Speaker 1: A good a champions Craig Anthony Harper and young Bobby
Speaker 1: Gapuccio Capuccio even not Gabuccio from the other side of
Speaker 1: the world, over there on the West coast of the
Speaker 1: United States of America.
Speaker 2: Hi, buddy, how are you.
Speaker 3: I love it when you call me young Barby Kapuccio.
Speaker 2: Well, you're young to me, bro, so you like my
Speaker 2: little brother and from another mother on the other side
Speaker 2: of the world. And you and I a little bit.
Speaker 2: This is probably not a great way to start, but
Speaker 2: fuck it, this is real. You and I are a
Speaker 2: little bit melancholy right now because we were going to
Speaker 2: talk about another topic, which we'll do next time. But
Speaker 2: you and I were just chatting about the fact that yesterday,
Speaker 2: as we record this, it's Thursday, the twenty fifth of September,
Speaker 2: So yesterday, the twenty fourth was our two thousandth episode
Speaker 2: went live. Thank you everybody for all the feedback and
Speaker 2: the love and the best wishes. You're fucking great. We
Speaker 2: dig you even more than you dig us, So thank you.
Speaker 2: But I said to you, mate that you know January
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, and I said, one of the really interesting
Speaker 2: but kind of sad things is that since we started
Speaker 2: the show, six of our guests have passed away and
Speaker 2: you didn't even know, well, one you didn't know that
Speaker 2: stat and two you didn't know who they were. But
Speaker 2: it kind of made you really sad. And I could
Speaker 2: see in the moment like it's just and then you said,
Speaker 2: how fleeting is it? And we just like, I'm sitting
Speaker 2: here thinking we were going to talk about something else,
Speaker 2: So I thought, I think maybe we should unpacked this
Speaker 2: a little bit. But what was that reaction from you.
Speaker 3: I think there was a few layers to it, and
Speaker 3: you added to the context. I don't know, it's not
Speaker 3: my age, because I've always known this, like how fragile
Speaker 3: we all are. Yeah, and I think a lot of
Speaker 3: times when we come across as being not fragile and
Speaker 3: we come across as being in or we overproject our
Speaker 3: abilities and kind of underacknowledge of vulnerabilities. I don't know
Speaker 3: if that's existential dread and we're just we're just trying
Speaker 3: to grapple with that. But one of the people that
Speaker 3: you were talking about and how he struggled with mental
Speaker 3: illness M and how that led up to M this
Speaker 3: person losing their life. That really hit me because life
Speaker 3: is life is hard, and and yes, it's hard for everyone.
Speaker 3: But I feel like sometimes a lot of us underestimate
Speaker 3: what people with traumatic brain injuries and legitimate mental health
Speaker 3: issues go through and how hard these people try and
Speaker 3: work on themselves.
Speaker 2: Yes, and.
Speaker 3: Sometimes how difficult it is to just move forward like
Speaker 3: a millimeter.
Speaker 2: Yeah I am, without trying to sound like a bloody
Speaker 2: broken record, I apologize everyone, But the last couple of months,
Speaker 2: I've just been a bit crook, right, And one of
Speaker 2: the symptoms it has just been that my bra I
Speaker 2: felt like my brain was working at fifty percent, which
Speaker 2: terrifies me, which I spoke about the other day on here.
Speaker 2: But it's like, and just to get a little bit
Speaker 2: of an insight for me whom I feel very very lucky,
Speaker 2: very fortunate, very blessed. Like I think I have pretty
Speaker 2: good genetics in the sense that I'm not predisposed to
Speaker 2: depression or anxiety or which doesn't mean I never get
Speaker 2: a bit flat or never get a bit anxious, but
Speaker 2: for the most part. But even then, this little kind
Speaker 2: of this little phase that I was going through. I
Speaker 2: had this you know, infection in my sinuses which was
Speaker 2: affecting everything including cognitive function and mood and a whole
Speaker 2: lot of other stuff and energy and thirst and hunger
Speaker 2: and all of these boxes that it ticked. I knew
Speaker 2: that it was only for a little while, because I
Speaker 2: kind of went from great to about shit in a week,
Speaker 2: you know, But I thought, oh my god, this gives
Speaker 2: me an insight into a tiny insight into what I
Speaker 2: normally don't have real world experience myself. And yes, I've
Speaker 2: worked with lots of people with mental health issues and
Speaker 2: people with addiction issues, and people battling anxiety, depression, all
Speaker 2: of these things. But when I started personally to feel
Speaker 2: a little bit sad, a little bit disconnected, a little
Speaker 2: bit anxious, I started to think about, what if this
Speaker 2: is it? What if this doesn't get better in a
Speaker 2: week or two, what if this is my you know,
Speaker 2: I couldn't remember of things, like my brain was foggy,
Speaker 2: that that sharpness and all of that stuff that's kind
Speaker 2: of almost my tools of the trade, it was gone,
Speaker 2: And I got a bit scared, and I'm like, I
Speaker 2: hope that this is temporary, But it really gave me
Speaker 2: another dimension of understanding and empathy and awareness around, you know,
Speaker 2: like a tiny, tiny insight and I don't for one
Speaker 2: moment pretend to truly understand the depth of deep, deep
Speaker 2: depression and anxiety. But yeah, maybe it's just one of
Speaker 2: those things that you have to have a bit of
Speaker 2: it to really understand, I mean to truly personally on
Speaker 2: a cellular level, understand it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's not just an acessarliar level, because you
Speaker 3: could pick up a book and read about the neurobiology
Speaker 3: the psychology of mental illness and still not have the
Speaker 3: willingness or to project yourself into someone else's situation that's
Speaker 3: struggling with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I remember years ago, I was in my friend's
Speaker 3: office and again I'm not going to say too much
Speaker 3: because I don't want to give away who this person is,
Speaker 3: but extraordinarily successful and built like one of the coolest
Speaker 3: brands in this person's industry, and we were talking and
Speaker 3: he was just grappling with this crushing level of depression,
Speaker 3: like debilitating. And this is a this is a person
Speaker 3: who is filled with charisma, creativity, works fifteen hours a day.
