Speaker 1: I get our to him, I hope you're bloody terrific,
Speaker 1: welcome to another installment, and that you project. And when
Speaker 1: I say that, you project kind of So as you know,
Speaker 1: I go on other podcasts and sometimes I do an
Speaker 1: interview or have a conversation with someone else on their show.
Speaker 1: I really enjoy it. I think it's high value conversation,
Speaker 1: and so with their permission, we kindly do what's called
Speaker 1: a co share, and that happens both ways. Sometimes people
Speaker 1: are on my show, I interview them, and then they
Speaker 1: take that episode back to their show for want of
Speaker 1: a better term, and then they share that with audience.
Speaker 1: We call that a co share. So recently, with all
Speaker 1: that in mind, recently I was on Andrew May's podcast
Speaker 1: which is called Performance Intelligence, the Performance Intelligence Podcast, and
Speaker 1: here's a bloody gun. He's a slightly better version of me.
Speaker 1: I'm being honest. Maybe I guess, I'll let you decide,
Speaker 1: But anyway, he's brilliant. Loved him him, loved our conversation.
Speaker 1: And because of that, look, there will also be if
Speaker 1: you're very familiar with me and my stuff, there'll be
Speaker 1: a fair bit of familiarity about the conversation. So feel
Speaker 1: free to have a bit of a squizze and see
Speaker 1: whether or not you want to keep going. You might
Speaker 1: not want to because there'll be some repetition, but we
Speaker 1: do cover new ground. He's a good interviewer. He also
Speaker 1: shares his own thoughts and ideas which are really worth
Speaker 1: listening to. But before you listen to it, I want
Speaker 1: to tell you that next weekend, as I'm recording this
Speaker 1: and recording this Sunday to be up Monday, So next
Speaker 1: weekend being August the eighteenth, I'm going to be in
Speaker 1: Bendigo doing my Understanding You workshop. Understanding You it's brand
Speaker 1: new workshop, new content, a bit of old stuff but
Speaker 1: of new stuff, bit of a synthesis of both, bit
Speaker 1: of convergence of the old and newer, bit of fun,
Speaker 1: a bit of storytelling, a bit of science, a bit
Speaker 1: of my PhD, a bit of research, a little bit
Speaker 1: of interaction. It is called Understanding You. It's three our workshop.
Speaker 1: You can book in via my site Craigharpa dot net. Also,
Speaker 1: so that's next next week Sunday the eighteenth, same workshop
Speaker 1: happening in melbs on September eighth. September eight happening in Melbourne.
Speaker 1: Also go to my website, if you want to have
Speaker 1: a look, if you want a book, if you want
Speaker 1: to get involved. But without further ado, Andrew may me
Speaker 1: you us it ready, steady go. I say, put up
Speaker 1: your hand if you've ever heard your voice on audio recording,
Speaker 1: and everybody goes, oh god, oh my god. Then I
Speaker 1: go all right, hands down, Now put your hand back
Speaker 1: up if you think you sound like shits, And every
Speaker 1: hand goes up, and I go, well, the bad news
Speaker 1: is that's how we hear you all the time. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And then you say, well, what's more in your life
Speaker 1: or your house? And people go, what a stupid question? Well,
Speaker 1: of course my life.
Speaker 2: What question.
Speaker 1: You spent a year designing your house, but you won't
Speaker 1: spend a week designing your optimal life, you know, And
Speaker 1: again not trying to be critical, but just you know,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. None of us are going to accidentally
Speaker 1: end up succeeding. Letting people see your metaphoric wartz is cool,
Speaker 1: you know. It's it's the space between persona and person persona.
Speaker 1: This is me, hey who and this is me? This
Speaker 1: is me just talking sharing, And I think there's always
Speaker 1: going to be a little bit of something performative because
Speaker 1: I'm a bit of a performer, like I love fucking
Speaker 1: making people laugh, I love telling stories. But then woven
Speaker 1: through that is vulnerability and a bit of pain and
Speaker 1: a bit of embarrassing stuff, and a real insight into
Speaker 1: a real human experience that isn't all shiny and beautiful.
Speaker 2: Optimized performance through adapting your physical, psychological, and emotional states.
Speaker 2: Craig Harper is obsessed with human behavior, and over the
Speaker 2: past four decades he has worn multiple hats including exercise scientists,
Speaker 2: personal trainer, corporate speaker, university lecturer, AFL strength and conditioning coach,
Speaker 2: business owner, and self proclaimed bogan. Harps his host of
Speaker 2: the wildly successful podcast The You Project, and he is
Speaker 2: a true jack of all trades speaker, author, podcast entrepreneur, scientist,
Speaker 2: and PhD candidate. His PhD is about how others experience you,
Speaker 2: diving into principles including meta cognition, theory of mind, meta perception,
Speaker 2: and meta accuracy. And today we've tracked the big man
Speaker 2: down to explore the practical applications of his research in
Speaker 2: our everyday lives. Craig Harper, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: Hi buddy, that was nice. You've done a little bit
Speaker 1: of writing and prep look at you like a grown up.
Speaker 2: It wanted to do a different intro from the normal
Speaker 2: one that everyone gets off your website. Hey, we had
Speaker 2: a lovely conversation a couple of weeks ago, you me
Speaker 2: Tiff on the You project, and that stimulated to have
Speaker 2: this discussion where at the end we said, hey, let's
Speaker 2: get you on performance intelligence podcasts. But I love that
Speaker 2: chat we had made around purpose, passion, and also talking
Speaker 2: about all other things starting with pe potential.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too. I really loved it. And I've people
Speaker 1: maybe who don't do what we do, who don't do
Speaker 1: podcasts and stuff, might not realize how fun this is.
Speaker 1: Like for me a really busy day yesterday. I got
Speaker 1: up this morning and I wasn't too I knew that
Speaker 1: I was talking to you today. At some stage I
Speaker 1: looked at my diary and I went, oh, awesome, because
Speaker 1: that's for me. It's a fun hour. There's nothing about
Speaker 1: this that's like work. And like I'm genuinely I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sixty, like you said, four decades. I've been doing
Speaker 1: a version of this for ever, learning, growing, being the student,
Speaker 1: being the teacher, being the coach, you know, fucking up,
Speaker 1: getting up, falling down, winning, losing, failing, succeeding, all that
Speaker 1: normal human stuff, and I'm just as excited as ever.
Speaker 1: Like genuinely, I love human potential. I love trying to
Speaker 1: understand who we are, how we are, and why we
Speaker 1: are the way we are.
Speaker 2: So and it shows see you again. It shows in
Speaker 2: your podcasting. And it's nice now me being the podcast
Speaker 2: and interviewing you the talent rough frame, because I know
Speaker 2: you're you say that your free range, loose, unscripted, I
Speaker 2: call bullshit. You're much more than the former fat kid
Speaker 2: from Mawi. I've said this to you, and you get
Speaker 2: a little smile, the little lips light up. You know
Speaker 2: where I'm going. You've done forty years of research, mate,
Speaker 2: so you've done a bit of prep. So a rough frame.
Speaker 2: I'm really curious why did you choose the topic of
Speaker 2: how other people experience you? I want to pull on
Speaker 2: that thread. Is there a story or stories that lead
Speaker 2: to that. I've never heard you talk about that, so
Speaker 2: full disclosure. When I started my PhD, I started looking
Speaker 2: at motivation. So what often happens with a PhD, especially
Speaker 2: in psych, is that people will start and then a
Speaker 2: month or two or three or four in they're like,
Speaker 2: this is this is going to be a big problem,
Speaker 2: like a bigger than big problem, or there's you know,
Speaker 2: this is there's too much already done. Or you come
Speaker 2: to a realization and you take a slight left turn,
Speaker 2: or you do a one ad I did a one eighty.
Speaker 2: So I was looking at motivation, the role of motivation
Speaker 2: in creating you know, change, and you know all that
Speaker 2: kind of general stuff. But there's just a huge amount
Speaker 2: of divergence and ambiguity around the concept of motivation in psychology,
Speaker 2: and it was probably going to be really messy and
Speaker 2: so not that long in probably three months in I
Speaker 2: changed tact And so, as you said in the intro,
Speaker 2: I'm looking at a thing called, colloquially we would call
Speaker 2: it the you experience, which is you the listener, you
Speaker 2: who are listening, your ability to understand what it is
Speaker 2: like for other people to be around you, which we
Speaker 2: call metaperception, and then how good you are at that
Speaker 2: we call that meta accuracy. So the genesis for that
Speaker 2: was lots and lots of conversations with leaders and bosses and.
Speaker 1: Managers and coaches who really had no idea what it
Speaker 1: was like for their tribe, their team their group to
Speaker 1: be around them, and I thought that was fascinating. And
Speaker 1: their understanding of themselves for the group was not the
Speaker 1: groups I'm understanding. There was a lot of divergence, right,
Speaker 1: There was a lot of separation in the perspectives. And
Speaker 1: the bottom line was, you know that there were some
Speaker 1: bosses who were in some ways really good, great business skills, knowledge,
Speaker 1: you know, like high IQ, but at the same time
Speaker 1: they couldn't build rapport, connection, trust, respect because they really
Speaker 1: didn't know how the group saw them or perceived or
Speaker 1: processed them. And maybe even more importantly, they didn't seem
Speaker 1: to care. And I was always curious about that. Where
Speaker 1: I would go into I would get called in to
Speaker 1: do some work with a company, and you know the
Speaker 1: kind of the directive wash that's you know, the culture
Speaker 1: is not great, communications not great. It's just not it's
Speaker 1: not a great energy or environment to be and could
Speaker 1: you come and kind of do your thing. So I
Speaker 1: would talk to a few people, and then I would
Speaker 1: often talk to the boss and I'm like, I found
Speaker 1: the problem that's up in this office. It's this office
Speaker 1: up here in the corner. Here's the problem that bell
Speaker 1: end of the corner. Oh, it's you, there's the problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's Brian or Sally up in the corner office, right so,
Speaker 1: and that you know, just that, and nobody's trying to
Speaker 1: be you know, difficult, that's nobody's goal. And yeah, so
Speaker 1: that just opened the.
Speaker 2: Door for me.
Speaker 1: Mate. I didn't even know what it was called, but
Speaker 1: I used to say to these people, what do you
Speaker 1: think it's like being around you? And honestly, most of
Speaker 1: them are never deeply thought about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or some's in total disconnect. It's frickin awesome because
Speaker 2: I'm the CEO c sweet, so everyone must have a
Speaker 2: great time when they spend time with me. You go, actually, mate,
Speaker 2: you're a bit of a wanker, do you know that?
