Speaker 1: Good to see you again, and I'm glad to see
Speaker 1: you alive.
Speaker 2: And well, yes, indeed, man, I am out the other side,
Speaker 2: as they say, I'm happy to be out the other side.
Speaker 1: I'm very glad to hear it. And just if you
Speaker 1: don't mind, I don't know all the backstory, but I
Speaker 1: know you had surgery, and yeah, are you okay? Is
Speaker 1: everything all right?
Speaker 2: I am? I am perfectly fine, and I'm a very
Speaker 2: very lucky boy. I play soccer with a cardiologist and
Speaker 2: because I was I'm in my fifties, I went to
Speaker 2: him and I said, hey me, you know what can
Speaker 2: I do to get a full check up? I want
Speaker 2: the full check up, but I just don't want to
Speaker 2: go and get my bloody cholesterol measured, which is a
Speaker 2: pretty poor proxy. I want to know what my tickers like.
Speaker 2: And he's like, yet, no problem, come in when we'll
Speaker 2: do a whole heap of testing. So he did the
Speaker 2: you know, the exercise stress test, cardiac MRI, all of
Speaker 2: that stuff, sat me down, uh, and then was taking
Speaker 2: me through the results. And when you know, fitness wise,
Speaker 2: you're great, he says, but we have just found that
Speaker 2: you have a congenital heart defect. So I was born.
Speaker 2: I was born with a bicuspid aortic valve rather than
Speaker 2: try cuspid. So you're for and for the listeners or
Speaker 2: maybe anybody doesn't know. Your aorta is the be an
Speaker 2: artery that plumps the blood. So the blood comes out
Speaker 2: of the left ventricle, it squeezes it and it goes
Speaker 2: through the orta and through the all of your body.
Speaker 2: And and there's supposed to be a try leaf, a
Speaker 2: try cuspid valve. There three leaf thing and it's a
Speaker 2: one way valve. So the blood goes through and then
Speaker 2: the valve shuts. I was born with the heart defect
Speaker 2: of a bicusp but so only two leaves. And what
Speaker 2: that means is over time it doesn't shut properly right,
Speaker 2: So you then start to get regurgitation, as in blood
Speaker 2: leaking back in. And what that does then over time,
Speaker 2: because there's blood leaking back in and the ventricles filling again,
Speaker 2: it can stretch your heart chamber. And as the cardiologist
Speaker 2: said to me, he says, what kind of happens with
Speaker 2: people who particularly are into their fitness. They first start
Speaker 2: to notice just a fitness is going a little bit here.
Speaker 2: I need to work harder, and so you go and
Speaker 2: you work harder, and that makes the problem worse. Right,
Speaker 2: The other stuff can happen is that the blood pulls
Speaker 2: in the bottom and then you can get You can
Speaker 2: end up with an aneurysm, or your aorta stretches. The
Speaker 2: man was starting to stretch and it can just burst
Speaker 2: in in your brown bread. So it was either going
Speaker 2: to give me heart failure or or kill me. So
Speaker 2: I'm very lucky and I just found this morning I
Speaker 2: was reading an article. I'm in very good company. Olympic
Speaker 2: four hundred meters silver medalist Roger Black revealed he's just
Speaker 2: had open heart surgery. Same issue, exact same issue. He
Speaker 2: was born with a by customers, but he knew about
Speaker 2: it from the age of eleven, so obviously often it's generic.
Speaker 2: Obviously one of his parents had it. He got checked
Speaker 2: out at the age of eleven. They knew it. And
Speaker 2: it's a watching weight thing until it becomes an issue, right,
Speaker 2: and you didn't.
Speaker 1: Have any family history or anything.
Speaker 2: I didn't know any family history at all around it,
Speaker 2: and so it's not always it can just be a freak.
Speaker 2: But then I've got to check my kids from up.
Speaker 2: Both my kids are getting checked as well, and you know,
Speaker 2: but mine was getting to the point my surgeon say
Speaker 2: it actually that I had over fifty percent regard sitation
Speaker 2: once it hits sixty percent of sixty sixty five when
Speaker 2: you get heart failure. So I'm a lucky, lucky boy.
Speaker 1: That's absolutely incredible. And I guess a reminder to a
Speaker 1: lot of people listening who might think, do you have
Speaker 1: done the cholester I've done the blood test, but actually
Speaker 1: I've never had a real look under the hood in
Speaker 1: terms of cardiac risk. That's a huge lesson. And you
Speaker 1: didn't feel.
Speaker 2: Anything, No, I didn't feel anything. Looking back, there were
Speaker 2: probably some signs, and you know, retrospect, you know, it's
Speaker 2: great to be able to look back on stuff, right.
Speaker 2: I've noticed just playing this year because particularly I went
Speaker 2: I played open age this year because I couldn't play
Speaker 2: with the over thirty fives, and just noticed that my
Speaker 2: speed was nowhere near like with young guys. And I
Speaker 2: just thought, it's just because you're old. But you know,
Speaker 2: I was working with half a heart basically, so that's
Speaker 2: going to affect stuff like that. And I did actually
Speaker 2: start to notice. And when you know about these things,
Speaker 2: you more were November December, and especially January, my exercise
Speaker 2: capacity was really dropping off quite significantly, and some would
Speaker 2: say that was because I was in Belfast for two
Speaker 2: weeks reacquainting myself with Guinness, but the badness was out
Speaker 2: by that stage. I could definitely feel it in January
Speaker 2: and my serge and said, yeah, you were now over
Speaker 2: fifty percent. So like in if I hadn't done anything
Speaker 2: about it in the next year, I would have been
Speaker 2: in trouble.
Speaker 1: Wow. Well, I'm so glad to hear you on the
Speaker 1: other side of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look really interesting because I bumped into somebody
Speaker 2: just walking down the street. I bumped into lady I
Speaker 2: know he used to be here to hr with I
Speaker 2: select and I'd done some business with her and we
Speaker 2: were talking with her husband and he had not not
Speaker 2: the same thing, but he had ended up having cockages
Speaker 2: in his arteries and the same thing. It's us freaking blokes.
Speaker 2: He was noticing just when he was out cycling. Oh,
Speaker 2: the cold is starting to affect me. It's affected my
Speaker 2: breathing and stuff like that. But then he said there
Speaker 2: were other symptoms. He was getting a little bit of
Speaker 2: chest pain and he just dismissed it. He even got
Speaker 2: some jaw paying and he sort of just dismissed that,
Speaker 2: and his doc said, geez, you were pretty close to
Speaker 2: a big heart attack.
Speaker 1: Right, So got to listen to the signs, don't you.
Speaker 1: You do?
Speaker 2: And so I think for especially for blokes because we
Speaker 2: get more cardiovascars, but not exclusively women as well. You
Speaker 2: got to know what those signs and symptoms are, right,
Speaker 2: and especially if you're noticing your exercise capacity has dropped significantly,
Speaker 2: you're breathing harder, don't always just write it off on
Speaker 2: the old age and go and get bloody well checked out.
Speaker 2: And you've got to push. You got you gotta push, right,
Speaker 2: So that's the thing. So yeah, but hey, we're on
Speaker 2: the other side. I'm recovering really well and very happy
Speaker 2: to be here.
Speaker 1: And your gratitude levels are high.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, oh yes, very very high. Yeah, I'm extremely
Speaker 2: grateful for modern science from a surgeon, for all the
Speaker 2: nurses in the hospital who were freaking awesome and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. Like, yeah, gratitude levels all are through the
Speaker 2: I'm normally a person who's big on gratitude, but yeah,
Speaker 2: through the roof now. But interesting, Tom and I've had
Speaker 2: this conversation. So I don't want to go too much
Speaker 2: into it, but I had this conversation with Craig Harburn.
