Speaker 1: Allow champions. I hope this finds you well. Craig Anthony
Speaker 1: Harper reporting and for duty the other day, whose duty,
Speaker 1: I don't know, duty harps duty with a D and
Speaker 1: a T, not a J and a D. The other
Speaker 1: day I recorded a bit of a coaching session I
Speaker 1: didn't know how to go. In fact, here's the truth,
Speaker 1: I never know how they'll go because I don't know
Speaker 1: what my energy is going to be, you know, not
Speaker 1: energy as in physical energy, but you know when you
Speaker 1: bring something and you're like you're in the zone, and
Speaker 1: sometimes you're in the zone and sometimes you're not, and
Speaker 1: sometimes you hit it out of the park metaphorically, sometimes
Speaker 1: you don't. Anyway, the other one, the other day's little
Speaker 1: seshoire seemed to resonate with quite a few people, which
Speaker 1: is really nice. Thank you for your feedback. I had
Speaker 1: literally about ten questions that I wanted to open the
Speaker 1: door on, and of course I got through too because
Speaker 1: I'm a chatty Kathy anyway, So I don't know we
Speaker 1: could get through one today, we could get through half,
Speaker 1: but I have eight potential questions left that these are
Speaker 1: not Look, if you've been listening to me for a while,
Speaker 1: some of these will be familiar, bit familiar, very familiar,
Speaker 1: or maybe not familiar. If you're newish, these might be revelatory.
Speaker 1: That is, they might be a revelation. They might be new,
Speaker 1: They might be a brand new kind of thing to
Speaker 1: consider for you. But these are questions that I have
Speaker 1: asked people formally and informally, mostly formally. It's not like
Speaker 1: I wander around bumming into people on the street asking them,
Speaker 1: you know, whether or not they believe they're truly objective
Speaker 1: about things or is it just a perspective, a subjective
Speaker 1: window you're looking through. Brian, I don't do that. But
Speaker 1: these are questions that I think in the process of
Speaker 1: building our best life and our best version of us
Speaker 1: in the middle of that best life, whatever that means.
Speaker 1: Also even think about that. I know I'm digressing, but
Speaker 1: fuck it, think about best we are. Who wants to
Speaker 1: live your best life? Everyone puts up their hand. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: what's that? And no one knows or no one has
Speaker 1: the exact same definition, because best life means something different
Speaker 1: to different people. And when I say to a group,
Speaker 1: who wants to succeed? Nobody says I don't want to.
Speaker 1: We might talk about that later. Despite the fact that
Speaker 1: everyone will typically put up their hand in an audience
Speaker 1: to say yes, I want to be successful, put them
Speaker 1: on the spot and say cool, just tell me what
Speaker 1: that is for you, many people will stumble or bumble
Speaker 1: their way through either no answer or a very inadequate answer,
Speaker 1: which is really not the truth. It's just something they
Speaker 1: feel they've got to come up with in the moment.
Speaker 1: This is not good or bad. This is human. So
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting to think about what it is
Speaker 1: you want to do, be create and why. And so
Speaker 1: that's where we're starting today. We're starting with the white question,
Speaker 1: but maybe should just finish where I was because I
Speaker 1: distracted myself. So I think it's important for us to
Speaker 1: ask questions, conscious, critical thinking questions along the way, because
Speaker 1: if we don't, if we don't have that presence of
Speaker 1: mind and that in the moment awareness of why am
Speaker 1: I doing this? What am I doing? What am I
Speaker 1: doing it for? What's my motivation, what's my hesitation, what's
Speaker 1: required of me practically, physically, mentally, emotionally, time perhaps financially,
Speaker 1: what is required of me to do this thing? And
Speaker 1: is it something that I really want to do? And
Speaker 1: will it change the direction of my life. Will it
Speaker 1: make me better or my body better, or my relationships better,
Speaker 1: or my career better, or my mental health better, or
Speaker 1: my lifestyle better, or my fill in the blank better.
