I get its Welcome to another installment of You Project. This is about take four. Not really. We've had a We've had an interesting start to the the morning we let down our guest. We were tardy, we were late. We were late to our own show. Tiff was going to be it may as well we are, say, yeah, it might as well be. Andrew Matthews, Welcome to the You Project. Quick, let's get this bloody thing started. How are you well, Craig. Nice to be here, Thanks Tiff,
Thanks so much for agreeing to join us. Where are you? Are you in the Sunshine State Now?
I'm in the Sunshine State, Trinity Beach in far North Queensland, between Cans and Poor Douglas.
That must be tough for you. Are you okay? Get that?
It's a beautiful part of the world. It's just spectacular. We're on the big record here.
I reckon when your your thing is well, amongst other things. But one of your core focuses and talking points is happiness that you have a geographical advantage where you are. So I'm not sure that that's fair.
Well, we created it. We came from Adelaide, which was also delightful. But because I'm spending my life writing books, and I travel a lot. So my wife Julie and I decided perhaps we could have a nice, beautiful place to come back to when we're not traveling, and we found this little beach called Trinity Beach, which is about twenty minutes north of Cairns.
Before you were an international speaker and author and all things happiness, man, what did you do? What did you do before all of this blug buddy megastart and time and the money? By the way, do you need a hand with the money? Is it burdensome?
We'll get to that later. I began a law degree because I thought that was the responsible thing to do. But I didn't like that. And my passion was always drawing and drawing portraits, painting, and so I studied art then about and I was an artist. I used to paint portraits. I did some cartooning for international magazines that you may have heard of. Used to do some work for Playboy when I was a late nineteen year old. Wow, I did the clean cartoons.
Allegedly your honor.
When I was twenty five, I made a shocking discovery, and that was that the happiest people I knew had bigger problems than me, and that made no sense. I was trying to figure out what is it with happy people? How do they think? How do they deal with challenges? And what is it that they do that I don't? And I began to read a lot and study a lot and do a lot of s m and rs. And that eventually led to my first book, Being Happy, And that's where it all began.
Wow, what's the intersection, Andrew or the relationship between and I know there's a million kind of variables around happiness, but happiness and say contentment the absence of anxiety, Like how do we is one person's personal understanding of happiness someone else's calm, Like sometimes I feel really content and I feel very like just where I'm meant to be, but I might not feel that giddy you for it kind of happiness vibe.
You know, happiness is a difficult way because it really doesn't cover everything we wanted to cover. But if you talk about contentment, then that perhaps implies that you know, we're not leading a very act of life. Or if we talk about joy, then no one's going to be joyful all the time. And so when people might say, well, is happiness really the goal. It's more than that. It's about finding meaning in life. It's about feeling that we can't wait to get out of bed in the morning,
which is more than just a superficial happiness. It might be about feeling that we're doing something to make the world a better place. And so I find that all of those things contribute to what one person is going to say, well, that represents happiness, and another person will say, well, happiness is just sort of a superficial thing. So what I like to do, Craig is look at things that we can do, strategies that we can have that can make our life better.
And that may.
Involve looking at things we're grateful for. It might involve doing some things that we find that we really love, even if we can't be doing everything we love because we've got to pay the rent and have a job. It might mean that we're dedicated to raising extraordinary children. So there can be a whole lot of things that contribute to saying my life has meaning and I'm happy to be who I am. I don't want to be
anyone else. And so what I seek to do in my books, what I write from my first book, Being Happy Right through to my latest book, which bouncing back Looking at Resilience, is to come up with very simple strategies, things that we can bear in mind that can make us stronger, more resilient, and happier each day.
Yeah, I think I love that. The interesting thing about trying to create any outcome for any person is like if somebody you know me as an ex size scientist, like somebody you know, ten people come to me and say I want to be stronger. You know they've all got the same goal. Well, they're all going to need a different approach or a different program, or a different
protocol because they're all in different places. They've all got different physiology, they've all got different issues medically perhaps, and so even though they all want the same outcome, they're all going to have to take a different path. Is it similar with happiness? Do you think?
