Speaker 1: I'm got to agree with this.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another installment of you project. It's Fatty Harps.
Speaker 2: It's Monday morning at seven point thirty seven. I've had
Speaker 2: my caffeine. I'm fucking good to go. I'm fired. Dr
Speaker 2: Cam McDonald from the Shay Group, who is an old
Speaker 2: friend of the show and straight up smarty pants, joins me.
Speaker 1: Hi, mate, how are you great?
Speaker 3: Thanks Harp.
Speaker 4: It's great to be back to man, it's been a
Speaker 4: little while. It's lovely to see it.
Speaker 1: It's been what do you do you reckon? It's been
Speaker 1: a year or maybe more.
Speaker 4: It could be it could be eight en months. I
Speaker 4: think we were just starting. I think I just started
Speaker 4: some of the pilot groups in the precision learning stuff
Speaker 4: that we were doing when I was talking about some
Speaker 4: learning differences between people last time.
Speaker 2: I think now in the last eight ten months, we've
Speaker 2: got a whole lot of new listeners and a more
Speaker 2: expansive audience from all over the world and of course
Speaker 2: primarily Australia. But tell everyone who you are and what
Speaker 2: you do, and for those like some might have forgotten,
Speaker 2: but some have never met you.
Speaker 1: So give us the Cam story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it started in Gunder Guy fast forward twelve years,
Speaker 4: actually twenty years.
Speaker 3: I'm in Sydney wanting to do a lot with sports.
Speaker 4: Ended up doing exercise and Sports science because I thought
Speaker 4: exercise and sports science is as close as I can
Speaker 4: get to sports without being an the lead athlete. And
Speaker 4: our third year had an incredible moment where an a
Speaker 4: lecturer started telling me about how you can reverse diabetes
Speaker 4: with exercise, and I just made this decision in my
Speaker 4: mind that we needed to reverse diabetes immediately, and why
Speaker 4: isn't everybody exercising all of the time.
Speaker 3: This seems insane that we're not doing it.
Speaker 4: And in my last term of my last semester of
Speaker 4: my four year degree x FIZZ, I found out about nutrients.
Speaker 4: It had been fairly exercise focused, and I said, geez,
Speaker 4: I think I should know a little bit more about nutrients.
Speaker 4: So applied for a dietetics Masters and got in at
Speaker 4: Griffith up at the Goldie that worked in hospital. Realized
Speaker 4: that I don't want to support people who have had
Speaker 4: a heart attack.
Speaker 3: I want to prevent them.
Speaker 4: So I did my PhD in prevention of chronic disease
Speaker 4: in individuals that have been through breast cancer treatment.
Speaker 3: So we're looking at a Mega three and exercise in that.
Speaker 4: And then I was working in private practice realized that
Speaker 4: I was giving.
Speaker 3: People in my research the same.
Speaker 4: Protocols and I was seeing completely different responses, like some
Speaker 4: individuals losing five kilos and they're just loving life, and
Speaker 4: then another person's working much harder than them and gained
Speaker 4: a kilo of fat and lost muscle in the same
Speaker 4: period of time on exactly the same protocol.
Speaker 3: And I was seeing that in private practice as well,
Speaker 3: and that started a.
Speaker 4: Journey that sort of took me, took me through my PhD,
Speaker 4: but it was too late to adjust my study. I've
Speaker 4: now been in the space of precision health and medicine
Speaker 4: for the last eleven years, ten years, and what I
Speaker 4: do now is I educate health professionals, I educate corporates, schools, gyms,
Speaker 4: pretty much anybody who will listen for at least five
Speaker 4: minutes on how we're different. So how we are genetically different,
Speaker 4: biologically different, finotypically different. That is the expression of our
Speaker 4: genes and if we can measure that, And this is
Speaker 4: what we've been doing for the last twenty years as
Speaker 4: an organization at Shay Group.
Speaker 3: Is what makes you different?
Speaker 4: And how can we quantify that so that we can
Speaker 4: provide the best possible thing for you in that moment,
Speaker 4: because your requirements are always changing as well, and so
Speaker 4: it's morphed from any journey of oh you got to
Speaker 4: eat more spinach and you've got to lift that weight
Speaker 4: to what is it to be a human on the planet? Like,
Speaker 4: what are all of these signals that are coming into
Speaker 4: our body? How do we interpret them with our mind,
Speaker 4: with our body? What makes life incredible? And the answer
Speaker 4: is ultimately getting back to yourself. If you unders down
Speaker 4: yourself and if you can then contribute to others, then
Speaker 4: you're under a winner. So all of the work is
Speaker 4: about elevating people's awareness around themselves, how they can contribute,
Speaker 4: how they can be the healthiest self, regressing disease as
Speaker 4: a whole lot of research going on at the same time.
Speaker 3: So that's a brief summary.
Speaker 2: We have a guy another guy on who's almost as brilliant. Know,
Speaker 2: he's just as brilliant as you, I'll say you the same,
Speaker 2: doctor Bill Sullivan from the States, and he's a researcher
Speaker 2: and also brilliant. We were talking the other day about essentially,
Speaker 2: you know, something works for everybody, but not everything works
Speaker 2: for everybody, So you've got to find you something, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And it's like, especially on the fucking interwebs.
Speaker 2: Cam you're probably not familiar with the into webs, but
Speaker 2: there's this thing called social media. And if you pay
Speaker 2: attention to social media every second, fucker's got some product
Speaker 2: that's going to fix everyone, some single product that's going
Speaker 2: to universally fix every ailment known to person kind. And
Speaker 2: like it's so it's like when even when people say
Speaker 2: to me, from an excise physiology point of view, what's
Speaker 2: the best way to you know, fill in the blank,
Speaker 2: and I go, well, for who? Because the best way
Speaker 2: to achieve, you know, to put on muscle for you
Speaker 2: won't be the same as me, won't be the same
Speaker 2: as that lady over there or that guy over there
Speaker 2: or and and you know, and even then you go, well,
Speaker 2: even if we get say that the strength training stuff right,
Speaker 2: or the muscle building stuff right from a lifting point
Speaker 2: of view, then there's all the other variables, the genetics,
Speaker 2: the sleep, the nutrition, the stress, the anxiety, that there's
Speaker 2: all of the other variables which impact recovery and hypertrophy.
Speaker 2: And like people keept like you and I don't want
Speaker 2: to overcomplicate it because then we just alienate people. But
Speaker 2: at the same time, this kind of group think that
Speaker 2: happens on the internet, which is or here's here's a
Speaker 2: thing that will create that outcome for you, it just ain't.
Speaker 1: True, is it?
Speaker 4: Well exactly, and I mean to your point, if you
Speaker 4: watch social media very very closely, you end up on
Speaker 4: a high fat, low fat, high protein, high carb low
Speaker 4: carb diet that involves hit training and strength training in
Speaker 4: the same session and endless endurance but no endurance. It's
Speaker 4: and then, as you were saying, it's what's been so
Speaker 4: fascinating and probably going back to our first ever podcast,
Speaker 4: we're talking about chronobiology. Even the timing of when you
Speaker 4: do these activities can actually be the difference between if
Speaker 4: you get a result and if you don't. And then
Speaker 4: the mental stress that plays down into your body and
Speaker 4: influences your results as well. And everybody has a different
Speaker 4: thing that's going to stress the mentally. So just this
Speaker 4: idea that you've got to find exactly your something. It
Speaker 4: is incredibly complex, and there is a really really simple path,
Speaker 4: and that is go and meditate on a mountain for
Speaker 4: three years and you'll find yourself and this is this
Speaker 4: is where we're trying to essentially, is what modern medicine
Speaker 4: is trying to do. It's trying to shorten the path
Speaker 4: back to you. But we lost our way with just
Speaker 4: trying to look at one chemical and one product and
Speaker 4: one pathway and one drug. It's you've got to look
Speaker 4: at the whole system and how that's interacting together.
Speaker 3: And that's where the complex it is.