Speaker 1: So I think, while we are actually emotional and social creatures,
Speaker 1: which is definitely not a bad thing, it's the human
Speaker 1: thing in the middle of all the humanity and social
Speaker 1: stuff and emotional stuff, and I'm not sure what the
Speaker 1: fuck I'm doing stuff, and how did I get here
Speaker 1: with the fuck stuff all that all that, you know,
Speaker 1: how did I end up like this stuff, or how
Speaker 1: did I end up here? Or how come this is
Speaker 1: gone so great? Like in good and bad situations, it's
Speaker 1: important that we try to understand what we're doing consciously,
Speaker 1: what we're doing unconsciously, what we're doing proactively, what we're
Speaker 1: doing reactively, what we're doing in a way that is
Speaker 1: essentially a form of self empowerment, what we're doing in
Speaker 1: a way that is essentially a form of self sabotage
Speaker 1: or self loathing, And to in the middle of all
Speaker 1: of this very subjective human experience of you living in
Speaker 1: the middle of your experiences and living in the middle
Speaker 1: of your emotions and your feelings and your doubt and
Speaker 1: your self doubt and your power you know, and your
Speaker 1: skill and your love and your kindness, and the totality
Speaker 1: in the middle of living right in there, up in
Speaker 1: the guts. To that is to try to figure out
Speaker 1: why am I the way I am, not in a
Speaker 1: critical way, in an awareness way. What do I do
Speaker 1: the stuff I do? What do I think the way
Speaker 1: I do? What's my why? And so on and so on.
Speaker 1: So let's start with what's my why. I've done things
Speaker 1: that I just jumped into that I didn't really think
Speaker 1: about the why. It just seemed like a good idea
Speaker 1: in the moment, Like I kind of thought about it,
Speaker 1: but I didn't deeply think about it. I've jumped into
Speaker 1: things where my story to me was, oh, this will
Speaker 1: help me, or this will help someone else. I'm generous,
Speaker 1: I'm amazing, look at what I'm doing. But the truth
Speaker 1: is I was looking for approval. The truth is I
Speaker 1: was trying to win. The truth is it was coming
Speaker 1: out of ego. The truth is it was coming out
Speaker 1: of insecurity. Or the truth is it's like I didn't
Speaker 1: feel like enough. But if I could do this thing,
Speaker 1: achieve this thing, change this thing, help this person, then
Speaker 1: I would be enough, and that act, that process would
Speaker 1: overcome my not enoughness and so and of course when I,
Speaker 1: for example, when I was an unhealthy obese child, I
Speaker 1: really wanted to lose weight. Not because I was particularly
Speaker 1: concerned with my health or my function or how well
Speaker 1: I operated or my clinical state, but because I wanted
Speaker 1: to be liked. I didn't want to be socially invisible.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be disconnected from my peers. And
Speaker 1: so that was my reason. And that's an okay reason,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't necessarily that why doesn't necessarily end up
Speaker 1: Even if I do it for those reasons, I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily end up where I think I would want to be,
Speaker 1: and I didn't in a lot of ways. So I
Speaker 1: lost weight, I got fit, I got strong, some of
Speaker 1: the things moved on the old needle like, I got
Speaker 1: more friends, I got more recognition, and all of those things.
Speaker 1: In that way, it worked. But then what I really wanted,
Speaker 1: I guess, was to be enough. What I really wanted
Speaker 1: was self esteem or what I needed. What I really
Speaker 1: needed was to think highly enough of me, not in
Speaker 1: an egotistical way, but a self worth, a self knowledge way.
Speaker 1: And sometimes we just stumble up into the right place
Speaker 1: and get the right outcome, and it's fucking amazing. And
Speaker 1: sometimes we don't. But I think whatever we do, whatever
Speaker 1: action we take, whatever direction we move in, whatever decision
Speaker 1: we make, especially I'm not talking about whether I get
Speaker 1: the milk from there or there, but I'm talking about
Speaker 1: stuff that is potentially transformative. I'm talking about big questions
Speaker 1: and big actions. I'm talking about big time commitment. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about big energy. I'm talking about the things that
Speaker 1: you might undertake. So many people that I have spoken
Speaker 1: to have undertaken a degree. This is very specific, but
Speaker 1: a degree, an undergrad or a master's degree, or even
Speaker 1: a doctorate in something because not because they loved it,
Speaker 1: not because they wanted to, not because they were passionate,
Speaker 1: but there why was. Let's not piss off mum and dad.
