Speaker 1: I'll get a team. It's HAPs happy whatever day it
Speaker 1: is for you. It's two o'clock. It's about to hit
Speaker 1: two o'clock here in the thriving metropolis of Melbourne, in
Speaker 1: the PM, of course, not the AM. It's Tuesday. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I talk about a lot
Speaker 1: when we're designing our life and we're trying to get
Speaker 1: clear about our values and who we want to be
Speaker 1: and how we want to be and what is okay
Speaker 1: for us, what is not okay for us, And when
Speaker 1: we are trying to find clarity around decision making and
Speaker 1: action taking and direction for our life or a part
Speaker 1: of our life, I talk about this idea of non negotiables,
Speaker 1: and that means based on who you want to be
Speaker 1: and how you want to be, how you want to
Speaker 1: show up in the world, what you want to do be,
Speaker 1: create and change. As I always say, what you want
Speaker 1: to do be, create and change based on that stuff,
Speaker 1: based on your values, based on your morals and ethics,
Speaker 1: and what matters to you, based on what your internal
Speaker 1: sat Nav tells you. Based on all that stuff, what
Speaker 1: for you would you call a non negotiable? And what
Speaker 1: I love about at least identifying them naming them, maybe
Speaker 1: even writing them down, committing to them, is that it
Speaker 1: increases our likelihood of living a life aligned with that who,
Speaker 1: how and why we want to be the way we
Speaker 1: want to be. And so I get asked often, you know,
Speaker 1: can you give me an example of values? Or can
Speaker 1: you give me an example of what is non negotiable
Speaker 1: for you? Can you give me an example of you know,
Speaker 1: when we talk about goal setting, the what and the why,
Speaker 1: can you unpack that a little bit? And I've done
Speaker 1: a fair bit of goal setting, and I think most
Speaker 1: of you have a pretty good insight into how I work.
Speaker 1: That is, how I think and how I live. And
Speaker 1: by the way, of course, I'm not an example for anyone.
Speaker 1: I'm flawed, and I'm a you know, sometimes I'm a
Speaker 1: fuck up and sometimes I'm not and sometimes I do
Speaker 1: good stuff and dumb stuff. But in the middle of
Speaker 1: all of my humanity, I am consistently trying to live
Speaker 1: up to my own standards and trying to live up
Speaker 1: to the ideal that I would like to be or
Speaker 1: like to be closer to. And so I want to
Speaker 1: share with you what are some of my non negotiables? Now,
Speaker 1: when I say non negotiable. I am saying my intention
Speaker 1: is for these to be absolutees on planet me. These
Speaker 1: are meant to be things that are literally non negotiable.
Speaker 1: Do I always live up to it? No? But what
Speaker 1: I like about having some clarity about the things that
Speaker 1: are for me the high watermark for me of my
Speaker 1: behavior and my decision making, and my lifestyle and the
Speaker 1: way that I treat people and the way that I communicate,
Speaker 1: the way that I, broadly speaking, do life. I like
Speaker 1: to have these. I've literally got these written down, and
Speaker 1: this is not all of it, but I've picked a
Speaker 1: dozen or so that I think some of these might
Speaker 1: resonate with you. In fact, I think for many of
Speaker 1: you a lot of them will resonate, and they might
Speaker 1: be you might want to adopt a version of these,
Speaker 1: because these are not relevant only to me. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of the ideas or the thoughts or the
Speaker 1: intentions that I share here are probably broadly relevant on
Speaker 1: a level anyway. So my non negotiable number one is
Speaker 1: to be self aware. Obviously, my PhD is around a
Speaker 1: kind of self awareness and to try to to try
Speaker 1: to understand the me experience in order to be able
Speaker 1: to build and maintain healthy and productive personal and professional relationships.
Speaker 1: So when I understand me more, I can build a
Speaker 1: high level of connection, respect, rapport, understanding, and engagement with others.
Speaker 1: But also greater self awareness for me helps me be
Speaker 1: accountable for and more conscious of the things that I
Speaker 1: am doing and whether or not those things are aligned
Speaker 1: with my higher intentions. So for me, self awareness and again,
Speaker 1: self awareness is work. Self awareness is effort. Self awareness
Speaker 1: is more than just a thing that we say me.
Speaker 1: Saying I am self aware doesn't mean I am just
Speaker 1: like me. Saying I'm in shape doesn't mean I'm in shape.