Speaker 4: But that's also where you know, we have an inner
Speaker 4: intelligence that allows us to get there too. It just
Speaker 4: it can be assisted by a lot of these new
Speaker 4: things that I'm fortunate to work with these days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. Before we jumped on the show,
Speaker 2: I said, what have you been up to? And you
Speaker 2: told me a few things. I said, let's talk about
Speaker 2: that because I think people will be interested. So just
Speaker 2: repeat for my group what you're telling me that you've
Speaker 2: been kind of opening the door on recently, and let's
Speaker 2: have a chat. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, going back a bit to the piece around like,
Speaker 4: oh no, I was a dietitian. Everything in my focus
Speaker 4: was I've just got to get this person to eat
Speaker 4: the right food, and I would essentially assess them as
Speaker 4: a person and I would get them to assess themselves
Speaker 4: as a person based on am I putting the right
Speaker 4: vegetable into my mouth?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 4: And what I've what's been so clear and I guess
Speaker 4: in my own personal development, but also just watching how
Speaker 4: people interact with health at a much bigger scale and
Speaker 4: what I always wonder one the I've been so fascinated
Speaker 4: by what truly makes a person happy because it's not
Speaker 4: your weight, it's not your food, it's not your exercise,
Speaker 4: it's not your relationships, it's not the place you live.
Speaker 4: But it's a combination of all of those things, and
Speaker 4: then who you are in it too. And when you
Speaker 4: start looking at some of the research around someone having purpose,
Speaker 4: you know, there's every philosophy from ancient to modern has
Speaker 4: some sort of you've got to have a purpose. Then
Speaker 4: there's also this whole thing around love and relationships and
Speaker 4: the importance of community and connection and how important that
Speaker 4: is for survival. Whether it be in nursing homes or
Speaker 4: blue zones, it's all the same. You need connection to
Speaker 4: be to feel like you're living and to have a
Speaker 4: meaningful life. And then there's also the idea of flow,
Speaker 4: which is this I guess in a way a fancy.
Speaker 4: It's not a buzzword, but it is. It's a real
Speaker 4: physiological state of doing the thing in your strength and
Speaker 4: feeling like the world has just disappeared and the only
Speaker 4: thing that exists is this front thing in front of
Speaker 4: you right now, with a transcendence of time and all
Speaker 4: a euphoric state of productivity and contribution. So what was
Speaker 4: so fascinating about all of those things is in each
Speaker 4: of those things you feel like you are completely alive.
Speaker 4: Like when you love, you feel like you're completely alive.
Speaker 4: When you're living on purpose and you have a really
Speaker 4: clear purpose, you feel like you're alive when you are
Speaker 4: in flow.
Speaker 3: It's a holy crap.
Speaker 4: That felt so good, And it's sort of come to
Speaker 4: the point of thinking, why are we not chasing this
Speaker 4: feeling all of the time? You know, and how much
Speaker 4: of our education is actually about purpose, how much of
Speaker 4: it is about connecting with a person incredibly deeply, how
Speaker 4: much of it is about, Hey, what's the what are
Speaker 4: your natural strengths and what's the best way that we
Speaker 4: can bring them to life with what you can do
Speaker 4: and mastery and get you into flow so that you
Speaker 4: are absolutely flowing. We compromise, We as a society, we
Speaker 4: don't focus on the things that truly make us happy.
Speaker 4: And what gets me excited from a physiological standpoint, being
Speaker 4: the slight science nerd that I am, is that the
Speaker 4: physiological signature, so the chemicals that release and the system,
Speaker 4: the blood pressure and all of those blood sugar levels
Speaker 4: and quarterisle levels. Whenever you look at each of those
Speaker 4: states purpose, flow, and love, they have almost identical signatures
Speaker 4: except for the one individual kind of chemical that they
Speaker 4: speak to that represents that thing I want, which we
Speaker 4: can get into, I'm sure, and the I guess it's
Speaker 4: sort of helped me come to a point where I'm thinking, well,
Speaker 4: if we're going to be talking about anything, why wouldn't
Speaker 4: we be talking about I'm talking about just in general,
Speaker 4: Why wouldn't we be talking about what actually truly brings
Speaker 4: you happiness? Because as a dietician, the best meal plan
Speaker 4: didn't really bring someone happiness.
Speaker 3: It was It's a much greater thing than that.
Speaker 4: But what's so fascinating about it is to get into
Speaker 4: that physiological state is actually different for everybody as well.
Speaker 4: What love is to one person is very different to
Speaker 4: another person, what flow is it, etc. So that was
Speaker 4: the preamble probably longer than what you planned, mate, but
Speaker 4: that's the preamble to my thought process.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: I love it well, all of those things I wrote
Speaker 2: them down, happiness, purpose, love, connection, flow. Yeah, they're intertwined
Speaker 2: and like what I find interesting ause you come. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 2: originally I came from an exercise science space, but the
Speaker 2: last while more I think about the head stuff, the
Speaker 2: psychology of it all. When I'm talking to someone about happiness.
Speaker 2: You know, we've got right now, thousands of people will
Speaker 2: listen to this and even the word happiness, Like you
Speaker 2: think about a word, and so what the state that
Speaker 2: I might be in or the feeling that I might
Speaker 2: have Craig Harper and I attach that label. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's just a word that we use to describe a state, psychological, emotional, physiological,
Speaker 2: you know. And for me, I have this feeling or
Speaker 2: this sensation that I'm in and I call that happiness
Speaker 2: or I call that contentment, or I call that joy,
Speaker 2: or I call that calm. Now, you and I unlikely,
Speaker 2: But let's say in some alternate universe we're in the
Speaker 2: exact same state, but we each have a different label
Speaker 2: for it. Yeah, because there's that, you know, that cognitive, educational,
Speaker 2: philosophical window through which we analyze and interpret shit and
Speaker 2: I go, oh, I'm happy, and you go, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: just joyful. Or so there's that there's that other other
Speaker 2: than all the physiological individuality, there's that cognitive, emotional, psychological
Speaker 2: perception stuff. That's that that's interwoven in all.
Speaker 4: Of this, right, absolutely, and it's absolutely and it's and
Speaker 4: as you were saying so many of those things. It's
Speaker 4: what we've found is that there's the like the genetic
Speaker 4: differences that we have, the biological differences that we have,
Speaker 4: can determine you know, someone running up a hill and
Speaker 4: about to vomit is euphoria for one person because their
Speaker 4: brain is so geared towards that pain. And I know
Speaker 4: that's a little bit different to what you're saying, but
Speaker 4: I'll come background on it. Whereas another person it is
Speaker 4: the worst possible experience of their life to be almost vomiting,
Speaker 4: running up a hill, trying to do exercise. It just
Speaker 4: feels like the world is collapsing on them. At the
Speaker 4: same time, you have two people that are you know,
Speaker 4: sitting down on their birthdays, surrounded by their friends, feeling
Speaker 4: lots of love, and in the expression of that as well,
Speaker 4: someone just get One person gets really really excited and
Speaker 4: wants to explode and shout and sing, and another person
Speaker 4: wants to is completely exhausted by all of that attention
Speaker 4: and connection and need to have a two hour break
Speaker 4: away from everybody because it's actually so expensive for their
Speaker 4: energy as well. So it's yeah, these are the It's
Speaker 4: the beautiful thing is that our experience is so different
Speaker 4: and probably talking to many different people, like primarily health professionals,
Speaker 4: corporate schools, there is the first assumption that everybody is
Speaker 4: different to you is something that is so hard to
Speaker 4: get your head around, and it's to truly sit in
Speaker 4: empathy and to really understand what somebody is feeling. It
Speaker 4: takes an incredible amount of self awareness and mindfulness. It's
Speaker 4: the assumption that other people think the way that we do,
Speaker 4: and therefore the disconnection that we have with them as
Speaker 4: a result is it's so big and the it's even
Speaker 4: in this space for so long, understanding what it's like
Speaker 4: to be in somebody else's feeling is it's it's it
Speaker 4: takes a long time, and it's taken me a long
Speaker 4: time to even get a whisper of it in a
Speaker 4: real way that you know.