Speaker 2: We're about to release a podcast. A really interesting thing
Speaker 2: for me in the lead up was using that whole
Speaker 2: stoic principle of meditating on your death. And I think
Speaker 2: a big lesson for everybody is just, you know, put
Speaker 2: yourself in that scenario, right, imagine that you are that
Speaker 2: in six months your brown bread something happens or in
Speaker 2: a month, like what would the impact be? What would
Speaker 2: the impact be on your family? Have you got your
Speaker 2: shit sorted out? But also, you know, if that was
Speaker 2: to happen, what would your big regrets be? Right? If
Speaker 2: you were taken early and then and then imagine you've
Speaker 2: got a second chance, and what would you do with that?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Because a lot of it spen a shit little time
Speaker 2: less on their phone, bringing dooms, grueling, watching shit TV
Speaker 2: that spend more time with their family, doing hobbies, all
Speaker 2: of that stuff and why weird until you get that
Speaker 2: warning shot across the boats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you know that it's a powerful question what
Speaker 1: have you done with your life? And you know, if
Speaker 1: we look at Bronnie Were's story, the top five regrets
Speaker 1: of the dying. The number one most common regrets she
Speaker 1: saw as a palliative carenurse was I wish I'd had
Speaker 1: the courage to live a life true to myself, not
Speaker 1: the life others expected of me. I wish I'd let
Speaker 1: myself be happier. I wish I'd sat in touch with
Speaker 1: my friends. Nobody said I wish I'd spent more time
Speaker 1: in mindless online social media, or getting up about someone
Speaker 1: I worked more in the week, right, yeah, And nobody said, jo,
Speaker 1: I'm glad I renovated and got the extra bedroom, or
Speaker 1: I've got the European car in the driveway. Nobody said that.
Speaker 1: It was all about relationships, doing what matters, not avoiding
Speaker 1: what's in our heart, like not, you know, having the courage.
Speaker 1: That's the word that stood out to me, the courage
Speaker 1: to live a life true to yourself. You know, I
Speaker 1: see as a psychologist, the most common unhelpful coping strategy
Speaker 1: across the board is avoidance. We find the excuse to delay,
Speaker 1: to not take action, to not confront it. And this
Speaker 1: is as true for people's fears as it is for
Speaker 1: their goals. And so that question, if you were to
Speaker 1: die in a month or in six months, what have
Speaker 1: you done with your life? It brings everything into sharp focus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really really does. And I haven't been through
Speaker 2: and done that exercise of that meditating on your death.
Speaker 2: I really encourage everybody to do it right and then
Speaker 2: to just take stock of your life, right, pretend just
Speaker 2: pretend you've got a massive second chance, Like what would
Speaker 2: you do differently? Right? Yeah, So anyway, we're not here
Speaker 2: to talk about me, so you are. Your clinical psychology
Speaker 2: has been on before. Some people will have heard you.
Speaker 2: If you haven't, I'd highly recommend you go back. It
Speaker 2: was probably a couple of years ago actually that we
Speaker 2: were on talking about apples for the mind, and it
Speaker 2: was a great conversation. Hence your back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we talked about the top five myths of
Speaker 1: mental health and I know some people just really it
Speaker 1: resonated for them, these idea that there's we're misled by
Speaker 1: this common knowledge around psychology and mental health. And I
Speaker 1: loved how much that resonated for people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just I see that's just rehush. What's a
Speaker 2: couple of the big myths? Right, Just let's do a
Speaker 2: quick rehush before we get into today. What would be
Speaker 2: the big one or two that are the standouts for you.
Speaker 1: Oh, the big one or two is being mentally healthy
Speaker 1: means I'm going to feel happy. And conversely, if I
Speaker 1: feel happy, it means I'm mentally healthy. That's a huge
Speaker 1: red herring. Equating your mood with your mental health. It
Speaker 1: leads people down the garden path. They assume that there's
Speaker 1: something wrong with them when there isn't because they're not
Speaker 1: feeling twenty four seven joy and good feelings. I've got
Speaker 1: to tell you, Paul, if I met someone who said
Speaker 1: they felt good all the time, I think, what disorder
Speaker 1: do you have? Because it's not normal to be elevated
Speaker 1: in mood continuously. But we also see people pursuing happy
Speaker 1: feelings in unhealthy ways. They see that as the holy ground.
Speaker 1: But your mood or how you feel, is not the
Speaker 1: same thing as your mental health. It's not the same
Speaker 1: thing as your will being.
Speaker 2: And this is critical for people to understand. Isn't it
Speaker 2: that happiness is just an emotion. It's a fleeting emotion
Speaker 2: like anger, sadness, that sort of stuff. It's not a
Speaker 2: state of being that we can be in permanently. And
Speaker 2: I think we've all been, We've been sold this by
Speaker 2: marketing people, right them, that we should all be happy. Interesting.
Speaker 2: I remember looking at research around what parents most want
Speaker 2: for their children, and across the world there was like
Speaker 2: thirty different countries and the biggest thing they wanted for
Speaker 2: their children was to be happy. Apart from India, and
Speaker 2: they wanted their children to be successful more than happy. Right,
Speaker 2: that was the one country that bucked the trend out
Speaker 2: of thirty or forty of them. Yeah, it's just it's
Speaker 2: bullshit that we can be happy all the time, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It is bullshit. And I think when parents say I
Speaker 1: want my child to be happy, what they really mean
Speaker 1: to say is I want them to have well being. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want them to be well liked and I want
Speaker 1: them to be successful. That's really what they mean when
Speaker 1: they say I want them to be happy. But the
Speaker 1: good news is that and working in the air of
Speaker 1: preventive psychology, I do a lot of work with parents.
Speaker 1: We talk about what are the things to keep in
Speaker 1: mind if you're the parent of young child in order
Speaker 1: to achieve that. Well, if you want your child to
Speaker 1: be happy, you want to cultivate well being. Because you're
Speaker 1: absolutely right, we conflate these two things. That one is
Speaker 1: a temporary mood state. Moods are by definition transient, and
Speaker 1: that is healthy. We don't they're meant to come and go.
Speaker 1: That's why I always say emotions are like the weather.
Speaker 1: They're meant to come and go. And if you want
Speaker 1: your child to be well liked, then model social skills
Speaker 1: and coach them on social skills. And if you want
Speaker 1: them to be successful, build their capability. So you're not
Speaker 1: gonna have a capable child if they never face challenges,
Speaker 1: they never have responsibility and they don't have to do
Speaker 1: things on their own. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Look, I want to do a big dig into that.
Speaker 2: But just while we're on that topic of happiness and that,
Speaker 2: you know we've been sold as happiness. I think there's
Speaker 2: another thing that's a big issue right now is that
Speaker 2: And I don't know where this came from, but now
Speaker 2: people just a lot of people seem to think that
Speaker 2: life is about being entertained, right, and so many people
Speaker 2: spend so much of their free time inside four walls
Speaker 2: with their head buried in a screen right either scrolling
Speaker 2: or on Netflix. And it's like, when did entertainment become
Speaker 2: the prime goal of leisure time?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely, And it's a trend that we see not
Speaker 1: just across individual behaviors, but also in parenting practices and
Speaker 1: really across the board. It goes hand in hand with
Speaker 1: the shortening of our attention span, but in particular it's
Speaker 1: emotional as well. And it's what I call the great
Speaker 1: mistake because if we focus on short term emotions, what
Speaker 1: makes me feel happy, what makes me feel calm, what
Speaker 1: makes me feel comfortable, over what's good for our long
Speaker 1: term development, our long term wellbeing, or what fits with
Speaker 1: our values, this is a mistake. So focusing on short
Speaker 1: term emotions rather than long term development is a mistake.