Speaker 3: If you know who this person is, a lot of
Speaker 3: people have admiration for who he appears to be on
Speaker 3: the outside. And he was just saying there's nothing in
Speaker 3: my life that's wrong. Yes, like, yeah, I want to
Speaker 3: grow my business obviously, yeah, you know, I want to
Speaker 3: be like a really good dad. But there's nothing I really.
Speaker 2: Want right now.
Speaker 3: It's like things are objectively going very very well, and
Speaker 3: I am unable to even think or the slightest thing
Speaker 3: feel so hard, like going for a walk to run
Speaker 3: an errand feels like an impossibility right now. And there
Speaker 3: are people that you know, periodically they live in that reality.
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying, you know, we there are certain
Speaker 3: things that we should enable with certain people, Like you know,
Speaker 3: there's never a reason to abuse somebody or mistreat someone
Speaker 3: because you're going through something. Or I remember at a
Speaker 3: seminar not too long ago, somebody in the room, one
Speaker 3: of the one of the facilitators had had made a
Speaker 3: comment and someone's response was in an evol you know,
Speaker 3: not everybody can make changes in their life. Some of
Speaker 3: us are really struggling with mental health issues, and you know,
Speaker 3: basically I'm not capable of doing anything. So when you
Speaker 3: say that it's really insensitive, I'm like, oh my goodness,
Speaker 3: imagine what that feels like. You know, to be this person,
Speaker 3: like everybody can do something.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I like, I remember when I was in my last
Speaker 3: year of out Here High school, right, and a lot
Speaker 3: of people were well meaning telling me all the things
Speaker 3: that they could do for me, like with job placement
Speaker 3: and you know, free bus passes because I was handicapped,
Speaker 3: or I had this thing that made life harder for me.
Speaker 3: And I didn't. I didn't really feel that these people
Speaker 3: endeared themselves to me. I had a lot of resentment.
Speaker 3: And my not my first boss, but my boss, who
Speaker 3: really was my first train transformative mentor was kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you struggle with a lot of things, but if you
Speaker 3: double down on the things that you're good at, your
Speaker 3: strengths and you work really, really horrid on that, yeah
Speaker 3: you could become more and you should. And I didn't
Speaker 3: think that was insensitive. I thought that was the most
Speaker 3: liberating and inspiring thing anyone had ever said to me.
Speaker 3: I was like, this person doesn't think I'm incapable.
Speaker 2: This also capable of doing something. Yeah, but that dude
Speaker 2: knows you, right. And so it's like, I've said to
Speaker 2: you things over the years, and I love you, You're one
Speaker 2: of my favorite people, but I've said things to you
Speaker 2: in the moment that I know you fucking hate it,
Speaker 2: and you probably hated me for a day or two.
Speaker 2: And I've also probably gotten many things wrong with you
Speaker 2: over our twenty five year class friendship, but you always knew.
Speaker 2: I think that I want you to succeed. I want
Speaker 2: the best for you, you know. And that's that unreasonable
Speaker 2: friend bit. It's like everybody wants feedback until it's feedback
Speaker 2: that I want, you know, And I think that surrounding
Speaker 2: yourself with people who tell you perhaps what you want
Speaker 2: to hear or what they think they should say, is
Speaker 2: appropriate in this I get that, but it's really more
Speaker 2: debilitating than it is empowering, because when someone goes, look Bobby,
Speaker 2: I know you. I love you his By the way,
Speaker 2: and I've said this to you personally and I've said
Speaker 2: it publicly. You're one of the five smartest people that
Speaker 2: I know. And I know many people, and people would
Speaker 2: think I'd be enamored by PhDs and all these things.
Speaker 2: I'm fucking not. I think. By the way, to get
Speaker 2: a PhD, if you've got one, well done, great achievement.
Speaker 2: But knowing you and knowing your journey and your story
Speaker 2: and where you've come from and what you've dealt with
Speaker 2: and while you're still flawed and you still have issues,
Speaker 2: as do I, as does everybody, your capacity to just
Speaker 2: keep fucking adapting and solving problems and figuring shit out
Speaker 2: in the middle of all your fucking quirkiness is nothing
Speaker 2: short of fucking astounding to me, because I know what's
Speaker 2: behind the curtain, like most people see the front of
Speaker 2: the curtain, you know, and it's not that it's a show,
Speaker 2: but it's you doing you and you being the best
Speaker 2: you out you know, in that public forum where you're
Speaker 2: the teacher, the educator, the storyteller, you know, but away
Speaker 2: from that version of you, where there's been lots of
Speaker 2: stuff going on. Your capacity to be able to thrive
Speaker 2: in the middle of what most people would capitulate, I
Speaker 2: think many people like to me, that's that's very very
Speaker 2: for me, very admirable. But I think also your ability
Speaker 2: to surround yourself with people who have different kinds of
Speaker 2: skills and knowledge to you. And because you are such
Speaker 2: a great students, you're a far better student than I
Speaker 2: have ever been. Because you absorb stuff, you read it,
Speaker 2: remember it, you apply it. You learn from books, you
Speaker 2: learn from research, you learn from science, you learn from
Speaker 2: watching other humans, you know. So I don't know how
Speaker 2: I got onto this, but I just think that that
Speaker 2: capacity to be able.
Speaker 3: To go.
Speaker 2: Without self pity or self indulgence to go, yeah, my
Speaker 2: childhoo was actually pretty shit. I had a lot of challenges,
Speaker 2: but nonetheless, here I am, and so what can I
Speaker 2: do now? And I think that you know, that combination
Speaker 2: of being able to empathize with people and love people
Speaker 2: and acknowledge that their life is shit or part of
Speaker 2: it's as shit, parts of it are shit, or that
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, you have been treated badly. You I
Speaker 2: get that, I acknowledge it. I'm with you all the love,
Speaker 2: all the sympathy. What are we going to do, though? Like,
Speaker 2: what are we going to do? Though? We what action
Speaker 2: are we going to take? What decision and are we're
Speaker 2: going to make? Because I don't think you want to
Speaker 2: spend the next fifteen years just swimming around in these
Speaker 2: emotions and these fears and these anxieties about past event,
Speaker 2: you know, And that's that's that line between compassion and practicality.