Speaker 2: Thinking that people think like us. There's a name for that.
Speaker 2: It's called the false consensus effect, you know, where we
Speaker 2: automatically assume that because we speak the same language and
Speaker 2: you and me are both blokes and we're both into that.
Speaker 2: Whatever I might assume like, I wouldn't because I'm this
Speaker 2: is my area of research. But I typically typical people,
Speaker 2: which is not bad, of course, It's just the human experience.
Speaker 2: We think that others think like us, and so therefore
Speaker 2: we get surprised when, for example, our intention is not
Speaker 2: their experience. Yes, it's like, oh, I was just giving
Speaker 2: I was just helping Cam.
Speaker 1: That was my intention.
Speaker 2: Cam's experience was why the fuck is this guy always
Speaker 2: give me feedback I haven't asked for? Or why is
Speaker 2: this guy interfering? You know, there's that real disconnect between
Speaker 2: what I think I'm putting out into the world, whether
Speaker 2: that's an individual or a million people on a podcast,
Speaker 2: what I think I'm putting out and what the individuals
Speaker 2: are receiving. And not only just to add another layer
Speaker 2: of complexity and curiosity, is that everyone that's listening is
Speaker 2: getting something different.
Speaker 3: Absolutely that idea as well, is so.
Speaker 4: I have an incredible amount of compassion for it because
Speaker 4: I'm still in it in many ways, like.
Speaker 3: I still have the default thought with.
Speaker 4: My ten year old child that they're going to pick
Speaker 4: up what I'm putting down, like I'm saying no because
Speaker 4: I love you, and they are saying I definitely hate
Speaker 4: you right now, and that's not my intention. And I
Speaker 4: used to rest on that a lot, you know, even
Speaker 4: speaking personally, like, well, my intention is good, so everything
Speaker 4: will work out.
Speaker 3: But it's just not the case.
Speaker 4: You just don't know what a person's history is and
Speaker 4: what they've experienced and how they've interpreted what you've said.
Speaker 4: And that's probably one of the more fascinating things that
Speaker 4: has really dawned on some of the reading that I've
Speaker 4: been doing in preparation for talks and things like that,
Speaker 4: just around this idea of purpose, and in the Western world,
Speaker 4: it is purpose is what am I going to do?
Speaker 4: What am I here for? What's my goal in life?
Speaker 4: What's going to mean that my life is meaningful? And
Speaker 4: what's so fascinating when you go back through the Eastern
Speaker 4: philosophies of purpose, which which speaks to what we're talking
Speaker 4: about here, and that is their philosophy on purpose is
Speaker 4: what is my role in the community, What are the
Speaker 4: things that I'm great at? And how can I contribute
Speaker 4: those things to the community. And from that frame it
Speaker 4: is so different. And when you think about your intention,
Speaker 4: it's well, your intention doesn't matter in that context. What
Speaker 4: matters is what am I here in the community for?
Speaker 4: And yes, that has been that. It was a particularly
Speaker 4: powerful moment for me to read that to actually it
Speaker 4: completely changed so much of my thinking about what my
Speaker 4: purpose is and where my focus is. And I was
Speaker 4: wondering why I was feeling so unsatisfied for a couple
Speaker 4: of years focusing on a purpose that was just mine
Speaker 4: rather than thinking about the role that I'm here to
Speaker 4: play in the various people in my life and the
Speaker 4: people that I connect with. And in that way, if
Speaker 4: we're thinking about purpose in that perspective, it starts helping
Speaker 4: us navigate this idea of intention and what's received.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it. So there's a framework that there's
Speaker 2: very similar things around. I kind of expanded on a
Speaker 2: version of it which I'm doing a Monday night mentoring group,
Speaker 2: and we went through it not last week, the week
Speaker 2: before shout Out to my mentees.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of this. It's almost.
Speaker 2: An exercise in trying to understand yourself, right, And it
Speaker 2: starts with self reflection, no judgment, just fucking.
Speaker 1: Oh why did I do that? What's that about? Or
Speaker 1: why am I? Oh? Right now I'm trying to impress cam.
Speaker 1: Oh what's that about? You know? Just awareness?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: But where's that coming from?
Speaker 2: Or just reflection and then the awareness, oh, this is
Speaker 2: what I'm doing this, And then it goes through self
Speaker 2: knowledge and then the last two you'll like. So there's
Speaker 2: eight steps. You don't need me to send it to you,
Speaker 2: but I'm happy to send it to you because it
Speaker 2: fits in with your stuff, right. The second last one
Speaker 2: is self actualization, which is you becoming kind of the
Speaker 2: best version of you and you starting to fulfill your
Speaker 2: potential and tick the boxes and reach goals and all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. But the last one is self transcendence, yes,
Speaker 2: which is about you having a purpose and an awareness
Speaker 2: and a reason bigger than you.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: And this is where the fucking great stuff happens, you know,
Speaker 2: because we're so much in our culture, very much about
Speaker 2: self actualization. Me me, me me, I want to be
Speaker 2: the best me I want to be this me.
Speaker 1: I want to be that me. I want to reach
Speaker 1: my goals.
Speaker 2: I want to fulfill my potential. That's cool, that's cool.
Speaker 2: But the next one is like, I want to be
Speaker 2: all that. I want to serve and I want to
Speaker 2: you know, I want to have a purpose and an
Speaker 2: awareness and a reason, like I said, bigger than the
Speaker 2: self that sits in the middle of my life.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And so just picking up on a few of
Speaker 4: those points the self awareness piece. This is what's so
Speaker 4: fascinating about the personalization thing in that if you compare
Speaker 4: yourself to like, let's say that you're both going through
Speaker 4: the same emotion, like we were talking about before, and
Speaker 4: you compare yourself to, Oh why am I feeling that way?
Speaker 3: The answer is so different for each of us. And
Speaker 3: some individuals are.
Speaker 4: Naturally fiery, they're naturally competitive, they're naturally direct, they're naturally
Speaker 4: just say first and think later. And compared to somebody else,
Speaker 4: like they might be in a partnership with somebody who's
Speaker 4: incredibly calm, considerate, they like to take time on their thoughts.
Speaker 4: They only say what they truly mean. And when you've
Speaker 4: got those two people in a room and they're trying
Speaker 4: to understand each other, and they're coming from both of
Speaker 4: their frames of reference. One person saying, why an't you
Speaker 4: just more energized, Why don't you just to have a go,
Speaker 4: Why don't you just take a chance, And the other
Speaker 4: person's thinking, you waste so much energy, you know, you know,
Speaker 4: doing all of these things and trying lots of new
Speaker 4: things and not sticking to one thing and whatever it
Speaker 4: might be, and just you can end up thinking what's
Speaker 4: wrong with me?
Speaker 3: And I see this with food as well. You know,
Speaker 3: some individuals are doing.
Speaker 4: Their five meals per day paleo diets and getting to
Speaker 4: boot camps in the morning, and then they put on
Speaker 4: three kilos and getting the injury, and then all I
Speaker 4: have to do is actually do a completely different protocol
Speaker 4: of food, which is, you know, three meals a day
Speaker 4: and wait training in the afternoon and slow cardio in
Speaker 4: the morning, and all of their dreams come true health wise.
Speaker 4: When it comes to that self awareness piece, we aren't
Speaker 4: educated in truly understanding all of the different factors to
Speaker 4: us because and that's just the biological piece, is that
Speaker 4: we are genuinely physically different, and then it infiltrates how
Speaker 4: we then interpret ourselves, whether we judge ourselves, whether we
Speaker 4: accept ourselves. And so when it comes to that concept
Speaker 4: for me of self actualization and self transcendence, it's not
Speaker 4: about being great like your hero or whatever it might be.