Speaker 1: It's a mistake in our lives because it stops us
Speaker 1: from doing what's meaningful or important in the long term.
Speaker 1: And it's a mistake from a parenting point of view
Speaker 1: because it causes parents to intervene unnecessarily in a way
Speaker 1: that ultimately confers risk upon the child for other problems. So,
Speaker 1: you know, we see this in anxiety all the time.
Speaker 1: And I know we started with phones and now in anxiety,
Speaker 1: but we see this in anxiety because it's really normal
Speaker 1: to sometimes feel anxious. So if you do something that
Speaker 1: is new, different, challenging, or has a great deal of
Speaker 1: responsibility attached to it. How often do you feel perfectly calm?
Speaker 2: Not very often, unless you're a not kiss.
Speaker 1: Exactly only in that case would right, So it's normal
Speaker 1: by definition when you face a challenge, it's normal to
Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable. But we've somehow pathologized normal nervousness, normal discomfort.
Speaker 1: You know, we could say colloquially, I feel anxious, Okay, fine,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean you've got an anxiety disorder. That
Speaker 1: doesn't mean anything's wrong. And so by pathologizing it, by
Speaker 1: reducing our we've lowered our expectations for what we can
Speaker 1: and should tolerate. And this has vast repercussions. It's like
Speaker 1: we've lowered the bar across the board for what we
Speaker 1: should be able to handle. So that has implications for individuals,
Speaker 1: but on a population level, and we're seeing this play
Speaker 1: out in real time right now, Paul, is on a
Speaker 1: population level, it increases vulnerability to anxiety disorders. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: if i'm IF, I'm if as a young person, I'm
Speaker 1: implicitly or explicitly given the message that I shouldn't have
Speaker 1: to tolerate the discomfort of a high pressure exam. For example,
Speaker 1: or I shouldn't have to endure the difficulty of telling
Speaker 1: my teacher that I didn't do my homework. Then that
Speaker 1: then magnifies. There's a cumulative effect of this belief set
Speaker 1: and this lack of habituation. We habituate to things. When
Speaker 1: we face them, we calm down and we adjust. So
Speaker 1: if we don't learn to habituate to everyday challenges, everyday difficulties,
Speaker 1: how in the hell are we going to expect a
Speaker 1: young person at twenty twenty five, in their first job
Speaker 1: doing a university degree, who faces the challenges that we
Speaker 1: know are inevitable. How can we possibly expect them to
Speaker 1: cope with that difficulty and discomfort if they've never had
Speaker 1: to face that difficulty and discomfort with the little things,
Speaker 1: the age appropriate things, when they were younger.
Speaker 2: Mayor you are singing my song and you're singing it beautifully.
Speaker 2: I have been increasingly concerned of what I've seen, both
Speaker 2: from seeing my kids and their friends and seeing messages
Speaker 2: from schools, but also then seeing the ridiculously increasing medication rates,
Speaker 2: especially amongst our young people, and the mental health issues.
Speaker 2: And I have long believed that a huge part of that,
Speaker 2: In fact, the vast majority of that is that we
Speaker 2: are coddling our kids, we are wrapping them up in
Speaker 2: cotton wool. We're making the freaking exact same mistake that
Speaker 2: happened in the nineteen eighties that came out of America,
Speaker 2: where it was all about boosting people's self esteem because
Speaker 2: they saw that people who had hire self esteem created
Speaker 2: less are made, had committed less crime. So they then thought, oh,
Speaker 2: if we just boost people self esteem, there'll be better citizens.
Speaker 2: And it turned into a freaking mess. And I think
Speaker 2: we're doing exactly the same thing. I mean, I'm a
Speaker 2: big fan of discomfort tolerance, right, and you sort of
Speaker 2: alluded to it, are like, we have to learn to
Speaker 2: tolerate discomfort, both physical and psychological, if we want to
Speaker 2: prepare ourselves for life. But as you say, we are
Speaker 2: pathologizing stuff like nervousness and discomfort. And then there's a
Speaker 2: friggin pill.
Speaker 1: For it, which is a really slippery slope. It becomes
Speaker 1: a cycle, and it very easily becomes a dependence. So
Speaker 1: you can become dependent on avoidance, you can become dependent
Speaker 1: on a pill, you can become dependent on reassurance. These
Speaker 1: are all what psychologists would call safety behaviors. They make
Speaker 1: us feel safe, but they don't actually alter the level
Speaker 1: of risk or experiencing in the world.
Speaker 2: And they make it worse though in the long run,
Speaker 2: don't they both. With all of these avoidance behaviors, it
Speaker 2: just gets worse and worse.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because we miss the bus. Because we need developmental
Speaker 1: to face those challenges, learn to sit with it, tolerate
Speaker 1: the discomfort, and habituate. Have the experience of becoming more
Speaker 1: comfortable in those uncomfortable situations. This is critical. This is
Speaker 1: the principle that underpins exposure therapy. Yes, yes, right, So
Speaker 1: you don't take the person. And I've seen this. If
Speaker 1: you do it half right, you're not doing it right.
Speaker 1: And I've seen this out of this conversation with a
Speaker 1: lot of educators in our healthy mind schools is they'll say, well,
Speaker 1: we want to get this kid to overcome their school
Speaker 1: refusal and their social anxiety. So I had this conversation
Speaker 1: with one school and they said, well, we get the
Speaker 1: kid to come, and the kid's very anxious, and we
Speaker 1: reward them when they arrive. We tell them they've done
Speaker 1: a great job. We can tell they're really struggling with it,
Speaker 1: but we say, well, we just want you to get
Speaker 1: through the door, and we just want you to start
Speaker 1: there and then we let them go home. Don't you
Speaker 1: think we're doing a good job. And I said, look,
Speaker 1: your heart's clearly in the right place. But if I'm honest, no,
Speaker 1: you're not doing a good job because what you're doing
Speaker 1: is right at the peak of this young man's anxiety level,
Speaker 1: right when it's peaking, you're saying you can go home.
Speaker 1: So it's conditioning an association of feeling very anxious arriving
Speaker 1: at school and being at school, and it's conditioning absolute
Speaker 1: relief as you're getting away from school. And that's the
Speaker 1: opposite of the learning that we want to occur. We
Speaker 1: want him to come to school and have the experience
Speaker 1: of calming down and feeling better at school. Now, it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to go to zero. We don't expect someone
Speaker 1: to be perfectly relaxed. But if you can get that
Speaker 1: subjective distress down by half from an eight to a four,
Speaker 1: let's say that's a step forward, and then the next
Speaker 1: time you do it might be a seven to two
Speaker 1: three or something. And then eventually the thing that seemed
Speaker 1: overwhelming actually isn't overwhelming anymore.
