Speaker 1: I get a team. I hope you're bloody terrific. A
Speaker 1: few updates before I get underweight. So I had a
Speaker 1: couple of people send me feedback about episodes. It was
Speaker 1: all good, by the way, and a few people. I
Speaker 1: get lots of emails about different things, So I thought,
Speaker 1: rather than rather than answering all of those individually and
Speaker 1: keeping people guessing. I'm sure most of you are not guessing,
Speaker 1: maybe don't even care. But for those of you who
Speaker 1: want to know what the show, the new project might
Speaker 1: look like in twenty twenty five, and my plans moving forward,
Speaker 1: keeping in mind that we're heading towards two thousand shows,
Speaker 1: and I'm always thinking about like, I don't want to
Speaker 1: do shows for the sake of doing shows. I don't
Speaker 1: want to have conversations that are not adding value or
Speaker 1: not potentially adding value. Having said that, of course, I
Speaker 1: acknowledge that over the course of seventeen hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: odd shows or whatever, at as of this episode, of course,
Speaker 1: some conversation is going to be more and less engaging,
Speaker 1: more and less valuable to you the audience. Have I
Speaker 1: loved every conversation that I've had, of course I haven't
Speaker 1: have I disagreed with people that I've had on of course,
Speaker 1: that's part of the human experience, and I will continue
Speaker 1: to and we don't need to align or agree do
Speaker 1: I think every work that I've put out here has
Speaker 1: been a masterpiece. Far from it, Probably very few, if
Speaker 1: any masterpieces. But I'm always conscious of trying to be
Speaker 1: authentic with what I do, trying to share content that
Speaker 1: is going to be hopefully valuable and relevant to the
Speaker 1: biggest percentage of people that listen as possible. Having said that,
Speaker 1: sometimes I feel compelled to talk about a particular topic.
Speaker 1: It's like sometimes I write a whiteboard post. If you
Speaker 1: follow me on Instagram, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: I write things on my whiteboard, take a photo of it,
Speaker 1: like I might be a thought, an idea, a message,
Speaker 1: a strategy, and then I post it. And some of those,
Speaker 1: some of the cheeky, funny ones that have got a
Speaker 1: fuck or a shit or some kind of you know,
Speaker 1: swearing word in it, or some kind of humorous idea
Speaker 1: or you know, something that's a little bit controversial. Quite
Speaker 1: often that's the stuff that takes off. Not always. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I'll write something which for me is really important and
Speaker 1: profound and relevant and powerful for me, and I write it,
Speaker 1: I put it on the whiteboard, and I know that
Speaker 1: it's not going to be well, it's not going to
Speaker 1: get the same level of attention as a lot of
Speaker 1: others or the same level of approval I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: ticks and likes and feedback and comments from one of them.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless, it kind of aligns with who I am
Speaker 1: and how I am, and I just think I always
Speaker 1: think there's going to be someone, even if it's one
Speaker 1: or two people that needed to hear this or read this.
Speaker 1: And with that in mind, I did an episode the
Speaker 1: other day, Episode seventeen, one hundred and seventy five. I
Speaker 1: think it was called the Proximity of Death or yeah,
Speaker 1: the Proximity of Death in the Proximity of Death, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I got a lot of feedback. I got a
Speaker 1: lot of dms, I got a lot of messages through
Speaker 1: Facebook and through Insta and some emails. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: because I think overall it probably wasn't any more popular
Speaker 1: or well received overall, but you know, it's something that
Speaker 1: has been in front of mine, just dealing with death
Speaker 1: and dying and people who were sick and unwell and
Speaker 1: just thinking about, you know, not obsessing about or worrying about,
Speaker 1: but being mindful of, you know, my own mortality and
Speaker 1: other people's mortality, and the fact that in our culture
Speaker 1: we tend not to talk about it a lot, and
Speaker 1: probably we don't need to talk about it a lot,
Speaker 1: but maybe there are times when we do need to
Speaker 1: talk about it a bit more than we do. And anyway,
Speaker 1: so I did this, I did this monologue, and for
Speaker 1: some people it really resonated. So moving forward, and so
Speaker 1: thank you for the feedback. Thank you for the feedback.