Speaker 4: It's actually about really really knowing your strengths, really knowing
Speaker 4: the things that provide you energy, knowing the things that
Speaker 4: make your body feel best. It's doing all of those
Speaker 4: things routinely and then and then understanding how you can
Speaker 4: bring your gifts but also recognizing somebody else's gifts at
Speaker 4: the same time. And this is where you get that
Speaker 4: beautiful combination of purpose and connection all happening at the
Speaker 4: same time.
Speaker 3: Truly, we have the the.
Speaker 4: Mechanics, the intellect, and the knowledge to truly have an
Speaker 4: incredibly blissful existence on this planet, and we create so
Speaker 4: much noise as we are lost in all of a
Speaker 4: lack of self awareness, a lack of self acceptance at
Speaker 4: a core level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so good, dude, I like it.
Speaker 2: I'm always interested in the conversation around identity in relation
Speaker 2: to what we're talking about, because that who am I?
Speaker 2: That's you know, the self that like, what the fuck
Speaker 2: am I about?
Speaker 1: What's my reason? What's my purpose. Who am I?
Speaker 2: But in our I'm generalizing here, so listener, this might
Speaker 2: not be you. But for a lot of people, their
Speaker 2: identity is about their stuff. It's about their body, it's
Speaker 2: about their brand, it's about their balance, about their job,
Speaker 2: about their reputation, it's about their fucking the number of
Speaker 2: podcast listeners. What are you saying, harps nothing, fuck off?
Speaker 2: You know, it's about all of that stuff that other
Speaker 2: people can see. I get my sense of self, or
Speaker 2: I get my identity from knowing that I'm right by
Speaker 2: the way, I'm in the One True Church.
Speaker 1: We're going to heaven. You're not. You know, I'm in
Speaker 1: the light, you're in the darkness.
Speaker 2: Blah blah, all that kind of all of that external
Speaker 2: stuff of trying to understand the self, and then one
Speaker 2: day you find out that something that you believed is bullshit,
Speaker 2: something that your identity was intertwined with, and then you're
Speaker 2: fucked because you go, well, shit, if that's not true,
Speaker 2: then who am I? Because that's been part of you know,
Speaker 2: my existence and my purpose and myself.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, and yes, and that's a it's a mismatch of.
Speaker 3: What identity is and what my immediate purpose.
Speaker 4: It's describing the identity as a being in it's who
Speaker 4: you are as opposed to what you do. Then the
Speaker 4: purpose it is the personification or that the action related
Speaker 4: to that, and probably the thing that came up for
Speaker 4: me and I guess I'm just turning some things over
Speaker 4: my mind as we talk. Here was the transition from
Speaker 4: working professional partner into mum and the identity crisis that
Speaker 4: happens at that point because we mix up the idea that.
Speaker 3: What we're doing is our identity and at the core
Speaker 3: of things.
Speaker 4: And this is what we see genetically, is that people
Speaker 4: become more like their.
Speaker 3: Genes as they age. So the longer that.
Speaker 4: You're on the planet, the more predictable your personality is
Speaker 4: compared to your genetics. So it's like our whole life,
Speaker 4: we are discovering our genetic makeup. And an example of
Speaker 4: that is, let's say that you've got some testoster and sensitivity.
Speaker 3: You will know that you're more competitive than other people.
Speaker 4: You'll know that you're more aggressive, you'll know that you're
Speaker 4: more direct, and that's a genetic marker that creates a
Speaker 4: receptor that influences the way that your body responds to things.
Speaker 4: And that's there, and you discover that and become more
Speaker 4: comfortable with it over time, and you get criticized for it,
Speaker 4: and then you question yourself and you get very confused
Speaker 4: about who you are and then you realize. And probably
Speaker 4: one of the other things as well that you see
Speaker 4: is people when they start to interpret and get the
Speaker 4: information on oh, this is my makeup, this is this
Speaker 4: is my natural biological self. The things that they thought
Speaker 4: they were they now know that they are. And there's
Speaker 4: a huge sense of grounded relief that comes along with
Speaker 4: the sense of knowing rather than an inkling and questioning
Speaker 4: as to.
Speaker 3: Oh, should I be like that? Do I like waking
Speaker 3: up later? You know?
Speaker 4: I mean, I guess I get up early, but do
Speaker 4: I really know? Actually, I just love waking up later.
Speaker 4: I love being more relaxed in the morning. Like that's
Speaker 4: who I am. I am a thinker, or I do
Speaker 4: act impulsively, whatever it may be. So I've definitely lost
Speaker 4: the train of thought of well, that's her identity and purpose.
Speaker 4: And so when we're looking at identity, even at children,
Speaker 4: like the level of children, is that this biology and
Speaker 4: these responses e genetic influencers are actually playing out. But
Speaker 4: what we see is that kids represent about their personality
Speaker 4: is fifteen percent genetics when they're younger, and that's because
Speaker 4: they are constantly monitoring the environment to say, how do
Speaker 4: I fit in? How do I survive? And what we're
Speaker 4: doing right now is we're helping children understand, hey, this
Speaker 4: is your makeup right here, and you can do some
Speaker 4: incredible things with that. And that child over there they've
Speaker 4: got a different makeup too, and they're going to do
Speaker 4: some incredible things with that too. The more sure you
Speaker 4: are of yourself earlier on, in an accepting, an encouraged,
Speaker 4: and a celebrated way, stress that you'll be under because
Speaker 4: when you feel like you are yourself when you're and
Speaker 4: this is where you're in your strength, and this is
Speaker 4: essentially flow. You get this incredible release of nora adrenaline
Speaker 4: and don't meant to make you alert. You also get
Speaker 4: more serotone to make you calm. You also get low
Speaker 4: cortisol and a better heart rhythm that indicates lower stress.
Speaker 4: So you're calm and attentive and focused, and that's where
Speaker 4: great stuff happens. That's where flow happens. If you add
Speaker 4: in an andamide, which is the cannabinoid sort of reward hormone,
Speaker 4: then it's flow. If you add in oxytocin and it's
Speaker 4: happening with somebody else, then it's love. And the for
Speaker 4: a person to sit in their strengths and be competitive
Speaker 4: because they're competitive and direct, and then somebody else to say,
Speaker 4: geez I love your competition, geez I love your directness,
Speaker 4: it firms up their identity. And so when they become
Speaker 4: a mum, and this is what we see with this
Speaker 4: type of individual. Normally, this kind of person have a
Speaker 4: really intense, short attention span and they don't want to
Speaker 4: sit with their child all day long. They just want
Speaker 4: to like interact with them and then leave because they're like, Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm a little bit bored now. This child's just lying
Speaker 4: down for six months NonStop and I'm not going to
Speaker 4: survive through that.
Speaker 3: So but them knowing it's.
Speaker 4: Like, oh, I'm competitive and intense and I like high
Speaker 4: intensity action and then I like rest. And they realize
Speaker 4: that their identity still exists. Their purpose has changed and
Speaker 4: now they've got a high intensity interval look after their child.
Speaker 4: And if they do that, if they bring their natural
Speaker 4: sense of self to the activity that they're.
Speaker 3: Doing, it informs them and then allows them to stay
Speaker 3: and flow.
Speaker 4: But normally because we have norms around this new change
Speaker 4: of who you've got to be and what you've got
Speaker 4: to do as a new mother or whatever it might be.
Speaker 4: It's just a really clear identity change that I see
Speaker 4: a lot.
Speaker 3: Then it creates a whole lot.
Speaker 4: Of confusion if I was this person and now I
Speaker 4: can't be that person. But in fact, the essence of
Speaker 4: who you are still there, and it's a matter of
Speaker 4: just knowing that, and then you can apply it to
Speaker 4: your next immediate purpose, which is now looking after a child,
Speaker 4: which wasn't your purpose, you know, two years before.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting. I think that we're always that, you know.
Speaker 1: It's funny this which I.