I think that there are some common denominators that work for each us. When we start to say to ourselves, for example, happiness is not an accident. Happiness is something that you choose, that you look for good things. Yes, then you start to say, if if I say, what do I really love about my friend Craig, then I start to see good things in you, and our relationship gets better and I'm happier for having you in my life.
It's because it's the question that I ask myself. So one of the things that I think is really clear is that happy people focus on what they have, and unhappy people focus on what's missing. And so when we make that kind of a transition, that doesn't matter who we are, or whether we're weak or strong, or whether we have money or we don't, or whether we're employed or whether we're not. Suddenly we start to say, well, I'm now starting to see these things that I wasn't appreciating.
So that might be one thing, or it might be, for example, that we quit criticizing ourselves. People say, do I need to like myself? And you do. Maybe it's at the moment hard to love myself, but we create the life that we feel we deserve. So when we start to say, okay, I'm not perfect, but I've done my best with what I knew. When we forgive ourselves a little bit, then we start to allow ourselves to have a better life than before we started saying okay,
I can be kinder to myself. It may be something like the people that we spend our time with, you know, we become like the people that we're around, and sometimes we need to say, Okay, my family is not that uplifting, but I need to find some people. I need to find a podcast once a day that can uplift me, and so that will make a difference. So we go looking for great Harper.
Yeah, well, I'm not the answer. I'm just pointing people towards the answer. I'm pointing them towards you. I think part of that too. I love what you're saying about. Like we may not in the moment love ourselves or feel like that, but I think it's the difference between self loathing and self awareness. Like self awareness is well I could have done that better and I'll do it better, and self loathing is I'm a fucking idiot. I always
do this. I'm always a more moron, right, Where there's that kind of I'm killing myself constantly, yes, versus that recognition that all right, this is not optimal? What is optimal and leaning into it with curiosity Maybe.
Yes, Craig, and that whole idea of improvement not perfection helps that we say, if I can be just a little bit better tomorrow, then I can focus on what I've done better rather than say this is where I fall short against my brother or my neighbors.
Yeah. Yeah, And I think also when you're talking, you're thinking about you know, like you were. You didn't say the words, but gratitude and awareness for I have. Like one of my I guess privileges Andrew, is that I work with a few people with different disabilities, and you know, they have actual challenges. I don't have any actual challenges, right, and when I'm around them, it just and I you know, I shouldn't need to, but sometimes I still need to
be around them to appreciate what I have. And even down to I think about this a lot. This is weird. I even think like I can get up out of this chair and I can walk down the stairs to my kitchen. Most people can't or not most, but there's a lot of people that can't do that. I can go turn on a tap and there's cold water. Billions of people can't do that. I can. I can press
a button and the room gets cool. You know. It's like just having the things that we never think of, you know, we just take so much stuff for granted that if they were removed from our life. All we would want is to have those things back.
Yes, yeah, it's it's a It's a fascinating insight into the human condition, isn't it?
And the way that, you know, part of my research is are around a thing called metacognition, which I'm sure you know is just thinking about thinking, and it's it's interesting just just to lean into that, just that question of why do I, Why do I think like this? Why do I Why am I really grateful or uncrateful? Just and not self loathing, but just curiosity. How come when I'm talking to Andrew, I'm trying to impress him?
What's that about? Yes, you know, like just that recognition of what is happening mentally, emotionally, behaviorally in the moment. You know that. I think that the whole conversation around what is happiness? How do I create it? Or how do I create misery? It's a real deep dive into like introspection and personal reflection, I think.
And what you're saying, Craig, is that happiness isn't out there, It's in here. It's in our head. Yeah, and as soon as we change, and sometimes it can be a tragedy or an almost tragedy or a disaster that makes us reassess, yes, you know how blessed we are. And as you know, as we are in our case living in Australians and many of your listeners listening around the world, we have these incredible advantages, but we take them for granted.