Speaker 3: I think, first of all, thank you, I feel I
Speaker 3: feel really seen by you. Not to make this all
Speaker 3: warm and fuzzy, but thank you very much, you know.
Speaker 3: And second, you have said things very directly yeah to
Speaker 3: me yeah, or have told me to do something directly.
Speaker 3: And it's not like I didn't like it. I just
Speaker 3: didn't understand why I had I had to be completely
Speaker 3: undressed to have that conversation or work on that project
Speaker 3: with you.
Speaker 2: Well, I thought it was just vulnerability.
Speaker 3: It's just like, but you didn't explain that. I mean,
Speaker 3: I would all right, fair enough. Other times I think.
Speaker 2: Just when I think you're starting to get grown up
Speaker 2: and be like a little bit profound, you just open
Speaker 2: that door.
Speaker 3: Just that's I hope I never grow up like Peter
Speaker 3: Pan was right to a degree. To a degree, he
Speaker 3: was also a tragedy, but that's not what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: And there's also times when you said something to me,
Speaker 3: and what bothered me is I knew at some level
Speaker 3: you were right and that that is very irritating, just
Speaker 3: to let you know. But then I go in and
Speaker 3: think about it. There have been times where I appreciated
Speaker 3: the candor I just didn't think. I was like, Craig,
Speaker 3: you don't have the context behind this. You think you do,
Speaker 3: but you really don't. But like this morning at work,
Speaker 3: so I had launched. I had launched an initiative in
Speaker 3: my company with a group of people, and this morning
Speaker 3: I was in a meeting with one of these people.
Speaker 3: It was just just me and her, and she laid
Speaker 3: into me about about this whole thing and a couple
Speaker 3: of blind spots I had and how that impacted her.
Speaker 3: I felt so much gratitude for her in the moment.
Speaker 3: I feel like it strengthened our relationship because I have
Speaker 3: had blind spots at work or I have not processed
Speaker 3: things completely correctly, which happens. But she did something that
Speaker 3: very few people in my work and personal life would
Speaker 3: do tell me directly, and it wasn't a general thing
Speaker 3: like well, I just think you're you know, you don't
Speaker 3: think things through or you know, I think you're stupid. Great,
Speaker 3: you might be right about that, But what do I
Speaker 3: do with that? Like? What do you want to response with?
Speaker 3: So here's exactly what happened. Here was the impact, and
Speaker 3: here's why I'm upset. I'm like, oh, I can change,
Speaker 3: I can't grow based on that information. I think that
Speaker 3: in and of itself. Time back to what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: That's an act of empathy, Like she I think she
Speaker 3: part of her was not only communicating her experience, but
Speaker 3: she understood what my experience was. Is she knew what
Speaker 3: my intentions were, so it wasn't an accusation. I think sometimes,
Speaker 3: especially when we're we have all this messaging coming at
Speaker 3: us and not a lot of us sitting with each other,
Speaker 3: we really don't have the capacity to go what's it
Speaker 3: like to be that other person? I think that I
Speaker 3: think empathetic listening, not condoning, not approving of, not condemning,
Speaker 3: but just listening with the intent. What did she say today? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: with the intent not to know, but to understand, Like
Speaker 3: knowing is the enemy of understanding. I'm like, ah, wow,
Speaker 3: that's smart. It was so genius the way she put
Speaker 3: it to me, just to understand. I think so many
Speaker 3: of our problems that we create for ourselves would, if
Speaker 3: not disappear, be greatly diminished. But we really don't do that.
Speaker 3: So you can you know, you could read ten books
Speaker 3: on my bookshelf right now about the complexity of human
Speaker 3: behavior or what goes wrong when someone's struggling with their
Speaker 3: mental health. But does that give you the ability to
Speaker 3: sit with someone and really try to understand rather than
Speaker 3: arriving at a conclusion about why somebody does things the
Speaker 3: way they do it, or don't do things that you
Speaker 3: think they should be doing. I think that's about as
Speaker 3: useful as trying to become an Olympic downhill skier by
Speaker 3: reading books on the biomechanics and aerodynamics of skiing. You're
Speaker 3: going to get on the black double diamond and die
Speaker 3: it in no way prepares you. You've got to get
Speaker 3: on the slopes if you have to sit with people,
Speaker 3: even when it's uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: When you're talking before about your friend that you knew
Speaker 2: that is super successful, you know, very accomplished. People knew him,
Speaker 2: know him, look look up to him. It kind of
Speaker 2: for me I was thinking about, like because when and
Speaker 2: I'm generalizing here, this is not everybody, but I think
Speaker 2: this is pretty representative of We grow up in a
Speaker 2: kind of a a thought bubble or a culture that
Speaker 2: says that success is about what everyone can see. You know,
Speaker 2: what you have, what you earn, what you own, what
Speaker 2: you drive, where you live, what people think you your brand,
Speaker 2: your money, your business, your career, your stratospheric bloody rise,
Speaker 2: you know all of that, your academic credibility, all that
Speaker 2: stuff right, all the scene stuff. So and you know,
Speaker 2: you can have your friend, and I've had lots of friends,
Speaker 2: and there have been moments when I've been moderately successful,
Speaker 2: I guess, and in the middle of my moderate success,
Speaker 2: my situation is good, but my experience is shit. Like.
Speaker 2: So there's this juxtaposition between a person's life situation, which
Speaker 2: from the outside looking in is a Disney movie, it's
Speaker 2: a Hollywood episode of something, but the experience for the individual.