Speaker 2: Just on that school refusal. I mean I'm hearing from
Speaker 2: I've done some work with different schools and also listening
Speaker 2: to different people that there's been a huge rise in
Speaker 2: school refusal. I think I read an article. What do
Speaker 2: you think is driving it? Is the stuff? Is it
Speaker 2: the stuff that we just talked about before, that that
Speaker 2: sensitization because of the coddling of young kids.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's this generational shift to over parenting and what
Speaker 1: I call the great mistake, the prioritizing short term emotions
Speaker 1: over long term development. And it was made much worse
Speaker 1: by the COVID pandemic because if you were a kid
Speaker 1: who has had a propensity to being socially anxious, a
Speaker 1: global pandemic is exactly what you wished for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can tap out, you can tap out.
Speaker 1: And so if you think about these these developmental tasks
Speaker 1: that young people have as they grow, it's almost like
Speaker 1: they opted out of three seasons of your football or whatever.
Speaker 1: They're not going to be in that condition and they're
Speaker 1: not going to be on the same trajectory art towards
Speaker 1: unless we do something to make sure we remediate that.
Speaker 1: Unless we really do the work of exposure and habituation
Speaker 1: to overcome those challenges, because the thing is the same
Speaker 1: principle that a psychologist will use in therapy to overcome
Speaker 1: an anxiety disorder is precisely the same principle by which
Speaker 1: someone builds confidence. It is stepping into discomfort, being willing
Speaker 1: to feel uncomfortable and staying in that situation long enough
Speaker 1: that you start to habituate and you start to feel
Speaker 1: more comfortable, and then just doing that repeatedly. So it's
Speaker 1: actually not a mystery. But this is not widely known
Speaker 1: and it's not widely applied by parents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think schools play a huge role in
Speaker 2: this as well, And I'm keen to explore what you
Speaker 2: guys do when you go in and run programs with schools,
Speaker 2: because I'm seeing schools with messaging that is just making
Speaker 2: this shit worse, right, where it's all of this it's
Speaker 2: okay not to be okay, and giving them easy op
Speaker 2: oubts and things like that and talking about it so
Speaker 2: bloody much right when you talk about things research and
Speaker 2: not the show. And I'm sure you've seen it that
Speaker 2: when you are constantly talking to young kids about mental
Speaker 2: health issues, it starts to become suggestibility. Particularly they're much
Speaker 2: more suggestible than adults.
Speaker 1: Right, yes, And this is a huge issue and some schools.
Speaker 1: I find schools generally trying to do the right thing,
Speaker 1: but are often not in a good position to be
Speaker 1: aware of or interpret scientific evidence to understand what that
Speaker 1: best practice is from a psychological point of view. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, we see it a whole range of levels
Speaker 1: of maturity and compas around this. So you know, when
Speaker 1: we go into a school and we deliver the Healthy
Speaker 1: Minds program, we don't really talk about psychological disorders at all.
Speaker 1: We talk about skills. So we teach them skills. It's
Speaker 1: a toolkit for managing yourself, understanding where emotions come from
Speaker 1: while we have them, that emotions are perfectly functional, as
Speaker 1: a reason we have them, how we can manage them well,
Speaker 1: and what causes you to have a healthy mind. Now,
Speaker 1: this is in contrast. I was invited to visit a
Speaker 1: school once somewhere in Australia which I will not name,
Speaker 1: and they said, we'd love you to come and just
Speaker 1: give us have a bit of an overview of our
Speaker 1: pastoral care approach. And they gave me a two of
Speaker 1: the school. It's a very very very nice school and
Speaker 1: they said, look, this is one of the things we're
Speaker 1: doing in year nine. We think it's a real hallmark
Speaker 1: of our well being approach is for the year nine,
Speaker 1: we're sitting them down and across a semester we are
Speaker 1: going through the DSM.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: At the time they were and it was we talked
Speaker 1: of this week it's psychosis, next week it's this and this. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And they said it was a bit of an awkward
Speaker 1: moment because I said, they were very proud of it.
Speaker 1: They said, what do you think And I said, I
Speaker 1: think this is a terrible idea. Yeah, so, oh my god, that.
Speaker 2: Is I said, I wanted to talk about the DSM, right,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to get your of you as a
Speaker 2: clinical psych So I'm finishing off my PhD in psychology,
Speaker 2: but just looking at the d s M. So the
Speaker 2: d s M five, I think there's now one hundred
Speaker 2: and six and disorders, psychological disorders, not one of which
Speaker 2: has a biological trace. Right, So you think about physical diseases, diabetes, blood,
Speaker 2: sugar blood, actually you can measure it right, cardiovascar'sase, cancer,
Speaker 2: all of them have distinct biological triuses and to my knowledge,
Speaker 2: not one single condition, our issue or whatever we want
Speaker 2: to call it in the DSM of the one hundred
Speaker 2: and six has got a clear consistent biological treas Is
Speaker 2: that an issue.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure whether I say that as an issue
Speaker 1: or not. It's I guess it's a challenge in the
Speaker 1: sense of if you want to explain behavior or internal
Speaker 1: phenomena like thoughts and feelings through biology, then yes, it's
Speaker 1: a challenge. That however, for me, doesn't mean just because
Speaker 1: something can't be traced to a biological cause doesn't mean
Speaker 1: or signature.
Speaker 2: Not necessarily cause, but signature. Right, so something measurable in
Speaker 2: the breed. I don't know some handways be and mad
Speaker 2: on it, but yeah, But.
Speaker 1: I would also challenge the idea that measuring brain activity
Speaker 1: is always explanatory. So you can do an MRI and
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily tell us what's really going on. And people,
Speaker 1: if we want to get really deep here, people will say, well,
Speaker 1: surely we are here because of our brain, that brain
Speaker 1: causes consciousness. I would suggest there's evidence that the brain
Speaker 1: inhibits consciousness, and that's another rabbit hole that we can
Speaker 1: go down perhaps another day. So we want to avoid
Speaker 1: we want to be scientific, but we want to avoid
Speaker 1: scientism because if we take a purely materialistic or purely
Speaker 1: biological view of the world, it's somewhat limiting. But I
Speaker 1: think I get where you're coming from. In terms of
Speaker 1: the DSM, we can create categories of phenomenon. We can say, well,
Speaker 1: this is what depression is. It's this checklist of diagnostic criteria.
Speaker 1: We can say this is what anxiety is, and we
Speaker 1: can do that across the board. What this really represents
Speaker 1: is a rarefication error. We raify something when we treat
Speaker 1: it as if it is real and absolute and concrete
Speaker 1: in the world, when really it's just a way of
Speaker 1: thinking about something. So I'll give you an example. We
Speaker 1: have diagnostic criteria for anxiety, depression, and needing disorders, and
Speaker 1: we treat them as if they're separate. Evidence suggests they're
Speaker 1: not really that separate. So as a clinician, absolutely, if
Speaker 1: someone came to me with anxiety, it would be weird
Speaker 1: if they had no symptoms of depression, Or if someone
Speaker 1: appeared with BLIMI and IVOSA and they had no symptoms
Speaker 1: of anxiety, that would be weird and unusual. And this
Speaker 1: comorbidity is normal, Okay. It suggests to us that there
Speaker 1: are shared underlying mechanisms and that rather than being discreet
Speaker 1: separate entities, they overlap. And the big breakthrough here came
Speaker 1: out of Boston University with Professor David Barlow when he
Speaker 1: said there's a thing called transdiagnostic theory. And this, to
Speaker 1: my great good fortune, I became aware of at the
Speaker 1: beginning of my PhD. And it was the thing that
Speaker 1: caused us to have a breakthrough in prevention where other
Speaker 1: prevention programs failed because trans diagnostic theory says, if you
Speaker 1: think of those terms transmitting across and between diagnoses, what
Speaker 1: are the things that operate across and between multiple diagnoses,
Speaker 1: because they're going to be the clue to broadly and
Speaker 1: powerfully impacting mental health. You either look for trans diagnostic
Speaker 1: risk factors, So what are the risk factors that operate
Speaker 1: across anxiety, depression, and eating disorders? What are the trans
Speaker 1: diagnostic protective factors and we've found them, And what are
Speaker 1: the transdiagnostic skills? So what are the broad skills that
Speaker 1: help someone to have a healthy emotional life or in
Speaker 1: other words, how to have a healthy mind. And this
Speaker 1: this was the thinking that went into our Healthy Minds program.