And so happiness, I believe, becomes something where because it's not something that you find. It is something that you create by being grateful, by having a purpose, by being kind. We notice that the kindest people are the people and so we do those things and we find that we're feeling better and more blessed. But when people talk about finding happiness, it is not something that just drops in
your lap very often. I mean, perhaps there are some people, some of us who grew up with maybe parents who are wonderful role models and they did so many of the things that work, but many of us didn't. And so it comes back to what you're talking about, saying, how do I think and why do I think like that? And can I realize that there's a better way to think?
Yes, yes, and yeah exactly Andrew. And then what's the space between the thing that's happening and my story about the thing that's happening. So the objective reality and my subjective interpretation, you know, that's the special bit.
Yeah. And then there's this idea that the challenge of life is to be happy with what you have while you pursue what you want and and and I think that you know, that is a big one because some people have goals, and it's great to have goals for a lot of reasons. Number one is we feel like we're taking control of our life. Even you know, you join a gym, you feel better. You haven't even done anything yet, But the reason you feel better is because you have this sense that I'm taking control of a
part of my life. But we see many people who achieve, but but they're always putting such a load on themselves as I've got to achieve more and more and more, so they're never happy with where they are. And wow, so that's the challenge.
That's so true, you know, I think, I mean, I can only speak for me. But in the life that I grew up in the seventies, eighties and nineties, like I was either directly or indirectly taught that success equals happiness and success equals things stuff, how much money I earn what I drive, where I live, what people think of me, my brand. You know, it's all about this external stuff that you referred to before. So if I change these things in my external world, my internal world
will be great. And then I go on this endless quest for a bigger and bigger and bigger plasma TV till I've got a fucking two hundred inch TV and I'm like, this is twice the size of my last TV. Why am I not happier? Because I think we think that some kind of you know, phiz shift will create
some kind feel some emotional, psychological, spiritual void. And even though we I think inherently I'll shut up after this, I think we inherently know that's not true, but we don't seem to learn because we keep striving for this stuff that doesn't really feel that void.
One of the dangers of that is that as we get on this path to being more successful, which we think is going to make us happier, we inevitably start to gravitate and mix with people who are doing even better at what we think is what we need to
do than we are. Because that's what happens, and you're around richer people with bigger mansions and more expensive cars, and so you actually get further and further behind as you come into contact with these people that you think are doing even better than you thought you needed to do so. But hopefully at some point we decide, okay,
I've got that. Now, I realize what my priorities are and I can only eat so much, and I can only drive one car at a time, and people and contributing and finding meaning become more important than having the biggest whatever it is we were.
After, I think like understanding that that our thoughts and what we focus on. As she spoke about before, it's like where my attention is, well, that's where you know, where my mind is, that's where my emotions are, where my emotions are, that's where my body is. And if i'm if i'm you know, if I think that Tiff did something that she shouldn't have done, and let's say she didn't actually do anything, I just think she did, and so I'm mad at Tiff for an a row reason.
And I'm telling myself a story about Tiff even though Tiff didn't do anything, but I believe that she did. And now you know, my blood pressures up my heart rates up, my breathings up, my sympathetic nervous system switched on. I'm in this state of anxiety and stress and anger and I've created it at all. I've created at all, and Tif's done nothing. So I literally am making myself stressed. It's not even about the situation. It's about a story in my head.
And nothing and nothing is real. And we come back to that idea that that happiness is not out there, it's between ears. And the other thing that comes up for me Craig is that even if she did, if Tiff did do something.
Which she does a lot, by the way, Okay.
Yeah, a lot, then you don't forgive people for their benefit. You forgive people for your benefit. If I work for you and you give me the sack and I say, I'm never going to forgive Craig because he's ruined my life, then I'm the one that's suffering. I'm the one that's lying awake at night. You know, you're probably at the movies or something, and I think I'm punishing you by not forgiving you. Yes, But so what we learned there is you don't forgive people for their benefit. Yeah, you
forgive people for your benefit. That's when you tipped her something that's real.
