#1548 Purpose & Meaning - Tommy Jackett

first time I met you? Or I met you before that?

twelve years ago. But when do we first insect? When did you first get gravitationally pulled into planet Halps?

I'm that is another life. That is Is there anything in your life, Craig that you look back on and think, wow, like that? Is that? Is that took such a different person to who I am now to do something like that?

So I did that for nearly a year, working on a construct aluminium refinery that was being built called Worsely Aluminium Refinery, which was exciting and terrifying and dangerous. I think about I can't remember the number, but maybe somewhere between four and seven people died the year that I worked. I could be wrong, but there was like three thousand men on the site and it was pretty dangerous, like

everything was under construction. We were working up high. We used to work walk on things called RSJs which are steel beams, and built scaffolding and for the tradesmen, welders, boiler makers, pipe fitters to work and I worked with a boiler maker called Rob and a welder called Benny, and we worked as a team, so you work in teams of three. And I was basically a shit kicker. Yeah,

but it was a really steep learning curve. And I think probably the other thing that was very it's funny the things some of the shittest things that you do are like looking back, I think, fuck, I wouldn't want to do that. And I'm not terrified of heights, but

I don't love heights. But I looked back then, I was always up high, like high, I mean like fourteen stories one hundred and forty feet in the air, one hundred and fifty feet one hundred feet, and I was I don't know why, I was nineteen and just like a bit stupid, like I wasn't terrified as I should have been. Yes, And the other thing I did for about I did for a minute when I was over

there was security working in pubs. But then I came back to Melbourne and I worked for three years about three nights, four nights a week in pubs getting punched in the face for ten dollars an hour. And that was you know, and this is the guy that never went to pubs ever except to work, and who didn't drink and who didn't do drugs. And all I did was eat fucking chicken breasts and broccoli and go to

bed early. So when I started doing that, that was like a mind blowingly eye opening kind of revelation for me.

One thousand and twenty three episodes or something like that, you know, very small fry compared to what the you project is now, Craig whatever.

I'm not sure. But today we wanted to, as you said, we wanted to have a chat around a few deep and philosophical things, because now that you've got two kids and a wife and you're not seventeen years old, now you're quite deep.

life of purpose at nineteen? God, if you can be living a life of purpose at nineteen, you're pretty lucky.

And I pay the bills, and I have a shower, shit shave, shampoo, and then I fucking hit the reset button. Then off I go again. And then I look up and it's twenty twenty seven and now I'm three years older, and I feel like I'm not learning, growing, evolving or contributing. I'm just treading water. And you know, I've spoken to a lot of people who that's kind of a version of their well, their subjective experience anyway, that's how they feel.

And you know, I think like we humans, we like to feel like we are contributing and having a purpose. Purpose that's just bigger than you know, surviving and you know, going around in circles.

now it's sixty. Like I feel like my part of my purpose is to love my mom and dad and make sure that the last five, ten, fifteen years of their life is as good as it can be. But I don't think that's my sole purpose. I think part of my purpose is to help and support an encourage younger people like you and other people that I love and care about, and even people that I don't know. But to support and encourage people to find, you know, what it is they're meant to be doing or that

to find their own purpose or their own meaning. You know. I think part of my purpose is to, you know, just be a good human and to hopefully be a.

to articulate their purpose really clearly. So you know, I run a dog shelter because on my you know, it's my purpose in life to help dogs and so and so you know that, then externally, oh that's amazing, it's so you know, and so then there's maybe an illusion when we're looking and turning, you know, look in the mirror back at ourselves about identifying our own purpose, that it has to be something as lofty as a dog shelter.

something being significant. And you know, I was talking to Big Josh Lenardowitz recently, who which has been well documented, Big Josh, who was Australia's longtime best bodybuilder IFBB pro man, mountain, gentle, giant, awesome human, couple of kids, husband of the beautiful Lizzie, and he's he had some trouble with you know, he had a tumor in his skull and he had some surgery and some complications, and anyway, the bottom line is that right now and for a while, he's been struggling

getting back to full health. And we spoke about that recently on the show. So I'm not throwing him under the bus, but you know, talking to him, it's like his I feel he feels his main purpose these days is just to be a good dad, be a good husband, and to be a provider, is to just look after, provide for and protect his family. And I'm like, you know, that's kind of noble. It doesn't need to be. I've got to win the mister Olympia. I've got to run