Speaker 1: And by the way, we have we have a Facebook
Speaker 1: page that I've told you about before, and if you
Speaker 1: want to contribute to or maybe inform or influence what
Speaker 1: might come up on the project. And I'm not promising
Speaker 1: anything other than I definitely read everything. I definitely take
Speaker 1: it on board. And my main I guess factor or
Speaker 1: consideration is will this idea or this top be generally
Speaker 1: will it be relevant to a fair few people? And
Speaker 1: there are things that fascinate me, but I wouldn't do
Speaker 1: a podcast on it because I know it's not going
Speaker 1: to be relevant to too many people. And while you know,
Speaker 1: I just said a minute ago that there are some
Speaker 1: that might not be of interest. But even like, for example,
Speaker 1: I knew when I did the episode on the in
Speaker 1: the Proximity of Death, Put your Teeth in Harps, I
Speaker 1: knew that while some people might not press play because
Speaker 1: they don't want to think about it or hear about
Speaker 1: it death, some would And then I knew that for
Speaker 1: a So if it's that, if it's kind of that,
Speaker 1: you know, dynamic, then I think I'll go ahead with it.
Speaker 1: But there are other things that I could talk about
Speaker 1: that are passionate or a passion project or an area
Speaker 1: of passion for me that I know is not generally
Speaker 1: relevant or particularly helpful, So I'll probably never do podcasts
Speaker 1: on that stuff. Somebody asked me about how I choose guests.
Speaker 1: So I get a constant, pretty constant stream of emails
Speaker 1: from people and contact from people who want to be
Speaker 1: on the show. And we're not you know, we're not
Speaker 1: the Joe Rogan experience, we're not NBC, we're not each
Speaker 1: Channel seven or nine, but we have a pretty good audience.
Speaker 1: We have thousands of listeners a day, and we have
Speaker 1: a very loyal listener base. Thank you, and I'm for me.
Speaker 1: It's really about what's going to be good for the audience,
Speaker 1: and so at this time of the year, like right now,
Speaker 1: it is difficult to get people that because a lot
Speaker 1: of people are away, a lot of people are not
Speaker 1: available or contactable understandably, So getting what I would call
Speaker 1: high quality guests at this time of the year, as
Speaker 1: in brand new people that you've never met through the
Speaker 1: Youth Project, it's tricky. So I've changed my model a
Speaker 1: little bit this year, and we're going to continue to
Speaker 1: have new people, but we're going to also tap into
Speaker 1: the pre existing typ regulars in a more significant way.
Speaker 1: So some of them that you know, like David Gillespie
Speaker 1: that we get pretty much only good feedback about. Doesn't
Speaker 1: mean everyone likes him, but most people do. Most of
Speaker 1: you find him interesting, a little bit provocative. He doesn't
Speaker 1: get everything right, like none of us get everything right,
Speaker 1: but he you know, I really enjoy the conversations with him,
Speaker 1: even though he shoots me to bits half the time.
Speaker 1: That's that's good for my ego, isn't it. But I
Speaker 1: like that. And doctor Denise Finess that we had on
Speaker 1: Oh I think she's up today As I record this
Speaker 1: twenty six of the first which is a Sunday, and
Speaker 1: a lot of our regular guests doctor Bill Sullivan from
Speaker 1: the States, people that are really good at what they
Speaker 1: do and they kind of provide insight into things that
Speaker 1: are broadly relevant fast, So we're going to have lots
Speaker 1: of those people on. I feel like I'm waffling now,
Speaker 1: I apologize. I'm going to keep doing solo ones. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I feel a bit awkward in that I'm like, do
Speaker 1: people really want to listen to me talk essentially to
Speaker 1: myself or to of course I'm talking to you, but
Speaker 1: you know, me just banging on doing basically a fucking
Speaker 1: thirty minute monologue. And if it was only up to
Speaker 1: what I think, I probably would not do many at all.
Speaker 1: But every time I do a not every time, but
Speaker 1: nearly every time I do one of these, I have
Speaker 1: several people say, Craig, I prefer those over interviews. I
Speaker 1: like the teaching, I like the workshop kind of vibe.
Speaker 1: I like you, I like kind of being mentored by you.
Speaker 1: That's what it feels like for me, So please keep
Speaker 1: those up. And then other people understandably like, nah, I
Speaker 1: want to hear other people. I'm fucking sick of you.
Speaker 1: And whichever camp you're in or maybe you're in another camp.