Oh she's problematic. I only have her on the show. She's like my community outreach project, you know, like you just pick one person. She's my person, so I'll just help her out. I was thinking about, you know, this idea that we're talking about, how success is stuff. And I remember Andrew when I first started. So I started working in gyms when I was eighteen. I didn't go a university for the first time until I was older, but I started working in gym's at eighteen, and I'm
having all of these conversations with actual grown ups. I was a teenager. And then so I opened the first
personal training center in Australia and all this stuff. But I started working as a PT as a personal trainer at twenty three, which was nineteen eighty six when there weren't any and I started to get wealthy clients, and was what I didn't expect was so so I'm still a kid and I'm talking to all of these wealthy people, you know, business owners, entrepreneurs, actors, athletes, models, all of these successful people that I would have had previously on
a pedestal. And now I'm getting to know the person behind the brand or the fame or the money. And I remember thinking, oh, wow, well way more problems than me, Like you're like. I remember just having this like epiphany as a young man, thinking ah, and realizing that on average, the wealthier people that I dealt with. Now this is not categoric, this was just my experience and not all but on average they were more stressed and more anxious, and I would say less happy than my in inverted
commas normal clients. And I went, Ah, that doesn't equal that, not necessarily anyway. So that was a moment of insight for me.
Yeah. He reminds me of a friend I had, Jim, who had a very big business, and he and his wife used to take big, expensive holidays, and they had a very big, expensive art collection, and their whole life seemed very big and spectacular. And then he sold his business to a very big client or a big organization that didn't pay the second big installment, and then he went through a very big court case which was followed
by a very big divorce. And I came across him in the supermarket some time after that, and he was now living in a little apartment with a little dog.
Oh Wow.
He said, you know, I had this big lifestyle and he said, now I'm back to I just was left with enough after the court case and the divorce and everything else. I've just got a little apartment and a little dog. And he said, you know, I've never been happier in my life. It's so simplified. And you know, so it's not about having all the big, expensive stuff.
And I suppose, although we see it from a distance and it's a generalization, Hollywood is kind of the the illustration of the craziness of you can have a whole lot and appearances can be wonderful, but it can be a little bit shaky underneath.
It's very I mean that that whole idea of you know, I remember growing up in rural Victoria and do you know what a bogan is, right I do. Yeah, So lots of Bogans Bogan Central where I grew up. God bless everyone in the tri Valley. Not all Bogans, but
a fair few. And there used to be a lot of panel vans and utes back in the seventies and eighties, and they had this sticker on the back and it said he who dies with the most toys wins right, And I kind of grew up in that, Oh well, if some stuff is good, then more stuff is better and the most stuff is best.
Right, Yes, yeah.
I remember when my business took off in you know, when I was in my late twenties and I started. I opened a gym, and I opened another gym and another gym. I ended up I had four gyms and lots of employees, and things were, you know, And I always liked cars, and I always had shitty cars because I had no money. Then I got my first decent car, which was nice, and it was nice and I kind of enjoyed it. But then I got another car, which
was super nice. And then that car gave me so much anxiety because well, I should say more accurately, I gave myself so much anxiety. I didn't want to drive it anywhere. I didn't want to leave it anywhere. Before i'd go in anywhere, i'd walk around it, I'd do a bloody scratch check. Then i'd come out. I'd look out the window of wherever I was thirteen times an hour to make sure no one would Oh God, it just I was the problem, not the car. I was
the problem. But I remember again having another epiphany. It doesn't matter what I buy if at best it's going to have a short term impact on my emotional state, and over the long term, if it's something that can be damaged by others, it's probably going to give me more grief than joy. So I stopped doing that quite a long time ago. But it's interesting.
Because it is. I think. I remember Robert Kiyosaki is saying once that, and he's a he's a money guy, and he was saying something about the first Porsche he bought, and he said, I loved that car unconditionally for a week.
So true.
Yeah, yeah, Well, so it's not it's not about the stuff.
It's about if, if, if we if we look for good things in people and we believe that life will turn out well, and we we live life as best we can one day at a time, which I think helps a lot, then then regardless of how much stuff I mean, obviously, you know, people say money doesn't matter, but there is a you've got to have the money to pay the rent, and we know what it's like when you don't, of course, but once once you have the essentials taken care of, an exponential increase in money
doesn't make a lot of difference to our peace of mind one hundred percent.