one hundred meters in ten seconds. I've got to build a brand and a business. I've got to crush it. I've got to kill. I've got a grind. I've got to hustle. You know, I've got to save the world. Maybe maybe not, you know, So I don't think there's a right or wrong with this thing, you know, with

this stuff. You know. It's like I know that if I had gotten married, which I didn't, and I had had a wife and a couple of kids and probably by now a grandkid or two, probably my well, definitely my focus and attention would be different, My my thinking would be different, The window through which I experience and interact with the world would be different. My I dare say, my purpose would not be what it is now. So I think one of the challenges, young Tom, is that

we grow up. I think we grow up thinking that our purpose is some preordained thing and we've got to discover it, like it's under some spiritual rock that we've got to tip over, rather than just kinda what do you want it to be?

I thought I wanted to do it, and then I didn't really feel like I wanted to do that. Then I wanted to be TV presenter, started that journey, you know, got into radio in enjoyed that. This feels less like a job, you know, it was for me, it was around how do I live it feeling less like I'm restricted? School was the ultimate restriction for me. Felt like, you know, I dropped the weight of bricks off my back when I left. It's like, oh yeah, now I can start

paving my own path. And so, but I've never sort of associated it to purpose, and I think, really it's probably because I it's never been anything around you know, seriously helping others, you know, articulating it like the dog shelter or and so maybe I've felt like I can't use that term purpose with my own life. But maybe do you think that's the wrong the wrong way of looking at it.

I'm on mine. But I think a lot of people get to the top of their mountain or near the top of their mountain, and they realize they're on the wrong fucking mountain, right, And so it's like, oh, my god, I've invested all this time, energy, perhaps money, you know, blood, sweat and tears to do this thing, to create this outcome. And I get to the top of the mountain. I've got it. I've created it. I'm you know, And how come I still feel spiritually, mentally, and emotionally bankrupt. Oh?

Maybe what I wasn't lacking was three cars or in my case, four motorbikes, or maybe maybe the answer to my problems wasn't fucking massive delts and triceps after all. You know, it's like you have this idea of what will make you fulfilled or joyful or content, you know, happy, whatever we want to call it, that positive internal state that we all want. Like, nobody wants to be miserable, Nobody wants to be sad, lonely, depressed, disconnected, unhappy, stressed.

Nobody wants that. Everybody wants their internal state, whether that's emotions, whether that's our mind, everybody wants that to be a positive state. And I think we have a story about what will create that. And it's not to say that building a business brand or a big bank balance, or having huge biceps or a pretty face or a handsome face or an awesome whatever you know, fucking YouTube channel

or whatever it is, doesn't mean that's bad. It just means that it doesn't necessarily positively correlate with joy or with contentment or purpose, you know.

and profs. And I went there and I did a talk on the stuff that I do, and then I did another one, and they were interested in the way that I work with people and I help people create change in their life. And I wasn't a psychologist or a researcher. I was just an exercise scientist who had really opened a door on you know, the psychology and emotion and sociology of changing a body. But anyway that the not so brief version is that they somebody in

that group said would you be interested in doing a PhD? Oh? And I don't. I'm never in my life thought of doing a PhD. I said what would that look like? And we had a coffee in a chat and I applied and I got accepted and bibbity bobby boo. But that came out of me just doing stuff like I didn't sit at home going you know what I need, I need to go, I need to start a PhD.

At fifty six, I didn't think that. It just it was something that came up out of opening doors, having new experiences, going to new places, and literally standing in front of a room full of people who are probably smarter than me in many ways and going, fuck it, I'm just going to tell them what I do and how I do it, and we'll see what happens. But I think that's the thing getting, you know, working through

the fear, working through the uncertainty and the discomfort. Because often I think I'll shut up after this because I realized I'm over talking. But often I think the thing that we really want, which is growth and revelation and understanding and skill and competence and resilience, the things that we want come through the things that we don't want, Like we don't want pain, we don't want problems, we don't want uncertainty, we don't want discomfort. But all of those things are like a superpower.

anything because I have certain beliefs ideas well. I guess I can be objective about some things because I don't know anything, so I don't have an opinion, right, But you know, the whole human experience is a subjective one for the most part. In that I come into this podcast, into this conversation with you, and I Craig, can't have certain ideas and beliefs and values and experiences and programming and conditioning and all of those things inform what's going

to come out of my mouth. Same with you, you know. So I guess the best we can do is try to be more aware, more compassionate, more open minded while being brave and humble and acknowledging that yeah, I'm still going to be I'm still going to be wrong. While believing I'm right, because that's the human experience.