Speaker 2: How would you frame that? Is your research helping you
Speaker 2: not just understand it, but how to communicate that to
Speaker 2: Brian in the corner office, who's a bit of a
Speaker 2: nolburn disconnect between everyone else.
Speaker 1: Look, I mean the responses range from oh fucking hell,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, I've never really thought about it, and then
Speaker 1: there's a bit of for some of them, there's a
Speaker 1: bit of a light bulb and a moment of self awareness,
Speaker 1: and it's really the beginning of something, and like you said,
Speaker 1: almost at the opposite end of the scale is well,
Speaker 1: I don't really care. I'm not here to make friends.
Speaker 1: You know, they're here, they're paid to do a job.
Speaker 1: I'm here to tell them what to do. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of that. And I'm like, well, yes and no,
Speaker 1: but you're not employing robots. You're employing humans with emotions
Speaker 1: and feelings and you know, beliefs and values and expectations
Speaker 1: and a need to be respected and valued and all
Speaker 1: of those things. And so the responses were really varied.
Speaker 1: But these days, like we were chatting before we pressed
Speaker 1: the go button, yesda. I did two gigs with two
Speaker 1: different groups, two corporate groups, and I talk about this
Speaker 1: a bit as part of my presentations, depending on the
Speaker 1: focus of the presentation. Of course, one of those was
Speaker 1: a one hour keynote. One was a two hour workshop.
Speaker 1: But most people are like, oh wow, that's actually that's
Speaker 1: actually really interesting. And the way that I open the
Speaker 1: door and get people to have a little bit of
Speaker 1: an insight is I say, put up your hand if
Speaker 1: you've ever heard your voice on audio recording, And everybody goes.
Speaker 2: Oh god, oh my god, and I go all.
Speaker 1: Right, hand down, now put your hand back up if
Speaker 1: you think you sound like shit, and every hand goes up,
Speaker 1: and I go, well, the bad news is that's how
Speaker 1: we hear you all the time. And it just gives
Speaker 1: people a little bit of an analogy, a little bit
Speaker 1: of a you know, it's like, oh really, I go, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's the version or that's the audible version of
Speaker 1: you that we get. So that's kind of a sample
Speaker 1: or an example for you of you know, the distance
Speaker 1: between your version and our version of you. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: it's just it's a tipping off point, and it's I
Speaker 1: think also point out that it's not something to be
Speaker 1: worried about, but rather curious about. Like we're not talking about,
Speaker 1: oh my god, do they like me? We're not talking
Speaker 1: about insecurity or fear or self loathing. We're talking about
Speaker 1: if I can understand their version of me, then perhaps
Speaker 1: I can build rapport on connection and we can work
Speaker 1: better together. We can be a better team, we can
Speaker 1: resolve conflict quicker, we can create better, we can solve
Speaker 1: problems better, you know. So it's it's really about trying
Speaker 1: to create positive interpersonal and professional outcomes.
Speaker 2: Before we jump into the research and some of your
Speaker 2: findings because I know you've got this self awareness pyramid,
Speaker 2: which I love. I heard you in the Irish Lad
Speaker 2: Paul Taylor. It's hard to have sort of audio subscriptions,
Speaker 2: isn't When you're talking to the Irish Lad.
Speaker 1: He is I've known him for a while, but yeah
Speaker 1: he does, and especially when he talks fast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, good man, Pete. But a question I've got
Speaker 2: for you. You've got a story of you've got a
Speaker 2: recollection of where you have shown up differently, and then
Speaker 2: you've got feedback down the track and you went, oh shit,
Speaker 2: really is that what they thought? And I'll give you one.
Speaker 2: I've had to give you some time to think of. One.
Speaker 2: Sold a previous business to KPMG when in there as
Speaker 2: a partner, which means foreigner. When you're a lateral higher,
Speaker 2: I had no idea about risk compliance, stakeholder engagement. And
Speaker 2: there's five hundred other partners that all have their hands
Speaker 2: on the ship as well. And I had an amazing
Speaker 2: coach who work with me, and she said, Andrew, you're
Speaker 2: used to being a fighter pilot and everyone is around
Speaker 2: you putting the fuel in right, go off the ship
Speaker 2: out and the sea. You told when to take off
Speaker 2: when to land, and everyone's doing everything for you. Now,
Speaker 2: Jill said, you're flying at a three eighty and there's
Speaker 2: five hundred other people you need to share the controls with,
Speaker 2: and you come across as being too fast paced, sometimes
Speaker 2: not listening, do your own thing, and a little bit selfish.
Speaker 2: And I went fuck Jesus because I wouldn't have thought
Speaker 2: I was selfish. I wouldn't have thought that I was
Speaker 2: too fast. But my skill set Harps had been so trained,
Speaker 2: and you've worked on running a small business and being
Speaker 2: a keynote speaker. Were you're talking at not talking too
Speaker 2: The perception I had on other people's experience with me
Speaker 2: wasn't exactly the same. And then the team I had
Speaker 2: as well, we did a proper three sixty, not a
Speaker 2: three sixty when you own it and hey, what do
Speaker 2: you think of me? We'll go out to lunch after,
Speaker 2: but a proper independent three sixty. I've got similar feedback
Speaker 2: that people said they liked me, they saw the passion,
Speaker 2: but I was too pushy, and that it was very
Speaker 2: much we're doing it this way, jump on or jump off. Also,
Speaker 2: that had been strengthened by sport. You've worked in sport
Speaker 2: you don't actually coach in sport. You tell because you've
Speaker 2: got a whole bunch of men and women to make
Speaker 2: the team and they're highly competitive. So that was a
Speaker 2: slab for me. It was like a big wet fish
Speaker 2: across the face harps where it's like, God, I think
Speaker 2: I can communicate, and I pride myself on being caring
Speaker 2: and collegiate, but I'm coming across to some people as
Speaker 2: a bit of a knob shit and it hurt. The
Speaker 2: feedback hurt.
Speaker 1: I can understand that. But if it's true that it's
Speaker 1: better that you know it, that I know it, that
Speaker 1: we know it.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Also, your intention, albeit good, your intention will not always
Speaker 1: be someone else's experience true. Right, So my intention might be, hey, mate,
Speaker 1: I want to give you know, we finished this, we
Speaker 1: wrap it up, and I want to say, hey, you're
Speaker 1: doing a great job, but can I just share a
Speaker 1: couple of thoughts with you? Right? And then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden you're like, fuck your thoughts, I don't want
Speaker 1: your thoughts. Fuck you what now I might and by
Speaker 1: the way, I'm not going to do that. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: even think of it because you do a great job.
Speaker 1: But in this hypothetical. My intentions are good. I want
Speaker 1: to help you build a better business and brand and
Speaker 1: podcasts and give all that. Right, So my intention in
Speaker 1: this hypothetical might be good, but your experience might be
Speaker 1: why is he criticizing me? Why is he blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So positive intention, negative experience happens all the time. So
Speaker 1: that's the first problem that's happening constantly in business and
Speaker 1: various organizations. The second problem is that the boss or
Speaker 1: the leader or the coach doesn't know that it's happening
Speaker 1: because they just assume that other people think like them.
Speaker 1: There's this I don't know if we spoke about it
Speaker 1: last week, but there's a thing in psychology called false
Speaker 1: consensus effect.
Speaker 2: Did we speak about that? No, we didn't, so I've
Speaker 2: heard you talk about it.
Speaker 1: Jot that down. So that just means that we, without
Speaker 1: thinking about it, we kind of assume that people think
Speaker 1: like us. So false consensus effect, right, And the truth
Speaker 1: is that the only person in the world who thinks
Speaker 1: like Craig Harper all the time is Craig Harper. And
Speaker 1: so I would be silly to assume that what means
Speaker 1: ABC for me means ABC for Andrew and the listeners,
Speaker 1: And so I am constantly at least aware of this
Speaker 1: idea of how do I share this thought, this idea,
Speaker 1: this message in a way that connects optimally with Andrew
Speaker 1: or with Andrew's audience. How do I do that? What
Speaker 1: does that look like? Because I'm not talking to me,
Speaker 1: And back to that thing of you know, I can't
Speaker 1: be objective about me because I am me, so in
Speaker 1: a way, I care more about what you think of
Speaker 1: my speaking skills than what I think because you're more
Speaker 1: representative of the audience than I am, because you're an
Speaker 1: outsider looking in. I'm it. So this idea of and
Speaker 1: some of the things that we need to own up
Speaker 1: to and think about we don't like owning up to
Speaker 1: and thinking about because it means, you know, I've got
Speaker 1: a like you. Oh well, maybe I am selfish or
Speaker 1: maybe I am or.
Speaker 2: That was the big one for me, and it was
Speaker 2: part of my evolution from being x in external exogenous
Speaker 2: other people giving feedback, which is part self esteem or
Speaker 2: low self esteem part again, just you get so used
Speaker 2: to the external validation and you don't maybe sit and
Speaker 2: reflect what does it mean to me? It was a
Speaker 2: huge pivotal point and just piecing it together as I'm
Speaker 2: talking to you. Not long after that, about a year
Speaker 2: eighteen months, I did a deep dive on purpose because
Speaker 2: it started to open that Oh, okay, what is this about?
Speaker 2: How do I get that nice blend between X? And
Speaker 2: you wouldn't have done the two gigs yesterday, You wouldn't
Speaker 2: have one of Australia is in podcast if you didn't
Speaker 2: have people connecting with your message, following and liking. So
Speaker 2: you do need that, but you got to marry that.
Speaker 2: And I think that's that authenticity. I see, you've got
Speaker 2: you rock up, You're comfortable who you are. Hey, take
Speaker 2: it or leave it, this is me. But you've got
Speaker 2: that nice dance between the two. So it's inner and
Speaker 2: there's a real drive and purpose and connection. But you're
Speaker 2: connecting with others. So back to that question. Have you
Speaker 2: had an experience like me where you thought you were
Speaker 2: showing up in one way and you got feedback that
Speaker 2: was really disconnected to how you thought you were connecting
Speaker 2: or showing up. Yeah, many times.
Speaker 1: But the one that is the standout for me, which
Speaker 1: was the stepping off point for having this other awareness,
Speaker 1: was when I back in the day, I used to
Speaker 1: lecture what in Victoria called vic FIT courses, so teaching
Speaker 1: CIRT threeand cert for would be personal trainers and gym instructors.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasonably consistent bits of feedback that
Speaker 1: came in with the feedback ORMs that all their students
Speaker 1: would fill out is that, you know, mostly Craig's not terrible.