Speaker 1: That's all good. So but for this year, we're going
Speaker 1: to use tap into our regulars. That's going to happen
Speaker 1: a little bit more people that I know that you enjoy,
Speaker 1: people that don't know that bring value. I'm going to
Speaker 1: do some solo ones, and of course we're going to
Speaker 1: be talking to brand new people and people that have
Speaker 1: never insected with the U Project. So if you're not
Speaker 1: on the Facebook page, our Facebook page, of course, it's
Speaker 1: just the U Project Facebook page, jump in there. If
Speaker 1: you want to be part of that, feel free to
Speaker 1: send a message, leave a message. We have over three
Speaker 1: and a half thousand people in there, and to be honest,
Speaker 1: it gets used and people comment, and I would love
Speaker 1: it to be used even more than it is, and
Speaker 1: not because there's any commercial reason for that. There's no hooks,
Speaker 1: catches or agendas. There's no cost, there's no sales pictures,
Speaker 1: not more than there is on any other thing anyway
Speaker 1: of mine. I try not to do too many sales
Speaker 1: pictures or promos because I want it to be just
Speaker 1: a genuine I want that to be a place where
Speaker 1: people like minded people can go and go, hey, i'm
Speaker 1: reading this book that's fucking amazing. Has anyone else read
Speaker 1: this book? Or I read this book because anyone got
Speaker 1: another suggestion for me in the area of xyz? Or
Speaker 1: can someone recommend what I should watch on Netflix that's
Speaker 1: going to be a little bit uplifting and funny? Or
Speaker 1: Craig did this conversation called the Proximity of Death? What
Speaker 1: did you think about that? Had it? You know whatever?
Speaker 1: I don't know a little bit of an online community
Speaker 1: for people to get together who, in general terms, might
Speaker 1: have a similar energy and focus in that we want
Speaker 1: to do better, think better, be better humans. I would
Speaker 1: love to create a space which is more positive, a
Speaker 1: more positive online space than is what we see a
Speaker 1: lot of in that kind of virtual world these days.
Speaker 1: Having said all of that, my last thing before I
Speaker 1: actually talk to you is what is it? Oh? Yes,
Speaker 1: feb three, which is not too far away, is my news.
Speaker 1: So not Monday, you might well, it's a Monday night
Speaker 1: as I record, It's Tomorrow night week so eight days
Speaker 1: from now. But February three is my new mentoring program.
Speaker 1: It might be for you, it might not be for you.
Speaker 1: It's not cheap. We're not giving that shit away. But
Speaker 1: a lot of people that have done it have really
Speaker 1: got a lot out of it and gone on to
Speaker 1: do bigger and better things. There's no sales pitch in that.
Speaker 1: There's just me telling you what's coming up. If you
Speaker 1: want to see what that looks like. There's a ten
Speaker 1: week overview. It's ten weeks, it's Monday nights. There's literally
Speaker 1: a syllabus that I've created so for me, quite the
Speaker 1: groundbreaking approach because I'm bloody, you know, Freddie freestyle. So
Speaker 1: I've actually created a syllabus for the next one. So
Speaker 1: every week we're going to work on focus on talk
Speaker 1: about explore a predetermined area or topic relating to the
Speaker 1: human experience. Just go to my website, Craikcarpa dot net,
Speaker 1: go to education, have a look at that. All right,
Speaker 1: today we're talking about and thanks for still being here,
Speaker 1: the three of you that are talking about this propensity
Speaker 1: that we have to be proactive, not reactive. Sorry, sorry,
Speaker 1: say that again, harps. Reactive not proactive. In other words,
Speaker 1: why we often not all of us, but often we
Speaker 1: wait for shit to go bad, or for shit to break,
Speaker 1: or for the catastrophe to happen before we do something,
Speaker 1: Before we take action on the thing that we knew
Speaker 1: we should have taken action on. And that could be
Speaker 1: a thing with our career, it could be a thing
Speaker 1: with our money. It could be a thing with our body,
Speaker 1: or our fitness more specifically, or our diet more specifically,
Speaker 1: or a relationship not necessarily thoroughly a romantic one. I'll
Speaker 1: say that again with my teeth in not necessarily a
Speaker 1: romantic one. But the truth is that you and I
Speaker 1: are always getting data. And if you think about your
Speaker 1: life as like an ongoing kind of experiment, which in
Speaker 1: a way it is, because we're trying things and learning things.
Speaker 1: We're doing things and getting outcomes, and the outcomes our results.
Speaker 1: That is our data that is telling us well. Craig,
Speaker 1: For example, I know there was a time in my
Speaker 1: life when my behavior, my operating system, my protocol was
Speaker 1: eating way too much food and eating way more food
Speaker 1: or putting way too much energy into my body than
Speaker 1: my body needed. Now that was my behavior, that was
Speaker 1: my operating system, and the outcome of that was obesity.