Hey, you and I are both similar in that we stand in front of audiences a lot. And I watched some of you doing your thing on stage. I'm amazing. I love watching other speakers because it's so you know, there are so many ways to do the same thing, which has build an audience, connect with an audience, develop, rapport, trust, respect, entertain,
educate and inspire all that stuff. There's so many there's no set path, but you you if you haven't seen it, everyone, you need to go and have just go on to Andrews Andrew Matthew's website, have a look at him doing his thing where he's talking and drawing at the same and it's like that amalgamation, that synergy of the visual stuff that you draw while delivering this flawless presentation that is amazing. How long did it take you to get good at that?
Well?
Maybe, I mean maybe that was just your natural thing, because you're an illustrator and an artist anyway, right, so maybe that does having a pen or a marker or something in your hand give you comfort.
I've been drawing since I was five, and I say, to the when I speak, I say, people wonder where I learned to draw. I learned to draw in school during mathematics, but so my training is in classical drawing.
But at the same time I was doing cartooning. And what I found was when I first started giving presentations on happiness, and I would draw a little cartoon here or there, and of course what I didn't know was that people were transfixed because I'd be facing the flip chart, I wouldn't see it, and I'd turn around they were back to normal. Then on occasions I would see video of the faces of the people, and my wife, Julie, who's my publisher, she would say, you need to do
more of this because people really like it. And so it evolved where when I give presentations, I draw cartoons throughout my presentation, and I use cartoons through my presentations. And see what I noticed is that whether you're talking to brain surgeons or prisoners, and I speak to both, they're so relieved when the message is simple and easy to get, and pictures help us not only to understand
the message, but to remember it. So it's been my joy to incorporate cartoons throughout and I guess it's become my signature. But people also like it because they see the cartoons in my books, so and maybe maybe they think, well, if there's cartoons in there, he can't be a total wanker or something. I don't know. I mean people people like to see to see something that's not so serious.
And also it's it's organic, right, and it's you in real time. It's not you bringing up a slide of something that you drew a year ago. It's like, this is you on stage creating. This is you with a blank piece of paper creating something in real time while fucking talking to a thousand people. That's quite the skill.
It takes. Yeah, it takes some practice to do that. But you bring up an interesting point. I can bring up the best cartoon that I've ever done, that I created last year, and it won't get nearly nearly the reaction of something that I create in the next minute, where people just see it evolved. But I also when I draw or that I start at the at the like the wrong place, so that people aren't even sure where I'm going.
Yes, yes, you know that that is like if I went to see I don't know, bloody Bruce Springsteen and he's out on stage and he presses a button and then the recording.
Of his voice comes on. You know, it's I don't want that. I want to hear seventy five year old Bruce sing. Right, Yeah, that's yeah, that's so so interesting. How much I don't know about this? Is this is an in house question, right, So it depends on my week. But I do about one hundred and twenty presentations a year, and they vary from thirty forty five sixty minute keno through to full day workshops and stuff. And this is just my personality in the way that I work best.
But I've got to be structured and planned to a point. But you know, I'm very much probably more way more than most and probably to my own detriment sometimes, but I like to go in with some prep, you know, but more I want to build a connection with the audience. Do you how much of you yours? Is Is it like the same every time? Do you ever get halfway through and go I'm going to turn left instead of right? Like?
Is it performative? Is it? You know, not that it's right or wrong, But I'm just interested in the different styles that presenters. Tiff by the way. It has just started presenting career. She did one yesterday and killed didn't you? Tif had a wonderful time. Thank you. Are we allowed to say who with? Yeah? Yeah, Victoria's Victoria Police. Yeah She's So she's just getting her speaking career underway. So I'm interested in your kind of method if you'd like to share.