Speaker 1: I need to do the work to create the out
Speaker 1: and so too with self awareness. It is an ongoing
Speaker 1: work in progress. It is something that I commit to
Speaker 1: being and pursuing and improving. Non negotiable Number two for
Speaker 1: me is to be able to be the person or
Speaker 1: be a person who can consistently take action, do what's required,
Speaker 1: do the work in the middle of demotivation, in the
Speaker 1: middle of discomfort, in the middle of uncertainty, in the
Speaker 1: middle of inconvenience, in the middle of I don't feel
Speaker 1: like it, I don't want to do it. This is
Speaker 1: not fun, this is not painless, This is not. This
Speaker 1: is not what I want to be doing in the moment,
Speaker 1: but I know that I need to. I want to
Speaker 1: be that person so that I'm not I'm not the
Speaker 1: person who is constantly starting and stopping. I don't want
Speaker 1: to look up in ten years and goo wow, I've
Speaker 1: almost done a hundred things, but I've actually done fuck well.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be that person. And the reason
Speaker 1: that for me that needs to be a consistent kind
Speaker 1: of commitment is because I am not that person who
Speaker 1: will just magically rise to the top. I am not
Speaker 1: that gifted, highly intelligent, super creative, super brilliant overachiever. I'm
Speaker 1: not that person. And so for me to be able
Speaker 1: to be the best version of me, that's going to
Speaker 1: in part be dependent on my willingness and ability and
Speaker 1: courage and consistency to be able to do what's required
Speaker 1: to do the work, to stay the course when many
Speaker 1: people might typically give up because they're not motivated anymore
Speaker 1: or because it's hard. And so I think, this ability
Speaker 1: or this willingness, I guess to be able to find
Speaker 1: a to be proactive and productive and effective in the
Speaker 1: middle of demotivation and inconvenience and discomfort is a bit
Speaker 1: of a superpower. So number three is to have a
Speaker 1: purpose bigger than me. And I've spoken about this recently
Speaker 1: in my kind of ape step framework of you know,
Speaker 1: self reflection and self awareness and ending up in self
Speaker 1: actualization and the last step being self transcendence and all
Speaker 1: that means all it means for me anyway. For me,
Speaker 1: it means I need to have a purpose and a
Speaker 1: focus and a reason bigger than Craig Harper, because when
Speaker 1: I do that, I am better for others. I've tried selfishness.
Speaker 1: I've said this many times. I gave selfishness a good go.
Speaker 1: I still give it a good go sometimes when I'm
Speaker 1: not aware, when I'm not self aware, and I revert
Speaker 1: to that, I can revert to that. But for me,
Speaker 1: having a purpose bigger than me, a focus bigger than me,
Speaker 1: a reason bigger than me is not only is it
Speaker 1: good for others because I'm now I'm serving, but also
Speaker 1: it means that now I've got I've got a reason
Speaker 1: bigger than my own ego, my own comfort, my own happiness,
Speaker 1: and I'm becoming I'm becoming a better person by helping
Speaker 1: others rather than by trying to help myself. Constantly. Number
Speaker 1: four is you know this idea of equanimity of which
Speaker 1: we have spoken many times, and that is to be
Speaker 1: able to be the calm and the chaos. That is,
Speaker 1: to be able to find myself in the middle of
Speaker 1: what could be mental or emotional, or social or practical
Speaker 1: you know, mayhem at times, but to be able to
Speaker 1: self regulate in a way that now I am not
Speaker 1: being controlled by the energy of the situation or the
Speaker 1: chaos chaos of the situation, but rather I am I
Speaker 1: am managing me in the middle of all of the
Speaker 1: stuff that I can't manage, to be to calm in
Speaker 1: the chaos, to not be controlled or managed by the
Speaker 1: numerous manifestations of my fear, anxiety, self doubt, avoidance, procrastination, overthinking,
Speaker 1: all of that stuff that can hijack my emotions, that
Speaker 1: can hijack my brain, can literally hijack my body. And
Speaker 1: so for me, and I don't always nail it, but
Speaker 1: I have put myself in stressful and high pressure situations
Speaker 1: for most of the last forty years, taking lots of
Speaker 1: risks and getting uncomfortable on a regular basis, and doing
Speaker 1: things many, many, many things for the first time anxiously
Speaker 1: and intentionally choosing the narrow path, choosing the discomfort because
Speaker 1: for me, not always by the way, but many times,
Speaker 1: and for me I know that that's that's where I grow.