Speaker 1: Let's not disappoint the family. Let's live up to the
Speaker 1: families expect. Do I want to be a doctor? No,
Speaker 1: but everyone wants me to, and my dad was, and
Speaker 1: my granddad was, and my elder brother is. So I
Speaker 1: should be a doctor. And in the middle of the
Speaker 1: I should be a doctor. There's no passion, there's no
Speaker 1: real desire to be a doctor for for living one's purpose.
Speaker 1: With some people it's because they feel obligated. Now, becoming
Speaker 1: a doctor is amazing, unless you don't want to be
Speaker 1: a doctor. If you don't want to be a doctor,
Speaker 1: and you spend eight, ten, whatever years, it is becoming
Speaker 1: a doctor, becoming and eventually getting there. I would not
Speaker 1: suggest that's great because you are now living in alignment,
Speaker 1: because out of alignment. Because the things that you are
Speaker 1: passionate with and passionate about, and the things that make
Speaker 1: your heart sing, and the things that give you joy,
Speaker 1: and the things that you're fascinated with and excited about,
Speaker 1: and the things that you would like to grow and
Speaker 1: learn in, you're not doing that. You're doing what the
Speaker 1: other person wants you to do. So you're happy to
Speaker 1: disappoint yourself, But for God's sake, don't disappoint anybody else
Speaker 1: about what you individually do with your life. We're not
Speaker 1: even talking about their life. We're talking about your life.
Speaker 1: And this is not about being selfish or self centered.
Speaker 1: This is about you going I'm enough, I'm good enough.
Speaker 1: I deserve to do the job that I want. I
Speaker 1: don't deserve to be a selfless, selfish prick but you
Speaker 1: choosing the career that you're passionate about is not that
Speaker 1: that is you being real, That is you being authentic.
Speaker 1: If I meet someone, no matter what it is, as
Speaker 1: long as it's not criminal or illegal, but whatever it
Speaker 1: is that they want to do, even if to me,
Speaker 1: I'm like, who the fuck would want to do that?
Speaker 1: Why would you want it? But if I can sense
Speaker 1: in the sense in them that this is really meaningful,
Speaker 1: this is something which they are passionate about, which something
Speaker 1: that they could be amazing at, or even if they're
Speaker 1: not amazing, but just that it gives them joy, it
Speaker 1: makes them come alive. I've got friends that do shit
Speaker 1: that I am totally not interested in personally me doing it,
Speaker 1: but I'm fascinated for them, and I want to talk
Speaker 1: to them about it because I want to see what
Speaker 1: is this thing that I find boring that you find
Speaker 1: fascinating Again, not wrong, not right, not not better, not worse,
Speaker 1: just different. Remember, seek first to understand. And your biggest
Speaker 1: challenge in this kind of dialogue, in this kind of
Speaker 1: space of building a better you, whatever that means, succeeding, growing, evolving, learning,
Speaker 1: all this self help, all this personal development of which
Speaker 1: we speak your biggest challenge will be to understand yourself.
Speaker 1: Your biggest challenge will be to figure out why you
Speaker 1: do the shit that you do, good and bad, Why
Speaker 1: you think the way you do. Let's make that question too,
Speaker 1: why do I think the way that I do? And
Speaker 1: does the way that I think help me or not?
Speaker 1: Some of you heard me talk about this many times.
Speaker 1: My question to you, honestly as a coach and maybe
Speaker 1: as your friend, is once you figure out well, firstly,
Speaker 1: have you figured out why you think the way that
Speaker 1: you do? Now? This is not a negative exercise. This
Speaker 1: is an awareness exercise, and like just as objective as
Speaker 1: I can be, I can tell you exactly why I
Speaker 1: think the way that I do. And I can also
Speaker 1: tell you that some of the ways that I think,
Speaker 1: some of those cognitive patterns and emotional and psychological patterns,
Speaker 1: are a form of self punishment and self restriction. It's
Speaker 1: like I built for myself when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: almost like a psychological and emotional prison because I was
Speaker 1: scared of people seeing the real me and fucking rejecting
Speaker 1: the real me. So let's just keep doing the pretend me.
