Speaker 1: Good a team. I'm always talking to people about this
Speaker 1: idea of conscious living. You've heard me talk about conscious living,
Speaker 1: intentional living, and I guess the other end of that
Speaker 1: kind of spectrum is sleepwalking through life, unintentional unconscious living.
Speaker 1: And I think, to an extent, to different levels, at
Speaker 1: different times in our life, we move through phases of
Speaker 1: consciousness and unconsciousness, and you know, where we're more focused,
Speaker 1: we're more awake, in inverted commas, we're more aware, and
Speaker 1: then other times when we look up and it's been
Speaker 1: a year and it feels like five minutes, it's like
Speaker 1: a did I get here? And one of the things
Speaker 1: I've said many times on this show is people who
Speaker 1: say to me, after decades of doing life, you know,
Speaker 1: and then at forty or fifty or sixty, they say
Speaker 1: to me, referring to where they are at their current
Speaker 1: point of their journey, this wasn't my plan. This wasn't
Speaker 1: my plan. I'm not where I wanted to be. And
Speaker 1: when I say, and you've heard me say this before,
Speaker 1: but this will be a springboard for the rest of
Speaker 1: the conversation. When I say to them, well can I
Speaker 1: see the plan, they look at me quizzically, and I say, well,
Speaker 1: you said this wasn't my plan. Where I'm at now,
Speaker 1: can I see the plan that you're talking about? And
Speaker 1: of course there's no plan. And for many of us,
Speaker 1: while we are making a level of decisions or a
Speaker 1: degree of decisions and living with some kind of focus
Speaker 1: and intention, maybe this is not relevant for you, so
Speaker 1: tune out. But for some of you, and especially for me,
Speaker 1: over the years, there have been times where I was
Speaker 1: unconsciously doing things on a daily basis that were somewhere
Speaker 1: between suboptimal and fucking terrible. Where creatures of habit we
Speaker 1: do a lot of things without really paying attention. It's
Speaker 1: like my analogy is riding a motorbike. So for me,
Speaker 1: I started riding motorbikes when I was a kid, and
Speaker 1: I started in the dirt in the bush. Then I
Speaker 1: started riding motorbikes on the road when I was eighteen,
Speaker 1: which was forty three years ago. So I can get
Speaker 1: from A to B. I can go on a one
Speaker 1: hour ride where I've got to go somewhere, especially if
Speaker 1: it's somewhere I've been before and it's familiar. I can
Speaker 1: get there and I can't remember specifically putting on the indicator,
Speaker 1: pulling in the clutch, putting on the front brake, the
Speaker 1: rear brake, twisting the throttle because I'm paying attention to
Speaker 1: the traffic and the road. But in terms of all
Speaker 1: of the things that I do on autopilot, which is
Speaker 1: riding the motorbike and using all of the various bits
Speaker 1: and pieces on the aforementioned motorbike, I can do it
Speaker 1: without thinking. Now, if doing stuff without thinking in inverted
Speaker 1: commas produces a good outcome, if it's a good habit
Speaker 1: that producers a good outcome, well then that's great. So
Speaker 1: me being able to ride a motorbike without thinking about, Oh,
Speaker 1: I've got to move my fingers on my left hand
Speaker 1: to pull in the clutch. I've got to move my
Speaker 1: fingers and I've got to get my thumb to pull
Speaker 1: this thing across to the left to turn on the
Speaker 1: left indicator. Then I've got to push that thing in
Speaker 1: with my left thumb to cancel the indicator. Then I've
Speaker 1: got to click up this thing or click down this
Speaker 1: thing with my left foot to change the gears. And
Speaker 1: then I've got to twist this thing here with my
Speaker 1: right hand to accelerate or open up the throttle. Then
Speaker 1: I've got to push my right foot down on this
Speaker 1: thing over here to put on the rear brake. I've
Speaker 1: also got to put on the front and rear brake.
Speaker 1: That's right hand and right foot at the same time.