Speaker 1: We like him, he's a bit funny, he's done. But
Speaker 1: probably about one in ten said something like he's intimidating.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, who fucking said that? What are their names?
Speaker 1: Where are they give me their addresses?
Speaker 2: You know, you stand up the front of the class
Speaker 2: next time. All right, some of you fucking bastards have
Speaker 2: said I'm intimidating, stand up, stand up right now, get
Speaker 2: up here, And I'm like, I.
Speaker 1: Don't know what anyone means. But it was, of course,
Speaker 1: of course it was. They had every right to say that,
Speaker 1: and clearly for a percentage of the people I was.
Speaker 2: And just for context for people listening to this, and
Speaker 2: you can follow this on YouTube now as well, the
Speaker 2: Performance Intelligence podcast. So I did there, mate, just got
Speaker 2: a nice little YouTube lug. But when I first met you, gosh,
Speaker 2: twenty five years ago, you were seriously jacked. So you
Speaker 2: were you were the gym Jim junkie, right. You owned
Speaker 2: Australia's biggest I think Southern Hemisphere is the biggest personal
Speaker 2: training studio. So you were the weights guy like you.
Speaker 2: You had biceps on biceps, So I'm imagining back then
Speaker 2: you'd have your happy pants, you weightlifted pants. You'd have
Speaker 2: your boots or you know, shoes are tight T shirt
Speaker 2: that's probably a couple of sizes too short because you
Speaker 2: got the pecks and got the delts, so physically you
Speaker 2: would have been quite intimidating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was. I probably was. I was probably well
Speaker 1: put in context on five five ten ish and I'm
Speaker 1: now I'm about eighty five kilos. Then I was probably
Speaker 1: about one hundred and five and maybe leaner than I
Speaker 1: am now, so muscles on my eyelids and all of that,
Speaker 1: and probably mildly happy with myself if I'm being self
Speaker 1: aware and all of that. But I didn't, I mean,
Speaker 1: it wasn't my intention, Like nothing in me had that
Speaker 1: as a goal to be intimidating. But I mean the
Speaker 1: bottom line was that I was to some people, and
Speaker 1: so I had to I had to think about that.
Speaker 1: I had to lean into that and try to understand
Speaker 1: what I was doing and how I was being that
Speaker 1: created that impact or effect for some And of course
Speaker 1: you can't control everyone's response. But you know that was
Speaker 1: good for me because and since then I've kind of like,
Speaker 1: I realize that I am, even forty years later, I'm
Speaker 1: a work in progress. I'm I get trapped an ego,
Speaker 1: I'm insecure at times, I have imposter syndrome at times,
Speaker 1: still all of those normal human things. But I think
Speaker 1: what is you know, what is good is somebody in
Speaker 1: your position who you are a leader, you have followers,
Speaker 1: you have you stand in front of groups. So do
Speaker 1: I all of this? But I think when you genuinely,
Speaker 1: not disingenuously, but when you genuinely talk about your own
Speaker 1: bullshit and your own fuck ups, and your own idiosyncrasies,
Speaker 1: and your own insecurity and your own fear, while also
Speaker 1: sharing some strategies and stories and techniques that might help
Speaker 1: people think do be better. People value that more and
Speaker 1: trust you more because you're not some fucking guru pontificating
Speaker 1: from a stage who's living this flawless, perfect existence, in
Speaker 1: this perfect marriage with these perfect fucking genetics. You know,
Speaker 1: there's some I can't start. That's and so for me,
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of similar models to this, but
Speaker 1: I put people into kind of all our different cells
Speaker 1: into five categories. The first is public you. These are
Speaker 1: self explanatory, then personal you, then private you, then secret you,
Speaker 1: then future you the you that you want to be
Speaker 1: so personal public you is the one that everyone sees.
Speaker 1: There's no real filter. You know, you're not you kind
Speaker 1: of You'll let that version of you connect with the world,
Speaker 1: and the world see that version of you. Then there's
Speaker 1: kind of personal you, which is more you know, family friends,
Speaker 1: maybe five to ten people get personal you. And then
Speaker 1: private you might be your partner or your mum, or
Speaker 1: your sister or somebody one or two maybe that are
Speaker 1: very close and pretty much know everything. Then secret you
Speaker 1: that's just you. That's the shit that you're telling no one,
Speaker 1: the feelings that you're sharing that insecurity that you. And
Speaker 1: then future you is or potential you is who I
Speaker 1: might want to be and who I might want to become.
Speaker 1: And I try as much as possible to share private
Speaker 1: me with the world, like the stuff that most people
Speaker 1: wouldn't the stuff that I'm genuinely scared of. The stuff
Speaker 1: that I think I might do well or poorly, my
Speaker 1: own insecurity, my own you know, the space between my
Speaker 1: values and my behavior. Am I a great role model?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Should you be like me? No? But I'll you know,
Speaker 1: I try to be less performative than I used to be.
Speaker 1: You know, I know that, see you, And I know
Speaker 1: this right as a speaker, and people who don't do
Speaker 1: this job might not think about this, But as a speaker,
Speaker 1: I know that I've got pretty good skills. I've got
Speaker 1: lots of miles on the clock, a pretty good situational
Speaker 1: and social and public awareness in that context, and I
Speaker 1: know that I can walk out on a stage do
Speaker 1: my job forty five minutes, sixty minutes, bibbity bobbedy boo skills,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. Tell the stories, you know, share the messages.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much. I'm Craig Harper. You're all fucking awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's that, and that ain't terrible, but for me, that's
Speaker 1: more choreograph, scripted and performative. But the stuff that blows
Speaker 1: me away and people away, and it's not about Craig Harper,
Speaker 1: but is when you get beyond that show and you
Speaker 1: start to create a level of emotional, psychological, sociological, maybe
Speaker 1: even who knows, spiritual connection that's got nothing to do
Speaker 1: with any performance or script or plan. You're just raw,
Speaker 1: and you're just in the moment. And you know, I
Speaker 1: don't not that they're bad, but I don't use videos
Speaker 1: or slides or I just get up and see where
Speaker 1: we go. And sometimes it's okay, sometimes it's it's fucking amazing.
Speaker 1: And as you and I have said before, the amazing's
Speaker 1: got nothing to do with me. I'm just a conduit
Speaker 1: to the amazing. And when that sounds like bullshit and
Speaker 1: people go, eh, but there's stuff that's happened in my
Speaker 1: own workshops and seminars that I can't even explain, but
Speaker 1: something happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And for context, you said this before we went on.
Speaker 2: You're still banging out about one hundred presentations a year,
Speaker 2: so you're not like one of those people that does
Speaker 2: two keynotes and has all over their website International Keynotes
Speaker 2: speaker as seen on the stage back in nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: four when we both have down, so you're doing a
Speaker 2: lot up. Couple of things. One is it's this awareness
Speaker 2: when you move from denial and say that river floating
Speaker 2: in Egypt. So I was in denial about some of
Speaker 2: those habits and behaviors often linked to not low self esteem,
Speaker 2: but absolutely not confidence where you can be there in
Speaker 2: your own skin. So that was a big shift for me.
Speaker 2: And I can hear that's happened with you from the
Speaker 2: VIC fit and other examples. But when I listen to
Speaker 2: you and I catch up with you, I've seen you
Speaker 2: present a few times as well. You're really authentic. There
Speaker 2: would be a bunch of people here listening who are
Speaker 2: shit scared going I can't let people know the private me. God,
Speaker 2: I'm not going there, let alone the personal mate, because
Speaker 2: I've been taught my leaders said, all right, young fella,
Speaker 2: young lady, when you turn up, leave your shoes and
Speaker 2: your personality at the door. And when you're working for
Speaker 2: this bank, consulting firm, telco, insert government organization, you've got
Speaker 2: to be the job description of the role. We don't
Speaker 2: want your personal shit. Now that's changed a lot, thank goodness.
Speaker 2: But it's authentic authenticity rather than the hey, now, let
Speaker 2: me be authentic with you. I don't think i've shared
Speaker 2: this story with you. A guy that I used to
Speaker 2: work with, lovely guy. It leads a big and he said, Mazie,
Speaker 2: can you come and watch me speak. I'm speaking at
Speaker 2: our open forum town hall, and I want you to
Speaker 2: help me because you do good speaking and stuff. So
Speaker 2: I'm watching him and he started a bit nervous, a
Speaker 2: bit dry, and then he opened his arms and I
Speaker 2: think he'd listened to Brene Brown. He said, now, let
Speaker 2: me be authentic with you, and I felt like, so,
Speaker 2: now let me kick you in the balls. God, don't
Speaker 2: say to people, let me be authentic. You be authentic.
Speaker 2: You do authentic. I see you do that beautifully. I
Speaker 2: see some people now they do it, and I feel
Speaker 2: like I need a shower.
Speaker 1: Well, if it's choreographed, it's not fucking authentic. So it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, fake authenticity. And I think letting people see
Speaker 1: your your metaphoric wartz is cool. You know. It's the
Speaker 1: space between persona and person you know, persona, this is me,
Speaker 1: hey who? And this is me this is me just
Speaker 1: talking sharing, And I think, look, if we're well, if
Speaker 1: I'm honest, there's always going to be a little bit
Speaker 1: of something performative because I'm a bit of a performer.
Speaker 1: Like I love fucking making people laugh. I love telling stories.
Speaker 1: I love manipulating the crowd in a good way, you know.
Speaker 1: But then woven through that is vulnerability and a bit
Speaker 1: of pain and a bit of embarrassing stuff and a
Speaker 1: real insight into a real human experience that isn't always
Speaker 1: shiny and beautiful. But I think, you know, that's the
Speaker 1: thing of trying to create this synergy and symphony of
Speaker 1: messages and entertainment and connection. Because the other thing, too
Speaker 1: is like what people don't think about. You know. You
Speaker 1: could get on stage, or I could get on stage,
Speaker 1: and we could share what is the most mind blowing
Speaker 1: information of all time, with no nuance, with no story,
Speaker 1: with no peaks and troughs, with no humor, with no
Speaker 1: and not only does it not have a good impact,
Speaker 1: it has a terrible impact in you. And I never
Speaker 1: get any more work.