Sure. A lot of what I speak about, and I will speak to computer companies and I will speak to you know, maybe Honda or Shell or or Intel or and then I will speak to banks and in high schools. A lot of the concepts are similar, yep. But the examples that perhaps somebody like last week I spoke to her a group of they run service stations in New Zealand, so they came to Brisbane and they had me speak to speak about enjoying work particularly, So a lot of
the principles are similar. But the examples, I mean, you know, these are guys. They're dealing with leaking petrol tanks and competition from unmanned service stations and staff that don't show up. So I'm drawing on examples that they relate to. So I do my researches. But the principles of enjoying your work. Still come back to things like, well, you want a you want to do your best because that's how you feel best about you, That's how you get a reputation.
Don't complain because people want to be and so on. So it's the framework is similar, but the examples will be different. And usually I will just do an hour presentation. Sometimes I will do day presentations. But my experience is people are always most sided in the first hour, and I like to leave them that they wish I'd stayed longer.
Yeah, that's not the worst plan. What's one thing that you've over the last however long, ten twenty years, something that you were wrong about. I like this idea. So I talk about learning. I'm an educator, but I also talk about unlearning. And you know, there's I've gotten a million things wrong in the last thirty years, and for me, I always like to share that with people because people
think you know, you get everything right, or you know everything. Well, I'm fucking up thirteen times a day, So don't look to me as the high water mark. But something that you've got wrong or maybe and or changed your mind about over the last while.
I think about I don't have to be perfect and I don't have to know it all. When I wrote my first book, Being Happy, I was thirty, and I was younger than a lot of my readers, and I'm not a psychologist, so I thought I had to work really hard to appear like I was an expert. And the more I did that, the more people questioned my authority, and the more even though my book kept selling, but if I was maybe giving a presentation or maybe chatting
with someone like you. The more that I tried to have all the answers and be really smooth and make everything perfect, the less I found that people I guess warm to me, maybe because I thought I had to be clever, And now I realized that everything doesn't if people can see my faults and my frailties and I can share things that I got wrong and all the books, that the manuscripts I sent to publishers that didn't get published, and that people just want. People want us to be
real and people. People don't want anything that's that's especially polished. And I think evidence of that now can be seen on social media, where many of the clips that go viral, almost all of them, they're not highly polished they're just where someone happens to be either real or funny or surprisingly witty, and it's not super prepared. So I think that that I would I would have done differently. Also, I wouldn't have worked so hard. Yeah, wow, I've worked
too hard. But you know, yeah, I'm sure you do. You know what I What I like is so as I said to you before we started rolling, So I'm doing my PhD in neuropsychology and I'm five years in and I'm near the finish line and blah blah blah. But like, I value your insights maybe more right, because you've got all this lived experience. And which is not to say that you don't understand psychology or physiology or neuroscience to a level anyway.
It's not about that. But it's like sometimes a couple of things. Sometimes I'm talking to somebody who's an academic or an intellectual genius who just might know all this stuff about the neurochemistry of the brain and happiness and the reward system and all this stuff, and I look at him and I go, you're fucking miserable. So I'm not listening to you, right, I'm not listening to you because you might understand the theory of happiness, but you're
not living it, so I'm not interested. And then the other thing is, you know, when it comes to the brain and the mind and the complicity the complexity of happiness and joy and hormones and biochemistry and sociology, and it's just there's no three step plan. It's like the more that, like my PhD is in a thing called meta perception, which is about your ability to understand the andrew experience for others. So the core question at the middle of my research is what's it like being around
me for the rest of the world. And I could unpack that with you, but I won't bore you. But you know, I'm driving I'm studying like a drop of water in an ocean of psychology and science and research, you know. And even though I'll come out with a doctorate in psychology, you're not really broadly studying anything. You're very very specifically studying a one construct, like I said,
in this ocean of ideas and stuff, you know. And then it bugs me when people discount stuff that's I guess just learned experience or anecdotal or like all of the stuff that you've been through and I'm sure you've done your own research research as well, but like your life is your classroom, you know, the research that you've done working with real humans in real time and creating real outcomes, that's more valuable research, I think in many
ways when you're connecting with a general public audience.