Speaker 1: In a multi site controlled trial where We proved that
Speaker 1: you can prevent the onset of symptoms of anxiety and depression,
Speaker 1: and you can do it without talking about psychological disorders.
Speaker 1: So the risk factor that we found was unhelpful perfectionism, right,
Speaker 1: it operates across all of those pathologies. The protective factor,
Speaker 1: and I'm not suggesting there's only one of these, but
Speaker 1: the protective factor was self compassion interesting and this broad
Speaker 1: toolkit of how the understand and manage your emotions, and
Speaker 1: that was what gave us the breakthrough. So the DSM
Speaker 1: can say, well, this is what depression is, but it's
Speaker 1: just a way of thinking about depression. It's not actually
Speaker 1: depression in the real world. We've got to think about
Speaker 1: it much more broadly than that.
Speaker 2: Is it to you? Just one more question on a DSM,
Speaker 2: and then I letic goal just because I've got a
Speaker 2: clinical psychologist in front of me. Do you think it's
Speaker 2: problematic that the question that they will use for a
Speaker 2: diagnosis appear to me to be leading questions. You look
Speaker 2: at the questions around anxiety, around depression, K ten, whatever
Speaker 2: one you're using, they appear to me to be leading questions,
Speaker 2: and particularly when put to a teenager, there can be
Speaker 2: a large amount of suggestibility, and if a teenager is
Speaker 2: wanting extra time on an exam answering a few questions
Speaker 2: in a certain way, we'll get that. And there's now
Speaker 2: a rash of you sure you're aware of it, parents
Speaker 2: actually pushing doctors to get a diagnosis so that there
Speaker 2: are teenagers get extra time. So I know there's a
Speaker 2: couple of questions and comments rolled into that, So ticket
Speaker 2: however you want, Well.
Speaker 1: When parents want to get extra time, I'll give the
Speaker 1: kid an easy ride. They're making the great mistake. They're
Speaker 1: prioritizing short term emotions of a long term learning and development.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't it be better for a child's long term development
Speaker 1: for them to learn to handle high pressure situations and
Speaker 1: to have the experience of those high pressure situations in
Speaker 1: an age appropriate supported way, which is what school is. Right,
Speaker 1: it's highly scaffolded. We don't want to we don't want
Speaker 1: to mitigate these challenges for our kids. And this has
Speaker 1: completely changed the way I view my own parenting, because yes,
Speaker 1: I have, just like any other parent, a natural empathy
Speaker 1: for my son. If he comes home from primary school
Speaker 1: and he's upset because something happened with a friend, I
Speaker 1: naturally feel empathy for that, and I want to support him,
Speaker 1: of course I do. But there's a part of me
Speaker 1: that says, I'm grateful that you had that experience because
Speaker 1: you got to live through a day of feeling lonely
Speaker 1: or left out. You came home to a loving family
Speaker 1: and you're going to learn that you can get up
Speaker 1: tomorrow and get on with it. So my concern is
Speaker 1: that where parents just see distressing their child and they think, oh,
Speaker 1: that's bad, but I want.
Speaker 2: To stop it.
Speaker 1: Let's instead ask what did they learn? Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 1: this might of all the dads you could have in
Speaker 1: the world. My son perhaps drew the short straw because
Speaker 1: when he was in reception, and it was his reception
Speaker 1: class was doing a thing in front of the whole school.
Speaker 1: They do it once a year at their assembly. And
Speaker 1: he said to me it was bathtime, and he said
Speaker 1: to me a couple of days before, he said, Dad,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be crook on Friday. He didn't do
Speaker 1: a very good job of masking his intent. Now Friday
Speaker 1: came around and this was the day of the assembly.
Speaker 1: I said, no, you won't mate, You'll be fine. I
Speaker 1: just I dropped it. But Friday, I was out of
Speaker 1: the house because I was off doing a speaking thing,
Speaker 1: and my wife rang me. It was about quarter to
Speaker 1: nine and she ranged me and she said, I haven't
Speaker 1: seen him like tantrum like this since he was a toddler.
Speaker 1: And he's refusing to get dressed. He's got every malady
Speaker 1: under the sun. He's very distressed. He's crying, he's screaming,
Speaker 1: he's holding onto the door frames. And so I said
Speaker 1: to him, sorry, I'm not there to help you deal
Speaker 1: with this, and I was secretly thinking, I'm really glad
Speaker 1: I'm not there to have to do with it. I
Speaker 1: said to her, you know what you've got to do,
Speaker 1: don't you, And she said, I've got to get him
Speaker 1: to school, and so she handed him over to the
Speaker 1: reception teacher, tears streaming down his face. They're really difficult
Speaker 1: moments for parents. I'm not trying to minimize this. But
Speaker 1: that afternoon been there, absolutely, We've all been there. And
Speaker 1: that afternoon I was out doing a workshop somewhere else
Speaker 1: and my phone buzzed and it was a text message
Speaker 1: with a video clip of him on the stage saying
Speaker 1: his lines in front of the microphone. And when I
Speaker 1: got home, that night he said, Dad, I did it,
Speaker 1: and he was beaming. Now, if we had gone for
Speaker 1: the short term emotions, said, well, we just got to
Speaker 1: keep him calm. This is overwhelming, it's too much, it's
Speaker 1: too hard. We would have denied him that learning opportunity.
Speaker 1: And the next year when that came around, he was
Speaker 1: still nervous, but not so much. And the next year
Speaker 1: he almost enjoyed it. And it's the cumulative effect of
Speaker 1: these little folks in the road that make a very
Speaker 1: big difference. Yeah, so I don't know if that's answer
Speaker 1: to your question, Paul, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, look, look it certainly has the Actually, interestingly,
Speaker 2: my daughter was going through year twelve doing exams and
Speaker 2: one of her friends, you know, on the day of
Speaker 2: exam was like super nervous and said to Kia, are
Speaker 2: you not nervous? And Kira said, why would I be nervous?
Speaker 2: And nobody's trying to kick me in the head because
Speaker 2: she had competed in karate for years, right and done that.
Speaker 2: And actually she actually said to us and to me
Speaker 2: and Carly, I'm glad that you guys pushed me in
Speaker 2: karate and made me do all of that uncomfortable stuff.
Speaker 2: Because I'm now seeing the benefits. Right, that's from an
Speaker 2: eighteen year old, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Brilliant that is that is really cool. And I lived
Speaker 1: at myself as a as a gojuru expose because yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and just you know, doing a university exam or anything
Speaker 1: that comes up, I think, well, I've stood in a
Speaker 1: ring with blood on my gee facing a six foot
Speaker 1: three opponent and had to keep going. That's obviously in
Speaker 1: a tournament that you know that it changes your frame
Speaker 1: for what you can handle. And we want our kids
Speaker 1: to build an expectation of themselves that they can handle
Speaker 1: these things when they come up.