Speaker 1: The outcome of that was that I was morbidly obese.
Speaker 1: I was overweight, I was un healthy, I was unhappy.
Speaker 1: And not only was there this physical consequence as a
Speaker 1: result of the things that I've been doing, But there
Speaker 1: was also an emotional and psychological and behavioral consequence. Now
Speaker 1: I knew, And I'm just using me as an example set,
Speaker 1: don't get upset, And it doesn't need to be about
Speaker 1: body weight or fat or obesity, if it can be
Speaker 1: about anything. But I'm just using this as a practical example, right,
Speaker 1: And I think back, Now, I think about why did
Speaker 1: I Why was I doing that thing that didn't work?
Speaker 1: And I think all of us and am I right
Speaker 1: now in my life? Am I currently doing something that
Speaker 1: doesn't work? Or am I currently doing something which is
Speaker 1: perhaps not optimal for me? Yes? I am? I am
Speaker 1: I'm sure nothing right now springs to mind, but I
Speaker 1: know I'm not doing everything optimal. But there are times
Speaker 1: when I've got There have been times in my life
Speaker 1: where I was actually doing stuff that I knew fucking stupid.
Speaker 1: I knew that over the long term, this is bad,
Speaker 1: This is not good, this is unhealthy. This is not
Speaker 1: aligned with my values or my goals. This doesn't sit
Speaker 1: right with who I want to be and how I
Speaker 1: want to be. And there were times when as an
Speaker 1: exercise scientist and jim owner and person with a profile
Speaker 1: where I was and I've said this before, but I
Speaker 1: was literally telling people to do things that I couldn't
Speaker 1: even fucking manage to do myself. So what I was
Speaker 1: pretending to be that the persona of me, the high performance, disciplined,
Speaker 1: in control, you know, educated exercise science guy, away from
Speaker 1: the persona of that, the actual person, the human, the psychological, emotional,
Speaker 1: you know, physiological creature that is me. I was eating
Speaker 1: shit and doing dumb shit and producing bad outcomes. And
Speaker 1: in the middle of that was self loathing and shitty
Speaker 1: self esteem and embarrassment and fear that people would find
Speaker 1: out in all of that and that may or not
Speaker 1: in some way relate to you. And so the thing is,
Speaker 1: why do we do this? Like, why do we do
Speaker 1: dumb shit that doesn't work? And why do we wait
Speaker 1: for shit to break? Why do we wait for things
Speaker 1: to fall apart? Often not all of us, not all
Speaker 1: of the time, but why do so many of us
Speaker 1: so often wait for the shit to hit the fan
Speaker 1: or the catastrophe to actually go, Oh I'm that fuck,
Speaker 1: I'm changing, I'm doing it. What is that about? And
Speaker 1: so I want to unpack that a little bit because
Speaker 1: I think you know there are a bunch of reasons.
Speaker 1: And again, this is not what I'm giving you. Is
Speaker 1: not a three step plan, it's not a cure, it's
Speaker 1: not a miracle anything. As always, this is just me
Speaker 1: thinking out loud. This is me just talking to you
Speaker 1: about how I think this stuff works based on my
Speaker 1: own flawed nature and behavior and journey, my own experience
Speaker 1: of fucking up and getting up, and also on a
Speaker 1: professional level, my experience working with thousands of people who
Speaker 1: all want the same thing on a level, and that
Speaker 1: thing is to be better. Now, of course, better means
Speaker 1: different things for different people, but better in terms of
Speaker 1: everyone wants to be successful. Everyone wants to be healthy.
Speaker 1: Everyone wants to be happy. Nobody wants to be miserable,
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to be unhealthy, nobody wants a shit job,
Speaker 1: nobody wants to be broken. Right, So we all on
Speaker 1: a level. And I'm not saying necessarily that a great
Speaker 1: body or a great bank account equals nirvana or happiness. No,
Speaker 1: but I think there's a commonality across the board of
Speaker 1: the things that we want, and we want to be
Speaker 1: physically and mentally, emotionally, spiritually, financially in a good place.
Speaker 1: But Nonetheless, so many of us, so much of the
Speaker 1: time self sabotage. That is, we do shit which is stupid.
Speaker 1: I could make it more complicated, I'm not going to.
