#1580 A Daily Opportunity - Harps

big thing. Who knows anyway, I was chatting with Mike this morning. We had a coffee and I asked him how old he is, and he won't he won't mind me telling you that he's forty seven. And he probably also won't mind me telling you that at forty seven, he hasn't achieved everything he wants to and that there's still a few things on the to do list and the you know, the music list, and the bucket list, and the life list and the health list and all

the fucking lists that we all have. We maybe don't all have a music list, but we're talking about, you know, the very ever present challenge that we all have of living our best life, creating our best outcomes, you know, being the writer of our own story rather than a character in our story, or the driver of our own bus rather than being a passenger in our own bus, So that we are living a life which is reflective of I guess, and aligned with who we want to

be and how we want to be what we want to, as I've said many times, produce and create and stand for on planet us. And I said to him, you know, at one stage, you know you're forty seven, So in three years you're going to be fifty. And the truth is that at fifty, in three years, your life's going to be better, or it's going to be worse, or it's going to be the same, or you might not be here. I hope he's here. Let's hope we're all here. I might not be here. We don't know. That's not

a given. I think you'll definitely be here, but we don't know. We don't have a crystal ball. So let's operate on the assumption that I'm going to be here, You the listener, you're going to be here, and Mike's going to be here in three years and then I said to him, so, would you like your life and all the bits and pieces I won't go into them that we've been talking about. Would you like your life, situation, circumstance, outcome, practical reality. Would you be likely to be quite different

to it is now in many ways? And of course, as is generally the answer, yes, I would not everything, not all the things, but some of the things. And if I did a little inventory on Planet Craig, on my operating system, what I'm doing being creating and not doing and not being and not creating, I could tell you some things that I would like to see happening in three years that aren't currently happening, either at all or optimally. And that's just about you know, self awareness

and honesty, isn't it. And I said to him, and this is prompted this chat, I said to him, your life could literally change direction today, Like you could consciously do different things today. You could consciously change the way that you communicate if that needs to change the way that you live your lifestyle, your sleep, your food, your exercise, the way that you do your job, branding, marketing, your current operating system, whatever that is. You could start to

change that today. Not reinvent yourself in two days, not turn it all upside down, but gradually, over time, create that three year picture that fifty year old bloke who's now in a better lifestyle or a better life, or situation or circumstance or environment or musical career, or physiological state or relationship broadly speaking, or state of mind or emotional state whatever, same for all of us. But it

ain't going to fucking happen accidentally. You're not going to miraculously and magically wake up at fifty having made no effort, no hard decisions done, no hard work, and somehow be inhabiting this kind of utopian, beautiful nirvana of an existence. It ain't happening. It ain't happening. And so it kind of reminded me of a post that I wrote years ago, which essentially said, you've had thousands of Mondays, but you've

never had this one. And I don't know what day it is that you're listening to this, but as I record, it's Thursday, and I've had I've had thousands of Thursdays, thousands of Thursdays, but I've never had this Thursday. I've sat in front of this microphone thousands of times, but I've never had this conversation. Tomorrow is Friday going to be familiar in that I've had lots of Fridays, but it's going to be completely unfamiliar in that I have never had a twelfth of July twenty twenty four, nor

will I ever have another one. Tomorrow is unique. Today is unique. It might not feel unique because of the familiarity of your past, but don't let that feeling of the familiarity of your past trap you so that you can't tap into the potential and the possibility of this moment of today. Like I think about and this sounds very The last thing I want this to sound like is a fucking motivational speech. It isn't. And if that's if that's the effect I'm having, I'm fucking it up.