Speaker 2: So the inner world, you know, thoughts, feelings, emotions, joy, pain, pleasure, sadness, euphoria, disconnection, confusion,
Speaker 2: like this internal world that we really live in versus
Speaker 2: the external world that we kind of inhabit. You know that,
Speaker 2: you know, there's that we base so much of what
Speaker 2: we think is good or bad or successful or desirable
Speaker 2: on what we see people doing. Oh look at her,
Speaker 2: she's in great shape. He's in great shape. Her career
Speaker 2: is flourishing. Oh she's all over this and that, or
Speaker 2: he's making that, or he's built this business, or she's
Speaker 2: built this brand, or she's in this incredible relationship. And
Speaker 2: I understand all of that because that's part of the
Speaker 2: human experience too, But nobody's looking across the room going
Speaker 2: look at her. She looks really really calm. She doesn't
Speaker 2: look anxious at all, Like, and I've spoken to her,
Speaker 2: like she's just really she's not particularly ambitious, but fuck
Speaker 2: she's happy. Huh. And she doesn't even have a to
Speaker 2: do list. She's just calm, you know, she's just like
Speaker 2: we aren't having those conversations because at least externally, we
Speaker 2: don't seem to value what's got like let's say, emotional wealth,
Speaker 2: spiritual wealth, social wealth, intellectual or not intellectual, but perhaps
Speaker 2: mental wealth. You know, like all of these things which
Speaker 2: really determine our human experience to a larger extent than
Speaker 2: what the fuck we drive or where the fuck we live,
Speaker 2: or what people think of our latest post on Instagram.
Speaker 2: Craig Harper, you know, like I think that that's that
Speaker 2: we live in a mindset, or a collective mindset and
Speaker 2: culture that is always looking at the external, if not
Speaker 2: obsessed with the external while trying to Yeah we should
Speaker 2: talk about mental health more, and yeah we should, but
Speaker 2: it's it doesn't seem like that we really value it
Speaker 2: until something goes wrong.
Speaker 3: That's the thing. We do value it. We value it
Speaker 3: when we're sick or someone we love is very sick.
Speaker 3: We value it when we're on our deathbed. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: the like the Five Top Regrets of the Dying that
Speaker 3: was a beautiful and tragic book to read, but but
Speaker 3: also hopeful, and we value it at a funeral, like
Speaker 3: the stuff people talk about at funerals is the stuff
Speaker 3: that really makes your life matter in the end. But
Speaker 3: but then we go back to doing the It's almost
Speaker 3: like somebody wrote us a playbook on how to be
Speaker 3: miserable and struggle through self inflicted wounds, and we're following.
Speaker 3: We're following that rule book to the t. And and
Speaker 3: when we catch ourselves like getting off of it and
Speaker 3: actually doing something that connects us to something we care
Speaker 3: about as someone we care about, it's like, oh wait,
Speaker 3: I got to get back to following this thing. But
Speaker 3: the way we're told to live, so much of it
Speaker 3: is making us sick. It's making us sick physically, it's
Speaker 3: making us sick mentally. If something makes you sick, it's
Speaker 3: out of harmony with nature. It's not a good philosophy.
Speaker 3: Something that makes you well is in harmony with nature.
Speaker 3: It's probably a good ideology that's producing those practices. I
Speaker 3: mean that for me should be but I guess I'm
Speaker 3: not smart enough all the time. But it should be
Speaker 3: a litmus test. Is this thought I'm having, is this
Speaker 3: thing I'm about to do? Is this exchange I'm having?
Speaker 3: Is it making me well or is it making me sick?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And you know, sometimes you're in sickening situations and you
Speaker 3: got to deal with them. But what's the pattern? Is
Speaker 3: this the same thing I was doing yesterday and the
Speaker 3: day before that and the day before that having this thought.
Speaker 3: I've just had conversations over the past week that have
Speaker 3: been a massive punch in the face in a really
Speaker 3: good way, Like it just snapped me out of something.
Speaker 3: And when my head snapped back, I was able to
Speaker 3: get a look at a different vantage point and go, oh,
Speaker 3: my goodness, this is not accurate at all.
Speaker 2: And I think zooming out from the micro of what
Speaker 2: I'm feeling and what's going on in this moment. Like
Speaker 2: just to like a question for all of our listeners,
Speaker 2: I would go, here's just a question to think about
Speaker 2: what's going great in my life and what's not going great?
Speaker 2: Like what am I currently doing that doesn't work? Like,
Speaker 2: don't overthink that, just brainstorm write that on a bit
Speaker 2: of paper. What am I currently doing that doesn't work?
Speaker 2: Am I moving in the direction I want to move in?
Speaker 2: No judgment, no hate, no self flow, just trying to
Speaker 2: open the awareness s dooor like, if I continue on
Speaker 2: my current trajectory with my career, with my habits, my behaviors,
Speaker 2: my health, my lifestyle, if I kind of stay on
Speaker 2: the path I'm on in two years, am I going
Speaker 2: to be better or worse? Like if I'm being real
Speaker 2: big and brave putting on my big boy pants in
Speaker 2: two years, if I stay on my current trajectory with
Speaker 2: those things, will my life be better or worse? And
Speaker 2: then if the answer is better, we'll fucking giddy up,
Speaker 2: keep going, well done, see you next episode. If it's not,
Speaker 2: that's cool, then try to break that down a little bit.
Speaker 2: What am I currently doing which is essentially a form
Speaker 2: of self sabotage? What am I currently doing which is
Speaker 2: a form of wasting my own talent and potential? What
Speaker 2: am I doing that is counterproductive to who and how
Speaker 2: I want to be? I think these are more global questions,
Speaker 2: and then we can kind of hone in, you know,
Speaker 2: and go, well, you know, I guess a very very
Speaker 2: obvious one is I look at a screen fucking ten
Speaker 2: hours a day. Now, some of that is unavoidable, but
Speaker 2: how much how many hours a day do you look
Speaker 2: at a screen where you probably don't have to? And
Speaker 2: I know this is probably over talked about, but or
Speaker 2: it might be, how many hours a day do you
Speaker 2: spend sitting again, not self loathing, your self awareness? Cool?
Speaker 2: Well could you walk? Could you walk and work? Could
Speaker 2: you stand and work a little bit? Could you? Like?