Speaker 1: But based on who and how we want to be
Speaker 1: and what we know matters, we do stuff that is
Speaker 1: somewhat somewhere between stupid and toxic and self destructive. An
Speaker 1: obvious one being, you know, putting crap in our body,
Speaker 1: and whether or not that crap is booze or drugs
Speaker 1: or low quality, high sugar food like it is what
Speaker 1: we do, but we know that it is not good
Speaker 1: for us. But what it does do, what it does do,
Speaker 1: and this is one of the reasons that you know,
Speaker 1: we delay and we deny and we avoid. What it
Speaker 1: does do or what it can do, is those toxic things,
Speaker 1: the you know, the high sugar, low nutritional value, highly
Speaker 1: processed crap, the drug cigarette, the twenty cups of coffee.
Speaker 1: Coffee is not bad, but twenty cups not good, you know,
Speaker 1: the drugs, the booster, all that stuff. What it does
Speaker 1: do is it puts us temporarily in a state where
Speaker 1: in that moment, in that moment of consuming that thing
Speaker 1: or having that thing in our system, for a while after.
Speaker 1: It makes us feel good. We love instant gratification, we
Speaker 1: love feeling good in the moment, And so we have
Speaker 1: this real addiction. And I mean addiction because you know
Speaker 1: why it's an addiction because it's almost impossible to stop
Speaker 1: for so, like how many people who are unhealthy essentially
Speaker 1: know what to do but don't do it, I would
Speaker 1: say the vast majority. How many people who are unhealthy
Speaker 1: don't want to be unhealthy, all of them. Everyone who's
Speaker 1: unhealthy wants to be healthy. Everyone who's got an addictive
Speaker 1: or an addiction that's toxic, that's destructive, that's fucking up
Speaker 1: their life, they don't want that addiction. But it's easier
Speaker 1: said than that. And I, by the way, I'm acknowledging
Speaker 1: this is not easy. So I'm not saying try harder,
Speaker 1: be disciplined. No, what I'm trying to do is to
Speaker 1: help us all understand the psychology and the physiology and
Speaker 1: the nature of addiction and also the nature of habitual behavior.
Speaker 1: When we do something for long enough, that just becomes
Speaker 1: a hard, wide, subconscious operating system that now you think
Speaker 1: about when you've been and forget addiction for the moment
Speaker 1: or drugs or booze or that harder end of the scale.
Speaker 1: But just you know, it might just be that every
Speaker 1: time somebody says something nice to you, you put yourself down. Now,
Speaker 1: if you deflect and you self low, then you have
Speaker 1: all of these sociological kind of behaviors that are really
Speaker 1: fuck looking you up psychologically and emotionally and sociologically. But
Speaker 1: when you've been putting yourself down and calling yourself a
Speaker 1: piece of shit and hating on yourself for thirty years
Speaker 1: and then Craig Harper does a podcast and he says, hey,
Speaker 1: that's no good for you. You know that's bad for you.
Speaker 1: You know that. Well, that doesn't fix anything, does it.
Speaker 1: All it does is maybe make you think or maybe
Speaker 1: open the awareness door or the curiosity door a little bit.
Speaker 1: So I'm fully acknowledging that it is not easy to
Speaker 1: change these things. But I'm also fully acknowledging that it's possible.
Speaker 1: And that's the good bit. That's the good bit. The
Speaker 1: challenge for us is in overcoming these things and being
Speaker 1: the person who doesn't wait for things to fall apart,
Speaker 1: who doesn't wait to be diagnosed with some kind of
Speaker 1: medical condition that's potentially life shortening or life ending. The
Speaker 1: challenge for us is to be able to start, be
Speaker 1: able to make the decisions, and to be able to
Speaker 1: change our behavior. What I'm about to say is crucial
Speaker 1: when we don't feel like it. We don't feel like it,
Speaker 1: and so often we don't feel like it because who
Speaker 1: the fuck wants to do something that's hard and uncomfortable
Speaker 1: and unfamiliar and is wrapped in uncertainty. We don't know
Speaker 1: what the absolute outcome is going to be. But what
Speaker 1: I do know is if I eat this piece of cake,
Speaker 1: what I absolutely know is I'm going to feel good
Speaker 1: for a little while. It's going to give me a
Speaker 1: dopamine response, is going to make me my taste buds
Speaker 1: come and fucking come alive, and I'm going to feel
Speaker 1: awesome for about ten minutes, and then probably in fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes I'm going to feel shit and guilty in all
Speaker 1: of that. But nonetheless, I know what's coming. And by
Speaker 1: the way, I'll give up the cake, or I'll give
Speaker 1: up the self loathing, or I'll give up the gambling habit,
Speaker 1: or I'll get out of the toxic relationship, or I'll
Speaker 1: do that soon. But I'm not doing it today. I'm
Speaker 1: not doing it today and then tomorrow comes. In course,
Speaker 1: tomorrow is now, it's today, and of course it's not today,
Speaker 1: it's not today, but again it's soon. And by the way, Craig,
Speaker 1: you don't understand my situation, You don't understand my genetics.