Speaker 1: Let's not let my light shine, because if I let
Speaker 1: my light shine, I might kiss people off. So just
Speaker 1: fucking play small, Craig. And for those who knew me
Speaker 1: when I was young, you might not have thought I
Speaker 1: was always playing small, but for me, I was. There
Speaker 1: were so many things I wanted to do, such such
Speaker 1: greater things that I wanted to do, so many words
Speaker 1: I wanted to say, conversations I wanted to have that
Speaker 1: I didn't because I was so scared of rejection and
Speaker 1: failure and isolation. And so understanding how you think is
Speaker 1: just an exercise in self awareness. And once we start
Speaker 1: to grasp I think this way because I grew up
Speaker 1: in this environment, or Mum and Dad had these beliefs,
Speaker 1: and so their beliefs became my belief so their thinking
Speaker 1: became my thinking. Now that may not be bad. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying therefore that's bad. I'm saying, well, you probably
Speaker 1: never chose to think like that, but rather you just
Speaker 1: think like that as a byproduct of proximity, almost familial
Speaker 1: osmosis or sociological osmosis, where you just become a version
Speaker 1: of them because you are around them so much. And
Speaker 1: when you are around any person or any group or
Speaker 1: anything or any influence or any social media output where
Speaker 1: you are plugged into that or them or they a lot.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what you want, You're going to be
Speaker 1: affected by that. So that is going to influence your beliefs,
Speaker 1: your values, your ideals, your ideas, your thinking. Again, is
Speaker 1: that bad? I don't know. I don't know. I've had
Speaker 1: people around me that have been brilliant and beautiful and
Speaker 1: amazing in my life, and definitely I am a better
Speaker 1: person for bumping into them. Definitely I look at things
Speaker 1: in a healthier way because some of these people in
Speaker 1: a more critical, critical, not being bad, critical, being clear thinking,
Speaker 1: logically thinking way. Because even the awareness of oh, you know, metacognition,
Speaker 1: the idea of thinking about your thinking, I didn't even
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that was a thing. Really, like
Speaker 1: the idea of me trying to understand me was a
Speaker 1: mind fuck to me, probably until I was forty at
Speaker 1: least thirty, where it maybe opened the door a bit.
Speaker 1: But as I get older and I talk to so
Speaker 1: many people about so many things, and I see fifty
Speaker 1: people looking at the same thing, while fifty people are
Speaker 1: looking at a different thing, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: They're all looking at the same event or situation. So
Speaker 1: objectively same event, situation, circumstance, but subjectively as an interpretation,
Speaker 1: all of them are seeing in inverted commas something different
Speaker 1: despite the fact that it isn't different. So what is
Speaker 1: that about that is not good or bad? That is
Speaker 1: human trying to understand the human experience, trying to understand
Speaker 1: why you think the way that you do, What is
Speaker 1: working right, what is working and what is not working?
Speaker 1: What is literally whole holding you back? Mentally, emotionally, behaviorally, practically, financially, sociologically, professionally, financially,
Speaker 1: all of it hold what's holding you back in terms
Speaker 1: of how you think? And then what can you do
Speaker 1: about that? Question three is how can I change the
Speaker 1: way I think? How can I change the way that
Speaker 1: I think? Well, you need to first recognize if this
Speaker 1: is you, If what I'm saying you know is about
Speaker 1: you or in part about you, then you and I
Speaker 1: we need to recognize that the way that I think
Speaker 1: is an optimal, it's not optimal. It's not fucking if
Speaker 1: optimal is ten. I don't know anyone who thinks optimally
Speaker 1: by the way, I definitely don't. I might have moments
Speaker 1: of a nine or an eight, but I don't know
Speaker 1: that I ever had a ten, But how can I
Speaker 1: think closer to the ten and further from the one?
Speaker 1: How can my thinking be healthier and more productive and
Speaker 1: more calming and more solution focused? And how can my
Speaker 1: thinking be more attractive I don't mean in a weird way,
Speaker 1: but more attractive for others to be around one of
Speaker 1: the If this sounds self gratifying, I don't mean it.
Speaker 1: But one of the nicest compliments I ever get is
Speaker 1: not like, fuck, you've got good arms or whatever. That
Speaker 1: used to be on the list when I was twenty five,
Speaker 1: but these days is Craig. I love how you think.