Speaker 2: And I think that's one of the major parenting tips, right,
Speaker 2: And it's not new this advice. Epictetus two thousand years
Speaker 2: ago said we must all undergo a hard winter training
Speaker 2: and not enter into lately that for which we have
Speaker 2: not prepared, and he was talking about life, right, And
Speaker 2: I think it's but I think there's a fundamental driver
Speaker 2: of this is that we seem to have an expectation
Speaker 2: today that life should be easy and that stress is
Speaker 2: bad and that we shouldn't feel discomfort and stress. But
Speaker 2: I think if we flip it, and we are to
Speaker 2: just teach kids life is hard. You'd better be prepared.
Speaker 2: You need to train right, and you and that whole
Speaker 2: discomfort tolerance and that, and yes, it's got to be
Speaker 2: a principle from exercise training progressive overload, where you're just
Speaker 2: slightly extending that person, right, and if you go too
Speaker 2: far then you've got to bring it back and sit
Speaker 2: down and learn the lessons and stuff like that. Right.
Speaker 2: I remember just on this another story when I was
Speaker 2: doing helicopter training, and we do progressive overload in the
Speaker 2: helicopter training, right, you do a simulator and you know,
Speaker 2: the the instructor, we're throwing a few curlyes and then
Speaker 2: you go and you do the thing in the aarth
Speaker 2: progressive overload. But when we were going through there was
Speaker 2: shitty weather and we lost a lot of training and
Speaker 2: we ended up having to one night. They said, look,
Speaker 2: we're just going to have to go out here. And
Speaker 2: it was a it's called the Thirsty War used to
Speaker 2: be every Thursday off Plymouth, NATO would run war games,
Speaker 2: and that was supposed to be our final flight, but
Speaker 2: we were only on flight two, and because we lost
Speaker 2: someone's time, they said, look, guys, you're going to have
Speaker 2: to go out here and do this. I remember we
Speaker 2: took off me and this other guy, Simon, in different helicopters,
Speaker 2: and I went up and then you come down and
Speaker 2: it's pitch black. You got to turn your radar on
Speaker 2: and you've got two radios running, and it was insane,
Speaker 2: and the pilots didn't I had contacts all over my radar,
Speaker 2: hadn't a clue what was what got This is the
Speaker 2: first time I had a complete mental overload and a
Speaker 2: massive brillan freeze and the instructor had to get me
Speaker 2: out of the seat and I'm sitting there. He took over,
Speaker 2: and I'm just sitting there, going, oh, I've so fucked
Speaker 2: that up. And then came back and the other guy, Simon,
Speaker 2: came in and he was shell shocked as well, and
Speaker 2: the instructor satistyan and went, guys, that his mistake. We
Speaker 2: shouldn't have taken you out there because it was particularly busy,
Speaker 2: but it just showed you that massive overload for us.
Speaker 2: And then four weeks later and we ended up in
Speaker 2: a thirsty war scenario and we were fine because we
Speaker 2: then had the proper progressive overload, so I think, but
Speaker 2: that's the critical thing, isn't it. The steps have to
Speaker 2: be progressive. We've got to be just outside of our
Speaker 2: comfort zone. Yes, we've got to recalibrate, take it all
Speaker 2: on board, and then go again. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this, So the psychological equivalent of progressive overload
Speaker 1: is graded exposure. Yeah and so yeah, and so it's
Speaker 1: precisely the same thing. You have a hierarchy or a
Speaker 1: set of steps on a ladder. The goal behavior at
Speaker 1: the top is too hard right now, But what are
Speaker 1: the successive steps that approximate that goal behavior that I
Speaker 1: need to get to? And you start with the one
Speaker 1: that's just out of your comfort zone. But you don't
Speaker 1: just do it once. You do it repeatedly, and when
Speaker 1: that becomes easy, then you go to the next step.
Speaker 1: And so with parents, I say, well, clinically we'd say
Speaker 1: graded exposure. It's part of therapy. But in parenting, if
Speaker 1: you want to build confidence in your child, you do
Speaker 1: preemptive exposure. So what is the appropriate level of challenge
Speaker 1: that my child needs in order to build or consolidate
Speaker 1: this capability? And we can engineer challenges for our kids.
Speaker 1: My son wants something from a shop us. This is funny.
Speaker 1: Last year, were we went into State just for a
Speaker 1: weekend and my son he wanted to order something from
Speaker 1: the room service in the hotel and I said, sure
Speaker 1: you can, but just you give them a ring. He
Speaker 1: was seven, and I said, he said, what do you
Speaker 1: want me to pick up the phone and ring? I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want you to ring them. You want your check
Speaker 1: and nuthers, Just ring them, say your name, say the
Speaker 1: room and you'd like it. And he said, Dad, I
Speaker 1: feel really nervous. My heart's I said, that's okay, there's
Speaker 1: no problem. Just give it a go. And he rang
Speaker 1: and he ordered his chicken nuggets and he got them.
Speaker 1: And so you know, it's just about finding these little
Speaker 1: opportunities to build that capability. And they don't seem like
Speaker 1: much in the moment, but the cumulative effects is what
Speaker 1: really builds our capability.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that reminds me of the whole challenge versus
Speaker 2: threat response. And you know, let we take a situation,
Speaker 2: doesn't matter what the situation, which could even have been
Speaker 2: that one. When people have a threat response and they're
Speaker 2: thinking about, oh, this is bad, bad, bad, bad bad,
Speaker 2: you know I can't do this. It activelyates cortisol, and
Speaker 2: cortisol has a half life of more than an r.
Speaker 2: So when our leader, you're still having stress hormones run
Speaker 2: through the body. Whereas a challenge response active it's a
Speaker 2: fighter flight mechanisms. It's adrenaline nor adrenalin, and they have
Speaker 2: a half life of a minute or less. But the
Speaker 2: key thing in challenge versus threat is people need to
Speaker 2: feel that they have the resources to be able to
Speaker 2: achieve it, right. So it brings us back to it's
Speaker 2: got to be a step that they feel that they
Speaker 2: can just make and then to your point, doing it
Speaker 2: again and again and again gives you the confidence that
Speaker 2: I can I do it and maybe now I can
Speaker 2: take the next step. Right. But that's pretty key, isn't it.
Speaker 2: So we can't just throw them into the deep end
Speaker 2: and let them sink or swim. It's got to be created, right.
Speaker 1: And that's where for every parent and for every coach,
Speaker 1: for every teacher, it's the knowledge of the young child
Speaker 1: in your care, that young person. You have a sense of, Okay,
Speaker 1: where are they at on the ladder? Where is that
Speaker 1: boundary for them? And we want to yeah, just tailor
Speaker 1: it for each individual. And of course, child developments not linear,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes we have great stride. Sometimes it feels
Speaker 1: like at plateaus, we've got to be aware of that,
Speaker 1: and if it is too much, we just go a
Speaker 1: little bit down the ladder and do that repeatedly and
Speaker 1: build that and then step up. So but it's I
Speaker 1: think the principle is this is a systematic way with
Speaker 1: which we can inoculate kids against anxiety. We can we
Speaker 1: can build their confidence and capability, and we greatly reduce
Speaker 1: their susceptibility to anxiety. And the sporting field does that.
Speaker 1: Sport's great. You got to, you got to pass. Your
Speaker 1: heart's racing. You're sweating, you've got to. You're losing, but
Speaker 1: you've got to keep trying. It's a microcosm of life.