I make money? I want to do more, And I tell you what the I think the challenge is that everything slows down. I think when you become more aware because you start asking questions. It's like the classic sense of you know, waking up and you're like, oh my god. Like looking back on myself at nineteen, you know, just fell into that lifestyle, created a business around the stripping thing, and next you know, had heaps of businesses. But it's interesting because I didn't think too much at the time.

But now there's two parts. One, I feel more comfortable in myself and I feel more settled, and I feel less of the urge to be going and just trying everything. But at the same time, I also feel like maybe I'm not dreaming big anymore. But then, yeah, I don't know what comes to mind when I talk like that.

healthy and strong and functional. You're thirty five, you know, like, there's lots of people listening to this going, fuck, I wish I was thirty five, right, So, but what is often the case, and I'm not going to ask you, but what is often the case is we go, well, here's this is this young Australian entrepreneur. He owns his own house or he's paying his house off. He's got a great family, a wife and kids that love him.

He's got a good business, he's making good dough. He's fit, strong, healthy, he's got all some parents blah, blah blah, and in the middle of that picture quite often is a complete lack of contentment and satisfaction. And then you go, ah, so where from where does contentment and satisfaction arise? Because we think that, oh, when I have this, or when I've done that, or when I'm in that place, when

I'm earning that. Like we tell ourselves a story quite often about the things that need to happen, and then I will be X, then I will be happy, and I will be content, then I will be successful. Then I But the amount of people who get to the you know, the desired destination and they're like, right, that's it, I'm good, now, I'm happy, I'm contenting, you know, it's

pretty much no one. And so for me, you know, I realized that contentment and calm and purpose and fulfillment was much more about my internal world than what I was actually doing or not doing, or achieving or not achieving.

And it's good to own and do and be and create and contribute and achieve, But I think the real challenges despite what's happening in your world, not because of despite what's happening in your external world, to find the joy, to find the bliss to find that, you know, that equanimity, that space of being the calm and the chaos. You know, on the weekend, we did a gig for Brad and Paley and I've spoken about who Jim burned down and we had Joel Sardi there, and Joel we've spoken to

on this show and we've spoken about recently. You know, he broke his neck in an accident when he was home from service in the military. He was on leave. He fell over a balcony. He broke his neck, and he's a quadriplegic. And you know now he spends life in a chair. And of course, of course, you know it's like imagine, well let's not imagine, but hypothetically that

happens to you. All you want. You would give anything and everything and all the money in the world just to be you yesterday, just to be you that could walk, just to be you, that could pick up your kid, just to be you, that could get in and out of a chair, just to be you, that could jump in your car and drive wherever you go. But the vast majority of people listening to this show, not all, but the vast majority can just get up out of

a chair, and walk wherever they want. But how many of us get up and go This is so fucking amazing. I can walk. I can walk to a tap and there's hot water. I can press a button and there's light. I can press another button and there's air conditioning. I can walk ten feet and get in the most comfortable fucking bed and just sleep in relative safety. I can just pick up this thing in my hand and talk

to my mum who's two hours away. Like, we have so much great shit that I feel like that contentment piece is not about what we have or don't have. It's about how we think. It's about my I love that, Craig.

And it's like if I what I've kind of thought this week is like if I told myself fire you know, eight years ago, the position i'd be in right now, I would be you know, elated, I'll be over the moon. But I don't feel like that. But I do know that I've been ungrateful to myself in the last little while. And it's funny because you go, well, you were arrive,

you know, at this place where a thing. You know, if something happens, by the end of the year, I might be making something that would be the eight year ago dream of mine. Right, yes, but right now I don't feel like I thought I would back then. Yes, blows my mind about what. Yeah, and it sort of brings it back to that gratefulness. And so I mean it's a trap. It's a complete trap.