Speaker 2: Know exactly why you said it, because it gets said
Speaker 2: all the time, whereas people go, I was that person
Speaker 2: now and this person. No, you're the same person. You're
Speaker 2: the same You're still you, You're still one hundred percent you. You're
Speaker 2: just maybe have a different focus, you maybe have a
Speaker 2: different reason you maybe have you know. But like I
Speaker 2: think the idea of purpose is. I think it's important,
Speaker 2: but I also think it's complicated and it's confused.
Speaker 1: This is just a personal opinion. This is not research.
Speaker 2: I think it's misrepresented because the idea of you know,
Speaker 2: find your purpose, find your purpose.
Speaker 1: I can watch your purpose like you're.
Speaker 2: Going to find it under some mystical, magical, ethereal rock.
Speaker 2: You're going to go, fuck hey everyone, And I've been
Speaker 2: looking like a motherfucker. It's over here, behind this cave,
Speaker 2: under this rock. Ye. Firstly, maybe you choose your purpose, right,
Speaker 2: Maybe there's that, maybe you just go. And also maybe
Speaker 2: you don't have a single purpose. Maybe maybe you don't
Speaker 2: have one purpose. Maybe you live a really full, fucking
Speaker 2: rich life with a bunch of different things that stimulate
Speaker 2: you and light you up.
Speaker 1: And also, by the way, Craig Harper.
Speaker 2: Maybe your purpose when you're thirty five or thirty and
Speaker 2: owning gyms and running around the gym floor like a
Speaker 2: fucking idiot. Maybe maybe your purpose then isn't your purpose
Speaker 2: now when you're sixty. Maybe maybe things evolve and changes,
Speaker 2: You evolve and change, and you know, so I think
Speaker 2: I think in our culture there's probably an unintentional but nonetheless.
Speaker 1: A very real pressure on people to fucking discover their purpose.
Speaker 4: By Tuesday Camp, Yeah, totally and completely, and that is
Speaker 4: we have many purposes not only in this moment in
Speaker 4: time right now, but also as things progress.
Speaker 3: What can be helpful is that if you've got essential
Speaker 3: theme that.
Speaker 4: Feels really, really good, and this is where I believe
Speaker 4: that there's a co creation that goes on. There's natural
Speaker 4: gifts that you're imbued with, there's also your conscious choice
Speaker 4: that you have, and generally you'll find yourself doing something.
Speaker 4: If you're feeling very, very purposeful, you will find yourself
Speaker 4: doing something that is aligned with your natural gifts, which
Speaker 4: you had no choice in, but also feels intellectually and
Speaker 4: philosophically right to you. And there's a co creation of
Speaker 4: your nature and your nurture at the same time. And
Speaker 4: to the point of the multiple purposes that you think about,
Speaker 4: if we're trying to find that physiology of attention with
Speaker 4: calm and low stress, if you are at home and
Speaker 4: trying to work and you've got five kids running around
Speaker 4: that desperately want your attention and you also want to
Speaker 4: be a great parent and an attentive parent, working at
Speaker 4: home is incredibly stressful and it's not productive. You're not
Speaker 4: going to be in flow your purpose right then and there,
Speaker 4: you're not fulfilling.
Speaker 3: It by.
Speaker 4: Attending to your children, and that takes that tension away,
Speaker 4: that leans into obviously something that you've co created that
Speaker 4: exists these children, and also your natural want to be
Speaker 4: there and the.
Speaker 3: Hormones that are related to that as well.
Speaker 4: By you attending to your children and you know, lifting
Speaker 4: them up and creating a great foundation for them of love,
Speaker 4: whatever it might be in that moment, that's incredibly purposeful,
Speaker 4: and your body will show that in its physiology.
Speaker 3: I actually feel better.
Speaker 4: Looking after my kids than I do trying to be
Speaker 4: distracted looking after them doing work. Whereas when you go
Speaker 4: to work, you know you're not running around padding people
Speaker 4: on the back, I mean you could or you know,
Speaker 4: giving kisses and telling them much you love. Like you
Speaker 4: want to get into your office or you want to
Speaker 4: get into your space, and you want to be as
Speaker 4: productive and as useful as possible and moving towards the
Speaker 4: outcomes that you're looking for in your job. In that
Speaker 4: your immediate purpose in that moment is not your kids.
Speaker 4: In fact, your kids will be a distraction once again
Speaker 4: and work is now the priority. If you go to
Speaker 4: the beach, you know your purpose shifts once again.
Speaker 3: And I guess there's a the way that I like
Speaker 3: to think of it.
Speaker 4: And again this is in part stuff that I've read
Speaker 4: and in part of the things that I agree with,
Speaker 4: and that is goals in cement plans, in sands's if
Speaker 4: you get a sense, a persistent sense of the type
Speaker 4: of thing that you want to show up for, and
Speaker 4: normally it's quite broad like for me, I want to
Speaker 4: inspire elevation. I want people to know themselves better and
Speaker 4: live their potential.
Speaker 3: And so that is my central theme, which has changed
Speaker 3: a few.
Speaker 4: Times over the years, and as I've grown and as
Speaker 4: I've developed and understood more, and then I'm acting on
Speaker 4: that purpose in a different way with my kids, in
Speaker 4: a different way with my work, and I'm not perfect
Speaker 4: with it, of course, but in a different way with
Speaker 4: my team, in a different way with our clients. It's
Speaker 4: the way that I show up is constantly changing, but
Speaker 4: it has a central theme, a central governing sense that
Speaker 4: allows me to have a north star. And so everybody's
Speaker 4: going to have a different interpretation of that. But even
Speaker 4: just probably a huge thing that I'm a thing that
Speaker 4: I'm finding is so relieving to people is that your
Speaker 4: your purpose is allowed to change, so you might have
Speaker 4: a purpose that's our data, they're not inspiring you anymore,
Speaker 4: and you might just be sticking to it, thinking this
Speaker 4: is what I've got to do, when in fact you
Speaker 4: have aged, you have grown, you have seen different things.
Speaker 4: There are more things that are present in your life now,
Speaker 4: and as a result, your purpose must change in order
Speaker 4: for you to get that same sensation of I'm on
Speaker 4: track and this is where one more thing, mate, I
Speaker 4: know I'm going on.
Speaker 3: But there is.
Speaker 4: This idea that even if you don't like what I
Speaker 4: love is the commonversation for people that don't believe that
Speaker 4: there's a purpose, You don't need a purpose, or it's
Speaker 4: not important, whatever it might be, and it actually doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter what your beliefs are. If you have
Speaker 4: the physiology of focus, calm, focus, with motivation, drive and
Speaker 4: low stress levels, then you're on purpose and you'll also
Speaker 4: it will also mean that you recover better overnight. And
Speaker 4: I mean to make it simple, you'll live a longer
Speaker 4: and happier life because your sleep will be better, your
Speaker 4: digestion will be better, your recovery will be better because
Speaker 4: you've got the physiology that's not as stressed. Whereas if
Speaker 4: you're not on purpose and you only need to be
Speaker 4: in a relationship that's a little bit misaligned to experience.
Speaker 3: What this is.
Speaker 4: If you're not on purpose, you don't sleep as well,
Speaker 4: you don't eat as well, you don't move as well,
Speaker 4: you don't recover as well. Things don't feel as easy,
Speaker 4: things feel more tiring. And that is a way crap
Speaker 4: a version of life. So whatever gets you into that space,
Speaker 4: I feel like I was built for this moment that
Speaker 4: if you can strive for that in whatever that looks like,
Speaker 4: and it's different for everybody.
Speaker 3: Something.
Speaker 4: And I was sitting with some school teachers the other
Speaker 4: day and we've done their biological assessment. One of them
Speaker 4: hyper oxytocin sensitive, so everything is about socializing.
Speaker 3: And another individual she was virtually the opposite to that,
Speaker 3: very introverted, and we were talking about when of you
Speaker 3: felt purposeful in the last little while, and the introverted.
Speaker 4: Person says, I was reading my book and then I
Speaker 4: did some coding by myself in a dark room by
Speaker 4: about seven hours or for about seven hours, just really
Speaker 4: enjoying my and just that intellectual stimulation of doing.