Speaker 1: And so getting kids into school sport is great too.
Speaker 2: I think I think it's absolutely critical. In fact that
Speaker 2: my list is probably hope. He said this before, But
Speaker 2: when our kids were young, we sat them down and said,
Speaker 2: you need to do a team sport and a martial
Speaker 2: art and we will help you and find the ones
Speaker 2: that you like. But that's the house rules, and you
Speaker 2: can stop when you want, but you need to find
Speaker 2: somewhere else to live. But it's been so good for
Speaker 2: both of our kids. Both of them independently, the martial
Speaker 2: arts for all of that discipline and particularly competing and
Speaker 2: you know what it's like, you know, the managing fear,
Speaker 2: managing anxiety, but the team sport in terms of interacting
Speaker 2: with other people and and being part of a team
Speaker 2: and getting on with people that you don't particularly like.
Speaker 2: I think they're really critical. But I wanted to come
Speaker 2: back to what you said about those manageable steps and
Speaker 2: just for the parents who are out there are and
Speaker 2: then closing the loop and and a debrief and like
Speaker 2: should they parent be when they've done it gone, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm really proud of you you achieve that, and and
Speaker 2: bah and give them that positive reinforcement or what schewed?
Speaker 2: Is there a a an optimal and bit of feedback
Speaker 2: that we should give them when they both succeed and
Speaker 2: when they feel so.
Speaker 1: I've got a few things to say on that. One is,
Speaker 1: I think reinforcement is fine and good, but you're reinforcing.
Speaker 2: The effort, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes yes.
Speaker 1: The second thing is sometimes there's a lot of value
Speaker 1: in just treating things as business as usual because kids,
Speaker 1: I've become aware that as parents today we make so
Speaker 1: many evaluative statements about our kids. You did great, you
Speaker 1: did a good job here. You know, there's so much valuation.
Speaker 1: I remember in my youth. I don't recall always being
Speaker 1: told you did a great job, no matter what you did,
Speaker 1: or there's just there seems to be much more evaluation
Speaker 1: these days. And I don't think that's healthy that we're
Speaker 1: constantly getting this sense of what did I do? Good
Speaker 1: or bad? Because ultimately what really comes from it is
Speaker 1: what did you learn? That's really the benefit.
Speaker 2: And does that evaluation, suchuration create an expectation that they're
Speaker 2: going to be praised.
Speaker 1: Yes, praised and evaluated, and neither of those things is
Speaker 1: really that healthy. I don't think we need that expectation.
Speaker 1: The other thing is sometimes people assume that after they
Speaker 1: go through some sort of exposure, so they did the
Speaker 1: talk at assembly, or they face their fear, they often
Speaker 1: assume that they're going to feel really good. But that's
Speaker 1: not always the case. Sometimes people feel strung out, they
Speaker 1: feel exhausted. So it's not about how do you feel,
Speaker 1: it's about did you do it? Yah?
Speaker 2: Nice? I like it? I like it a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's no talk about. So we've talked a lot
Speaker 2: about kids here, let's talk about the corporate space and
Speaker 2: what have you noticed in the corporate well being landscape
Speaker 2: since we spoke? Is there are similar things going on
Speaker 2: in the corporate world as there are in schools in
Speaker 2: terms of that sensitization to mental health stuff or what
Speaker 2: else a you're noticing.
Speaker 1: Possibly there is a little I'm noticing that in the
Speaker 1: corporate space, there's a lot of you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of challenges around getting people together, particularly when you're
Speaker 1: talking about training and things like that, just just time
Speaker 1: and overall it's really a fight for people's attention at
Speaker 1: the end of the day. That we're seeing that across
Speaker 1: the board for sure. So the rise of digital tech
Speaker 1: knowlogy and how you use digital technology in a corporate
Speaker 1: well being space is one of the key issues of
Speaker 1: the day, I reckon.
Speaker 2: So what have you So let's talk about digital stuff.
Speaker 2: So we are living in this increasingly digitized world which
Speaker 2: has lots and lots and lots of problems, but there's
Speaker 2: also some potential solutions. So how does well being fit?
Speaker 2: I know you're making some strides in this place, so
Speaker 2: we what's your opinion on how well being fits into
Speaker 2: the digitized world. You know, in terms of what are
Speaker 2: the negatives and what are the opportunities.
Speaker 1: The negatives are doing it poorly because you know, there
Speaker 1: seems to be this assumption out there that if you
Speaker 1: just take something, digitize it, add points, badges and a leaderboard,
Speaker 1: that you're going to solve all your problems. And that's
Speaker 1: not true. So we've been through through this learning ourselves.
Speaker 1: So quite a long while ago, we would develop we
Speaker 1: would deliver our workshop, which we know people on average love.
Speaker 1: It's called Seven Secrets to a Healthy Mind. And people
Speaker 1: tend to love this workshop. They get a lot out
Speaker 1: of it. But we wanted to move the needle behaviorally,
Speaker 1: so we devised this thirty day well being Challenged where
Speaker 1: we would just give people one thing to do each
Speaker 1: day after the workshop. Now, people loved the idea, but
Speaker 1: we noticed over after about a couple of weeks, engagement
Speaker 1: just went over a cliff. It just plants.
Speaker 2: I to see the thing with my app right, lots
Speaker 2: of enthusiasm has start.
Speaker 1: And then room, it just drops off.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so we really my business partner Nicolie and I,
Speaker 1: we we spent a lot of time thinking about this
Speaker 1: and talking about it. We thought there's got to be
Speaker 1: a magic formula. We've got to find a way to
Speaker 1: really engage people properly and move the needle. And you know,
Speaker 1: I've spent ten years formally studying psychology, many more years
Speaker 1: practicing it, and I thought I understood bits and pieces
Speaker 1: of human motivation pretty well. But I did eventually come
Speaker 1: across what I think is a bit of a magic formula,
Speaker 1: and it was a more concise conceptualization of human motivation
Speaker 1: than anything mainstream psychology taught me. And it's something called
Speaker 1: the Octlysis framework. Was otalisis so its eight core motivational drives,
Speaker 1: and it was developed by this gamer, a Taiwanese American
Speaker 1: called Ukai Chow. I had the pleasure of learning a
Speaker 1: bit from Yukaichow a few years ago before we developed
Speaker 1: our mind Fire app. And he was a gamer, and
Speaker 1: he spent a couple of years, as the story goes,
Speaker 1: playing this game and putting all his time and energy
Speaker 1: into this game. And one day he stopped and he
Speaker 1: had this epiphany. He thought, oh shit, I've got nothing
Speaker 1: in the real world to show for all of this effort.
Speaker 1: I've just expended over two years playing this game. And
Speaker 1: he thought, if only I had applied that level of
Speaker 1: engagement and energy into my study, or my career or
Speaker 1: some other in my life. And so it was just
Speaker 1: like this lightning bolt, and he committed himself then and
Speaker 1: there to analyzing the mechanics of game experiences to apply
Speaker 1: them in non game settings.
Speaker 2: Nice because the gearmers have got it kneeled right in
Speaker 2: terms of engagement and all their strategies they use, they've
Speaker 2: just got it kneeled they do.
Speaker 1: And so when he came up with and he's widely
Speaker 1: recognized as the world's leading gamification expert, and he's a
Speaker 1: proponent of what he calls human focused design. And this
Speaker 1: is a really profound thing because he says most experiences
Speaker 1: are function focused and you see this in the digital world.
Speaker 1: Does your app do x y z?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And this is how most tech people think as well.