I really want you, if you want to, of course, I want you to really think about the practical reality that every day, every day, even if it doesn't feel

like it, is an opportunity. And it might not be an opportunity to take over the world or you know, make a million bucks, but it might be the opportunity or an opportunity for you to do one small thing that takes one minute that might create one little bit of momentum, one minute of doing one thing that you didn't do yesterday, that could turn into something a bit

bigger and a bit bigger and a bit bigger. All of the things that I have done in my life that ended up being something positive and powerful and transformational, a version of success. All of the things that I did in my life, including this podcast, started with one small decision, one idea, one moment in time. And so this podcast, which is it's not a raving success, but

it does pretty well. Five or six six years, I think we're in and nearly seventeen hundred episodes, and we're sponsored, and we make a few dollars and all of that.

And it's been lumpy and bumpy, and there's been good and bad shows, and there's been amazing and not so amazing conversations, and there's been refining and defining and recreating and reinventing and learning and unlearning as I've gone, And now here I am, all these years later, in these hundreds slash thousands of episodes later, and we going okay, and here you are. Yes, you've heard me probably many times before, but you've never heard me in this moment.

I've never said these exact words ever before in this order, and definitely not at this time in my journey. The problem is brothers and sisters, not that we are not surrounded by opportunities, not that we don't have opportunities of available to us, but we don't see them. We don't see them, and we don't create them. We don't create them,

we don't breathe life into them. What some of us do is sit on our metaphoric ass and hope that an opportunity will come along, which is analogous to or the same as crossing your fingers and hoping that you will succeed, which is a kind of a fucking dumb idea.

If you're a grown up who has the capacity to act and behave and choose and adapt and improvise and fall down and get up and be resilient and do hard things and come out the other side, it's okay if you're cracking the sads and sitting on the couch and being a bit of a big baby for a bit, but not for ten years. If you are always, always

the victim in your life. And I'm not talking about the horrible shit that happens to people in domestic violence and all of those we're putting that aside for this conversation. We're talking about personal growth and achievement. But if somebody else is always the problem, there's a fair chance they're not always the problem. And this is not self loathing, This is self awareness, This is honesty, This is humility.

I can tell you openly and honestly that at least half of the time, the problems in my life, probably more the problems in my life, the barriers in my life, the shitty outcomes in my life have been because of me. I created them, not intentionally, but I created them. So I want to share with you some of the things that we get the opportunity now, We get the opportunity just because we wake up to do every day. These are some of the things. I wrote a little list,

and there are a million more. I don't want to bore you. So every day you and I get the opportunity to change the direction of our life or the quality of our life. If that doesn't mean we're going to change it by lunchtime, but we get the opportunity to move the needle. We get the opportunity to make a decision to be brave, to be resilient, to take some action, to have a conversation, to step up, to own up, to be courageous. Every day you get the

chance to do that. You do not need a fucking invitation. You do not need a cheer squad. You do not need accolades. You do not need a medal or a ribbon, because you're a fucking adult. And if you need those things, then that's another problem that you need to overcome. Stop looking for approval, stop looking for a pat on the back, stop looking for someone to say gave you or solve you. You are the answer. That doesn't mean there won't be

people that will support you or care about you. And support and care and friendship and love and all of those things are fucking amazing, of course, but if day to day you and me can't function unless we've got somebody three feet away going, come on, harps, you're fucking amazing. Oh my god, Look at what you said on that podcast that was brilliant. Look at what you wrote on that whiteboard, Look at that gig that you did for those Oh my god, and look at your fucking shoulders.

You're a giant. What am I doing here. If I need all of that bullshit, then I am the biggest problem in my life. I don't need that. I don't need that. If people like what I do, all sill in a society. If people like what I do, that's great, and I hope, of course I want people to like what I do. But I don't need constant accolades. Of course, I'm going to pay attention as a somewhat very low

profile public figure. I'm going to pay attention to whether or not my stuff is for one of better term, working, resonating, connecting. If I'm getting constant shit feedback about something I'm doing, I'm either going to change or get out. But you and I, every day, you and I, me and you the listener, we get the opportunity to do things differently. We get the opportunity to think about how we think and to be brave enough to own up to our bullshit.