Speaker 2: You've gotta have a bit of Joe's hands, halps some
Speaker 2: jazz hands. But if you've got too much Jaz's hands,
Speaker 2: you don't get booked to do the jazz. It's like
Speaker 2: Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Right, this porridge is just right,
Speaker 2: and that's it. That's a skill to adapt that to
Speaker 2: an audience as well.
Speaker 1: Well. It's a real challenge because when you start, as
Speaker 1: you know, when you start, like firstly, when I started,
Speaker 1: I was fucking terrible. It's so bad. But you can't
Speaker 1: get good at what you're not doing right. You can't
Speaker 1: get better at the thing that you won't do, and
Speaker 1: you can't get better at the thing that you won't acknowledge. Hey, Craig,
Speaker 1: you're intimidating. No, I'm not. Fuck off.
Speaker 2: Who fucking said right?
Speaker 1: So I can't. I can't get better at being less intimidating,
Speaker 1: or at least trying to, you know, unless I first
Speaker 1: go Okay, cool, thank you. I'm aware now, so I
Speaker 1: need to lean into that. But you know, this whole
Speaker 1: I feel I'd probably sound old when I say this,
Speaker 1: but I feel like a lot of people are very
Speaker 1: impatient now. It's almost like they want ten years worth
Speaker 1: of experience in a year.
Speaker 2: We want a hack, like download it, mate, Can you
Speaker 2: give me the Craig Harper the U Project hack. What
Speaker 2: do you mean You've been spending forty years trial tribulation, triumph,
Speaker 2: stuff up, setbacks and you've got this experience, But can
Speaker 2: you give that to me in a download? No, you
Speaker 2: can't get in a download. That's a huge problem I
Speaker 2: see with my kids now, you and I, little Craig,
Speaker 2: little Andrew used to go the library for people listening.
Speaker 2: There's this thing that used to have in councils where
Speaker 2: you'd have books WITHZ They used to have real books
Speaker 2: where you go there and you'd actually you'd put your
Speaker 2: name and you'd wait for a book. But at Glennys
Speaker 2: where I grew up, James Collin, great kid, James, real nerd,
Speaker 2: but he was always the first to get the book.
Speaker 2: So harps. I'd have to wait two weeks to do
Speaker 2: my geography assignment. Can you imagine saying that to a kid, Now,
Speaker 2: wait two weeks until you go get the books? They go, No,
Speaker 2: I was just downloaded off the internet. So that's part societal.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I do some coaching with a guy, a young
Speaker 1: guy called Brad who's a jiu jitsu black belt, And
Speaker 1: arguably jiu jitsu is the hardest martial art in the
Speaker 1: world to get a black belt, and it takes if
Speaker 1: you're consistent and you start today and you've got some talent,
Speaker 1: it'll take you about ten years. Right, So it's not
Speaker 1: one of these martial arts where you start on Monday
Speaker 1: and by Wednesday week. You're a black belt, right, And
Speaker 1: I was talking to him about I said to him,
Speaker 1: if I started now, when would I get my black belt?
Speaker 1: If I went three four days a week and I'm
Speaker 1: sixty You said, well, you might never get it. Let's
Speaker 1: say that. I'm like, okay, thank you. And then he said,
Speaker 1: but oh, probably, you know, if your body didn't fall
Speaker 1: apart ten to fifteen years. I'm like, fuck, really, It's
Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah. And that's the thing, and that's why
Speaker 1: they're held in really high regard. He's a second or
Speaker 1: third dan black belt. They've earned it. It took him,
Speaker 1: and he's good at it. It took him a decade
Speaker 1: to get his black belt, right, and he's good. He's
Speaker 1: a natural. But this is the thing, is that whatever
Speaker 1: we do, whatever we're doing for the first time, we're
Speaker 1: a white belt, and the journey of getting you know,
Speaker 1: metaphorically strangled and choked and tapped and kicked in the
Speaker 1: dick and punched in the face and all of those things.
Speaker 1: You know, this is the journey. And also not only
Speaker 1: is that the journey, that's the practical reality of becoming
Speaker 1: good or mastery or high performance or human optimization or
Speaker 1: whatever you want. To call it. But not only is
Speaker 1: the outcome then worth it, it's the journey that is
Speaker 1: the real value because the journey changes you. You know the
Speaker 1: thing that we the thing that we want in our culture,
Speaker 1: which is we want success everybody. Nobody wants to be
Speaker 1: a failure. Of course, success means different things to different people,
Speaker 1: and nobody wants to be a dud. Nobody wants to
Speaker 1: be unhealthy, nobody wants to be broke, nobody wants to
Speaker 1: be unpopular, nobody wants to fail. But also nobody wants
Speaker 1: to be uncomfortable. Well, guess what if you're not at
Speaker 1: least prepared to get uncomfortable on a semi regular basis
Speaker 1: that growth, that learning, that adaptation, that improvement, that high performance,
Speaker 1: it's unlikely.
Speaker 2: And thank goodness, we've got research now around post traumatic growth.
Speaker 2: Because everyone was saying, oh, stress will break you, but
Speaker 2: there's a whole bunch of people that go through high
Speaker 2: levels of stress, even trauma, and they grow and they flourish.
Speaker 2: So we're seeing more research come out of that from
Speaker 2: especially Martin Seligman started that with the US military. Hey
Speaker 2: on the research frame because we could talk stories and experience,
Speaker 2: but there's a real rigor to what you do, which
Speaker 2: I love as well. So you can tell us a
Speaker 2: little bit about the self awareness pyramid, and so is
Speaker 2: that something you've come up with or have you adapted
Speaker 2: Maslow Blooms taxonomy. I'm thinking of a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: other frameworks.
Speaker 1: Look, I could make that. There could be lots of
Speaker 1: different layers to that. I just I developed that. But
Speaker 1: obviously all of those terms are not my terms. It's
Speaker 1: just a way like I kind of developed this simple
Speaker 1: pyramid to get people to understand, you know, my stuff
Speaker 1: quite easily. I've got a really good little graphic that
Speaker 1: I will send you that you might want to use
Speaker 1: that will put them in the show notes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So in this pyramid, at the bottom of the pyramids,
Speaker 1: so there's four levels. The bottom of the pyramid is
Speaker 1: what's called metacognition, which is thinking about thinking. And you know,
Speaker 1: the truth is that most people don't think about how
Speaker 1: they think very often, if at all. They just think
Speaker 1: and they believe their thoughts and those thoughts become beliefs.
Speaker 1: And also the idea of thinking about the origin of
Speaker 1: the way that my mind works, like why do I
Speaker 1: think and distill information? And see the world the way
Speaker 1: that I do. What is the lens or what is
Speaker 1: the window through which I view and understand and process
Speaker 1: the world? What are the things that create my windows?
Speaker 1: So like blease, values, ideas, experiences, bias, faith, prejudice, like
Speaker 1: all of those things which we all have to some extent,
Speaker 1: that kind of forms the window through which I view
Speaker 1: the world. So if I'm a you know, I'm a Vegan,
Speaker 1: I'm going to look at the world a certain way.
Speaker 1: If I'm a Catholic, so too, if I'm a black
Speaker 1: belt in jiu jitsu and some guys coming up to me,
Speaker 1: I might view that quite differently to if I'd never
Speaker 1: done any kind of self defense. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm an only child who grew up in a Catholic family.
Speaker 1: I was a morbidly obese child, I went to only
Speaker 1: Catholic schools. I grew up in rural Victorious. So all
Speaker 1: of these things are variables that shape or inform my thinking.
Speaker 1: So that one of the biggest challenges for us in
Speaker 1: this journey towards what we might call greater self awareness
Speaker 1: or even consciousness, is to become aware of our lack
Speaker 1: of awareness. It's like I become more conscious when I
Speaker 1: read recognize my lack of consciousness, and by that I
Speaker 1: mean the autopilotness of our existence.
Speaker 2: Which is the way we live now. We just wake
Speaker 2: up and we grab the weapon of mass distraction and
Speaker 2: we scroll and we go to meeting after meeting. It
Speaker 2: is groundhog Day. It's such a good metaphor Pensacola fild.
Speaker 2: You just wake up and before you realize you wake up.
Speaker 2: I've heard you say five years later. It's not five
Speaker 2: for a lot of people, it's ten, twenty thirty. Jesus.
Speaker 2: I've got to the end of my career and my
Speaker 2: kids are now having kids. I'm not really connected with
Speaker 2: them because I've just been on this conveyor belt for
Speaker 2: years and years. And then it often takes a crisis,
Speaker 2: a relationship breakdown, losing a job, a big life event,
Speaker 2: and that can sometimes shift. But people don't have enough pain,
Speaker 2: so they're comfortably uncomfortable. It's like the just the tapping
Speaker 2: of a wall. You tap, tap, tap, tap. The wall
Speaker 2: doesn't crumble thirty years later, it's one tap and the
Speaker 2: whole jipprop comes tumbling down. That self awareness and just
Speaker 2: flying through life on autopilot.
Speaker 1: So let's summarize that into four or five words. Don't
Speaker 1: wait for the catastrophe. I mean, this is what we do.
Speaker 1: We wait till shit breaks and then we go, oh
Speaker 1: I should get in shape. Oh I should be nicer
Speaker 1: to my wife. Oh I should or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, that's about being proactive, you know, not reactive,
Speaker 1: and leaning into that a little bit. So that's understanding that,
Speaker 1: you know, we've all been programmed and conditioned and recognizing
Speaker 1: where my programming, my cognitive, behavioral, emotional psychological programming ends
Speaker 1: and where me, Craig Harper, the clean slate, where do
Speaker 1: I start? Who am I beyond that? Like, beyond my
Speaker 1: programming conditioning beliefs and very kind of set ideas and
Speaker 1: ideals and ideology, like who am I beyond that? For me,
Speaker 1: that's a really curious kind of exploration.
Speaker 2: And thoughts are not facts. That's something I find people
Speaker 2: really connect with. And you go, hey, you think the
Speaker 2: way you think, let's talk about thinking about the way
Speaker 2: you think. And you get some really weird looks metacognition,
Speaker 2: what's that shit? I just think, Champ, thoughts are not facts.
Speaker 2: And on your mobile phone, I've asked Wizard this and
Speaker 2: he's on Android, so he said Android had just better.
Speaker 2: So there's no answer to this story. But if you're
Speaker 2: an iPhone, you regularly have to do an iOS upgrade.