Speaker 1: So it's imagine if I had to think all of
Speaker 1: that through while I was on a motorbike riding somewhere,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be able to pay attention to what's in
Speaker 1: front of me, to the changing environment, to the changing
Speaker 1: variables in front of me that I need to navigate
Speaker 1: and deal with when I'm on a motorbike. Right, So
Speaker 1: there's a degree of I guess what's that auto pilot.
Speaker 1: There's a degree of repetition, there's a degree of habit
Speaker 1: that can be really valuable. But then at the other
Speaker 1: end of the scale, there's the stuff that we do.
Speaker 1: We're essentially barely conscious, we're just doing stuff that doesn't
Speaker 1: work for us. So day after day we're doing the
Speaker 1: thing that didn't work the day before. We're on a
Speaker 1: kind of an autopilot of self destruction. If not self destruction,
Speaker 1: at the very least, we're wasting our talent, we're wasting
Speaker 1: our potential, we're not optimizing our time or our energy
Speaker 1: or our genetics, and we're not doing the things that
Speaker 1: produce the results that we would love to see in
Speaker 1: our life. And one of the challenges with that is
Speaker 1: that your life and my life has its own energy.
Speaker 1: Like my life's already up and running, you know, And
Speaker 1: by life, I mean situation, circumstance, environment, job, other people, relationships,
Speaker 1: you know, habits, behaviors. My life kind of as a
Speaker 1: thing that I inhabit. It's kind of got its own
Speaker 1: It's like a river that's already flowing. It has its
Speaker 1: own energy, it has its own momentum. It's moving in
Speaker 1: a certain direction, good or bad. And to a point,
Speaker 1: my life is already happening. And there are times when
Speaker 1: I am I am the author of the story, or
Speaker 1: I am the driver of the bus or the boat
Speaker 1: in the river and I am steering the SS craig,
Speaker 1: or there are times when it's almost like I'm up
Speaker 1: the back of the bus or the boat and I'm
Speaker 1: a passenger in my own life. And I look up
Speaker 1: five minutes later, and it's been two years, and now
Speaker 1: I've been doing things unconsciously, unintentionally but nonetheless automatically that
Speaker 1: don't serve me. That are not optimal, that don't work
Speaker 1: for me. And now I'm two years older, and the
Speaker 1: thing that I wanted two years ago, or the things
Speaker 1: If you had have asked me in this hypothetical two
Speaker 1: years ago, Craig, would you like to be a bit
Speaker 1: fitter and healthier? I would have said yes. And if
Speaker 1: you had asked me two years ago, Craig, would you
Speaker 1: like to be a little bit stressed and a little
Speaker 1: bit more calm calm? I would have gone shit, yeah?
Speaker 1: And what about would you like to be a bit
Speaker 1: more productive? Would you like to be a bit more efficient?
Speaker 1: Would you like to waste less time? Would you like
Speaker 1: to be more effective and productive and less busy? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would love all of that. Would you like your
Speaker 1: relationships to be or some of your relationships to be
Speaker 1: a little bit healthier? Would you like a little would
Speaker 1: you like a better return on your energetic investment? Oh?
Speaker 1: I would love that now in this hypothetical, I wanted
Speaker 1: all that stuff two years ago. But in the interim
Speaker 1: I haven't done anything to create that. It's just something
Speaker 1: I wanted because I've just been in the flow. I've
Speaker 1: just been in the momentum and the energy of my
Speaker 1: own life, and I've been telling myself stories, and the
Speaker 1: stories are how busy I am and how much time
Speaker 1: I don't have, and how I will do it. But
Speaker 1: I will do it soon when the mystical, mythical, magical
Speaker 1: right time comes. And that's not this week, and it's
Speaker 1: probably not this month or year, but it's coming soon.
Speaker 1: And when that time comes, and I'm going to change
Speaker 1: my life, I'm going to step in underupa bar and
Speaker 1: then I'm sixty. Now, I'm not for one moment suggesting
Speaker 1: that living this kind of conscious life where we are
Speaker 1: designing and creating and we're stepping out of the sleep
Speaker 1: walking into the conscious creation kind of model. I'm not
Speaker 1: suggesting for one second that it's easy, that it's comfortable,
Speaker 1: that it's convenient or fast or painless, as I always say.