Speaker 1: I love how you talk about stuff. I love how
Speaker 1: you think. I love how you explain things, because that's
Speaker 1: what I want to do. I want to be able
Speaker 1: to explain things to people or teach in a way
Speaker 1: that people understand. I want to get how you think. Obviously,
Speaker 1: right now i'm talking to well, eventually this will be
Speaker 1: heard by thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands of people,
Speaker 1: and so therefore I'm talking to ten different thousand, let's say,
Speaker 1: ten different thousand people who don't think the same. So
Speaker 1: my challenge is right now regarding thinking, my thinking and yours.
Speaker 1: My challenge is, how do I talk about thinking? How
Speaker 1: do I talk about metacognition? How do I talk about
Speaker 1: subjective and objective reality? How do I talk about these
Speaker 1: kind of abstract concepts in a practical way where not
Speaker 1: only people understand what I'm saying, and people who are
Speaker 1: all looking through different windows, all coming from different backgrounds,
Speaker 1: all having different beliefs and idea ideas and values and
Speaker 1: levels of cognition and function and dysfunction all of that,
Speaker 1: how do I share the message, the story, the information
Speaker 1: in a way which resonates as well as it can
Speaker 1: for as many people as it can. Right. That is
Speaker 1: a deep, deep, deep fucking dive into thinking about my thinking, metacognition,
Speaker 1: and thinking about your thinking, theory of mind, and then
Speaker 1: thinking about how you see me, the coach, the podcast
Speaker 1: or whatever the fuck you call me. Right, And we
Speaker 1: call that metabception, which is my PhD, which is trying
Speaker 1: to understand how others perceive an experience and process us.
Speaker 1: Not because we're insecure or not because we want to
Speaker 1: be liked, but we know that when I understand your
Speaker 1: version of Craig, then I can build more rapport, connection, trust,
Speaker 1: respect with you. When I understand what you see, just
Speaker 1: not what I think you see. And if we just
Speaker 1: circle around this a little bit and we realize in
Speaker 1: the moment that what you're getting from me is not
Speaker 1: what I think you're getting from me, then that gives
Speaker 1: us an in the moment awareness of oh, what are
Speaker 1: they getting, what are they thinking? How am I for them?
Speaker 1: And this is one of the most misunderstood, I believe,
Speaker 1: one of the most misunderstood and underaddressed issues in communication
Speaker 1: and teamwork and leadership and all the other things that
Speaker 1: parenting that I have no qualification to talk about I know,
Speaker 1: but I do know about humans, and I do know
Speaker 1: about talking, and I do know about building rapport and trust, etc.
Speaker 1: But when we can really start to understand ourselves, and
Speaker 1: then we can understand or start to understand how old
Speaker 1: mates think and in real time old mate that you're
Speaker 1: chatting to you to, if you can understand how he
Speaker 1: or she sees you right now, you've got a social
Speaker 1: and communication advantage not to do bad, to do good.
Speaker 1: And then if you can, on top of that lart
Speaker 1: with a bit of metaperception where you think, I kind
Speaker 1: of feel like this person sees me like this, whereas
Speaker 1: that's not the way I'm trying to be. And if
Speaker 1: you are somewhat accurate, we call that metabceptive accuracy. Then
Speaker 1: if you are somewhat accurate in that space, now you
Speaker 1: have an advantage over people, a good advantage, a social advantage,
Speaker 1: a psychological advantage in the context of this conversation, because
Speaker 1: you're thinking way more about the stuff in your head
Speaker 1: and now you have opened it up from our back
Speaker 1: and forth my sentence, your sense, my sentence, your sentence,
Speaker 1: my feelings, your feelings to something completely different. So I
Speaker 1: think I might leave it there today because I think
Speaker 1: that's enough, but just to start to think about just
Speaker 1: recapping what is your why? What is your reason? Why
Speaker 1: do you do things? And how often do you do
Speaker 1: things where you don't really recognize or think about the why.
Speaker 1: The start, we go cool, I want to do this great,
Speaker 1: That's what I know what I want. That's my goal.
Speaker 1: That's my goal. That's what I want to do that great.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you why you want to do that well,
Speaker 1: because I think this will happen when I reach that goal.