Every day. Every day, every day, I get the opportunity to recognize the things that I'm doing currently that aren't working. And every day I get the opportunity to be brave and say, I'm doing this thing and it isn't working, and so what I'm going to do is I'm going to change this thing that doesn't work. I'm going to try something else. It might not work, but I'm going to keep trying, keep improvising and adapting until I figure it out. And if I fail, great, and if it's uncomfortable, great,

and if I fuck up great. Because I'm in the middle of the failing and the fucking up and in the middle of the pain and then convenience. I'm learning, I'm growing, I'm adapting, I'm evolving. I'm becoming a better version of me every day. Every day. You can choose the hard thing that most people avoid because you say

you want to be more resilient. Maybe you don't, But if you do want to be more resilient, if you do want to be more resilient, more capable, you want to be able to be the calm person in the middle of the chaos, then choose to do the hard thing. Choose to do the inconvenient, uncomfortable thing that you know you should do. I'm not talking about choose the hard, reckless, stupid thing. I'm talking about the thing that strategically you know will help you grow, learn, evolved, to improve, get

where you want to go. But it's a bit fucking hard or uncomfortable or terrifying. Nonetheless, you know it's the right thing. I'm talking about that every day you get the opportunity to be courageous. Every day you get the opportunity to ask better questions, to ask better questions that will lead you to better choices, to better behaviors and better outcomes. Every day you get the opportunity to lean into this idea of self awareness. How can I understand

me more? How can I understand me in the relation to others? Every day you can choose to be curious about the people with whom you intersect. What is their reality? How do they think? Why do they think the way that they think? What is the gap between my thinking and their thinking? Where does that belief of theirs come from? Remember,

seek first to understand and then to be understood. Every day you can choose to have better conversations with people if you don't need to agree or align or condone their thinking or their stance, or their beliefs or their ideology. But you can listen. Every day. You can have better conversations with your kids, with your partner, with your family, with your friends, with your staff, with your boss. With everyone that you intersect with on a daily basis, you

can listen more. You can turn up the volume on your own situational and self awareness in the middle of a moment with another human, just by being thoughtful, just by hitting the pause button and talking less. Sometimes every day, you and I, every day we get the opportunity to share love and kindness, not because we're getting something back. That's not love, that's a transaction. You get the choice, you get the opportunity, You get the blessing of blessing others.

You get the opportunity every day to have a purpose bigger than you. That doesn't mean you need to neglect you. Neither does that mean you need to be an emotional doormat for somebody. But it means that you get the opportunity to love a stranger, to do some kindness, to inject and affect the people around you with great energy every day. And you might go, yeah, but what if I feel shit? Great question. I get it. I get it.

There have been many times in my life when I was not having a good day, somewhere between dogshit and not good, and I had to go and do a thing. I had to go and have a conversation. I had to do a presentation, I had to do a radio interview, I had to do a podcast. And I couldn't jump on the radio and say, guess what, everybody, I'm having a bad day. I'm a bit flat, I'm a bit sad, so this is going to be shit. So just I couldn't do that, So I would get on I would say,

I'm going to my story to myself. My conversation with myself is I'm going to do the very best I can do. And usually not always, but usually by the time I would I would invest into somebody else, somebody else's issue, somebody else's problem, somebody else's reality. I would try to get out of mind and into theirs. And the funny thing was, by not concentrating on me, by not ruminating on my issues, by investing and paying attention to somebody else, my stuff somehow got better or at

the very least improved. All of these things that I'm sharing with you, by the way, are not easy. So if you are after easy, this ain't the podcast for you. These things that we need to do to really create a better life, a better us, a better existence over the long term, so that you and me and Mike wake up in three years and he's fifty and I'm sixty three, and you'll you now plus three, and you can look back and go those three years were fucking

amazing because I made them amazing. I made decisions. Every day. I made decisions, I took action. I had shit days and good days, but every day I tried. Here's a thing you can do in the middle of the worst day. You can try, in the middle of the worst situation. You can find one little thing to be grateful for. And we're not pretending that bad things don't happen to good people here. This is not what this chat is about.