Speaker 1: And the more that I the more that I do
Speaker 1: that stuff, the more that I expose myself to that tough,
Speaker 1: that inconvenient, that uncomfortable stuff, the mayhem, the things that
Speaker 1: are out of my control. The more that I do
Speaker 1: that and survive, the more I build that competence and
Speaker 1: that skill and that calmness under pressure. And you think
Speaker 1: about life, you know, apart from all the great stuff
Speaker 1: that life can be, life can also be chaos. Life
Speaker 1: can also be terrifying. Life can also be, you know,
Speaker 1: an avalanche of shit we didn't see coming. And in
Speaker 1: the middle of the avalanche and the periodic chaos, you
Speaker 1: and I need to control what we can and ultimately
Speaker 1: that is ourselves. My next one, my next non negotiable,
Speaker 1: is to be okay with my imperfection, with my flaws,
Speaker 1: with my lack of ability, with my average genetics and
Speaker 1: my dysfunction, so that I'm not striving for perfection. I'm
Speaker 1: not miserable in the middle of my mediocrity. In fact,
Speaker 1: for me and I've said this probably a dozen times
Speaker 1: over the last few years, but for me, in some ways,
Speaker 1: my mediocrity was the catalyst for me to be able
Speaker 1: to succeed because the fact that I am not inherently
Speaker 1: super super talented or super genetically blessed or super brilliant,
Speaker 1: the fact that I'm not innately any of those things
Speaker 1: was a source of inspiration and motivation for me. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think I think if I had have been naturally
Speaker 1: just brilliant and naturally super athletic and super creative and
Speaker 1: things came very easily to me, I think if that
Speaker 1: was the reality of my childhood and early years, I
Speaker 1: think I might have been less successful than I currently
Speaker 1: am because I could be wrong, but I feel like
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't have had the discipline, the self control,
Speaker 1: the resilience, the work ethic, the mindset that I currently
Speaker 1: have that came through my mediocrity. That came through falling
Speaker 1: down and getting up, that came through being picked last
Speaker 1: for every sporting team, that came through struggling academically, that
Speaker 1: came through all the uncertainty, and so for me to
Speaker 1: be a seeker of growth and development and improvement rather
Speaker 1: than a seeker of perfection just makes it, and it's
Speaker 1: for me, and I believe for all of us, it's
Speaker 1: a much healthier objective. My next one is to be
Speaker 1: a lifelong learner, a lifelong developer of my cognitive, emotional,
Speaker 1: and creative and practical skills. That is, to just committing
Speaker 1: myself to being a forever student. And I think in
Speaker 1: terms of doing that living in alignment with that non negotiable.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm sixty one, I'm still I'm at university.
Speaker 1: That's not a bad indicator that I'm at least trying
Speaker 1: to be a lifelong learner. And for me, that ability
Speaker 1: to be able to recognize what I believe or what
Speaker 1: I have believed, or what I think that is in
Speaker 1: fact a self imposed limitation. To be willing to not
Speaker 1: only to learn new things, to try new things, to
Speaker 1: expose myself to different experiences and ideas and energy and humans,
Speaker 1: but also to be willing to unlearn the things that
Speaker 1: I have intentionally or unintentionally learned over my journey that
Speaker 1: do not serve me anymore, or perhaps never did serve me.
Speaker 1: Think about some of the things that you've learned and
Speaker 1: I put learned in inverted commas that now are hardwired
Speaker 1: beliefs or ideas or concepts in your brain that actually
Speaker 1: are a form of self sabotage. For example, all the
Speaker 1: I could never I am not this kind of person,
Speaker 1: I couldn't do that, all of that self kind of
Speaker 1: deprecating and that self limiting and that self sabotaging internal
Speaker 1: dialogue that we have as a result of you know,
Speaker 1: thinking or believe or ideas that we have acquired along
Speaker 1: the way, which actually not only are they are not
Speaker 1: serving us, but they're also for the most part, generally
Speaker 1: not true, especially when it comes to all that over
Speaker 1: the top self limitation kind of self destruction thinking. So
Speaker 1: for me to be a lifelong learner, so that whether
Speaker 1: or not that's experiential learning face to face, whether or
Speaker 1: not that's trying new things, whether that's developing new skills,
Speaker 1: having different experiences with different humans in different places, whether
Speaker 1: it's listening to people that I don't agree with but
Speaker 1: I may learn something from and in fact I may
Speaker 1: even change my mind. Whether it's learning in a more
Speaker 1: formal setting like I am currently doing with my doctorate,
Speaker 1: whether or not it's just reading nonfiction books that aren't
Speaker 1: really in my kind of I guess wheelhouse, But nonetheless
Speaker 1: it's great for me to expose myself to different stuff.