Speaker 1: I think this will be the subsequent experience or internal
Speaker 1: state or outcome or or Okay, I think it's good
Speaker 1: to question whether or not that might be true. That
Speaker 1: might be I thought when I got in shape and
Speaker 1: lean and h you know, a few muscles and that
Speaker 1: when I was young, I thought, when I got in shape,
Speaker 1: that will pretty much resolve all of my emotional and
Speaker 1: self esteem and social issues. It fucking didn't. I was
Speaker 1: just as insecure. I was just now. I was lean
Speaker 1: and strong and insecure. But the insecurity didn't go away
Speaker 1: because the insecurity was an emotional and psychological issue that
Speaker 1: I was trying to resolve with a physical outcome. Oh,
Speaker 1: my shoulders are bigger, my waist is small up, my
Speaker 1: body is leaner. Wow, all my self esteem is there
Speaker 1: and I'm not insecured, or it doesn't fucking happen, right,
Speaker 1: But if I go in and I go you know,
Speaker 1: my whata is to get in shape, and my why
Speaker 1: is because it's healthy, it's good. It might improve my
Speaker 1: confidence or not, but it's definitely something that I want
Speaker 1: to achieve for those reasons. That's cool. But also dig
Speaker 1: if your reason is not that, but your reason has
Speaker 1: got something to do with insecurity or some emotional or
Speaker 1: psychological state, maybe that's where you should start. Maybe you
Speaker 1: should start dealing with the internal stuff for the emotional
Speaker 1: and psychological. Doesn't mean don't go to the gym, doesn't
Speaker 1: mean don't go for a run, doesn't mean don't do
Speaker 1: anything for your body. But assuming that a physical outcome
Speaker 1: in this example will create a corresponding positive results on
Speaker 1: the inside just ain't true. It just ain't true. It's
Speaker 1: not automatically true anyway. And in terms of the how
Speaker 1: we think and you think and they think, just like
Speaker 1: my advice to you is think about the stuff that
Speaker 1: you believe. And this don't do all this in ten minutes,
Speaker 1: but over time, think about when you say something emphatically.
Speaker 1: I think the next thing to ask yourself is is
Speaker 1: there any chance I'm wrong? Then if there's any chance
Speaker 1: that you're wrong, then tone down the emphaticness. Whatever that
Speaker 1: verb is or noun is. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's like, and you think about if we're honest and
Speaker 1: brave and I've said this many times, but if we're
Speaker 1: honest and brave, and you think about how many times
Speaker 1: have I been wrong in the past, And the answer
Speaker 1: would be, unless you're a fucking unicorn, the answer would
Speaker 1: be thousands, maybe tens of thousands. Betting how old you are.
Speaker 1: For me, it's tens of thousands, no doubt, no doubt.
Speaker 1: I have no doubt that it's more than ten thousand
Speaker 1: times that I've been wrong little wrongs, big wrong, significant,
Speaker 1: you know, fucking like life changing wrongs, just because I
Speaker 1: assume something or made a decision based on false evidence
Speaker 1: or false information, and so I ate this way because
Speaker 1: I thought this was the best way. It turns out
Speaker 1: it wasn't. Or I trained this way, or I communicated
Speaker 1: this way, or I set up my business this way,
Speaker 1: or like trying to understand whether comes from and then
Speaker 1: gently lean into that this is not our I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: I'm an idiot. My thoughts are flawed. I'm just a
Speaker 1: fucking flawed human. That's all self pity and bullshit. You're okay,
Speaker 1: You're fucking fine. Do you fuck up? Of course you do.
Speaker 1: Do you do dumb things and say dumb things? Of
Speaker 1: course you fucking do. Do you embarrass yourself? Yes? Do
Speaker 1: you also do good things for yourself and others? Are
Speaker 1: you also kind and generous at times? Are you also caring?
Speaker 1: Do you have empathy for others? Yes? Do you also
Speaker 1: do some things that are really fucking smart? Of course
Speaker 1: you do well done. Let's put those great things aside,
Speaker 1: let's work on the other stuff. Working on weaknesses is
Speaker 1: not self loathing. It's self regulation, it's self improvement. It's
Speaker 1: literally what we're talking about. All right, team, have a
Speaker 1: good day.