Speaker 1: But if you are a person who has listened to
Speaker 1: a lot of my stuff, or listen to a lot
Speaker 1: of self help or personal development or behavior or psychology
Speaker 1: in whatever format, whatever forum, you know, whether it's whatever video, audio, audiobooks,
Speaker 1: something that you're reading physically, it doesn't matter. But at
Speaker 1: some point, if we really are going to be the
Speaker 1: change that Gandhi talks of, if we're really going to
Speaker 1: be the change, then we need to step out of
Speaker 1: this unconscious kind of repetition, you know, this propensity that
Speaker 1: we have to choose instant gratification over growth to be
Speaker 1: able to go. Look, I'm I'm going to do this.
Speaker 1: This is not the thing I feel like doing because
Speaker 1: this isn't fun or you're comfortable. I don't feel like
Speaker 1: doing it, but I know that I need to do
Speaker 1: it because I don't want to be living in this
Speaker 1: groundhog day that I've been in for the last ten years.
Speaker 1: And also, I know I have more I know I
Speaker 1: have more talent. I know I have more potential. I
Speaker 1: know I can do better with my genetics. I know
Speaker 1: I can do better with my time. I know that
Speaker 1: I can create better relationships. I know that I can
Speaker 1: learn how to be a better communicator. I know that
Speaker 1: my life is telling me, my data, my results are
Speaker 1: telling me that what I'm doing is suboptimal. It is
Speaker 1: not optimal. I don't want to be an Olympic athlete.
Speaker 1: I don't want to run one hundred meters in ten seconds.
Speaker 1: I don't need to be a billionaire. I don't need
Speaker 1: to cure cancer. I don't need to join the Space program.
Speaker 1: I don't need to be elite in general terms, but
Speaker 1: what I would really like I would like to be
Speaker 1: a better version of me. I want to the one
Speaker 1: who is creating opportunities, not hoping opportunities come along, or
Speaker 1: not waiting for an opportunity to present itself. I want
Speaker 1: to be the creator of opportunities. I'm going to make
Speaker 1: decisions and do things, and I'm going to do a
Speaker 1: stock take on my current life, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: do a stock take on my current habits and behaviors.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to assess brutally and honestly and courageously
Speaker 1: what I'm doing that works and what I'm doing that
Speaker 1: doesn't work, based on who and how I want to be.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to bang on this about this today,
Speaker 1: but you know, this idea of stepping out of the
Speaker 1: sleepwalking model of life and into like for want of
Speaker 1: a better term, living fully awake, for me, it just
Speaker 1: means abandoning the autopilot and embracing conscious choosing, conscious behaving,
Speaker 1: and rejecting that that allure of quick fix and magic
Speaker 1: pills and instant gratification in favor of something that's going
Speaker 1: to create the best version of you over the long term,
Speaker 1: and recognizing that you know, while your past has shaped you,
Speaker 1: it doesn't need to define you. Past you doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be future you. What you did yesterday doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be what you do today. It's about creating a
Speaker 1: life with intention and purpose. So sometimes I share stuff
Speaker 1: like this and I just jump off, and I feel
Speaker 1: like maybe a flaw in the way that I teach
Speaker 1: and coaches that I don't I don't leave you with
Speaker 1: perhaps some thoughts or suggestions or practical stuff. So that's
Speaker 1: my bad, and I'm going to try to do that
Speaker 1: a little bit more. And so here's here's something. Here's
Speaker 1: a version of what I do with clients coaching clients.
Speaker 1: And I've done a version of this with me many
Speaker 1: times times, and so using a one to ten scale.
Speaker 1: And this is very much bro science. This is Craig science.
