will have side effects. And people say, oh,
Speaker 2: but hold on, isn't isn't say something like social media,
Speaker 2: which also gives a dopamine stimulation, and the real world
Speaker 2: example that it's simulating is what happens in the real world,
Speaker 2: when we do something and somebody tells us they like
Speaker 2: what we're doing, which is our social glue, the thing
Speaker 2: that binds us together. We feel good when people in
Speaker 2: our group tell us they like what we're doing. So
Speaker 2: that's the oxytocin which generates the dopamine stimulation. Social media
Speaker 2: multiplies that by factors of a thousand, because all you've
Speaker 2: got to do is put a picture up and see alike,
Speaker 2: and every time you see that like, you get the
Speaker 2: little oxotocin hit. So these simulators, when you do them
Speaker 2: frequently enough, generate lots of dophin. Now, as you say,
Speaker 2: some of them have other side effects. So for example,
Speaker 2: that one, the one that's created by first person shooter,
Speaker 2: you're getting testosterone stimulation, you're getting adrenaline stimulation, and they
Speaker 2: all have their own side effects. But people would say, okay,
Speaker 2: but let's pull back from that. Is there any real
Speaker 2: problem of people being addicts? Yes, there is. Yeah, if
Speaker 2: you look at people being addicts to substances, you'd say, sure,
Speaker 2: there's a real problem, but they're the problems associated with
Speaker 2: the side effects. So if you say the problem with
Speaker 2: people being alcoholics is that they're drunk, So if you
Speaker 2: could be an alcoholic without being drunk, would there be
Speaker 2: a problem. You'd be feeling good most of the time,
Speaker 2: no one else would notice, and it wouldn't affect the
Speaker 2: way you worked. You're still an addict. But it's the
Speaker 2: side effect that causes people to be concerned about addiction.
Speaker 2: And so they would say, Okay, well, this electronic addiction
Speaker 2: we're talking about here, if it weren't for the fact
Speaker 2: that you lose money by gambling, would having a gambling
Speaker 2: problem be a problem? The answer is yes, it is
Speaker 2: because the biochemistry that creates the addiction, and I know
Speaker 2: we've talked about this before, perverts the way our brain
Speaker 2: perceives risk and creates anxiety, depression ADHD, ultimately psychosis and schizophrenia.
Speaker 2: So it puts our brain on a pathway to in essence,
Speaker 2: insanity and depression. And so the downside to addiction shouldn't
Speaker 2: be confused with the downsides of the side effects, which
Speaker 2: is what everyone focuses on. Ie, if you're an alcoholic,
Speaker 2: you're drunk all the time, that's a downside. The much
Speaker 2: worse downside to addiction is not the side effect of
Speaker 2: a substance. Because we're now talking increasingly about addictions which
Speaker 2: aren't substance based. The downside to the addiction is what
Speaker 2: it does to the human brain, which is why we
Speaker 2: are seeing teen anxiety, teen depression, teen ADHD, teen suicide
Speaker 2: at levels we have never seen it before, because we
Speaker 2: are exposing that entire population to addiction.
Speaker 1: Wow. I was chatting, we'll wind up. But I was
Speaker 1: chatting to a guy recently who drinks and smokes, and
Speaker 1: he was asking me some stuff. I said, how much
Speaker 1: do you smoke? And he said a pack a day
Speaker 1: And I don't even know what's in a and I
Speaker 1: can't remember if you said thirty or thirty five. And
Speaker 1: I said how much is that? And he's like sixty.
Speaker 1: I go, you spend sixty dollars a day on cigarettes?
Speaker 1: And he goes, yep, I go, that's four hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty dollars a week. That's twenty one thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1: That's twenty one k a year on cigarettes before he
Speaker 1: eats a sandwich or has a beer, or pays a
Speaker 1: bill or puts gas in his car. I'm like fuck.
Speaker 1: I mean, apart from all the horrible consequences of smoking,
Speaker 1: you need to be rich to smoke.