Speaker 1: But he says, you don't want to think about that.
Speaker 1: Don't think about does it do x y z? Think
Speaker 1: about why would someone do xyz? And how do they
Speaker 1: feel as they're doing it. This is what human focused
Speaker 1: design is and it revolutionizes the way you start to
Speaker 1: see digital experiences. We've all had the experience of doing
Speaker 1: something and just frustrates the hell out of you because
Speaker 1: it's not easy to use. And Uki Chow would say, well,
Speaker 1: people don't want to use smart products, they want to
Speaker 1: feel smart when they're using products, and this is the
Speaker 1: essence of it. So we used the Octallysis design process
Speaker 1: to build our new corporate well being app, mind Fire,
Speaker 1: And I'll give you a really quick overview of the
Speaker 1: eight core drives if.
Speaker 2: You like Paul, Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 1: So epic meaning and calling, feeling like you're doing something
Speaker 1: that's above and beyond yourself. So one of the things
Speaker 1: mind Fire does is it raises money to help cure
Speaker 1: childhood cancer. Nice, that's a motivator.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, something bigger than Yeah, I get it. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Development and accomplishment. Feeling like you're progressing. So anytime you
Speaker 1: see a progress bar as you're feeling out a form,
Speaker 1: that's core drive two. You feel like you're progressing and accomplishing.
Speaker 1: Empowerment of creativity and feedback that's the third core drive.
Speaker 1: So if you ever have to strategize or answer a
Speaker 1: question or use your own choices, that's core drive three.
Speaker 1: So we have quiz questions in our app. That's activating it.
Speaker 1: Ownership and possession so this drive to collect and accumulate
Speaker 1: and organize. So yeah, so if you did get points
Speaker 1: or your team's doing well, it's not just about this
Speaker 1: feeling of progression, it's also yours. It becomes an ownership thing,
Speaker 1: social influence and relatedness core drive five. Now this is huge.
Speaker 1: So what we built into mind Fire is not just
Speaker 1: that it gives you well being missions. It's not just
Speaker 1: that as you do your missions you raise money for
Speaker 1: childhood cancer research. It's that you have to work together
Speaker 1: with your team of between five night of your colleagues
Speaker 1: in order to unlock the next day's mission, and you're
Speaker 1: depending on each other. I call this benevolent conformity pressure. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's a healthy peer pressure. So you can see if
Speaker 1: I'm halfway through the day, I can see on the
Speaker 1: app that Paul hasn't opened his mind Fire mission for today,
Speaker 1: and I can send you a nudge saying Paul, don't
Speaker 1: forget yea and we want to One person on any
Speaker 1: given day is the torchholder, and if they don't complete
Speaker 1: their mission that day, it breaks the streak which fuels
Speaker 1: the donations to childhood cans.
Speaker 2: Now I spent like the old streaks thing with Snapchat, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly exactly. So the fact that it's so visible
Speaker 1: and we're depending on each other and you can see
Speaker 1: what your teammates and colleagues are doing. And to prove
Speaker 1: that you've completed your task for the day, you have
Speaker 1: to upload what we call a testimony, So it's either
Speaker 1: a short selfie video responding to a prompt or a
Speaker 1: short written answer and it comes up in a feed.
Speaker 1: So you're learning about each other. You're learning about their
Speaker 1: responses to a psychological concept, or their values, or what
Speaker 1: they did for exercise that day. Core Drive six is
Speaker 1: scarcity in impatience, So it's this wanting to get something
Speaker 1: we can't have or we can't see, or like a
Speaker 1: countdown timer so you've got to get something done by
Speaker 1: set time. So it's a black hat motivation. It feels uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Unpredictability and curiosity. You don't know until you get up
Speaker 1: in the morning and you click the mission slide. You
Speaker 1: don't know what your task is going to be for
Speaker 1: that day.
Speaker 2: And that is really interesting, that unpredictability.
Speaker 1: And we know that.
Speaker 2: Small rewards that are not expected release more dopamine than
Speaker 2: big rewards that are expected. Right, it's that prediction error
Speaker 2: in the Brian Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's the easter egg phenomenon. I've just found something right, Yes,
Speaker 1: And so if you randomly wake up and you've been
Speaker 1: given a power up something that you can use to
Speaker 1: strategize within the mind Fired teams experience, that's an example
Speaker 1: of that unpredictable easter egg phenomenon. And the eighth one
Speaker 1: is lost in avoidance. We have a drive to avoid
Speaker 1: what's undesirable. So if you lose the streak, you have
Speaker 1: to take a dollar out of your donation's chest to
Speaker 1: buy a key to unlock the next day's mission. So
Speaker 1: we want to avoid it's that fear of loss, right,
Speaker 1: So you know, this was a great experience. We used Octalysis,
Speaker 1: we worked we actually worked with the Octalysis group a
Speaker 1: bit to help refine in the design and all the
Speaker 1: technical aspects of mind Fire. But we're in the final
Speaker 1: phases of testing right now, ironing out the bugs. It's
Speaker 1: been four and a half years of development and we're
Speaker 1: very close to unleashing it on the world.
Speaker 2: That's very cool, very cool. Well, when you've unleased it
Speaker 2: and certainly let us know and we can push it
Speaker 2: out to all the listeners because there's there's plenty of
Speaker 2: corporates and that are right. So what's tell me this
Speaker 2: the last question.
Speaker 3: What's the big thing that you're concerned about today from
Speaker 3: a psychological perspective, and what are you excited about?
Speaker 1: My big concern is that we have this good knowledge
Speaker 1: about how to reverse the stats around mental ill health.
Speaker 1: We now have evidence for preventing the onset of anxiety
Speaker 1: and depression. It's just not out there enough. And we've
Speaker 1: lobbied the government at the highest levels. We've you know,
Speaker 1: I just feel like it's a drop in the ocean
Speaker 1: compared to what we need to be doing to really
Speaker 1: turn the tide. But the good news is we have
Speaker 1: the knowledge to do it. What excites me is all
Speaker 1: of the unanswered questions that are out there that we
Speaker 1: have the potential to figure out and improve our human experience.
Speaker 1: I'm just about to publish a study into the treatment
Speaker 1: of grief and we've This is a whole probably a
Speaker 1: whole other conversation, but I always felt helpless as a
Speaker 1: therapist when I encounter grieving people. I don't anymore. We've
Speaker 1: now come across a therapy thatatic dramatically reduces sadness in
Speaker 1: a very short period of time, and it's just, I think,
Speaker 1: a breakthrough and this is my side project that excites
Speaker 1: me very much that I'm working on around my healthy
Speaker 1: minds and mind firework.
Speaker 2: That's very cool, Tom, Thank you for your time. I
Speaker 2: loved the conversation. Very organic, meandering, but very very useful.
Speaker 2: I think for anybody out there who has a brillan
Speaker 2: and especially I think for parents who are struggling with
Speaker 2: bringing up their kids in and to be mentally healthy
Speaker 2: in today's very very challenging world. I mean, it's easier
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways, but it's a shit a
Speaker 2: little more difficult in a lot of ways because there's
Speaker 2: a whole heap of challenges that we never had to
Speaker 2: deal with the kids, most of them in the palm
Speaker 2: of the bloody heart right.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Now, it's been fabulous to catch up with the Poe.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to see you looking fit and well, and
Speaker 1: thanks for having me again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolute pleasure. We'll have you on again at some stage.
Speaker 2: Thanks Tom, Bye for now.