Speaker 2: And the people harps going through decades on autopilot, they
Speaker 2: just wake up their gray They're a monochrome version of gray,
Speaker 2: gray clothes, gray car, gray skin, gray hair, if they've
Speaker 2: got any gray life, because there's no thinking about how
Speaker 2: can I challenge this or what can I upgrade? So
Speaker 2: I love that whole notion of the regular iOS upgrade.
Speaker 2: And you've heard me bang on about this. Do you
Speaker 2: want your body to be stronger, fitter, fast, and more flexible,
Speaker 2: You've got to do reps and sets. It's exactly the
Speaker 2: same with your thinking. Get out of that laziness or
Speaker 2: that comfort zone.
Speaker 1: I think it's really difficult at times to be objective
Speaker 1: about the thing you're in the middle of, if not impossible,
Speaker 1: to be objective about the thing that you're in the
Speaker 1: middle of. And what we're all in the middle of
Speaker 1: is our own life, right, and that is why it
Speaker 1: is easy to close your eyes and open them again.
Speaker 1: And it's a year later and you're essentially you've blinked
Speaker 1: and That's why it's very easy to keep doing things
Speaker 1: that don't really work because they're habitual, they're programmed. And
Speaker 1: so this is not an easy idea. This is an
Speaker 1: idea though it's not an easy do. But it's an
Speaker 1: easy idea. It's just a construct. But the idea is
Speaker 1: to find a way to be able to do an
Speaker 1: inventory or a stock take on your own existence. And
Speaker 1: so the question that I ask people, individuals and audiences
Speaker 1: all the time is what's not working? Like, what's the
Speaker 1: thing that you're doing that doesn't work. What's the thing
Speaker 1: that you're doing with your body that doesn't work. What's
Speaker 1: the thing that you're doing with your kids you're parenting
Speaker 1: your relationships that doesn't work. What's the thing that you
Speaker 1: do with money that's fun looking stupid, but you still
Speaker 1: keep doing it? Like on Planet you, you are always
Speaker 1: getting data, You're always getting information. Now, the challenge in
Speaker 1: the middle of the mayhem and the chaos that is
Speaker 1: the continuity and the never endingness of our existence, the
Speaker 1: challenge is to be able to hit the metaphoric pause
Speaker 1: button and say, okay, if I continue on my current
Speaker 1: trajectory of habits and thinking, beliefs and behaviors and outcomes.
Speaker 1: If I continue on this trajectory, will my life be
Speaker 1: better or worse than a year, two or five? The
Speaker 1: answer for many of us is worse. Okay, that's not
Speaker 1: self loathing, that's awareness. Now what to do with the awareness? Okay,
Speaker 1: easier said than done. But how do I shift this?
Speaker 1: How do I get out of this groove, this pattern,
Speaker 1: this behavior that is more self sabotaged than self serve?
Speaker 1: How do I do that? And so, you know, we
Speaker 1: think about building a business, our best business or best brand,
Speaker 1: or our best bank balance. You know, even we think
Speaker 1: about how would we build a house if we're starting
Speaker 1: from scratch. You know, you would spend a year designing
Speaker 1: and developing and finding the land and colors and fittings
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah. But when it comes to building
Speaker 1: our best.
Speaker 2: It's just just on that. You're so right, graphic simulation.
Speaker 2: So you've got all these different designs. What do you
Speaker 2: think we'll go to a different show. We'll go to
Speaker 2: the trade warehouses. People spend hours, days, weeks, months planning
Speaker 2: rebuild of the house which they might be in for
Speaker 2: ten years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And then you say, well, what's more important
Speaker 1: your life or your house, and people go, what a
Speaker 1: stupid question? Well, of course my life, what house set
Speaker 1: up question? You spent a year designing your house, but
Speaker 1: you won't spend a week designing your optimal life, you know.
Speaker 1: And again not trying to be critical, but just you know,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. None of us are going to accidentally
Speaker 1: end up succeeding. It's so easy to live an unconscious
Speaker 1: groundhog day existence. And it takes courage, and it takes
Speaker 1: effort and energy and probably a bit of discipline, self
Speaker 1: control and discomfort, which are not very sexy things in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. But you know, it's just that's just
Speaker 1: what's required, you know. And I always say I can
Speaker 1: tell you what you want to hear all the truth
Speaker 1: to an audience.
Speaker 2: And I go, what do you want? They're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I guess the truth. That's going to hurt all right.
Speaker 2: So metacognition is the base.
Speaker 1: They metacognition yep. Theory of mind is essentially our ability
Speaker 1: to understand or try to understand or be curious about
Speaker 1: how other people think.
Speaker 2: Which you're not going to get my assumption, unless you
Speaker 2: understand yourself first, then you can understand others so hence
Speaker 2: the framework.
Speaker 1: And also being able to in real time realize that
Speaker 1: Andrew and I are in the same conversation but not
Speaker 1: the same experience. And then with that in mind, what
Speaker 1: is Andrew's experience right now? What is Andrew's version of me?
Speaker 1: What is Andrew's version of our story about this conversation,
Speaker 1: this moment in time? What is his story about this interaction?
Speaker 1: And these are questions that we ask not because we
Speaker 1: necessarily have to agree with the other person or endorse
Speaker 1: the other person, or let's be honest, even like the
Speaker 1: other person, because in some situations we're going to work
Speaker 1: with people we don't really want to. That doesn't make
Speaker 1: us terrible, it makes us human. But the point is
Speaker 1: not to align or connect or endorse or agree, but
Speaker 1: rather to understand, you know, seek first to understand and
Speaker 1: then to be understood. So me trying to understand. And
Speaker 1: I've worked with many people that are so not like me,
Speaker 1: not better or worse, just different. But everything from you know,
Speaker 1: the military and Victoria police, to blokes in prison, to addicts,
Speaker 1: to alcoholics, to the general public to people with all
Speaker 1: kinds of abilities and disabilities. And in the middle of that,
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to understand them so I can work
Speaker 1: with them or help them or support them. So that's
Speaker 1: theory of mind.
Speaker 2: I'm going deep at the moment on mindfulness. And I
Speaker 2: used to think mindfulness was a crock of shit. I
Speaker 2: think because I'd watched the wrong videos where you have
Speaker 2: this yahwei profit in the modern age, walking in romes
Speaker 2: and just just talking absolute bullshit, making it sound like
Speaker 2: this all encompassing just every part of your life. But
Speaker 2: when you look at the definition of mindfulness, you go
Speaker 2: back to the Japanese samurais two and a half thousand
Speaker 2: years ago. Similar time, Yogis were starting to come up
Speaker 2: with similar principles. It's about being present in the moment
Speaker 2: without judgment. So if you're on your mobile phone scrolling
Speaker 2: all the time, if you're on autopilot through the decades,
Speaker 2: there is no mindfulness. It's the opposite. It's mindlessness, and
Speaker 2: it's often driven by distraction. So I'm really curious, have
Speaker 2: you looked at that thread of mindfulness, because as you're
Speaker 2: saying a lot of that about both my self awareness
Speaker 2: of that metacognition and then other people just being able
Speaker 2: to drop into that mindful state, being present in the
Speaker 2: moment without judgment. Where does the mindfulness research sit in
Speaker 2: with this?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So for me, mindfulness is it's sometimes almost better
Speaker 1: called mindlessness so or mind emptiness, like because in a
Speaker 1: way you're trying to get out of your mind. You're
Speaker 1: trying to get out of thought in a way, you know,
Speaker 1: and to be the kind of the mind fuck no
Speaker 1: pun intended, but is because we're trying to understand the
Speaker 1: mind using the mind as the tool that we're trying
Speaker 1: to understand itself with. Right, It's like I'm analyzing the
Speaker 1: mind with my mind. Oh great, how's that going? But yes,
Speaker 1: I trying to turn down the chaos, trying to be
Speaker 1: the calm in the chaos. That Eastern philosophical construct of
Speaker 1: equanimity is being able to be in the busyness and
Speaker 1: the mayhem, but without being chaotic or without being busy myself,
Speaker 1: you know. And for me that's been a real journey too,
Speaker 1: because my mind is busy, busy mind. Not so much
Speaker 1: an overthinking mind because that tends to be more.
Speaker 2: Feared, but busy creative mind.
Speaker 1: Busy creative, busy, you know, solving problems, coming up with ideas,
Speaker 1: and you know, yesterday on the way back from Sydney
Speaker 1: to Melbourne. I just had my notes open in my phone,
Speaker 1: so just basically writing stuff electronically, and I literally came
Speaker 1: up with about five potential ideas, new ideas for new
Speaker 1: things that I definitely don't have time to do, but
Speaker 1: I just put them with this collection of ideas and
Speaker 1: thoughts that I have that I might, you know, open
Speaker 1: the door on one day.
Speaker 2: Well that's a technique in itself. And my iPhone's got
Speaker 2: multiple notes and layers and folders, and the science behind
Speaker 2: this is if you don't distill what's in your mind
Speaker 2: and put it on the paper or put it onto
Speaker 2: your digital format, it just circles around, so you're distracted.
Speaker 2: And it's been like Homer Simpson with the monkey and
Speaker 2: the symbol doing the backflip. So metacognition got it. Theory
Speaker 2: of mine having more of an awareness of others. Then
Speaker 2: we go up the next layer.
Speaker 1: So up the next one, which is what we've already
Speaker 1: covered to some extent, meta perception is what's it like
Speaker 1: being around me? And again this is really this comes
Speaker 1: from a space of or a place of wanting to
Speaker 1: be able to create better interactions with others, to be
Speaker 1: a better leader communicator, teacher, you know, employer, employee, athlete,
Speaker 1: So that whoever it is that I'm interacting with, that
Speaker 1: I'm working alongside, that I can understand or have some
Speaker 1: insight into what it's like being around me, just so
Speaker 1: that we have better communication, we have better apport, we
Speaker 1: have better connection. We can in work situations, you know,
Speaker 1: figure things out, solve problems, resolve conflict, agree to disagree.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I've got lots of friends who don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of the same beliefs that I have around certain things,
Speaker 1: But my friendship with them and my love for them
Speaker 1: is not conditional upon them thinking like me. If that
Speaker 1: were the case, I'd be living in an echo chamber
Speaker 1: or confirmation bias we call it, and I'd only pay
Speaker 1: attention to people who sound like me, believe like me,
Speaker 1: and think like me, which would make me one an
Speaker 1: ego maniac and two pretty lonely or essentially a cult member.
Speaker 2: I don't think. I don't think we have a lot
Speaker 2: of cult members on this We might have one or two.