We know that there is lots of injustice, We know that there is lots of pain and suffering, and I'm not neglecting or denying any of that. But I am saying that you and I, whether or not you and I've got three years, thirty years, or sixty years, I definitely have sixty you might have, but every day is an opportunity to do something better. It is an opportunity for you and me to do a treasure hunt on

our lives, our respective lives. It's an opportunity for me to go like, I haven't thought about this at all, but right in the moment, I go, well, I'm a sixty year old dude, I'm sitting here. I've got a podcast that people listen to. I'm so grateful for that. I've got some speaking gigs book next week. I'm so

grateful for that. I'm so grateful that my eighty five year old dad is training in the gym three times a week and seem on a Saturday, we hang out, We connect and we lift some shit together, and we're getting closer. And he's eighty five and I'm sixty. I love the fact that my mum gets excited to see me every Saturday and cooks food for me to bring back to Melbourne because she still thinks I'm fucking twenty years old. Don't tell her I'm not. But I love that.

I love that my mom and dad are alive and operational. I love the fact that I get the opportunity to have this job that isn't a fucking job, doesn't feel like a job. I love the fact that every day I have the opportunity to impact the lives of people who want to think, do be, and create better. I love that I'm so grateful for that. I'm so grateful that I can walk up the stairs. I'm so grateful that I can turn on a tap and have hot water or cold water. I'm so grateful that I can

sleep in a clean bear in a safe town. I'm so grateful that I can have a hot shower. It's fucking incredible. I'm so grateful that I've got to support team around me who empower me and encourage and support and enable me to do what I'm doing right now. I'm so grateful that tear for Melissa, I'm not sure is going to listen to this and edit this, take out all the coffs and farts and burps and bullshit that you guys don't here, lucky you, and make this

better than it currently is. I'm so grateful for that. But gratitude is a choice, and gratitude is an opportunity for us every day to step into that. Every day you have an opportunity to have a different kind of conversation with someone, to step out of the groundhog day of those mindless, pointless, unhealthy, toxic relationships that you may have with certain people at certain times that don't work.

Every day you have and I have an opportunity to do something new, to do something that you've never done. At sixty, I'm still doing things for the first time, things I've never done. Yesterday I had a meeting with my senior supervisor of my PhD, Chris. Shout out to Chris and he said, do you want to come rock climbing with me next week? And you know what, I don't want to go rock climbing. Fuck rock climbing. But I went, yes, I do. I went, fuck, yes, let's

go rock climbing. Do I think I'm going to be good at rock climbing? No? Do I want to go and do something? Then? In sixty years of my life, I've never done how I do. My curiosity and my drive to do something new out ways the lack of excitement I have climbing. But I also know, because I know me, I might go rock climbing and go this is fucking great. I'm a rock climber now. But guess what if I said no to Chris, It's never happening, or more than likely on planet me, it's never happening.

You and I get the opportunity at any age to do new things. My dad at eighty five is learning how to squat and deadlift at eighty five, how to do it well. My dad at eighty five is building muscle and function and balance and muscular and aerobic endurance. And he's improving not only his quality of life, but his quality of living his health span. He's improving his

health span. Why because every day he's seizing the opportunity to manipulate his biological age by making better decisions, eating better food, doing better things, and moving his body in a way that most people won't do. Other people his age, or any age, let's go, any age, have the opportunity every day to do something good for their body. Of course, of course there's not meant to be judgment or ridicule or anything, but it's just is it true? Is it true?

Can we go from five minute walk? Can we know? Well, well, yeah we can. But do we know? Sometimes we do?