Yeah, more people like simple things that they can understand. Yeah, what I seek to do is I always felt that my advantage was that I didn't have an academic background, so I didn't have to be true to any particular methodology, or I didn't have to introduce things that I thought my peers thought that I should substantiate so true, So I could just grab any story or any example from anybody, and I could maybe put it into two paragraphs and
with a cartoon and then and then. One of the joys for me of writing is is using as simple language as I can. When I teach or workshops on writing, I say, imagine that you're writing for a twelve year old girl in Singapore, for whom English is her second language, then you're going to write better. So that's that's what
I seek to do. So for me, it is about simple, simple ideas, simple language that anyone can understand and at the same time what you're doing obviously you're fascinated at getting to understand all of this about how it is for other people being around Craig Harper, and so that is that is fueling your joyous life and your experience. You know enough that you're not doing it to impress anyone. You're doing it because this is this is something that you want to get to the bottom of. So that
can be a great thing for you. But then when you take that the messages that you've gotten hold of to your audience, obviously you simplify them or you take the special little bits that anybody can relate to.
Yeah, that's the skill. Yeah, And it's like even with this with this show, you know, we have thousands of listeners every day, and I mean, you're I don't need to with you, but sometimes because you're a very good communicator and you understand exactly what we're talking about. But sometimes I'm like, if I've got someone on who's they're good, their knowledge is good, but I'm like, we need to change the language of what's going on right now because
nobody fuck understands this bloke or this lady. You know, So like the information is good, but the delivery or the language is inappropriate. And it's not that I have a dumb audience. I have an educated audience. But when you have a really big cross section of people, you need to cater to, you know, the lowest common denominator in terms of understandability of terms and language. So yeah,
it's it's interesting. So you've got a new book out which is called Bouncing Back, which is is that focus on resilience or very coming?
Yep, yeah, very much resilience. I mean, we're all bouncing back from something, Craig. We're bouncing back from a relationship that could have been better, or a job that we lost or a job that we applied for or we didn't get, or we're bouncing back often from loss or tragedy people that we loved. And I thought the COVID experience triggered it a little bit, but it was also we're all going to be bouncing back from things almost every day, little things. Ben So I wanted to ask
the question what is it that resilient people do? And basically, there's about seven things that resilient and happy people do better than people who are not resilient. And I created like a lot of little stories and cartoons in Bouncing Back, and basically we go through the things that and you don't have to learn them all, you don't have to do them in any particular order. For example, number one is that resilient people find purpose in whatever they're going through.
They don't say, why does everything happen to me? Often what we thought was breaking us is actually making us. Yes, and resilient people understand that. So true, that's number one. Number two is we accept what we can't change. I mean, there's a lot of things that we can change. We can change our attitude, we can change our work rate, we can change where we live, we can change our friends. But there are things that you can't change your parents,
for example. So some people live their life saying, well, if I refuse to accept this, then I won't be stuck with it. There is the reverse is true. As soon as you embrace something that you didn't want, then you can move on. So acceptance is power. And so those are two of the things that I that I looked at in Bouncing Back.
I love it. We waste sorry to interrupt, we waste a lot. We do seem to waste a lot of time and energy andrew on things we can't change or undo. You know, like how many of us ruminate about things that happened five years ago and we're still like our mind in the present is trapped in that thing five years ago that you know, putting aside traumatic events. But you know, it's like, we do have this propensity to overthink and ruminate on things we can't change or control.
You're a sports guy and in one of my books, I think it was Following your Heart. It brings up for me because you're talking about living in the present and everyone says and it's kind of it's just a cliche, live in the present. One of the beautiful things about sport is that you learn to live in the present and let go of stuff. You lost the last set, then get on with the next set. You know, yes they kicked a goal, now it's your turn to kick
the next goal, and so letting go of things. Sport is a wonderful educator in how to live a better life in in so many things. You know, when you relax, you perform better. You know, you run faster, you don't get hurt.
Yea.
So that whole idea of being able to let go of things and move on. We see and so many things in the sporting experience we see a parallel.