Speaker 2: What a Let's try and solve a few problems. Let's
Speaker 2: not wake up in a minute and go, oh fuck,
Speaker 2: it's five years. It's five years since I heard Craig
Speaker 2: and Bobby on that podcast. It's five years and I'm
Speaker 2: doing the same dumb shit, but I'm producing worse results. Like,
Speaker 2: at some stage we need to get fucking proactive and
Speaker 2: intentional and step out of the theory of the podcast
Speaker 2: and the idea and the workshop and the book and
Speaker 2: the fucking research and we need to go, well, I'm
Speaker 2: doing it now. I'm doing something. It might not be optimal,
Speaker 2: but I'll figure it out as I go, because this
Speaker 2: is the For me, the ever present challenge has always
Speaker 2: been not what do I know? But what do I
Speaker 2: do with what? I know, and what am I producing
Speaker 2: with that activity, with that action, Because I think there
Speaker 2: comes a point where even you know, you could have
Speaker 2: the best podcaster in the world, you could have the
Speaker 2: best corporate speaker, or the best author, all the best
Speaker 2: you know, but if all the people that are hearing, listening,
Speaker 2: watching reading are not doing something constructive with that, assuming
Speaker 2: that everyone who listens to this wants to change something,
Speaker 2: then we're just fucking We're just bouncing sounds off the
Speaker 2: wall and living in a holding pattern.
Speaker 3: This is gonna be very This is very interesting what
Speaker 3: you're saying. I don't know if you're experiencing this shift
Speaker 3: in the organizations that you work with, but I know
Speaker 3: if you were to name three top requests that they
Speaker 3: get in the organizations I work with, it is burnout. Yeah,
Speaker 3: managing stress and resilience more than anything else. Now, how
Speaker 3: that shows up and what's causing that, and what are
Speaker 3: deliverables and our strategy is in response that. That's that's
Speaker 3: very different. That's a case by case thing, but the
Speaker 3: requests are always coming around those three, like eighty percent
Speaker 3: of the time. So I was at a coaching course
Speaker 3: and I was sitting down with a friend and colleague
Speaker 3: of mine, and he's a doctor at Yale University and
Speaker 3: he leads and develops trains teams of doctors. And he
Speaker 3: was saying that you know, in the medical field, burnout
Speaker 3: is it's catastrophic, and it's increasing steadily. And he said
Speaker 3: that you would think it's the physicians that have been
Speaker 3: practicing for decades that are experiencing the most amount of
Speaker 3: burnout because they've been at it longer, they've been dealing
Speaker 3: with this stuff longer, but it's not. It's brand new
Speaker 3: physicians are at much of a risk of this and
Speaker 3: they're reporting mptoms of burnout as much as anybody else.
Speaker 3: They said that two things that he's noticed that isn't
Speaker 3: a not saying causes it, but exacerbates burnout is the inability,
Speaker 3: as he put it, to look out into the horizon,
Speaker 3: so to see something being better off in a future date.
Speaker 3: And the second thing is lack of agency. It is
Speaker 3: this sense of learned helplessness that no matter how hard
Speaker 3: I work, no matter how many difficult conversations I have,
Speaker 3: no matter what I advocate for who I advocate for,
Speaker 3: things are just not going to get better here. And
Speaker 3: one of the things that we Deliver on burnout is
Speaker 3: a workshops in training around habit development and behavior change.
Speaker 3: Now why that's like, how is developing a habit gonna
Speaker 3: help me with burnout? I mean, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: complexity around it, but this particular workshop works because if
Speaker 3: you were if you were trying to develop a habit,
Speaker 3: there's something out there in the future that is divorced
Speaker 3: from everything I'm struggling with today that you're conceptualizing can
Speaker 3: be better. Otherwise, why would I do the work of
Speaker 3: developing a habit and I want it to be better?
Speaker 3: I'm getting clear about why I want it to be better.
Speaker 3: And when you're executing on developing a habit, you are
Speaker 3: exercising agency in the moment around something that is that
Speaker 3: bridge to where you are and a point in time
Speaker 3: in the future where things are better. So it's the
Speaker 3: visualization of something that's important to you and how it
Speaker 3: shows up in the future. And it's the daily exercise
Speaker 3: of agency. So that really matters. Like what you're saying,
Speaker 3: get out and do something, and it doesn't have to
Speaker 3: be a lot. I got to accomplish this big thing.
Speaker 3: Let me just do something different. What is it they
Speaker 3: can do? An action that they could take that will
Speaker 3: observably move the needle on my life that is so
Speaker 3: important to kind of combat learned helplessness.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, fuels.
Speaker 3: The read it which we experience burnout.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think. I mean at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: you know, you do a lot of corporate stuff. I
Speaker 2: do a lot of corporate stuff and had a really
Speaker 2: interesting conversation. Somebody reached out to me yesterday and it
Speaker 2: doesn't normally work like this, but it came through a messenger,
Speaker 2: and I don't normally respond to those things much because
Speaker 2: if somebody wants to talk about me doing some corporate work,
Speaker 2: it goes anyway through Melissa, and it goes through the website,
Speaker 2: and it goes through this back and anyway. This lady,
Speaker 2: when I'm not sure how it works and where do
Speaker 2: I reach out I want to talk to you about
Speaker 2: or I want to talk about the possibility of anyway,
Speaker 2: I said, well, I'm here, you got me, So it
Speaker 2: normally doesn't work this way, but do you want to
Speaker 2: have a ten minute phone call or zoom call? And
Speaker 2: I said, and she went yep, So we jumped on zoom.
Speaker 2: So it was quite unorganized, quite impromptu. Anyway, lovely lady.
Speaker 2: I won't mention who or what, but very big company,
Speaker 2: like very big company. So it was quite weird that
Speaker 2: it was such a casual kind of opening of the door.
Speaker 2: Normally it would be a lot more kind of official
Speaker 2: and efficient and whatever. Anyway, we're having this chat and
Speaker 2: she was talking about the issues and obviously no one
Speaker 2: knows who this lady is or the organization, so it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter. But just a lot of stuff, a lot
Speaker 2: of in house. They've had lots of change and lots
Speaker 2: of pain and so there's let's just say, the stuff
Speaker 2: that you've been talking about, but also a fair bit
Speaker 2: of discontent and the culture has probably taken a bit
Speaker 2: of a left turn where it's not as great as
Speaker 2: it was, and there's a fair bit of work to
Speaker 2: be done, like nothing that's insurmountable, but stuff to be done. Anyway,
Speaker 2: said to me, like we've got this thing in November.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about bringing you in to do you know,
Speaker 2: one or two hour of this or that, and I said, okay,
Speaker 2: one and this is after I'd like, there's a lot
Speaker 2: more to it than what I've shared, but there's a
Speaker 2: fair bit going on that ain't going to be fixed
Speaker 2: in an hour or even a day, or probably even
Speaker 2: a month, right, And I said, okay, so certainly I
Speaker 2: can come in. I can do a one hour keynote,
Speaker 2: or I can do a two hour short workshop, and
Speaker 2: I can go, Biby Bobby Boo, charge you a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of money, and it'll be pretty good and they'll
Speaker 2: probably like it, and I'll get well paid and you'll go.