Speaker 2: So majority of this audience aren't in cults and have
Speaker 2: not been a cult member. Well, there are lots of
Speaker 2: cults of thought, though you can identify cultka. You can
Speaker 2: identify a cult of thought online very easy. And like
Speaker 2: the irony is or I guess, and this is true
Speaker 2: for me too. So I'm not saying, hey, I've figured
Speaker 2: this out, nobody else has. I have to be really
Speaker 2: prepared to hold onto my beliefs loosely, because you think
Speaker 2: about beliefs and ideas that they are intertwined with who
Speaker 2: we are. Then now my identity is tied in into
Speaker 2: being right about that thing.
Speaker 1: Now, when I truly believe that when it comes to
Speaker 1: this issue or this question or this topic, the thing
Speaker 1: that I think is right, therefore everyone else in the
Speaker 1: world who disagrees with me on this is wrong. That's
Speaker 1: kind of a dangerous position to have. And so like
Speaker 1: I grew up, as we've spoken many times, in a
Speaker 1: very religious household, and subsequent to that went and did
Speaker 1: a whole lot of other stuff in a different version
Speaker 1: of the same religion. So I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: my life reading the Bible, being philosophically theological, you know.
Speaker 1: And so I have a very specific background and training
Speaker 1: and programming and over the years, relationships and all of
Speaker 1: this stuff that I was fully immersed in, and now
Speaker 1: all of these years later, what I have to what
Speaker 1: I have to say anyway, based on how I now
Speaker 1: see the world and see myself in the world. That
Speaker 1: truth is I don't know, like and people don't like
Speaker 1: saying I don't know. But is there a God? I
Speaker 1: don't know? Is there is there a you know, eternity
Speaker 1: as we understand it in the Christian sense? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Is the Bible, you know, really the inspired word of God?
Speaker 1: I don't know. But I can think things and believe things.
Speaker 1: But also I have to be courageous and say this
Speaker 1: is what I think, This is even what I believe.
Speaker 1: But could I be wrong? Yes, I could be Could
Speaker 1: I be wrong? Yeap?
Speaker 2: What did they let you into the monastery saying fucking
Speaker 2: your sermon?
Speaker 1: Well, this is the thing?
Speaker 2: Did you swear back then? Because you dropped the F
Speaker 2: bomb a lot? And I even noticed on the podcast
Speaker 2: I did with you, yes, like my my fuck ratio
Speaker 2: went up. Yeah, of course, Now you need to listen
Speaker 2: to the background to that. If Wizard of You just
Speaker 2: do a bite size my fuck ratio went up, that
Speaker 2: that might go off on the internet. But because like
Speaker 2: it's just you's being authentic, So I can't imagine you
Speaker 2: were swearing at that age.
Speaker 1: No, so I so this is nobody needs to know this,
Speaker 1: but Catholic Church. And I always, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I ever told you this, but I always I had
Speaker 1: all of these people coming into my life constantly telling
Speaker 1: me that. And this is not even from within my circle.
Speaker 1: But God's got his hand on your life, whatever that means.
Speaker 1: God's got a purpose for you all these things. Anyway,
Speaker 1: through a range of really kind of weird and wacky
Speaker 1: from the outside looking in weird and whacky events, I
Speaker 1: ended up going to what was essentially a fundamental Christian church.
Speaker 1: And you know, I was, for one of a better term,
Speaker 1: balls deep. And I went to that church for about
Speaker 1: four years, and I was nineteen to twenty three, maybe
Speaker 1: five years, four or five years. And honestly, most of
Speaker 1: it was good in that I learned about, you know,
Speaker 1: like humility and purpose and a whole lot of things
Speaker 1: that I needed to learn. And you know, I definitely
Speaker 1: didn't master anything, but I I was a pretty good
Speaker 1: student because I was genuinely curious about all of that.
Speaker 1: But one of the byproducts of that is so for
Speaker 1: five years I didn't have sex, I didn't swear I didn't.
Speaker 1: I lived a very monastic, disciplined life.
Speaker 2: And that's your late teens, early twenties. That's where people
Speaker 2: literally come alive. Hormones are pulsing through your body and
Speaker 2: with other people you're around. That's really that passage to adulthood. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well I was engaged to a woman I never slept with.
Speaker 1: I had a girlfriend who became my fiance within the church,
Speaker 1: and I was with her. We didn't get married. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I pulled the pin on that, which was, you know,
Speaker 1: the right thing to do, but also for her the
Speaker 1: right thing to do. She dodged a bullet. Fuck imagine
Speaker 1: marrying me, but that would have been a nightmare for her.
Speaker 1: So that worked out well. She married somebody and is
Speaker 1: living happily ever after, which is nice. But but for me,
Speaker 1: that was just that was what was required.
Speaker 2: I had no idea about that part of your life.
Speaker 2: Did you do you talk about that normally? That part?
Speaker 1: Yeah, very very committed. Yeah, yeah whenever. It's just not
Speaker 1: that relevant that often. But my point is that, like
Speaker 1: I grew up in a very a very specific model
Speaker 1: of thinking and believing and faith and behavior, right, and
Speaker 1: you are programmed, you are programmed you are, you know,
Speaker 1: I chose it all. But at the same time, you
Speaker 1: can't question much because if you you know, like, if
Speaker 1: you question too much, you're out of the group.
Speaker 2: Like it is very mid a line in doctrination.
Speaker 1: Well, it was quite The church I was in was
Speaker 1: quite culty, right, and so it is very much an
Speaker 1: echo chamber of thinking and believing. The truth is in cults,
Speaker 1: be they food cults, religious cults, political cults, sporting cults,
Speaker 1: cults of ideology, any ideology, you are not encouraged to
Speaker 1: questioned the doctrine. You are discouraged. And not only are
Speaker 1: you discouraged from thinking critically, you are criticized and you
Speaker 1: are cast out into the metaphoric darkness. And so this
Speaker 1: is the problem that I have with any of these
Speaker 1: ideological cults of thought, is.
Speaker 2: That one of the reasons if I pull on that thread,
Speaker 2: one of the reasons why you were so passionate about
Speaker 2: human behavior and connection and people having a voice and
Speaker 2: diversity because you had that block of life that wasn't
Speaker 2: Is that something you've reflected on and look back, is that.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that is true. And there were questions that
Speaker 1: kept coming up for me in that time which I
Speaker 1: was told, Well, I'll tell you what I was told.
Speaker 1: I was told, that's the devil, that's Satan, trying to
Speaker 1: undermine God in your life and all of these things.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, well, that kind of But the
Speaker 1: thing is also what people who are and I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that there was any sinister or a gender. I'd
Speaker 1: think all of the people they actually believed it and
Speaker 1: meant well, right. But you know, there are certain people
Speaker 1: who can say pretty much anything and back it up biblically.
Speaker 1: And this might sound weird to some of your listeners,
Speaker 1: but in certain environments you can make pretty much anything
Speaker 1: sound reasonable with the right scripture if you're talking to
Speaker 1: a vulnerable person, you know. And so for me, I
Speaker 1: wanted to go deeper than just thought. I wanted to
Speaker 1: open a spiritual door. I wanted to see what was there,
Speaker 1: what was beyond the cognitive curtain. And the thing is that,
Speaker 1: you know, this is maybe another day, but you think
Speaker 1: about when we open that door, and we kind of
Speaker 1: think about what is and this is getting out of
Speaker 1: the psychology in the cognition space, of course, but even
Speaker 1: there is there such a thing as a spiritual world,
Speaker 1: what does that even mean, and there's so many things
Speaker 1: that we will experience in a lifetime that don't make
Speaker 1: sense in inverted commas in psychology, and so we go, well,
Speaker 1: that's bullshit, that's not real. Maybe maybe it's not real.
Speaker 1: Maybe it is real, Maybe we just can't understand it
Speaker 1: with our understanding, with our frame of reference, with our
Speaker 1: version of what is real and what is not.
Speaker 2: This is what I love about a podcast, and you've
Speaker 2: taught me this too. I don't rock up. I would
Speaker 2: get anxiety rocking up with no script. But I've gone
Speaker 2: from having question one answer question two, which is a
Speaker 2: bit like a tennis game. I've got a running sheet here,
Speaker 2: and as I said at the start, three sort of
Speaker 2: loose areas. Number one, why are you so passionate about
Speaker 2: this topic? Number two, let's dig into the science, and
Speaker 2: we've done that metacognition at the base theory of mind,
Speaker 2: metaperception and meta accuracy, and I've got a question on
Speaker 2: metaccuracy to wrap up. And then three I wanted to
Speaker 2: talk to you about transitions, but I had no idea.
Speaker 2: We talk about that, and I understand a lot more
Speaker 2: about you and what has driven you to do this,
Speaker 2: So thank you for sharing all that.
Speaker 1: I spent a long time studying and reading them. You
Speaker 1: would not believe how many scriptures I could recite, which
Speaker 1: nobody needs to hear. But yeah, like I studied it
Speaker 1: like somebody would study at PhD for years. Every day,
Speaker 1: pray every day, quiet time every day, read every day,
Speaker 1: study every day every day.
Speaker 2: There is a lot of there's a lot of good
Speaker 2: in prayer and with the Pacific boys. I told you
Speaker 2: this woman caught up last time. So NRL now is
Speaker 2: fifty four nearly fifty five Pacific or indigenous, much larger
Speaker 2: Pacific population. And when I was putting together a framework
Speaker 2: at the start of the year, so we talk about
Speaker 2: being in that peak performance zone inverted you if you're
Speaker 2: feeling a bit tired or fatigued, you add some fire.
Speaker 2: If you're feeling a little bit too revved up, you
Speaker 2: add some eyes. So I put this nice model together.
Speaker 2: As you know, working with sporting teams, mate, you've got
Speaker 2: to have a science base or an evidence base, but
Speaker 2: keep as simple so the boys and the girls understand that.
Speaker 2: So we're doing all this work around fire and ice,
Speaker 2: it was really landing. What do you do to up regulate?
Speaker 2: What do you do to down regulate and then one
Speaker 2: of the players come up and said, where's prayer. I'm like, ah,
Speaker 2: how remiss of me. So we've added prayer because prayer
Speaker 2: can be meditative and it can be calming effect or
Speaker 2: prayer can be tapping into purpose or a higher power
Speaker 2: to add a bit of heartbeat and add a bit
Speaker 2: of fire as well. So just surrounding that out for
Speaker 2: a lot of people who do listen. Obviously we're talking
Speaker 2: about extreme, but a lot of people will do prayer.