Yeah. Yeah, and I think that I'm doing a workshop this Sunday in Melbourne. Get along everyone. If you're not coming, it's that deacon, go to my website. But it's called understanding you. Do you like that little plug that I just shoved in there, It's called understanding you. And that's the the whole like part of a big part of kind of my journey now and also with people that I work with and teams and athletes and businesses. Is yeah, just that like what actually makes me happy, what makes
me stressed? How do I manage my mind? What impact does my mind have on my emotions and vice versa? What impact does my emotions and my mind have on my body and vice versa? You know, because we're this kind of integrated system, We're not one thing where all
the things. Yeah, and I just think being able to open that door on self awareness how I am and why I am the way I am, but at the same time not overthinking the shit out of everything, right, because then we wake up and it's five years later and we're still on this deep journey of introspection that really doesn't help too much.
Sometimes, well maybe so, maybe it's from the point of view of how we're affecting and either enriching the people around us, rather than this is all about me, which is which is what I think you're saying.
Yeah, we'll wind up, but just quickly before we go. You spoke about purpose a minute ago when we were talking about in new book, Bouncing Back. By the way, everyone, so go and get nine copies.
That it's only on Amazon at the moment. It's well, where are all your listeners?
Great, so eighty percent you will take Australia and the rest around the world.
Okay, so Bouncing Back we'll be in bookstores from January, but it's already available on Amazon as an ebook or as a printed book or as an audible perfect perfect.
Did you do the audio?
I did the audio. So if you're listening and you think my voice works, okay, then to me do the audio.
Yeah. I don't like it when authors get other people to do that, especially when I know the author and then I listen to the book. I'm like, I wanted to hear him or her just quickly. I want to talk for a moment about purpose, and then we'll wind up. So one of the things that people have said to me over the years is something like, how do I find my purpose? And my general answer is, well, why don't you just choose it? It's not under some ethereal rock or some there's not going to be an angel.
Depend descend on your window with a little scroll, just giving you the inside. What are your thoughts around purpose?
I think, do whatever is in front of you, do what do the things you love where possible, But whatever is under your nose, do it the best that you can do it and watch it lead you toward other opportunities. And so our purpose evolves as we put our heart and soul into our life and work. And sometimes someone will notice us and pluck us from where we are, and so that's how our career moves. Sometimes we develop our skills and our confidence and we go and do
that thing ourselves. But my thought is that you give your heart and soul to whatever is in front of you, even if it isn't ideal. If you're sweeping a shopping center, do it your best and watch it lead you to something better. And similarly, with relationships, you don't worry about whether, well, okay, you know you're on a new date and you say, well, I just don't know that Mary is the one. That
is not the problem. The issue is that you give your best who having a joyous time with Mary, and it goes for as long as it goes, and maybe Mary will be the one, or maybe she won't, but you put your your best into whatever is in front of you and it leads you somewhere better.
My dad did exactly what you said with a Mary who happens to be my mum, and it worked out for him. So there you go, everyone now, Being happy, follow your Heart and How Life Works are some of Andrew's books. He's only sold eight million copies, So Andrew try harder eight million copies in forty eight languages. All right, He's got me covered everyone, and his latest book is
called Bouncing Back. Mate. Do you want to steer our audience towards anything, any products or website or where do you want to tell people to go?
Thank you, Craig. So my website is Andrewmatthews dot com. Andrew Matthews is all one word and to teaser the Matthews So you can join my newsletter. I do a newsletter every two weeks and it's a cartoon and maybe a few sentences. I don't want to burden you. I also have a lot of videos on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. You can join me on Facebook Andrew Matthews author and join me contact me, let me know how you found this chat with Craig, and let Craig know
how you found it. Maybe we can do this again.
I'd love to you're a gun. There's about five percent of people I get on who are well, most of good, but there's five percent that make my job very very easy, and you're in the top one cent. So thank you, sir. I appreciate you. Well, say goodbye off air, but for the moment officially, Andrew, thanks for having a chat. It's been really nice. I appreciate you.
Thank you, Craig. My pleasure.