nine out of ten acute pain. And for me to go from my back to my front takes fifteen minutes and it's agony. And then I have to have somebody to basically help me get out of a chair and get like when I'm in that pain, right, And now that's nothing compared to Joel, nothing right, nothing compared to John, my friend who got blown up. Right. Thing but the day where all of a sudden, not all of a sudden, but oh, now I'm not in ten out of ten or nine out of ten pain. Now I'm in three

and I can three out of ten pain. I am so joyful. I am so happy that I can just walk. And I'm like, ah, how good is walking without pain? How good? I can just swing my legs over the side of the bed and I can just get out. I haven't been able to do that for three weeks. And just like, I mean, but this is you know, and so that you realize that gratitude or contentment or

joy maybe not all the time. I still think our external environment has of course it has something to do with it, But a lot of times it's just like, oh I can do all of this stuff which a lot of people can't do. You know, there'll come a time when you and I we can't get in and out of a chair. There will be a time in your life, and it won't be for a very long time, but you won't be able to get out of a chair.

You won't be able to pick up your grandkids. There'll come a time when you've got three or four days left, right, but now is not that time. Like even for me, I'm sixty, I feel like a fucking teenager, and I am so grateful that I chose not to smoke, not to drink booze, not to do drugs. I'm grateful, and I don't mean this to sound weird, but I'm so grateful that I am sixty and relatively healthy, fit, strong,

and cognitively good. I'm so grateful because I meet people my age and I'm like, fucking he fuck if not for a few decisions, that could have been me. And I don't mean that in a judgmental way. I just look at them and I don't feel anything other than compassion and I want to help. But I talk to people that are my age, that literally function like somebody twenty years older, and that's you know, So I'm glad I had those experiences. I'm glad I had those kind

of light bulb moments. I'm glad that I I've learned the things that I've learned. You know.

that sort of you know, established my career. I'm not where I want to be, it's not being grateful.

Maybe that's your fuel. So if we're talking about building a business or brand, or making lots of dough or achieving things on a practical or an outcome level, then maybe in that sense, yeah, maybe it's good. That's a clever question. But then I would think I would wonder and I think I'm what you just described. I think

both you and I have probably been that. Then you get to the point where you know, like I've told that story too many times and I won't bore everyone, but when I was in my thirties and I had five business is, five bricks and mortar businesses, five locations, five venues, lots of staff, all of them making money, me having you know, lots of nice things in my life, making really good dough, and in the middle of all of that, it it wouldn't have mattered if I had

ten businesses. I just wasn't joyful, like my default setting was. And that's not to say the businesses caused it, but that was just my situation. There wasn't There wasn't a lot of contentment or gratitude because I was. It didn't matter what I did. It wasn't enough it's like, no, well,

we're doing a thousand sessions of PT a week. I mean, we were doing for a long time over one thousand personal training sessions a week between my three centers, and at one stage about sixteen hundred, you know, and it didn't matter. It's like, well I needed seventeen hundred, I

needed eight eene hundred, and it didn't. Like you know, when you go you realize, but then you kind of get to the point and hopefully if there's a hopefully, if you can ever be still and hit the pause button for long enough and you know, reflect, Like you spoke about awareness before, awareness is acknowledging the thing that you're doing, even though it might be making lots of money, maybe it's not working if it depends what our metric is. If our only metric or KPI is dough money, then

we're winning. But if we're thinking maybe about our spiritual, emotional, or social or psychological bank balance, maybe we're going broke despite the fact that we've got lots of good shit. And then that lends itself to the comparison between I guess the appearance of success and the experience of success. Like I think you in many ways are way more successful than me, depending on the metrics that we look through.

So you're happily married, you've got a beautiful wife, you've got beautiful children, you've got a very good business, you've got good income. I think a lot of people would look at you and go I would much rather be Tom than Craig. I think a lot of I think the majority, And that's not throwing me under the bus or putting you on a pedestal. But again, there will be people who go, fuck that. I don't want to be Tom. I want to be Harps. His life looks

fucking amazing. Yeah, you know, so it's all about how do we You know, I feel more successful now than when I had five businesses and one hundred staff on the go. And that's not because I'm making more money than then, or I'm I've got a bigger brand than then.