Speaker 3: My own work.
Speaker 4: And I was like, that's amazing, Like what an incredible flow.
Speaker 4: She was describing the calm, focused, low strands. And then
Speaker 4: the very super social person with the oxytocin variat got
Speaker 4: in and she said, oh yeah, we were like playing games.
Speaker 3: With the kids.
Speaker 4: We were doing like a new game every five minutes,
Speaker 4: Like all of the kids were going absolutely nuts making
Speaker 4: all of this noise, and we were just in there
Speaker 4: having a great time with them. I felt completely inflow.
Speaker 4: I felt completely purposeful, like I was built for this moment.
Speaker 4: And so just whatever that is to you. And this
Speaker 4: is where you know, we now have a lot more
Speaker 4: science that helps us understand this so that you can
Speaker 4: navigate to the biology of this a lot faster. But
Speaker 4: think about those times in your life where you have
Speaker 4: been like I was made for this moment right here,
Speaker 4: and they're a nice thing to reflect on, the stepping
Speaker 4: stones to get to, well, what could be creating that
Speaker 4: sensation for me right now? Because that right there is
Speaker 4: that's life like, that is what we are here for.
Speaker 4: That's what our capacity, our potential is here for.
Speaker 3: To just feel.
Speaker 4: Incredibly rewarded living the moment that we're in.
Speaker 3: That's what it's all about.
Speaker 1: You don't get excited about this stuff enough, you need
Speaker 1: to put it up.
Speaker 4: I'm just dragging myself outside.
Speaker 2: You need hard you know, I was thinking about as
Speaker 2: you were talking about, you know, how different we all
Speaker 2: are and how we need different things and respond to
Speaker 2: different or the same thing in different.
Speaker 1: Ways, and blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Like a really good example of this, which I'm sure
Speaker 2: you've experienced, this is as a speaker. Most people who
Speaker 2: aren't speakers, which is most people you don't, you wouldn't
Speaker 2: think much that you can be up saying something to
Speaker 2: a group. And because I've done it so much and
Speaker 2: I'm in front of so many groups, I've done it
Speaker 2: for forty years and I've read rooms pretty I still
Speaker 2: fuck up. I still have good and bad days, but
Speaker 2: for the most part, it's somewhere between not bad and
Speaker 2: pretty good most of the time. Right So, and I'm
Speaker 2: very interactive and I'm way more fucking organic and freestyle
Speaker 2: than most presenters. I don't have slides, I don't have graphs,
Speaker 2: not that there's anything wrong with that. But what's interesting
Speaker 2: is sometimes I look out and I could tell I
Speaker 2: can go that dude fucking loves me, and that laid
Speaker 2: your next team fucking hates me, and that one next
Speaker 2: day she thinks I'm hilarious. The next one's confused, you know,
Speaker 2: And you can just tell that on the same day,
Speaker 2: in the same room, shit, the same guy with the
Speaker 2: same intention, the same energy, sharing the same message. So
Speaker 2: everyone's got the same inbound stimulus, right kind of. But
Speaker 2: there are so many different experiences being had and you're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is how it works, and I can almost I
Speaker 2: can you know sometimes ago that lady up the back
Speaker 2: of that dude, they're gonna they have a problem with me.
Speaker 2: And then sometimes you'll just see him walking up to
Speaker 2: you at the end and you're like, here we go,
Speaker 2: here we go.
Speaker 1: You know, it's okay.
Speaker 2: It's like that's literally that's the reality, you know, that
Speaker 2: is you are. It's like you you've got a team,
Speaker 2: You've got staff. Like I don't know about you, but
Speaker 2: for me, I employed hundreds and hundreds of people, and
Speaker 2: there would be certain staff members God bless them. There
Speaker 2: might be in a like a gym where I've got
Speaker 2: forty staff, there might be three staff members that take
Speaker 2: ninety percent of my energy and the other thirty seven
Speaker 2: take ten. Yeah, and it's like that consistently, you know,
Speaker 2: So that like when you were saying purpose changes and
Speaker 2: I was thinking of a couple of other things.
Speaker 1: Is that one.
Speaker 2: It's okay, Like uncertainty is okay, Like we are so
Speaker 2: addicted to We've got to know, we've got to be right,
Speaker 2: We've got to be certain. Things have got to be
Speaker 2: familiar things. I've got to be. No, it doesn't have
Speaker 2: to be. Here's an idea, just try this. I don't know,
Speaker 2: Like I don't know, and it's okay, what do you think?
Speaker 2: I don't know because we feel so compelled to look
Speaker 2: fucking smart. I've so many times going, look, I could
Speaker 2: make something up, but I actually don't know.
Speaker 1: So I'm just going to go with I don't know.
Speaker 1: And also, here's another one. Here's a good et. I
Speaker 1: was wrong, just fucked it up.
Speaker 3: I was wrong. There was some strange combination of words.
Speaker 3: You just mentioned what there was the three of them.
Speaker 3: Iand I know, I know.
Speaker 2: It's I know it's fucking weird, but you know, And
Speaker 2: the thing is that I would be a moron, and
Speaker 2: I would be the most arrogant man on earth to
Speaker 2: think that I'm not currently getting things wrong, because I've
Speaker 2: always got something wrong. Not all the things all the time, right,
Speaker 2: but I have Yes, I've had some wins and I've
Speaker 2: got some things right. But if I speak to the
Speaker 2: guys doing a PhD and self awareness, if I'm not
Speaker 2: saying right now, more than likely I'm getting several things
Speaker 2: wrong in some way, and moving forward, I will continue
Speaker 2: to fuck up. I'll also try to grow and learn
Speaker 2: and evolve and serve people. But will I get things wrong?
Speaker 2: Will I operate an ego? Will I fuck up?
Speaker 1: Yes? I will like that. Just to me, that just
Speaker 1: takes a bit of pressure.
Speaker 4: Off totally and probably one of the best lessons that
Speaker 4: a really powerful mentor gave to me. He's still my
Speaker 4: chief mentor is. I don't know if I'll ever outgrown him. Actually,
Speaker 4: he is an incredible man. He it's that when you
Speaker 4: don't know, you will still feel something and you'll still
Speaker 4: have thoughts on it, and you'll still have a belief
Speaker 4: about something. And what's really helped is because we don't
Speaker 4: truly know, Like even if you think you know, you
Speaker 4: don't know, because anything could happen.
Speaker 3: There can be a sense of knowing in your body
Speaker 3: if you allow.
Speaker 4: And the way that he explained it was like if
Speaker 4: you've got traffic lights that are saying go and stop
Speaker 4: on some decisions, you'll have a couple of amber lights,
Speaker 4: a green light and a hard red light, you know,
Speaker 4: and then on other decisions you'll go, you know what,
Speaker 4: everything's green on that I'm going to do it. And
Speaker 4: that's been a really really powerful exercise for me to say, well,
Speaker 4: I don't know what's ultimately going to happen, but if
Speaker 4: I was, And it encourages you to actually tap into
Speaker 4: an intuition, tap into your deeper feelings, tap into what
Speaker 4: you might what might be best for you to say,
Speaker 4: if I was to do this, do I feel aligned
Speaker 4: with you know? Does it it doesn't make sense?
Speaker 3: Yes? Does it feel good?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 4: Do I think it's it's right for the people around me?
Speaker 4: It's like green light, green light, green light.
Speaker 3: Well, that that's good. That's as good as it gets,
Speaker 3: like as far as knowing and confidence becomes. That is it?
Speaker 3: But then what's so fascinating about that self awareness?
Speaker 4: And we haven't touched on it just because it's pend
Speaker 4: I mean, not for any particular reason. But you might
Speaker 4: have a fear from your childhood or the last relationship
Speaker 4: that you had that creates an amber or a red and.
Speaker 3: This is where it's only in that quieter space.