Speaker 1: You're not going to find this on the interwebs. You'll
Speaker 1: find a version of the interwebs. But this is a little,
Speaker 1: very simple model that I created. So let's say we're
Speaker 1: using a one to ten scale. If you want to
Speaker 1: write this down one to three, if you're scoring any
Speaker 1: of these particular areas that I'm about to dive into
Speaker 1: you with. If you're scoring any of them are one
Speaker 1: to three, then that probably needs well, that definitely needs
Speaker 1: urgent attention. So you go and crap at that you
Speaker 1: can do better again, No self loathing, just honesty, your
Speaker 1: self awareness, courage. We're not beating ourselves up. We're just going, yep,
Speaker 1: I do this that shit, I can do better. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do better. Not I hope I do better, not
Speaker 1: I want to do better. I'm going to fucking do better.
Speaker 1: And this is how I'm going to do better. So
Speaker 1: one to three, that thing is, it needs urgent attention.
Speaker 1: Four to six on the infamous Craig Harper scale is
Speaker 1: it's not bad. It's not great, it's not terrible. It's average.
Speaker 1: It could be better, but it's okay. It's not dire straits.
Speaker 1: Seven to eight is that's pretty good in that era
Speaker 1: of my life with that particular task or that particular
Speaker 1: variable or that particular factor that I need to address
Speaker 1: to be the best me and to live consciously and
Speaker 1: to step out of the sleepwalking paradigm. I'm giving myself
Speaker 1: a seven to eight or an eight whatever on this,
Speaker 1: which is pretty good. And if you're scoring yourself a
Speaker 1: nine or a ten, we'll get you out. But a
Speaker 1: cup you can probably give yourself a big pass on
Speaker 1: that or a pat on the back. And so that
Speaker 1: some of the and you can come up with your
Speaker 1: own I guess assessment protocol in terms of assessment variables,
Speaker 1: the things that you want to assess. So when I,
Speaker 1: by the way, when I sit down with someone and
Speaker 1: I do this, I really say to them, look, don't
Speaker 1: overthink it. Don't overthink it, like, just what is your number?
Speaker 1: And so with you, I'm going to say to you same.
Speaker 1: You know, we can we can wax and winn and go,
Speaker 1: oh well what about this? What about or we can
Speaker 1: just instinctively we know, we know, don't we Like if
Speaker 1: you said to me, the first one on my list
Speaker 1: is overall physical health, and by that I just mean everything.
Speaker 1: So I mean I mean your body composition, I mean
Speaker 1: your cardiovashcal fitness, I mean your your immune system, your posture,
Speaker 1: you know everything, your overall physical health. So if you
Speaker 1: said to me, Craig, what's your number, I'm going to
Speaker 1: go seven or eight. And it would really take me
Speaker 1: a while to figure out why I'm saying that. But
Speaker 1: I kind of instinctively and intuitively know I'm not perfect,
Speaker 1: but I'm not shit. I'm pretty good for a sixty
Speaker 1: one year old bloke. I could do a few things
Speaker 1: a little better, and I could. I could sit down
Speaker 1: now and tell you how I could make myself a
Speaker 1: nine or a ten and so on. So number one
Speaker 1: is overall physical health, So one to ten, remember that
Speaker 1: little rating system. Number two is diet. And these are
Speaker 1: of course, of course I'm saying this stuff. But and
Speaker 1: that could be not only what you eat the content
Speaker 1: of your diet, but the quality of your diet. It
Speaker 1: could be energy in and out. It could be calories,
Speaker 1: overall calories. It could be your relationship with food. It
Speaker 1: could be the fact that you eat. You don't over eat,
Speaker 1: but you eat sporadically and there's no rhyme or reason
Speaker 1: and you know. Or it could be that you eat
Speaker 1: when you don't need food, and then there are times
Speaker 1: where you do need food you're not eating because you're
Speaker 1: distracted or whatever. But overall, like in terms of how
Speaker 1: healthy or how optimal your diet is for you, what's
Speaker 1: your one to ten score? Next one is cardiovasckela fitness
Speaker 1: or aerobic fitness, heart lung fitness. It's really you know
Speaker 1: whether or not you are seventeen years old or seventy
Speaker 1: seven years old, or eighty seven years old or eighty
Speaker 1: five like my old man. It is really important that
Speaker 1: you are doing something to maintain or depending on your
Speaker 1: starting point, potentially improve your aerobic fitness. And of course
Speaker 1: that aerobic fitness is relative to your ability. We're not
Speaker 1: talking about what's your aerobic fitness compared to a twenty
Speaker 1: year old marathon runner or a thirty year old marathon runner.