Speaker 2: He came, and he did his job. I go. But truly,
Speaker 2: there is not a speaker in the world that you
Speaker 2: can bring in that can talk for one or two
Speaker 2: hours that's going to completely reinvent the culture in your organization.
Speaker 2: And we're talking about now, whether it's me or someone else.
Speaker 2: I said, So what I can do is I can
Speaker 2: do that, and we can just open the conversation and
Speaker 2: try to keep people on side and create a good
Speaker 2: experience and then talk about you know, this this is
Speaker 2: an ongoing and whether it's with somebody else or whether
Speaker 2: it's with another team or whether it's with me, I
Speaker 2: don't care. I'm not trying to sell you anything, but
Speaker 2: these are things that you know, if there's a significant problem,
Speaker 2: we can't wheel someone in and go, look, here's the problem.
Speaker 2: This is how we fix it. I'm Craig harpas you
Speaker 2: next time, and some of these things just need to
Speaker 2: be worked through in an ongoing way where we need
Speaker 2: to keep coming back and going. You know, what's working here?
Speaker 2: What's not working? Like, what are the key problems and
Speaker 2: issues that we're having, what's the origin story of that?
Speaker 2: And this is the you know, whether or not it's
Speaker 2: professional development, personal development, self help, behavior or psychology coming
Speaker 2: in the form of a podcast with you and me,
Speaker 2: or it's through a program provided by some providers. In
Speaker 2: the corporate space, there is no magic fucking pill. And
Speaker 2: this is the problem is that people love selling and
Speaker 2: buying magic pills in inverted commas. But the truth is
Speaker 2: that real change, like inside out corporate organizational change, individual
Speaker 2: personal change, it's just something that we've got to just
Speaker 2: keep chipping away at. I mean, how long have you
Speaker 2: been in the space and you're still working on you.
Speaker 2: I'm still working on me. I think I'm better at
Speaker 2: many things than I was. I still think I have
Speaker 2: a long way to go on many other things. But
Speaker 2: this is the thing is that it's like theory is great,
Speaker 2: knowledge is great, understanding awareness is great. But until we
Speaker 2: are consistently doing something with that, we're going to keep
Speaker 2: inhabiting a space, be that financially, practically, personally, professionally, emotionally,
Speaker 2: physiologically that we don't want to be in because all
Speaker 2: we do is fucking listen to stuff and read stuff,
Speaker 2: but we're not consistently working through it.
Speaker 3: So something happened to me. Nothing happened to me. It
Speaker 3: was a conversation I had that was a little bit
Speaker 3: dramatic leading that was another meeting, not like I just
Speaker 3: want to hash out my entire work day on the podcast.
Speaker 3: I don't think too many people are interested in that,
Speaker 3: but it's relevant. So I was talking to one of
Speaker 3: my colleagues and a different colleague, and she had said
Speaker 3: that an organization she was speaking to was concerned because
Speaker 3: bullying is becoming quite an issue in some communities, which
Speaker 3: is not new, but they were concerned about it. And
Speaker 3: you know, she was asking me if I would be
Speaker 3: able to help out.
Speaker 2: In any way.
Speaker 3: Now, obviously you know I'm not a psychologist, but where
Speaker 3: I did feel that I could have input was as
Speaker 3: someone who has gone through it. And I think if
Speaker 3: you're if you're talking to staff, and especially if you're
Speaker 3: talking to kids. It's not like, oh, here's my theory
Speaker 3: on bullying versus you know, I've been where you are today. Yeah,
Speaker 3: my bullying was quite severe. I mean as a kid
Speaker 3: growing up in like Coney Island, Brooklyn, you know Tourette's
Speaker 3: disfigured face. My clothes were old by a couple of years,
Speaker 3: so they didn't fit me very well. Yeah, there was
Speaker 3: a lot of material there. And it's not just that
Speaker 3: I want to help them, which I really do. This
Speaker 3: is something that I feel serious about, but it helps
Speaker 3: me as well because when we're talking about getting moving
Speaker 3: and using what you're learning and taking action. When it's like, okay,
Speaker 3: how can I use this, your story goes from oh,
Speaker 3: all this kind of stuff happened to me to contradict
Speaker 3: something I said earlier, So get ready that there's a
Speaker 3: contradiction coming, Yes, but it changes it to this laid
Speaker 3: the foundations for me being able to do something or
Speaker 3: somebody that I probably wouldn't have known was a problem
Speaker 3: or I wouldn't have been able to do to the
Speaker 3: same degree had it not happen. So this has developed
Speaker 3: me into pursuing this purpose. So I'm not a victim.
Speaker 3: At the other end of it I was shaped as
Speaker 3: a result of it, which I personally feel is so
Speaker 3: much more empowering. And when it's like, Okay, what am
Speaker 3: I reading? What seminars am I going to? Why? Like
Speaker 3: why am I doing this? Versus going to a culinary
Speaker 3: workshop to learn how to bake a cake? People love cakes?
Speaker 3: Why don't I do that? Because obviously there's something that's
Speaker 3: resonant here, there's something I value. So using it, even
Speaker 3: utilizing these tools imperfectly, I think, allows us to change
Speaker 3: our internal narrative and our story about what has happened
Speaker 3: versus who we are and who we're becoming. You know,
Speaker 3: I mean looking back for less is great and trying
Speaker 3: to extrapolate them. But if we spend more time looking
Speaker 3: in the rear of your mirror, I know I've been
Speaker 3: guilty of this than looking what's in front of us,
Speaker 3: We're probably going to crash. That's dangerous. So a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff that you're saying, I think is not only
Speaker 3: important for our growth and development and whatever quote unquote
Speaker 3: success how that shows up, I think it's really important
Speaker 3: for the experience we have being us day to day.