Speaker 1: Not only are there the obvious benefits of having greater understanding,
Speaker 1: greater knowledge, and greater awareness for all the practical reasons
Speaker 1: of navigating life knowing more, having better knowledge, better understanding,
Speaker 1: better awareness, but there's the biological advantage of having a
Speaker 1: brain that works better because it's constantly being upgraded, it's
Speaker 1: constantly being trained, it's constantly going to that cerebral gym
Speaker 1: and doing a workout. My next non negotiable is to
Speaker 1: be present and to be grateful, and to not waste
Speaker 1: energy on things that I can't control. And I have
Speaker 1: wasted energy, as I'm sure many of you have, maybe
Speaker 1: way way too much energy focusing on obsessing about being
Speaker 1: frustrated by complaining about things that you can't control. Now,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean we don't care. It just means that
Speaker 1: we are mindful of investing our energy, investing what we
Speaker 1: have so energy, time, emotion, skill, attention, passion resources where
Speaker 1: we will get the best return. I consciously choose not
Speaker 1: to invest me in things over which I have no control.
Speaker 1: I will control my controllables, and I will recognize my time,
Speaker 1: my emotion, my mental energy, my intelligence, my skill. I
Speaker 1: will recognize that for what it is, which is maybe
Speaker 1: my most valuable resource, and I will invest all of
Speaker 1: that stuff where I believe I'll get the best return emotional, psychological,
Speaker 1: and energetic ROI return on investment. My next non negotiable
Speaker 1: is to be able to happily coexist with the uncertainty,
Speaker 1: the unpredictability, and the unfamiliarity at times of the human experience.
Speaker 1: Is just to be able to I spoke before about
Speaker 1: being in the calm and the chaos, being the carm
Speaker 1: and the chaos, but also being able to adapt. You know,
Speaker 1: we talk about IQ intelligence, we talk about you know,
Speaker 1: or intellect. We talk about EQ. And this is not
Speaker 1: a which is emotional intelligence, but there's another term that
Speaker 1: people use or yeah, another idea which is AQ, which
Speaker 1: is adaptability quotient. And you know, considering we all live
Speaker 1: lives which have at least a part of that life
Speaker 1: that is uncertain and unpredictable. If we are the person
Speaker 1: in the middle of that life that has to have
Speaker 1: everything the same and everything known, and everything familiar and
Speaker 1: everything certain and everything predictable all of the time, we
Speaker 1: are the person who is destined to failure, because that
Speaker 1: ain't the world that we live in. You and I
Speaker 1: live in a world where maybe most of the time,
Speaker 1: most of the things that you expect to happen, or
Speaker 1: want to happen, or are comfortable happening. Maybe that's where
Speaker 1: you live. Probably not, but maybe, but even nonetheless, there
Speaker 1: will be a percentage of your life where the reality
Speaker 1: stick is going to smash you over the head with
Speaker 1: something you didn't want, you don't understand, you didn't negotiate
Speaker 1: or see coming. And in the middle of all of that,
Speaker 1: you need to figure out how you're going to move forward.
Speaker 1: And so I think the idea year of intentionally putting
Speaker 1: ourselves in different situations, having new experiences, getting out of
Speaker 1: our very very familiar groundhog day, our holding pattern of behavior,
Speaker 1: stepping out of our normal to do things that are
Speaker 1: somewhat atypical for us, something that we're not good at,
Speaker 1: something that we're not comfortable in the middle of, something
Speaker 1: where what we're doing is is unfamiliar and uncertain, to
Speaker 1: deal with that, to navigate that, and one of the
Speaker 1: many byproducts by the way, we might learn something fucking
Speaker 1: amazing and we might have a light bulb experience, by
Speaker 1: the way, But one of the many benefits of that
Speaker 1: is that now we develop that capacity for being adaptable
Speaker 1: because life requires us to adapt. In fact, how humans
Speaker 1: got here, of course, over the evolutionary timeline. You consider
Speaker 1: how small and weak we are compared to many animals
Speaker 1: in the animal kingdom. We're just another animal. We think
Speaker 1: we're smarter. That's fucking debatable. All the dumb shit that
Speaker 1: we do as a species to ourselves and to each other.