Speaker 1: We're saying for your potential if you're based on your age,
Speaker 1: your chronological and biological age, and your physiological potential and
Speaker 1: your capacity and your genetics and all of those things.
Speaker 1: Like if if what's possible for you is a ten,
Speaker 1: where are you currently compared to that ten? So aerobic
Speaker 1: fitness strength is my next one. Of course, physical strength,
Speaker 1: being able to move your body, being able to lift stuff,
Speaker 1: being able to get in and out of a chair
Speaker 1: and a car, and being able to get up on
Speaker 1: a ladder without killing yourself if you need to, Being
Speaker 1: able to pick up a kid or a grandkid, being
Speaker 1: able to carry the groceries more than ten feet and
Speaker 1: all of those things. Being physically strong, of course, correlates
Speaker 1: to a whole bunch of things that I've told you before,
Speaker 1: I won't tell you again. My next one is job satisfaction.
Speaker 1: Job satisfaction for me is really important. It is important
Speaker 1: that I love what I do. For me. It's really
Speaker 1: important that there is a divergence or an intersection of
Speaker 1: me having something that makes a few bucks, that pays
Speaker 1: the bills, that also is a vehicle for me to
Speaker 1: grow and to learn and to develop and build understanding
Speaker 1: and competence, and also a vehicle for me to have fun,
Speaker 1: and also a vehicle for me to build relationships and
Speaker 1: meet awesome people and so on. So for me, a
Speaker 1: job is much more than a thing that I do
Speaker 1: to pay bills for me, Because you know, you think
Speaker 1: about your job or the business that you own, or
Speaker 1: your career or however you want to. You know, the
Speaker 1: time that you spend doing stuff to make money is
Speaker 1: such a huge part of our adult life, our waking hours,
Speaker 1: and for the obvious reasons but also the not so
Speaker 1: obvious reasons that your work affects everything from obviously your
Speaker 1: bank balance and your ability to pay bills and tick
Speaker 1: all the practical boxes through to your emotional health and
Speaker 1: your mental health and potentially your spiritual health depending on
Speaker 1: your belief system and your immune system, and what is
Speaker 1: happening in your body at a cellular level. If every
Speaker 1: time you step out of the car to walk into
Speaker 1: the office, now your sympathetic nervous systems go on nuts
Speaker 1: because you hate your job, or you don't enjoy your colleagues,
Speaker 1: or you work in a toxic environment or culture. Guess
Speaker 1: what your job is literally fucking bad for your health.
Speaker 1: So what's your job? Out of ten? And we're not
Speaker 1: just talking about how much dough do you make? We're
Speaker 1: talking about all those things I just mentioned now specific
Speaker 1: to money. Out of ten, has your relationship with money?
Speaker 1: I would say my relationship with money is about a
Speaker 1: nine or ten. And that's not because I make heaps
Speaker 1: of dough and I'm amazing with money, but it's because
Speaker 1: it's not, you know, I make enough money, I pay
Speaker 1: the bills, but it's really not something I think about much.
Speaker 1: And that sounds maybe like a lie, it's true, and yes,
Speaker 1: I acknowledge that that is a privilege that I have
Speaker 1: and I'm very grateful for that. But I don't have
Speaker 1: a wife I don't have four kids, I don't have grandkids.
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of the demands and a
Speaker 1: lot of the challenges that some people have. So for
Speaker 1: me it's very easy. But what's your score for money?