Speaker 4: It's only in that state of where where you feel connected,
Speaker 4: where you feel loved, where you feel purposeful, that often
Speaker 4: you can start to separate out what is fear from
Speaker 4: before and what is actually real and you know it's
Speaker 4: it's it's you can't undo trauma with additional stress. You've
Speaker 4: actually you've got to be in a space of love.
Speaker 4: You've got to be in a space of calm. You've
Speaker 4: got to be a space of connection.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 4: I didn't expect to say this by the end of
Speaker 4: this little paragraph, but this is the importance of having
Speaker 4: a routine of where you're connecting with yourself, not to
Speaker 4: fix a problem, not to necessarily be focused on your purpose,
Speaker 4: but the ten minutes of deep breathing to understand your
Speaker 4: internal world, to navigate what those those feelings are, so
Speaker 4: that when you actually do need to call upon them,
Speaker 4: you've got a familiarity. It's just mindfulness is just a muscle,
Speaker 4: and that when it comes to purpose, it's this is
Speaker 4: a feeling that is unique to you.
Speaker 1: That is.
Speaker 4: That that someone else can't instruct you to. It's got
Speaker 4: to be something that you feel out for yourself. And
Speaker 4: the pathway to that is actually connecting. This is what
Speaker 4: I'm because there is a vast lack of this education
Speaker 4: in schools right now, and it's this this term I'm
Speaker 4: actually really really We're going to be building in mindful
Speaker 4: routines into part of the research progra that we're doing,
Speaker 4: so five year old kids will have their personalized mindfulness
Speaker 4: routine before they start school. But that this is the
Speaker 4: this is where it needs to be because it's that
Speaker 4: internal sense of knowing that you can have confidence and
Speaker 4: you say, you know what, I don't know, but it
Speaker 4: feels and thinks and looks like green lights, so let's see.
Speaker 4: And then it's you know, it's the moving forward without
Speaker 4: expectation of result, but just giving it your best and
Speaker 4: seeing what happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think I think for some people that
Speaker 2: that vulnerability, that vulnerability of being okay with being wrong,
Speaker 2: and especially when as we were talking about before with Ida,
Speaker 2: especially when your identity is tied in with some a
Speaker 2: certain thing being a certain way, then you find, you know,
Speaker 2: like religious stuff is an easy example, just because you know,
Speaker 2: I grew up or whatever, we grew up in this
Speaker 2: theology or this doctrine or this philosophy, and we know
Speaker 2: we are this or that you know, we are the
Speaker 2: one true hotline to God or whatever the you know.
Speaker 2: And when you take out the religion and the theology
Speaker 2: and you just think about it from a cognitive point
Speaker 2: of view or a metacognitive point of view, Oh, we
Speaker 2: think this way. I think this way because Mum and
Speaker 2: Dad think this way, and Uncle John and Arnie Marge
Speaker 2: think this way, and the pastor thinks this and all
Speaker 2: the people in my world think this way. So I
Speaker 2: haven't actually been taught how to think. I've been told
Speaker 2: what to think, and now I think that. And so
Speaker 2: this when I get to the end of my programming,
Speaker 2: and then I open a door into self awareness and consciousness,
Speaker 2: Like this is the interesting Like where does my programming finish?
Speaker 2: And where does my ability to think for purely for myself,
Speaker 2: to think critically and whether or not what I think
Speaker 2: aligns with those around me or not?
Speaker 1: What do I think?
Speaker 2: And it's very fucking difficult to overcome your programming for
Speaker 2: all of us, me included. Right, I haven't been to
Speaker 2: church essentially for forty years, but I grew up in
Speaker 2: a very very churchy life, and so there's still psychologe
Speaker 2: and I'm not saying it was bad. It wasn't all
Speaker 2: fucking terrible or anything, but there's this still there's this
Speaker 2: residual where there are certain things that if I'm talking
Speaker 2: about certain things a certain way, I feel this discomfort
Speaker 2: or this guilt, and I'm like, oh, wow, that's interesting.
Speaker 2: Forty years later, there's still shit I'm uncomfortable to say.
Speaker 2: But just in case God smites me from the face
Speaker 2: of the earth or something, you know, it's so interesting
Speaker 2: to realize how much of that stuff lives on. Probably
Speaker 2: you're going to tell me in ourselves, but it's fucking
Speaker 2: and trying to trying to be I don't know if
Speaker 2: the word is aware enough or courageous enough or curious
Speaker 2: enough to go, look, maybe a lot of what I think,
Speaker 2: or some of what I think is flawed or.
Speaker 1: You know, somewhat flawed.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting door to open because it opens It's
Speaker 2: very hard to be objective when you believe that, or
Speaker 2: open minded when you believe that you are already right.
Speaker 2: So therefore anyone who doesn't agree or align with my
Speaker 2: version of right is wrong. So now I've made myself unteachable.
Speaker 2: Now I'm living in confirmation bias. The echo chamber of Craig.
Speaker 4: Yeah, as you were. As you were talking there, I
Speaker 4: was thinking about that.
Speaker 3: Like to think of it.
Speaker 4: The way that I've kind of or thought about this
Speaker 4: and been supportive to think about this as well, is
Speaker 4: the past experience that we have personally. I'll give an
Speaker 4: example one person that's come through one of our health
Speaker 4: professional courses, very fiery, direct type of individual, with very subdued, grounded,
Speaker 4: steady parents and didn't realize that they'd been suppressing him
Speaker 4: his whole life out of care and love, that we
Speaker 4: need a grounded, quiet, calm, considered child because that's who
Speaker 4: we are.
Speaker 3: And then he has this complete realization moment, you.
Speaker 4: Know, really only two years ago, by understanding his makeup
Speaker 4: is actually fiery and freedom and taking chances and being impulsive,
Speaker 4: and he's been living in this conflict and it's just
Speaker 4: been building up and creating an incredible amount of stress
Speaker 4: in his system. And the release of that was absolutely
Speaker 4: crazy like, and the mid life crisis almost that followed
Speaker 4: because it's like, well, I don't have the things that
Speaker 4: I felt safe with anymore. Now I've actually I understand
Speaker 4: myself and with that freedom comes a whole lot of
Speaker 4: unknown and I'm not used to this new muscle that
Speaker 4: I have, so that first the first thing is just
Speaker 4: the most loving, well intended people. If they don't understand
Speaker 4: your differences, they can be completely different to you, and
Speaker 4: they projected onto you.
Speaker 3: And this is what happens with kids.
Speaker 4: And this is what's so exciting about working with schools,
Speaker 4: and that is we are telling them to like, this
Speaker 4: is this child, and when they explode, it needs to
Speaker 4: in an indirect way, needs to be validated and celebrated
Speaker 4: as to why they did that, rather than just you
Speaker 4: are the wrong child and you've done the wrong thing
Speaker 4: whatever it might be, which then creates this conflict in
Speaker 4: them of like, oh, I did this thing that felt
Speaker 4: natural to me.
Speaker 3: I've been told that that's wrong. She's what's wrong with me?
Speaker 4: Like this is the story that gets created rather being
Speaker 4: around people that allow you to just that proactively encourage
Speaker 4: you to be yourself. So I know that you are
Speaker 4: a really quiet person.
Speaker 3: Like my mum.
Speaker 4: She's the introvert of introverts, and it's like, hey mum,
Speaker 4: go take some time by yourself.
Speaker 3: Hey mom, Like, go and have a lie theut.
Speaker 4: Hey mom, go and get into a dark room where
Speaker 4: you can just dull your senses down.
Speaker 3: Like being encouraged to be yourself. There's another my niece
Speaker 3: actually over over the weekend.
Speaker 4: She just talks so much and so fast, and her
Speaker 4: thinking is brilliant. She's really really sharp. She thinks about
Speaker 4: things in the right way, but the way that she
Speaker 4: says it really grinds on a number of family members
Speaker 4: and just to tell her, Hey, what you're thinking is
Speaker 4: exactly right, and it's actually amazing what comes out of
Speaker 4: your mouth, because most of the time at school she's
Speaker 4: been told her you got to be quiet, like no
Speaker 4: one wants to hear right now, and so old. It's eleven,
Speaker 4: she's eleven, and so she's building this story of geez,
Speaker 4: I'm rambling, Like if someone lets her actually talk, she'll say, oh,
Speaker 4: I'm rambling now. I said no, no, no, this is good.