Speaker 2: And I say this to a lot of my Pacific boys,
Speaker 2: they go, I find it hard to meditate or do mindfulness.
Speaker 2: Do you go to church every Sunday? Yeah, just drop
Speaker 2: into being present in the moment and connect with your
Speaker 2: heart rate and just think about other stuff and just
Speaker 2: be in the moment without judgment. Now, transitions, Do you
Speaker 2: consciously transition from one thing to the next, Because when
Speaker 2: I look at your job description, it's pretty similar to mine,
Speaker 2: and you'll go from a podcast to a meeting about
Speaker 2: a future project or a book, and then you go
Speaker 2: to lots of workshops and you've got your hands and
Speaker 2: lots of different things. Do you have a process where
Speaker 2: you transition in and transition out because when I look
Speaker 2: at that model, that whole metaaccuracy, I can't help but
Speaker 2: think there's something you do either naturally or it's just
Speaker 2: started the process way way way back to transition and
Speaker 2: to actually think how do I transition into this group
Speaker 2: and how do I show up authentically but for what
Speaker 2: they need.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't have any set transition kind of process,
Speaker 1: but I be aware. I think about who I'm going
Speaker 1: to be with and why I'm going to be there,
Speaker 1: and what I want to do be create in the
Speaker 1: time that I'm with that person or those people in
Speaker 1: that situation, like what's my reason for being there? Why
Speaker 1: do they want me there? You know, as long as
Speaker 1: I show up knowing why I'm there and what are
Speaker 1: they Like yesterday I did. I told you I did
Speaker 1: a real estate industry conference in Manly, and I had
Speaker 1: basically quite a brief brief so to speak, the organizers,
Speaker 1: and you know, I could go wherever I wanted as
Speaker 1: long as I was talking around that subject and I know,
Speaker 1: and then I had a different brief for the gig
Speaker 1: that I did in the afternoon. But as long as
Speaker 1: I stay in that in that domain, then I'm okay.
Speaker 1: But I don't. I don't have any big kind of
Speaker 1: preparation process or you know. And I I think, because
Speaker 1: I've been doing it for so long and talking for
Speaker 1: so long, I try not to open doors that I'm
Speaker 1: not really knowledgeable about or qualified in, because it's just
Speaker 1: if I don't know a fair bit about it or
Speaker 1: understand it, then I shouldn't be talking about it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I do. I find it quite easy to transition from
Speaker 1: podcasts to speaking gig, to coaching session to you know whatever,
Speaker 1: because it's for me, it's all just talking.
Speaker 2: Is that? Though I love that model you said before
Speaker 2: about the public you, the personal you, the private you,
Speaker 2: the secret you, and potential you, I can't but think
Speaker 2: if someone is very public when they transition from one
Speaker 2: thing to the next, it is a persona. And I
Speaker 2: openly say that I have a persona when I'm on
Speaker 2: a big stage. Got to bring a bit of the
Speaker 2: jazz hands. But I think what you're helping me understand
Speaker 2: to I love that you to call this episode something
Speaker 2: like Jazz Hands and metap perception or something Jesus Jazz
Speaker 2: Hands and five years with no jeers, Jesus Jazz hands
Speaker 2: and a less existence, where I just cracking myself up
Speaker 2: of my own jokes. I'm doing harp jokes on my podcast.
Speaker 1: You know the other thing about five years with no Jeers,
Speaker 1: there really was five years with no jeers because the
Speaker 1: other way that that Jez happens, that wasn't endorsed either.
Speaker 2: So I think that's a whole different podcast in.
Speaker 1: It something nobody needs to think about.
Speaker 2: It waited to almost the sixty minute mark, and people
Speaker 2: are just like, similarly, I just choked on the haven't they.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to what I was talking about.
Speaker 1: Why have you gone red? That's going on? Do you
Speaker 1: look so uncomfortable because do you need a glass of
Speaker 1: water or something?
Speaker 2: You're right, I don't know whether we've sort of gone
Speaker 2: with the secret or private. We're sort of dancing between
Speaker 2: the two halfs. Love the authenticity, mate, but that public face.
Speaker 1: Love the authenticity.
Speaker 2: But stopte it's we're talking about self awareness and metacognition.
Speaker 2: But and you're showing a really good example. It actually
Speaker 2: is a good example that you you said that before
Speaker 2: and likes it. Open the window. You go, all right,
Speaker 2: big fellow, bang here it is no whacking off for
Speaker 2: five years. Take that in your face. You're welcome world.
Speaker 2: But I just see there's there's almost no delineation between
Speaker 2: that for you. So you're showing us even in this conversation.
Speaker 2: And so from an energy shift, you don't need to
Speaker 2: shift energy because you're doing what's authentic. You're doing what
Speaker 2: fuels you, so you can be personal private in public.
Speaker 2: So there isn't a real need to ramp up. So
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to catch up with that because I
Speaker 2: still teach. It's really important for corporates, especially before they
Speaker 2: go into a meeting, to transition because some matter up
Speaker 2: more performance moments, and I'll always go through a framework
Speaker 2: three questions, and it's very much sport and military influenced.
Speaker 2: Number one, who's in the room to what's the context?
Speaker 2: Number three what does success look like? And if you
Speaker 2: can ask those three questions before every meeting, podcast performance moment,
Speaker 2: you do pretty well what we miss. So a lot
Speaker 2: of people come out of that straight into the next thing.
Speaker 2: It's a little bit of a look back in the
Speaker 2: review mirror. Three more questions, what worked, what didn't? What
Speaker 2: can we improve next time? So sort of rolling between
Speaker 2: these performance moments. Yes, yes, look, yeah, I mean definitely
Speaker 2: I prepare in the sense that I'm well aware who
Speaker 2: I'm talking with and talking for and the outcomes that
Speaker 2: I want to create. But yeah, I try to bring
Speaker 2: that very comfortable energy too, you know, there's not so
Speaker 2: much rah rah, you know, and that works for me.
Speaker 2: But I think what's really important to say here too,
Speaker 2: is that so for anyone who is thinking about whether
Speaker 2: or not it's doing a pub having your own podcast,
Speaker 2: or becoming a presenter or a professional speaker or a coach,
Speaker 2: or the way that Andrew does it in the way
Speaker 2: that I do it, that's just the way that we
Speaker 2: do it. That's not the best way, that's what works
Speaker 2: for us. And I think that just like you know,
Speaker 2: we don't say what's the best diet, We say what's
Speaker 2: the best diet for you? Based on you know, your body,
Speaker 2: your your training, your you know, your age, or your
Speaker 2: genetic dispisition all of that, you know, So it's.
Speaker 1: Trying to find in the middle of all of this.
Speaker 1: You know, I've worked with other speakers who are so
Speaker 1: different to me but amazing, But I couldn't do what
Speaker 1: they do because I would be faking.
Speaker 2: It and they couldn't do what you do. E That's
Speaker 2: a flip side because you're you're in your lane.
Speaker 1: And so it's not like, oh, the Craig harp Away
Speaker 1: is the way. No, No, that's the way for me.
Speaker 1: It's like I also like, I do lots of things
Speaker 1: I do that work for me that I would not
Speaker 1: recommend for others because nobody is me but me. If
Speaker 1: I share kind of a revelation about how I do
Speaker 1: something and somebody wants to give that a go, that's fine,
Speaker 1: but there's no guarantee. You know. It's like I decided
Speaker 1: when I was twenty one or two, I didn't want
Speaker 1: to have a job per se. I wanted to work
Speaker 1: for me. I didn't want a bus. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to go to work. I didn't want to sit in
Speaker 1: a cubicle. I didn't want to wear a suit. I
Speaker 1: figured out all of these things I didn't want to do,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what's the antidote to that. Well, the
Speaker 1: antidote is that I figure out how I can build
Speaker 1: something that's a synergy of making dough and having fun
Speaker 1: and learning and evolving and working with humans. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of what I did. But I've spent thirty four
Speaker 1: years not having holiday pay, not having sick pay, not
Speaker 1: having any guarantees, not knowing what I would make next month,
Speaker 1: you know, a whole lot of vulnerability and exposure that
Speaker 1: most people would not like at all, But I thrive
Speaker 1: in that. That's my jam. I love that shit. But
Speaker 1: again I wouldn't recommend it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's just like I eate two meals a day because
Speaker 1: that works for me, but it's not something I would
Speaker 1: recommend to people. So I think, you know, even with
Speaker 1: these podcasts, you know, lean in and listen and see
Speaker 1: what resonates, and then maybe if something resonates, you know,
Speaker 1: take that for a test drive and see what the
Speaker 1: outcome is, you know, because it's different things work for
Speaker 1: different people.
Speaker 2: Just go back to one open loop. There's many. I'll
Speaker 2: close one and then we'll start to bring this baby behind.
Speaker 2: On the speaking I've seen and I know you've seen
Speaker 2: as well. There's certain speakers. So you see them and
Speaker 2: they're on stage and it's a wonderful show. It really
Speaker 2: is persona and you watch it and go, oh, wonderful choreography,
Speaker 2: look up and the music starts or fade left, fade
Speaker 2: right and tell the story. You know where I'm going
Speaker 2: with this. We're probably thinking of some similar speakers. You
Speaker 2: see and you go, oh, that was awesome, and then
Speaker 2: you see them the second time and go where's you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So for people listening to this, I think you're the
Speaker 2: extreme with respect on just free range. But you've done
Speaker 2: loads of fucking work, made decades and decades, so you
Speaker 2: can rock up and you are that you projected you,
Speaker 2: and it's that beautiful blend public personal private, a little
Speaker 2: bit of secret every now and then, but it's the
Speaker 2: narrative you're happy with. We see some other people are
Speaker 2: so choreographed, probably so uncomfortable with the real them that
Speaker 2: they put on this persona and mask, and that's draining.
Speaker 2: It really is draining. So I think for people listening
Speaker 2: to this, just think, where are you on that spectrum
Speaker 2: when you show up? Are you putting on the mask?
Speaker 2: Are you the phantom of the opera every single time?
Speaker 2: Or you're just rocking up as you probably for most
Speaker 2: people this summer in the middle. And I think one
Speaker 2: of the lessons for me in this this discussion with you, mate,
Speaker 2: is about well, where am I happy being? And you've
Speaker 2: said this on your podcast when you've interviewed me. I'll
Speaker 2: do a bit more prep and I'm a bit more
Speaker 2: jazz handy on that stuff as well. But I found
Speaker 2: the lame way that suits me. And it's taken a while.