It's because I'm genuinely happy. Like most of my life I am, I'm raally anxious, I'm rarely sad, and maybe part of that is genetic, and I'm very grateful for that, but I think like the thing is too consciously genuinely practice gratitude and go, Yeah, my life is if like I always say to Melissa, if I complain about my life, kick me in the dick, because I'm the problem. Yeah, because my life's fucking amazing. So if I'm complaining, it's me that's the issue.

don't I haven't really thought. I'm using the term purpose within my life and then connecting you know, hard failures, which I definitely have had things that didn't work, and so you could just call that the failure within my life. But yeah, I've always just felt like that I've flowed

on with the direction. But the honest truth is like at the moment, like I said, that thing that's coming up, like, I probably feel like I haven't made all this progress, But it's that that's not true, that isn't true.

And the reason I do that is also because I love you, right, I think that is you know, I know that over the years I've been a bit of a mentor to you or whatever, which is you know, flattering to me and maybe helpful or not helpful to you. I don't know, but you know, I think that when people do great, you should tell them, they're doing great,

you know. And I look at you and I think, because I know when you know, even not that many years ago, when you and I were you know, version one of my podcasts the day of the Craig Harpers Show, and we were filming every episode and you can still go to YouTube and watch it. Was it called the Craig harpersh Show. Is that what they?

for shows. And then I just sit there and bullshit on and I used to be so grateful that I had this young, talented, dynamic, fucking person just wanting to do stuff with me, right, And then I look at that dude, you know, pre kids, pre marriage, pre all of that, or maybe you've just been married then, but anyway,

it was a long time ago. And now I fast forward to now your mid thirties, I'm like, wow, there's been a there's been an evolution, like and you've just gotten better, you know, and you're still excited and you're still curious, and you're still developing talent and skill and awareness and all that, but you're also just you've evolved as a person, you know. And I think it's that that that almost that bilateral journey of developing all your stuff but also developing yourself the middle of all.

I need to feel stressful to be able to execute. Yeah, like I know that that isn't true, but it can really feel like in not progressing based on a new approach or a slower approach.

happen till I was thirty one. But anyway, that's another show. But like he wanted to be a fucking neurosurgeon, I'm thinking, and then so there and then he was telling me about the journey and the pressure and how how hard it was, which I can imagine and applying to you know, it's like most people who even people who become doctors, and you don't then just go, now I'm doing neurosurgery, Like there's this incredible process that most people don't get through.

But my long winded point was that he thrives under pressure. And you want a guy or girl who's operating on your brain to be awesome under pressure, you know what I mean. You don't want someone who's fucking got your top of your head off and they're working on your brain and they're not cool in a crisis, or they're not calm and I think that, you know, it is like you said, like you're running slower, but you're getting

there quicker. That's the irony, you know. And this other term came to mind before, and you're like this, it's called destination disappointment. And destination disappointment is you get where you wanted to go and you're like, ah, this is

not it. You know, it's like the top of the mountain. Ah, this is not the mountain, or there's the mountain over there, and you know, so that and sometimes we realize that, you know, the important and I know this is cliche and this is not a new revelation, but it ain't really about the destination. It's about what happens to you on the way. You know, it's about the journey. It's about who you become, not what you achieve or you know. And it's like I know that because I've done so

many things, and I've fucked up so many things. But I've built businesses, I've built brands, I've built you know, I've done multiple degrees, I've put myself in academic stuff. I've been broke, I've made money. I've done lots of things that didn't work. A few things that did work.

I've fucked up, I've failed, I've been uncomfortable. I know that you could put me in nearly any situation and I'd probably figure it out because I'm adaptable and because I'm used to solving problems, and because I didn't grow up being privileged, and I didn't grow up in wealth, and I didn't grow up being the smartest or the most talented, And so that platform of mediocrity for me was like, ironically one of the most empowering things, because if I wanted to be good, if I wanted to succeed,

if I wanted to be better than average, then it was always just going to be about work and consistency, you know. And so all of that pain and all of those fuck ups, and you know, the three podcasts that I did before this, the three shows that didn't really work, the five or six hundred shows of the episode of the U Project that kind of cost money, you know, the eight hundred to one thousand episodes that I did before we started being commercially viable. That was

all fucking great training. That was all great resilience building, that was great awareness. That was awesome for giving me understanding and insight and understanding the science of podcasting. Yeah, you know, And I couldn't have the knowledge or experience or skill or understanding that I have now if I hadn't have gone through all the shit. You know. But I'm almost positive if I started a new one tomorrow it would work because I know the two hundred things not to do.