Speaker 1: You dah da da da da. And now I'm fifty right.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many people. I was going to
Speaker 1: say thousands, but I've literally had tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: conversations with people, but conversations with people who essentially said
Speaker 1: to me. They didn't say these exact words, but essentially
Speaker 1: said to me, I've known that I should have changed
Speaker 1: this forever, and I just haven't done it. I've wanted
Speaker 1: to change this forever. I've almost been turning my life
Speaker 1: around for twenty years. Or they're sitting in front of me,
Speaker 1: they're forty five, fifty five, sixty five, and they're essentially
Speaker 1: saying to me, where I am is not where I
Speaker 1: want to be. But I know I got here by
Speaker 1: my own choices or lack of choices, my own action
Speaker 1: or inaction, and where I am is not my plan.
Speaker 1: I didn't plan to be here. And I think it's
Speaker 1: really important that with these conversations, we be what's the
Speaker 1: word harps, we'd be pragmatic and realistic, but without hating
Speaker 1: on ourselves. There's a difference between self awareness and self loathing.
Speaker 1: As I've said many times, I can acknowledge that I
Speaker 1: have been the problem without throwing myself into self pity
Speaker 1: and regret and resentment and self loathing. I can do that.
Speaker 1: I can say there have been many times, many times
Speaker 1: in my life where I have knowingly taken the option
Speaker 1: that I probably shouldn't have taken, but in the short term,
Speaker 1: that was the comfortable or the familiar or the easy
Speaker 1: option for me. Have I done that? Have I done that?
Speaker 1: Many times? Will I ever do it again? I'm sure
Speaker 1: I will. I'm sure I will. We are not chasing perfection.
Speaker 1: We are chasing improvement, awareness, growth, personal development, authenticity, and
Speaker 1: these these are the things that are empowering. These are
Speaker 1: the things that are transformational. You know, we sometimes because
Speaker 1: we have no symptoms, like right now, I'm doing stuff
Speaker 1: that's not good for me, but there's no major symptoms,
Speaker 1: so we tell ourselves it's all good. And it might
Speaker 1: kind of be all good for the moment, but we
Speaker 1: know it ain't going to be all good in a while,
Speaker 1: because shit catches up to us and there'll be a
Speaker 1: period of time where you can get away with certain behaviors.
Speaker 1: But is that what you want? Is that what you
Speaker 1: want to get away with it? And then to wait
Speaker 1: till it catches up to you, for you to wait
Speaker 1: till shit breaks, the shit hits the fan, the wheels
Speaker 1: for off, the catastrophe happens, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: Is that what you want to do? Or do you
Speaker 1: want to use that brain that you have, that intellect
Speaker 1: that you have and say, listen, I know what I'm
Speaker 1: doing over the long term is going to be bad
Speaker 1: for me. It's going to be bad for me, and
Speaker 1: look it is. I acknowledge. It's tough and starting when
Speaker 1: you don't want to start, but you probably need to start.
Speaker 1: It's tricky because you and me are we're wired. We're
Speaker 1: wired for comfort and certainty and safety and predictability and
Speaker 1: we love insta gratification and all of that. And the
Speaker 1: truth is that I can eat this or I can
Speaker 1: do this thing. Forget food for the moment, but I
Speaker 1: can do this thing, whatever the thing is. Let me
Speaker 1: think of something I decide I want. I want one
Speaker 1: hundred inch TV. I've got a seven inch TV. I'm
Speaker 1: already struggling with Bill. I don't one. I don't need
Speaker 1: one hundred inch TV. I just want one. And I'm
Speaker 1: not really in a financial position too. But I know
Speaker 1: that I can make it work because I can manipulate things,
Speaker 1: and finance companies are happy to help me out in
Speaker 1: bibbity bobby boo. So I do this thing that I know.
Speaker 1: I do this thing in the short term, which is
Speaker 1: going to give me a moment or a day or
Speaker 1: two or three of pleasure and satisfaction. Look what I have,
Speaker 1: Look what I own. I've got this new hundred inch TV.
Speaker 1: And then but I know, but I know that this
Speaker 1: is not a great decision. This is not a good thing.