Speaker 2: And I love the feedback you gave me before, and
Speaker 2: I felt it the last podcast we did, I felt
Speaker 2: we really connected. We did one a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: I think I was more jazz hands sort of speaking
Speaker 2: at as well. As you get more comfortable in yourself,
Speaker 2: I think it's just it's energy fueling rather than energy draining.
Speaker 2: So that's a real takeout from this conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but and I'm not pissing in your pocket. But
Speaker 1: you're You're great. And what is interesting is that you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know how old you are.
Speaker 2: How old are you fifty or fifty one?
Speaker 1: I mean, this is interesting because you are getting better,
Speaker 1: not like, oh, you're just hanging in there. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying this to pump you up in front of
Speaker 1: your audience, but the you that i've over the decades,
Speaker 1: you're better. Your skills are better, You're understanding your awareness,
Speaker 1: your self awareness, the way that you communicate, the way
Speaker 1: that you frame things and structure things and tell stories.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like you're better. And what's great is
Speaker 1: that at fifty one, you're still growing and learning. At sixty,
Speaker 1: I'm still growing and learning like this is not normal,
Speaker 1: but fuck normal, fuck typical, like you know, and it's
Speaker 1: not about that We've got to be you know this
Speaker 1: in this endless pursuit of excellence. But you know, I
Speaker 1: know that if I can keep learning, evolving, growing while
Speaker 1: enjoying the journey and being me and still having a
Speaker 1: degree of contentment and calm, but also side by side,
Speaker 1: were still a little ambition, then why not you.
Speaker 2: Know two things about one? Thank you? I still want
Speaker 2: to acknowledge that it means a lot coming from you.
Speaker 2: And I was going to make a flippant joke, and
Speaker 2: that's a Dubo boy me coming out going. He's giving
Speaker 2: me feedback. I've got to be a bit of a
Speaker 2: and not take it. But I'm going to sit in
Speaker 2: it and say thank you for someone I've looked up
Speaker 2: to for years and someone who's had a big influence
Speaker 2: on my life. You. I really appreciate that. And secondly,
Speaker 2: why not at fifty one or sixty one or seventy one,
Speaker 2: or if someone's listening to this and you're twenty one, why
Speaker 2: not be in a stage of constant growth, and if
Speaker 2: we're going to get to one hundred, which I want to,
Speaker 2: I'm halfway there. And I just think on the mental
Speaker 2: skills side of my business, working with sporting teams and
Speaker 2: literally having the opportunity to work with great men and
Speaker 2: great women around the world. Now harps, I'm fucking loving it.
Speaker 2: But I'm just scratching the surface, mate, And I really
Speaker 2: can see in five years and that and even ten years,
Speaker 2: I'm going to have so much better experience and better
Speaker 2: skills and better service in that area. That shit keeps
Speaker 2: me awake at night.
Speaker 1: You know what's funny is just backtracking about three minutes.
Speaker 1: You said cheers, no, no, no, you said something about
Speaker 1: the Phantom of the opera, the Phantom of the So
Speaker 1: the guy who is the Phantom, who played the Phantom
Speaker 1: on West End in London and in Australia, his name's
Speaker 1: Josh Pittman, and I coach him, I work with him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's awesome. And he has a podcast called Behind the
Speaker 1: Mask as well, which is just kicking off and it's
Speaker 1: it's really it's funny hearing you say that, and we
Speaker 1: talk about this mask and we've spoken, he and I
Speaker 1: are spoken. You should get him on old chats him
Speaker 1: and see if you're interested.
Speaker 2: He'd love to.
Speaker 1: He's great mate. He's a high performer. He's a freak,
Speaker 1: but he's just a deep thinking, creative clever like deep
Speaker 1: you and him will go great. I said to him
Speaker 1: the other day we're having a coffee and talking about
Speaker 1: I'm coaching him a bit in doing some keynote speaking, right,
Speaker 1: I said, you know, and I said, look, sometimes you're
Speaker 1: going to be in a boardroom with ten people, and
Speaker 1: sometimes you're going to be you know, wherever, in front
Speaker 1: of a thousand people. And you know, I said, what's
Speaker 1: the most you've ever sung in front of? And he
Speaker 1: goes ninety two and a half thousand, and I go,
Speaker 1: all right, well you've got me covered. Jeez, Like live
Speaker 1: at nine.
Speaker 2: I was going to say it'd be a big sporting event.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, live singing in front of ninety two and
Speaker 1: a half thousand peral.
Speaker 2: Bet him singing in front of ninety two and a
Speaker 2: half it's performer, yeah, and persona and then he steps
Speaker 2: back into the person I bet it's scarce a shit
Speaker 2: out of him thinking of standing in a boardroom having
Speaker 2: an authentic, open, real conversation to ten people without the
Speaker 2: metaphorical mask, so I can see exactly the utility you
Speaker 2: have for Joel.
Speaker 1: Well and also just on that same thing, similar thing
Speaker 1: like I love comedy, right, I love I love There
Speaker 1: ain't that much great comedy around at the moment, but
Speaker 1: I love making people laugh. I don't think I'm hilarious
Speaker 1: by any means, but but I've always I've had this
Speaker 1: secret thing to get up and just do five minutes
Speaker 1: of an open mic. I am more terrified of doing
Speaker 1: five minutes of stand up comedy in front of twelve
Speaker 1: disintransted strangers than I am of doing pretty much anything else.
Speaker 2: All right, well, so you have a dart.
Speaker 1: No, no, I'm not doing it.
Speaker 2: No, no, listen, listen. I registered and people regular listeners
Speaker 2: have heard this. Before I went to KPMG, I wanted
Speaker 2: to scare myself because I've been in my comfort zone.
Speaker 2: And I enrolled in a four week comedy course and
Speaker 2: the final week was at Star City and you invited
Speaker 2: family members, friends, and you did a five minute open mind.
Speaker 2: I went to the first night and they got us
Speaker 2: up on stage and I didn't read the brief. Typical me,
Speaker 2: you'd understand this, and I just rocked up, thinking they'll
Speaker 2: get to talk to us. And then they said, all right,
Speaker 2: now we're going to get everyone up and just do
Speaker 2: one or two minutes, and we're going to look at
Speaker 2: the progress and we're going to film you. And I
Speaker 2: went first. He said, all right, do you? It was
Speaker 2: I feel uncomfortable listening fu awful. I wanted to some
Speaker 2: sort of keynote presentation, which is funny with context, like
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say that I'm hilarious, but I think I'm
Speaker 2: situational funny or slapstick funny, so I know how to
Speaker 2: make a crowd laugh. I did that, and you could
Speaker 2: hear crickets cricket. So guess what I did?
Speaker 1: What did you do?
Speaker 2: I didn't go back? I used. I used the excuse
Speaker 2: that I just started at KPMG. So when you say that,
Speaker 2: I will at some stage get the balls and go
Speaker 2: back because I don't want to be a comedian. But
Speaker 2: I talk regularly, as you do, to people about getting
Speaker 2: out of that comfort zone. So I've got to go
Speaker 2: back and do that. So I'd love you to do it.
Speaker 2: I think it would seem like scare the shit out
Speaker 2: of here, but there'd be a big learning in it.
Speaker 1: Well, see, when you've got a warm audience, right, you're
Speaker 1: there and you're doing something, and a group is there
Speaker 1: to hear you, right, and you're not there to be funny. Well,
Speaker 1: then you can be incidentally funny and they laugh. But
Speaker 1: people are not there for that purpose. But when you're
Speaker 1: a comedian, well make us laugh, dumbass.
Speaker 2: It's like it's such a skill. I've seen Lawrence Mooney
Speaker 2: probably more than any other comedian and just so clever
Speaker 2: and deprecating and takes the piss and you can see
Speaker 2: the theory. There's a formula there. It scares the shit
Speaker 2: out of me getting up on stage and doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I won't be doing it anytime soon. You can
Speaker 1: just tell us how you go.
Speaker 2: Thank you for today.
Speaker 1: Thanks mate, it's been great.
Speaker 2: I love it. For people who want to get more
Speaker 2: of Harp's the best way to find you listen to you.
Speaker 2: Where should they go?
Speaker 1: So maybe just the You Project, which is my podcast,
Speaker 1: or I'm actually going to launch some public events in
Speaker 1: the next week or so. You can find those on
Speaker 1: my website which is just Craig Harper dot net. And
Speaker 1: I'm quite prolific on Instagram, which is just Craig, Anthony
Speaker 1: Harper or.
Speaker 2: One word good work on the public ones. Are you
Speaker 2: doing that yourself or you're doing it with the events.
Speaker 1: Doing that Melissa, who runs my life and who's much
Speaker 1: smarter than me, she's putting all those up. So we
Speaker 1: are running them. The U Project is my company, so
Speaker 1: we're running them, and I'm doing I'm doing a big
Speaker 1: Melbourne workshop Brisbane, Melbourne and one in Rural Victor, Rural
Speaker 1: esh Bend, you go. I don't know, but I'm doing
Speaker 1: a kind of a half day workshop called Understanding You.
Speaker 1: I really like it. It's new content. I'm really excited
Speaker 1: about it. And then I do these other things where
Speaker 1: I go into state this is a bit cheeky. I shouldn't.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't pull back the curtain. But I'll tell you
Speaker 1: so when I've got Sometimes when i've got a corporate gig,
Speaker 1: say on a Friday, I'll go up the Thursday and
Speaker 1: I'll do what I call a private workshop for say
Speaker 1: thirty people where I'm staying, so I'll book a boardroom
Speaker 1: and the night before my corporate gig, I'll just I'll
Speaker 1: do a thirty person private workshop. Twenty to thirty people.
Speaker 1: So it's small, it's intimate and I spend about three
Speaker 1: and a half hours with people and it's you know,
Speaker 1: there's a bit of presenting, but it's more organic where
Speaker 1: people can just ask me stuff and we can go
Speaker 1: wherever we go. So I've been doing those a fair
Speaker 1: bit as well, and they're fun. I like those because
Speaker 1: it's just, you know, it's very intimate and I'm used
Speaker 1: to being on a stage, but it's not that.
Speaker 2: It's probably given you a whole lot of different material
Speaker 2: as well, the reps and sets to now do the
Speaker 2: half day, so there's been method in that process.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, so all that more.
Speaker 2: Love your work mate, Love you and thank you for
Speaker 2: making me blush.
Speaker 1: I love you too, be boy, it's great seeing you
Speaker 1: that shade of Crimson. It was worth it just for that.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much,