Speaker 2: And I think the beauty of your journey, right is
Speaker 2: that when you talk about bullying, when you talk about
Speaker 2: being marginalized, when you talk about dealing with adversity of adversity,
Speaker 2: when you talk about being the outcast, and all of
Speaker 2: those things, you are literally speaking experientially. You are speaking
Speaker 2: from a place of I actually not your version, but
Speaker 2: I've had my own version of this. So this is
Speaker 2: It's like when I talk about childhood obesity to people like, go,
Speaker 2: I'm not talking as an excise scientist. I'm talking as
Speaker 2: an ex fat kid who had a pretty hard fucking time.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I can talk to you about, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of the science of whatever, but I can also
Speaker 2: talk to you as a person who just went through
Speaker 2: what your kid's going through, or a version of what
Speaker 2: your kid's going through. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like people with addiction issues tend to gravitate towards
Speaker 2: people who were clean and sober who had an addiction issue.
Speaker 2: They're going to listen to them more than they're going
Speaker 2: to listen to me, because what the fuck do I know?
Speaker 2: Because I've never had a beer, and I couldn't understand
Speaker 2: and I understand that perspective. You know, if I want
Speaker 2: to train for one hundred mile race, not that I do,
Speaker 2: but I would rather work with someone that's done one
Speaker 2: hundred mile race than an excise physiologist who theoretically understands
Speaker 2: the hundred mile race but has never run more than
Speaker 2: five miles. Like, let me go work with that girl
Speaker 2: or that guy who's done the race, who's been through
Speaker 2: the psychological, mental, physical bullshit, who's been to the fucking
Speaker 2: wall and back. I want to talk to them because
Speaker 2: I want to understand what they understand, or I at
Speaker 2: least want to benefit from their understanding. Versus Brian, who
Speaker 2: God blessed Brian. But all Brian does is bench press
Speaker 2: and fucking you know, squat but he's never but he
Speaker 2: doesn't run, but he's technically qualified, you know. So I
Speaker 2: think there's something to be said for both, you know,
Speaker 2: the intersection of scientific knowledge and understanding storytelling and also
Speaker 2: real world experience so that you can you can share
Speaker 2: from a place that a lot of people cannot share from.
Speaker 2: I can't. I can't have the insight and do not
Speaker 2: have the insight into a lot of things that you
Speaker 2: do because I haven't been where you've been, you know.
Speaker 2: So I would defer to you. I would go I
Speaker 2: could give you my thoughts, but they're just my thoughts.
Speaker 2: But you can talk to Bobby. You're going to get thoughts, insights,
Speaker 2: and real world experience. So go there. And I think
Speaker 2: that's what compels many people who like, how many people
Speaker 2: do you and I know who were not in good
Speaker 2: shape then they got in good shape, then they became
Speaker 2: a trainer, or people who battled psychological stuff and then
Speaker 2: went to UNI and studied psychology. You know, it's like
Speaker 2: it's very, very common that there's an origin story that
Speaker 2: kind of explains quite clearly why people are doing what
Speaker 2: they're doing now, and it's not because that just happened
Speaker 2: to be the course they got into, you know. So
Speaker 2: I think that real world awareness and emotion and that
Speaker 2: journey that you've been on, I think in many ways
Speaker 2: that's more empowering than necessarily the dude or the lady
Speaker 2: who's a psychologist talking about the theory of something.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I think you said it earlier. Both
Speaker 3: absolutely matter. Like I want to run a marathon and
Speaker 3: I know a physiologist who's willing to work with me
Speaker 3: on that training program. That physiologist is exceedingly valuable, but
Speaker 3: where their expertise ends is mile nineteen when I have
Speaker 3: here a psychological and physical wall and my body is
Speaker 3: just not responding. I just cannot move. What do you
Speaker 3: do in that situation? How do I finish that race?
Speaker 3: That is not something the physiologists can get you through.
Speaker 2: You need someone who.
Speaker 3: Has been there at that point, Yes, and finish and
Speaker 3: finished that matter. Yes, that's what you need. I think
Speaker 3: that's where you know people's stories matter, and you know
Speaker 3: everybody's got something. And the more we can utilize, you know,
Speaker 3: something that has happened to us to lift up somebody else,
Speaker 3: I think the better will be not to mention the
Speaker 3: world because I think a lot of people are struggling,
Speaker 3: and I don't know if they don't care because they're struggling,
Speaker 3: or they're struggling because they simply do not care. Because
Speaker 3: the truth of the matter is the majority of people
Speaker 3: do not give a toss what you're going through or
Speaker 3: what happened to you or your trauma. They might say
Speaker 3: they do, and you'll see this where people are so
Speaker 3: invested in caring empathetically for people who they will never
Speaker 3: meet and they don't know their name, but when somebody
Speaker 3: very close to them is struggling with that, they don't
Speaker 3: have the same level of empathy.
Speaker 2: That's interesting.
Speaker 3: The scientific term for that is full of shit. But yeah,
Speaker 3: if we care in even very small ways, you're not
Speaker 3: not saving the world, but really showing up for people.
Speaker 3: And like I have read comments where because we've discussed this,
Speaker 3: I've been very open about this. I watch a lot
Speaker 3: of cat videos. I miss my cats. I haven't seen them,
Speaker 3: I do. I do watch cat videos. I have seen
Speaker 3: people say the the worst things to each other on
Speaker 3: the internet over do you prefer cats or dogs?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so all the things that.
Speaker 3: We divide over when we consider somebody else to be
Speaker 3: the quote unquote other, like like even something like a
Speaker 3: cat versus a dog, people become vile And you got
Speaker 3: to ask yourself, Wow, what is it like to be
Speaker 3: this person who just said all of those seriously disgusting
Speaker 3: things over nothing? Because somebody you know likes cats more
Speaker 3: than dogs, or you know they prefer persian over a
Speaker 3: domestic short hair, that person's life sucks. You can tell
Speaker 3: me how happy you were what I said.