Speaker 1: So that's another podcast. Maybe the dumber species in some ways,
Speaker 1: but anyway, but being able to, over our evolutionary timeline
Speaker 1: get where we got. Three hundred thousand years or so,
Speaker 1: we've been around and here we are built everything that
Speaker 1: we've built with this somewhat phenomenal brain of ours, and
Speaker 1: so we have adapted and not just survived, but thrived
Speaker 1: for millennia. And we're going to continue to, hopefully unless
Speaker 1: we kill ourselves. That's another podcast. All right, let's do
Speaker 1: a couple more. I like this one. So another one
Speaker 1: of my non negotiables is not to be the excuse maker,
Speaker 1: not to be the rationalizer, the justifier or the blamer,
Speaker 1: and to maximize what I have to work with, but
Speaker 1: to be totally accountable for, responsible for, and take ownership
Speaker 1: of what I do. To take ownership of my choices,
Speaker 1: my behaviors, my responses, my reactions, and my outcomes. To
Speaker 1: be the author of my own story. To live consciously,
Speaker 1: to consciously write my story rather than unconsciously be a
Speaker 1: passenger in a story that my situation or circumstance is
Speaker 1: writing for me, or, in the case of some people,
Speaker 1: to be an unconscious passenger in someone else's story. My
Speaker 1: next one is to recognize, acknowledge, own up to, and
Speaker 1: work on my personal shortcomings without beating myself up, without
Speaker 1: opening the self loathing door that doesn't serve anyone. And
Speaker 1: for me to be and I try very hard to
Speaker 1: be this and do this, to be publicly authentic about
Speaker 1: my flaws, my mistakes, my fuck ups, my failures first
Speaker 1: my personal challenges, and so that we can simultaneously, you
Speaker 1: and I can simultaneous simultaneously acknowledge the things that we
Speaker 1: haven't done well or don't do well while still intentionally
Speaker 1: developing who we are and how we are through courage
Speaker 1: and conscious effort. Recognizing our issues, recognizing our own limitations
Speaker 1: and shortcomings is of little value if we're not then
Speaker 1: doing something positive to address all those things. All right,
Speaker 1: So we'll do one more. And this is a bit
Speaker 1: feel good and fluffy, but it's true and for me
Speaker 1: it's very important. And my last one for this episode anyway,
Speaker 1: is to live my life from a platform of love.
Speaker 1: And by love I mean any form of or any
Speaker 1: expression of love. By that, you know, kindness, tolerance, generosity, service, humility,
Speaker 1: you know, investing quality time in people, patience, you know,
Speaker 1: to be for me to be a positive force in
Speaker 1: the life of others. And you know, sometimes that that
Speaker 1: love is just listening to someone. Sometimes it's doing something
Speaker 1: practical for them. Sometimes it's giving someone a hug. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's donating a few dollars here or there. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: you know, I don't mean this to sound good or bad,
Speaker 1: but last week I did two gigs for an organization,
Speaker 1: which good organization, really good, really good program that they
Speaker 1: were running, and I decided it would be a good
Speaker 1: use of my time for me and hopefully for them
Speaker 1: to donate me to them, so to speak. And I
Speaker 1: do that because I think that is the right thing
Speaker 1: to do. I think that is a way of me
Speaker 1: demonstrating and expressing and serving through love. And I know
Speaker 1: that when my intention I don't always nail it, obviously,
Speaker 1: but when my intention is to come from a place
Speaker 1: of kindness and tolerance and service and generosity and love,
Speaker 1: broadly speaking, I'm a better person for me, and as
Speaker 1: I said earlier in the show, I'm a better person
Speaker 1: to be around, all right. So some of those might
Speaker 1: resonate with you or not, but you get the idea.
Speaker 1: I think it's really important that you know in the
Speaker 1: same kind of conversation as what are my values, our values,
Speaker 1: and our non negotiables, they're probably first cousins or maybe
Speaker 1: even siblings for you to think about, what are the
Speaker 1: things that for you, based on who you want to
Speaker 1: be and how you want to be, what are the
Speaker 1: things that for you day to day should be non
Speaker 1: negotiable that is just interwoven into who you are and
Speaker 1: how you are and what you do. Not the thing
Speaker 1: that you do when you're pumped or excited or in
Speaker 1: the zone, but the thing that is now part of
Speaker 1: the fabric of your day to day operating system. See
Speaker 1: you next time.