Speaker 1: Now I've got to find more money. Now I'm over
Speaker 1: the long term. I'm putting myself under more pressure because
Speaker 1: I'm making poor decisions around money. So the challenge for
Speaker 1: us is that sometimes, in fact, quite often, the things
Speaker 1: that we need to do to be who and how
Speaker 1: we want to be and not the things that today
Speaker 1: we're going to enjoy. You know, I remember getting to
Speaker 1: a point when I was in my twenties and I'd
Speaker 1: lost all this weight when I was a teenager, and
Speaker 1: I've gotten really fit and strong, and I ended up
Speaker 1: owning all of these businesses and I had you've heard
Speaker 1: the story, lots of businesses, lots of stuff, and I
Speaker 1: kind of slipped out of elite training mode. I was
Speaker 1: still training, but I was also eating everything that wasn't
Speaker 1: nailed down. And over a period of about two years,
Speaker 1: I'd probably gone from around ninety like when I was
Speaker 1: at my leanest and lightest as an adult, I was
Speaker 1: close to eighty helos. But at this stage, before I
Speaker 1: started to slide, I was probably around ninety kilos, quite
Speaker 1: quite muscular, quite lean, in very good shape, very disciplined,
Speaker 1: and over time not proud of this. But over time
Speaker 1: I ended up blowing up and putting on the best
Speaker 1: part of thirty kilos. I was nearly one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty kilos, and I was, you know, I was the
Speaker 1: guy who owned the gym, who had all the knowledge,
Speaker 1: who was telling people what to do, who wasn't doing
Speaker 1: it himself right. And then but I knew. I knew
Speaker 1: when I was wearing bigger and baggier clothes and sweatpants
Speaker 1: and baggy windsheets as we did back in those days embarrassingly.
Speaker 1: But when I and I was always you know, for
Speaker 1: that two year period, I was ashamed of myself. But
Speaker 1: I still love food, right, but food, food became my
Speaker 1: That was like my escape clause, that was like my
Speaker 1: safety in it. That was my like, no matter what
Speaker 1: happened through the day, how much stress, how many hard decisions,
Speaker 1: how many difficult conversations, there was always ice cream, or
Speaker 1: there was always cheesecake, or there was always pizza or
Speaker 1: hamburger or pastoral, whatever it was that I was doing.
Speaker 1: And I think I was doing all of it. But
Speaker 1: I remember, I remember when I just got to the
Speaker 1: point where I hated myself enough and I hated my
Speaker 1: behavior enough where I knew that it it's going to
Speaker 1: take me six months to really turn it around. And
Speaker 1: I don't mean it's going to take longer than that,
Speaker 1: but to actually get my body back in shape would
Speaker 1: be a solid six months. And I remember, I remember
Speaker 1: where I am right now, sitting in my studio. I
Speaker 1: remember walking out the front of where I am now,
Speaker 1: and across from my house is another street that goes
Speaker 1: kind of straight ahead from where I'm sitting, and I
Speaker 1: decided I was going to go for a run I
Speaker 1: knew would be hard, I knew would be horrible, had
Speaker 1: my big baggy, fucking everything tracksuit, you know, top all that,
Speaker 1: and I started to run. And I'd always been pretty
Speaker 1: good runner, you know, and I could run. I could
Speaker 1: literally when I was younger, and not run for six
Speaker 1: months and then go for run and still run five
Speaker 1: k's easily and quite quickly and come back and not
Speaker 1: blow out a candle. Well, when you're nearly one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty kilos, that is not the case. And I
Speaker 1: remember thinking, well, this will be hard, but I'll just
Speaker 1: tough it out. I'll go and run a few k's.
Speaker 1: It'll be hard and horrible, and I'll tough it out.
Speaker 1: Now I'm embarrassed to say this, but this is true.
Speaker 1: So I was probably, I don't know, late twenties or something,
Speaker 1: maybe thirty ish, and I started my run inverted Commas,
Speaker 1: which was not a run at all, but rather a
Speaker 1: fucking embarrassingly horrible plot. And I plodded about four hundred
Speaker 1: meters and thought I was going to have a heart
Speaker 1: attack because I was literally running with thirty kilos more
Speaker 1: than I had on So imagine you right now running
Speaker 1: up the street, you come back, then you put on
Speaker 1: a thirty kilo vest and you try and do that
Speaker 1: same run. Well that's not only was I thirty kilos heavier,
Speaker 1: I was infinitely less fit and so on. And it
Speaker 1: was And it was in that, you know, like in
Speaker 1: that moment and moments like that that for me, I went,
Speaker 1: I just I don't want to be that person anymore.