Speaker 2: Do you know why too much about cats? But I
Speaker 2: ain't about cats or dogs. It's about the person. It's
Speaker 2: it's about what is underneath that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, versus someone who is empathetic and does really care,
Speaker 3: not overly empathetic to where you know, I'm struggling with
Speaker 3: my emotional state and I can't act compassionately in any degree.
Speaker 3: But I think when you care, you're a beneficial area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's another conversation that will have another day.
Speaker 2: But that is how do I say this without being Okay?
Speaker 2: So I know a few people, and I've known a
Speaker 2: few people. I'll give you one without I don't think
Speaker 2: anyone from this time in my life listens to this
Speaker 2: because it's way too inappropriate for them. But I used
Speaker 2: to know a guy quite well, his dad, or he
Speaker 2: was one of my mates. His dad was a preacher, pastor,
Speaker 2: and his dad was so loving, so compassionate, so amazing
Speaker 2: with everyone in his church, but complete shit with his
Speaker 2: own children. Like he was like the neglectful, unavailable dad
Speaker 2: to his own kids, but to everyone else he was this,
Speaker 2: And I'm like, what is that about? Like, and he
Speaker 2: was genuinely what seemed to be genuinely kind and compassionate
Speaker 2: for his flock, but to his own kids like donuts,
Speaker 2: I'm like, what is that about? What is that about?
Speaker 2: The unavailable dad? Who's available to everyone except his own
Speaker 2: actual family. And yeah, I struggled with that, dude. I
Speaker 2: still don't really like that. Dude. I probably should, but yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a thing too, Like I think people like pak,
Speaker 2: yeah there is Hey, you.
Speaker 3: Think, well, what do you think people like? You just
Speaker 3: say people like and I cut you off rudely, just
Speaker 3: rudely jumped in there.
Speaker 2: Ah right, Sorry, I feel like I've just had four
Speaker 2: beers and I'm trying to catch up and I've never
Speaker 2: had a beer. Well, I think people like being seen
Speaker 2: to be the guy or the girl that's this or that.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, look at me, I'm the caring, loving
Speaker 2: and it's almost like a brand. It's almost like a persona.
Speaker 2: He's the loving pastor and by the way, most most
Speaker 2: that I've met are pretty real deal, by the way,
Speaker 2: but yeah, like, from the outside looking in, this is that.
Speaker 2: But behind closed doors, he treated his kids like shit.
Speaker 2: And I know because I was there and one of
Speaker 2: his kids was one of my mates. And I'm like,
Speaker 2: fucking hell, you're like two people. If the people at
Speaker 2: church saw this, you you wouldn't have a church.
Speaker 3: So I was about to say, you know, I don't
Speaker 3: know who this guy is and I don't know why,
Speaker 3: and I'm not calling him a narcissist, and I'm not I.
Speaker 2: Think definitely doesn't sound like it.
Speaker 3: Narcissists. That's a word. That's a label that is used
Speaker 3: far too often, and it's and sometimes it's used by
Speaker 3: people who just happened to bump into a lot of narcissists.
Speaker 3: A little a little bit of introspection might be necessary there,
Speaker 3: but we we hear it and we see it all
Speaker 3: too often. Where somebody wants to be praised, somebody wants
Speaker 3: to be admired so outwardly, they're charming, they're lovely, they're
Speaker 3: just the sweetest, kindest person. But with certain people that
Speaker 3: they don't require their admiration, well, there's nothing that person
Speaker 3: can do for them. They are absolutely brutal. Yeah, And
Speaker 3: and things happen to their relationships that are very unusual
Speaker 3: and and very tragic, and they have a very different explanation.
Speaker 3: It's never them, it's always someone else. So I think
Speaker 3: that's something we need to like. That's something that's curious
Speaker 3: with people where the people that are closest to you
Speaker 3: and you're supposed to love and you abuse them. But
Speaker 3: to everybody else on the outside superficially you're amazing. Maybe not.
Speaker 2: I think also like a little bit of self awareness
Speaker 2: will finish on this. But for me, I have to
Speaker 2: be I'm I think about that guy sometimes and then
Speaker 2: I think, am I a version of that? Am I?
Speaker 2: Am I? Am I the on the podcast? Am I?
Speaker 2: The positive? Am I? This? Am I? That? Then away
Speaker 2: from and I try, you know, I'm sure, I'm sure
Speaker 2: there is some disparity sometimes, but I tried very hard
Speaker 2: not to be a version of that. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think because I had that role model with an asterisk
Speaker 2: next to it, it just gave me a level of
Speaker 2: awareness around, oh this is so I so don't want
Speaker 2: to be that dude, because because I saw a side
Speaker 2: of him that most of his you know, parishioners or
Speaker 2: you know, congregants never saw, which was like so diametrically
Speaker 2: opposed to what people thought. So anyway, that's enough. Hey,
Speaker 2: let's let's do better, shall we? All of us? Bobby?
Speaker 2: Where can people find you? Follow you, connect with you
Speaker 2: other than the You project once a week or thereabouts.
Speaker 3: The self help antidote dot com, Robert Capuccio dot com, LinkedIn.
Speaker 2: I have a question for you, just before we go,
Speaker 2: somebody asked me, does like where where does Bobby live?
Speaker 2: So they probably didn't listen too hard, but I said,
Speaker 2: and I think they thought you traveled a fair bit,
Speaker 2: which he does. If people want to work with you, companies,
Speaker 2: even Australian companies, you can work with them on Zoom, right,
Speaker 2: so you can do Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm I'm, I'm, I'm I'm becoming fully acclimated to
Speaker 3: the twenty first century. Finally, I'm very zoom proficient.
Speaker 2: Speaks for me.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe very, maybe very is an embellishment, but yes,
Speaker 3: I'm zoom proficient. I do a lot of work on zoom.
Speaker 2: Let's go somewhat super proficient.
Speaker 3: Alright, mate, I'll see you next week, buddy, Bye mate,
Speaker 3: Bye everyone,