Speaker 4: But she's so used to being stifled. And so it's
Speaker 4: what would it be like? And it might seem even
Speaker 4: unrealistic for you to celebrate and support children that are
Speaker 4: acting poorly, for example, it might feel like unrealistic to
Speaker 4: do that. But what I would like everybody to reflect
Speaker 4: on is what would it feel like if or who
Speaker 4: is that person who just loves me? No matter what,
Speaker 4: I can just be the whatever kind of person that
Speaker 4: I want to be, and no matter what, they go, Oh,
Speaker 4: you're such a legend. Let's go get another champagne. Let's
Speaker 4: just this is just the best. I love when you
Speaker 4: get all fired up.
Speaker 3: This is the best.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, they are assholes. I totally agree with you.
Speaker 3: Give me a gimme a five.
Speaker 4: Whatever it might be, What is it like to be
Speaker 4: around that person, to have that level of support in
Speaker 4: who you are? And that's essentially everything that we're trying
Speaker 4: to do is help people be more informed about who
Speaker 4: you are, why you do the things that you might be,
Speaker 4: and how can I provide you the most amount of
Speaker 4: celebration just for being you. I don't know where I
Speaker 4: started all of this or where this began, but it's
Speaker 4: definitely like a really key message that we're driving into
Speaker 4: the world at the moment, and that is who you
Speaker 4: are is exactly right. And if you've got people around
Speaker 4: you that allow you to be you, it's amazing how
Speaker 4: you course correct naturally just because you're calmer and you
Speaker 4: coming out of stress and you're resolving things that may
Speaker 4: have happened in the past by being surrounded by that
Speaker 4: love as well. So this whole idea about identity and
Speaker 4: supporting people to be themselves, giving them the space to
Speaker 4: then find their purpose and use their natural strength.
Speaker 3: That's what it's all about.
Speaker 1: But we've come full circle. I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've heard of a book called
Speaker 1: called Bad Therapy.
Speaker 2: No. So, there's a lady called Abigail Shreier, I think
Speaker 2: that's her name. She wrote a book called Bad Therapy.
Speaker 2: Lots and lots of research, interviewed hundreds and hundreds of
Speaker 2: therapists and psychs.
Speaker 1: And blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, that the takeaway from the book, the key takeaway
Speaker 2: is that for some people, talk therapy is brilliant, and
Speaker 2: for some people it's catastrophic. It's like everyone thinks that
Speaker 2: I am going to a psychologist or a therapist and
Speaker 2: talking about your shit. At the very least it will
Speaker 2: help a bit. And one of the outcomes of the book,
Speaker 2: or one of the revelations the book, is that no, actually,
Speaker 2: for some people rocking up every Tuesday a bough at
Speaker 2: three o'clock and talking about that thing that happened five
Speaker 2: years ago, it actually makes you worse because you just
Speaker 2: open the door on that trauma and you just get
Speaker 2: back into that and it takes them three four days
Speaker 2: to recover from a session, and they're not actually overall
Speaker 2: going forwards, they're going backwards. Which is not to say,
Speaker 2: don't misinterpret me, folks that talk therapy is bad, but
Speaker 2: for some people it ain't the answer. And I think
Speaker 2: this is back to our original thing is like something
Speaker 2: works for everyone, but not everything works for everyone. You know,
Speaker 2: find you something you know.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent. And some of the work that a
Speaker 4: couple of our psychics are doing in the moment is
Speaker 4: what kind of talk therapy is going to be best,
Speaker 4: because some individuals, even if they've gone really bad, need
Speaker 4: to be complimented, even if there've been an absolute asshole.
Speaker 4: They need to be told how great they are, and
Speaker 4: then that makes them come back into balance, whereas sitting
Speaker 4: in the criticism and getting their ego bashed makes them worse,
Speaker 4: makes them angry, makes them more frustrated, make some more
Speaker 4: shut down.
Speaker 3: But actually the therapy for them is just being told
Speaker 3: how great they are.
Speaker 4: Jeez, I love how you've thought about that. And let's
Speaker 4: let's think to the future. What are the things that
Speaker 4: we're going to approach in the future that we're going.
Speaker 3: To really make great. Let's not worry about the past
Speaker 3: at all. Let's actually just focus on the future.
Speaker 4: As other people really learn so much from going back
Speaker 4: into their past and they can process it and digest it.
Speaker 1: So I hear you.
Speaker 4: Completely and even you know, some more enlightened sychs actually
Speaker 4: go out and they do walking talkies where they know
Speaker 4: they've got somebody who's more mindful or more more mobile,
Speaker 4: and they love the idea of moving, and so they
Speaker 4: get them to move their body while they're talking. And
Speaker 4: it's interesting. My son is exactly that. He's a talker
Speaker 4: and a walker. And if we're sitting in a car,
Speaker 4: I'll say, hey, mate, let's talk about that, because I
Speaker 4: know that it's important for him to talk about stuff.
Speaker 3: To get off his chest.
Speaker 4: Otherwise he broods on it and he does feel better.
Speaker 4: If we're going for a walk, he'll start naturally talking wow.
Speaker 4: But it's sitting still, it doesn't do it. And there's
Speaker 4: some individuals with their brain are more geared to they
Speaker 4: process all information through their movement center and so they
Speaker 4: take in information and then they want to move and
Speaker 4: if they're having to then sit still. It's just like
Speaker 4: stifling their response to things, whereas other individuals to move
Speaker 4: and walk at the to move and talk at the
Speaker 4: same time as a complete distraction. So I hear you
Speaker 4: completely and the depths of that are absolutely fascinating.
Speaker 3: So anyway, it's it's been a wonderful talk with you.
Speaker 1: I mate, I think you're getting better. I think you're
Speaker 1: fucking getting better as you get older.
Speaker 4: You've got to give you enough time. It's eighteen months
Speaker 4: to get some new material, that's all.
Speaker 1: Oh, I know.
Speaker 2: We've definitely got to get you back quicker than that.
Speaker 2: Or if you're available, tel point our listeners to your
Speaker 2: resources and yeah, let them know how they can connect
Speaker 2: with you and get involved.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 4: So a part of the Shay Group and the Shay
Speaker 4: Group we're an organization. They're looking to eliminate chronic disease
Speaker 4: and pain by twenty fifty and support everybody to live
Speaker 4: in their best be recognized as that and contribute to
Speaker 4: the collective good.
Speaker 3: That's our vision and our mission.
Speaker 4: We've got training for health professionals in the most advanced
Speaker 4: precision health and medicine that's available, using the most advanced
Speaker 4: technologies in that space. This is obviously the more psychological
Speaker 4: conscious component of that for more psychologically driven individuals, but
Speaker 4: it all happens in the health professional space. We have
Speaker 4: corporate well being where we can talk about these principles
Speaker 4: and health and well being at work.
Speaker 3: We are obviously working with schools to support.
Speaker 4: Them with their learning, and we're doing a whole lot
Speaker 4: of research in this space of precision and personalized health
Speaker 4: as well. If you're interested in doing your own biological assessment,
Speaker 4: the app's called Shay and essentially the link is Shay
Speaker 4: dot group, sa A dot group, forward slash, dr doctor Dash,
Speaker 4: cam dash McDonald like the Hamburger mc d O n
Speaker 4: A l D, and you'll get all the links that
Speaker 4: you need on that website right there.
Speaker 1: Mate. You're so good at this.
Speaker 2: Genuinely, I really appreciate you. I don't know why it's
Speaker 2: been so long, but thanks for coming to play on
Speaker 2: the You project. Good luck with everything you're doing, and
Speaker 2: thanks for all the good stuff you put into the world.
Speaker 3: The nonor to be here harps, thanks for having me