Speaker 1: For me, money is not something that I'm driven to
Speaker 1: get more of. For me, money is a tool. It's
Speaker 1: a resource that means I can do stuff, help people
Speaker 1: do stuff, build stuff. It's all it is. The Next
Speaker 1: one is lifestyle habits and behaviors. So what's your number
Speaker 1: out of ten for your lifestyle? And by that I
Speaker 1: mean I mean things like sleep hygiene, I mean things
Speaker 1: like managing stress and anxiety. Or we might just call
Speaker 1: overall balance, life balance, booze, drugs, cigarettes, How many could
Speaker 1: you have? Thirty four coffees a day? Do you drink
Speaker 1: any water? How do you socialize? Is the way that
Speaker 1: you socialize good for you or bad for you? Because
Speaker 1: we can socialize in a way which is actually good
Speaker 1: for our health, it's good for our physical, mental, and
Speaker 1: emotional health. Or we can socialize in a way which
Speaker 1: is toxic and destructive and potentially life threatening, which sounds melodramatic,
Speaker 1: but it isn't because it's true. I've got a few
Speaker 1: to go, So one ten mental health kind of touched
Speaker 1: on that a little bit. There close relationships one to
Speaker 1: ten and that could be family, that could be friends,
Speaker 1: that could be your intimate partner. That could be your kids,
Speaker 1: could be your parents, could be a parent, could be
Speaker 1: it could be one relationship that you have one relationship
Speaker 1: in your life that's toxic and unhealthy, and then you
Speaker 1: need to figure out do I want to fix that?
Speaker 1: Do I want to fix that relationship? Can I fix
Speaker 1: that relationship? What's my role in fixing that if I
Speaker 1: want to? Or do I need to change the nature
Speaker 1: of the relationship or the dynamics of the relationship where
Speaker 1: that thing that's really affecting me I want to fix it,
Speaker 1: But for a range of reasons, it's not possible because
Speaker 1: it takes two people. So maybe the way that that
Speaker 1: relationship impacts on you or the way that you interact
Speaker 1: with that person. I've had many people in my life
Speaker 1: that needed to be in my life because of a
Speaker 1: particular situation or circumstance or role that I was in,
Speaker 1: and so it wasn't optional at that point in time.
Speaker 1: Those people were going to be in my sphere, in
Speaker 1: my vicinity and I did need to talk with them,
Speaker 1: into act with them and work alongside them, or coexist
Speaker 1: with them. And so, rather than ending the relationship, which
Speaker 1: is another option, but in this case, would I would
Speaker 1: try to figure out how do I work optimally with
Speaker 1: this person, how do I need to be not so
Speaker 1: that I'm compromising me and not so that I'm endorsing
Speaker 1: necessarily their toxic behavior, but rather rather than wasting time
Speaker 1: and energy on something that I can't perhaps fix in
Speaker 1: inverted commas, I'm going to figure out out a way
Speaker 1: to coexist with this person. And then, like I said,
Speaker 1: perhaps the last option there is depending of course, there
Speaker 1: are a range of variables around this. But over the
Speaker 1: years there have been many relationships. I don't mean hundreds,
Speaker 1: but you know more than a few relationships that I
Speaker 1: have ended because I don't think that well. I know
Speaker 1: that that relationship, those particular relationships were closer to the
Speaker 1: unhealthy end, not their healthy end of the social scale
Speaker 1: for me. And then the last one is and this
Speaker 1: is purely dependent on you as an individual, bud is
Speaker 1: is you know the religious and spiritual stuff. So and
Speaker 1: I've shared many times with you like my spiritual kind
Speaker 1: of paradigm is just that it's far less religious than
Speaker 1: it once was. I grew up in a very religious box,
Speaker 1: and then I eventually got my big toe out, then
Speaker 1: my foot, then my leg, and then I kind of
Speaker 1: jumped out. Doesn't mean I'm anti religion. I'm not. I'm
Speaker 1: anti some religious behavior. I'll give you the dip. But
Speaker 1: for me, my spiritual practice is kindness and love and service,
Speaker 1: which sometimes I live up to that and sometimes I don't.
Speaker 1: I would probably give myself a five or six on that.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm a champion and sometimes I'm I let myself down.
Speaker 1: But anyway, there it is food for thoughteam Sleepwalking through
Speaker 1: Life