Sometimes we don't. How many people have sat in front of me, and I've said this ten times on this show, but how many people have sat in front of me and said something like when they get to whatever age they're at, sitting in front of me, and they're not in the place literally, mentally, emotionally, physically, financially that they wanted to be and they're sitting in front of me somewhat broken, and they say something like this wasn't my plan. And I say, as you know what I'm going to say,

I say, can I see the plan? And they go what do you mean? And I said, well, you said this wasn't your current state, your current reality, wasn't your plan, kind of inferring how did I end up here? And I'm going, sure, could I just see the plan? And the truth is there is no plan. They didn't have a plan, they didn't have an accountability process, they didn't make hard decisions and do hard things. They didn't have it to do list that they followed. They didn't have

clear and specific and measurable goals. They weren't resilient. They didn't fall down and get up. They just kind of ambled along in a version of comfort, a reality of comfort and avoidance, and waited for things to fuck up before not everybody, of course, but quite a lot of people before they would make a decision, and ultimately when they would make significant life changing decisions was either when there was a catastrophe or they were terrified, or they

got some terrible news about their health. This is not to be critical, This is to be truthful. This is to be aware your life. I'm going to say it again. Your life will not be magically better in a year from now, two years from now, five years from now.

Having said that, it could be astoundingly different if you see every day as an opportunity to do something to create positive impact with your health, with your career, with your mindset, with your finances, with your relationships, with your lifestyle, with your fill in the blank, fill in the blank, fill in the blank, whatever the fuck you need to do better at on planet. You don't wait for the motivation or the inspiration to kick in, or the cheer

squad or the opportunity fairy to at your door. The opportunity fairy ain't fucking coming. The opportunity unity fairy, The creator of opportunities, the maximizer of opportunities is you. It's you. The answer to nearly all your problems, not all, but nearly all your problems is you. If not directly you, then you are the conduit to the answer. Just like well, don't know you, but I can tell you that for me, most of the problems. As I said earlier that I've had,

or I've had to negotiate and navigate. Most of them at least had something to do with me. Every day you have the opportunity to move your body differently, to put different things in your body. What if you just put different things in your body, be that food, drug, drugs, booze, supplements, water, or you stop putting some things in your body. What

if you stopped. What if today you rationalized doing better things and stopped rationalizing while you're doing those things that are counterintuitive and counterproductive to your own fucking happiness, your own health, your own health span, your own longevity, your own quality of life, your own mental and emotional health. What if you chose to be brave, not because there's a written invitation in the mail, not because I'm going to be there standing in the fucking corner. That'd be creepy.

I don't know why I said that, cheering you on, but just because you know that on some level, and this might not be all of you, but there's definitely will be some some of you that you've been fucking

around and bullshitting others and bullshitting yourself. My friends, every day is an opportunity because you wake up if you wake up, if you can breathe, if you can get out of bed, if you can think, if you can do things, if you can make decisions, if you don't live in third world poverty or a war zone, which most of you don't, thankfully, and if you don't live with a significant disability, which most of you don't, thankfully, and even those of you who do, And I know

there's a bunch of you that listen. And I also know that you people who really have big challenges. Quite often you're far far in fact, not quite often. Most of the time, you're far more inspirational than I'll ever even dream of being. So, my friends, the day is a day. Tomorrow is a day you've never had this day. You've had lots of ones like it, but you've never

had this one. As I wind this up, I want to suggest to you or if you would allow me to coach you, if not turn off, but if you would allow me to coach you, I would tell you this, don't let your mind continue to get in the way of doing the work. If you want to find another reason to not make the decision, to not do the work, to not be resilient, to not keep showing up to not tap into your potential, to not optimize your talent

and your energy and your time and your resources. If you want to keep making excuses to not do that, you will. You will easily find an excuse that you can convince people it's actually a reason, but it ain't a reason, it's an excuse. Rather than that, find a reason, find a real reason to seize every opportunity, to create every opportunity every day. I love your guts. See yeah,