Speaker 1: And it did. It took me at least six months
Speaker 1: to get my body back to relatively lean and fit
Speaker 1: and strong. But if I'm being honest, it's for me.
Speaker 1: It's been a lifetime of trying to manage my mind.
Speaker 1: It's been a lifetime of trying to manage me self, regulate,
Speaker 1: you know, and to like me knowing you know, my
Speaker 1: mum's had a heart attack, my dad's had hurt too,
Speaker 1: heart attacks. My dad's got some significant issues. My mum
Speaker 1: has had cancer three times. I don't come from amazing genetics.
Speaker 1: Like I knew early that if I wait until I
Speaker 1: get diagnosed with something terrible, that could be you know,
Speaker 1: you think about this. Sometimes for some people, the first
Speaker 1: sign of a problem is death. Like literally some people
Speaker 1: have seemingly no symptoms, no parent health issues. I say
Speaker 1: a parent, and then they die and people are like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, understandably. And what I know is that, well,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I know that this is the only
Speaker 1: life I'm going to have. Maybe something happens after we
Speaker 1: die and this mortal plane, maybe we go, maybe we
Speaker 1: go somewhere bigger and better. Who knows, But right now
Speaker 1: we don't know. We just think or believe we do.
Speaker 1: And that's cool as well. But what I do know
Speaker 1: is I have this life, and I have this body,
Speaker 1: and I can't get another life where I can't get
Speaker 1: another body, and I can't do any I can't undo
Speaker 1: anything that I've done or not done so far. I
Speaker 1: can only optimize what I have. Now. You know we
Speaker 1: are You and I are constantly getting information. You and
Speaker 1: I are constantly getting data. We're constantly getting results your body,
Speaker 1: your relationships, your bank balance, your career, your internal sat
Speaker 1: nab that internal wisdom that you and I can't really explain,
Speaker 1: you know, the stuff that you just fucking know. No
Speaker 1: one taught you or told you you didn't do a course.
Speaker 1: You don't know where it comes from, but there is
Speaker 1: a knowing, there is a wisdom. I guess It's like
Speaker 1: it's analogous to instinct or intuition, but to me it
Speaker 1: seems more like sometimes it's like the other day when
Speaker 1: I recorded that podcast about death, I felt quite compelled,
Speaker 1: And of course I didn't know that people needed to
Speaker 1: hear it. And maybe it was coincidence or not, I
Speaker 1: don't know, but I had. As of this morning, I've
Speaker 1: had almost fifty emails or private messages from people telling
Speaker 1: me that they needed to hear that, that it was
Speaker 1: like I had recorded that for them. I don't know
Speaker 1: where that comes from. And maybe that's just a coincidence,
Speaker 1: and maybe it's just my thinking because that suits me
Speaker 1: and I like the idea of that. But the bottom
Speaker 1: line is that you and I are always getting information
Speaker 1: and data and feedback from what we do, from what
Speaker 1: we don't do, from the life that we live, from
Speaker 1: the way that we interact and intersect with others, and
Speaker 1: from what we do and don't do for our brain
Speaker 1: and for our mental health and for our body, for
Speaker 1: our financial health, for our professional health and our career
Speaker 1: and so on. And so it's in our interest not
Speaker 1: to put our head in the metaphoric sand, but to
Speaker 1: be able to turn down the emotion a little bit
Speaker 1: and to turn up the logic and strategy and say,
Speaker 1: all right, well, what is my life telling me? What
Speaker 1: is what are my results telling me? I think most
Speaker 1: of us know. I think at our core we know
Speaker 1: what we should be doing. We know that we know
Speaker 1: that the best behavior is this. But right now I'm
Speaker 1: not doing the best behavior because from where I am
Speaker 1: to where I need to be, it's going to be
Speaker 1: messy and uncomfortable, and right now I'm not ready for that.
Speaker 1: So what's the take home? The take home is we
Speaker 1: don't have to be ready. We don't have to be
Speaker 1: ready in that we don't have to feel like it.
Speaker 1: We don't have to be pumped and excited and motivated
Speaker 1: and inspired to turn our life or our behaviors, or
Speaker 1: our habits or our health around. We don't need to
Speaker 1: be in the zone. We just need to be willing
Speaker 1: to own up and to step up and to do
Speaker 1: the work, even if it isn't fun, quick, easy, or painless.