Speaker 2: And the interesting thing is that if you were to
Speaker 2: ask him, why don't you stop, he would say, I
Speaker 2: want to stop, I just can't. Yeah, every addict wants
Speaker 2: to stop. Every addict knows they're an addict. Every teenager
Speaker 2: who can't get off social media knows they're addicted to
Speaker 2: social media. They want to get off it just as
Speaker 2: much as your friend wants to get off smoking. But
Speaker 2: that's the definition of addiction. If you could stop, you
Speaker 2: wouldn't be an addict. And that's the interesting point that
Speaker 2: everyone forgets when they start making moral judgments about addiction.
Speaker 1: Hey, let's wind up, but before we do, has your
Speaker 1: new fiction book that's in the pipeline. You've been a
Speaker 1: non fiction man, but now you're opening the door on
Speaker 1: storytelling of sorts.
Speaker 2: I'm still playing around with stuff, you know. The interesting
Speaker 2: thing is I'm finding AI really helpful for this sort
Speaker 2: of thing. Yeah. No, not meaning that I'm having AI
Speaker 2: write a book for me, but it's really interesting to
Speaker 2: do some stuff like I find playing with the style
Speaker 2: in AI really really interesting. So if you write something,
Speaker 2: just write it how you'd write it, and then say,
Speaker 2: rewrite this in the style of a certain author and
Speaker 2: It's incredible what a job it does on replicating that,
Speaker 2: and I find it fascinating. I also find it fascinating
Speaker 2: if you are ask it to say, look at a
Speaker 2: narrative arc that you've created. You know, so what the
Speaker 2: storyline is going to be. You say, this is going
Speaker 2: to happen, and then that's going to happen, and this
Speaker 2: character is going to have that happen to them, etc.
Speaker 2: You give it that narrative arc, and then you say, right,
Speaker 2: I want you to line this up with narrative arcs
Speaker 2: typically used by this or that author, and it'll come
Speaker 2: back with adjustments to the narrative arc which we'll say
Speaker 2: things like, well, what about if we kill this character
Speaker 2: off here, or if we impose risk on this character here?
Speaker 2: And I find that's an interesting use of the technology
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've had two interesting experiences lately. One is someone
Speaker 1: said to me, I've been doing this deep dive on
Speaker 1: you know, the way that our thoughts can impact our body.
Speaker 1: And somebody said to me, you need to read the
Speaker 1: Biology of Belief by doctor Bruce Lipton, which you'd be
Speaker 1: fascinated in. And I think I started it fifteen years ago,
Speaker 1: but I and finish it. So I just typed in
Speaker 1: chatter GPT can you give me a synopsis of the book,
Speaker 1: And it just gave me this fucking amazing one page overview,
Speaker 1: like like, so, I mean, I know it's not you know,
Speaker 1: it's concise, but I'm like, I've got a reasonably good
Speaker 1: understanding of the core messages and key messages in three
Speaker 1: or four minutes, which doesn't replace reading it. But then
Speaker 1: the other day I was often when I I'm doing something,
Speaker 1: I don't type it in. I just talk into my phone.
Speaker 1: I go, you know, what are the what's the you know,
Speaker 1: at what age does the average Australian give birth for
Speaker 1: the first time or something? You know? And I said,
Speaker 1: I said to it, how trainable like this is? I said,
Speaker 1: to chat to you, how trainable are you? I said,
Speaker 1: can you use my name when we talk? Goes sure, Craig.
Speaker 1: Would you like me to use it at the start
Speaker 1: of the conversation or would you like me to weave
Speaker 1: it through our conversations? And I didn't tell it my name.
Speaker 1: Obviously it has acts as to that information. But it
Speaker 1: was creepy how quick it went Sure Craig and then
Speaker 1: just started talking to me like we were on the phone. Yep,
Speaker 1: it is fucking amazing.
Speaker 2: Well, they do remarkable simulations of human interaction now, but
Speaker 2: the problem, the problem is remembering that it's not a human.
Speaker 2: And that's what most of us have difficulty with, is
Speaker 2: remembering we're not talking to a human. We're just talking
Speaker 2: to something that's doing a really good imitation of a human.
Speaker 1: My nervous system and my body. It's one of my
Speaker 1: best friends right now, it's in my top five friends.
Speaker 2: So hey, we appreciate you, sir, and that probably we
Speaker 2: didn't get to talk about the thing we were supposed
Speaker 2: to talk about.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about it another time, doesn't matter, we'll say affair.
Speaker 1: But for the moment, thanks mate
Speaker 2: See you, Greg,