I got your bloody champions. Welcome to another instorm with the Year Project. One of my favorite people in the world. I don't say that lightly Carly Taylor, the better half of Paul Taylor. Of course she's here again, and I'm excited because we spoke recently and this How do I say this without sounding you know, when you think, oh shit, I'm about to say something that it could sound condescending, I don't mean it too. But you've always been clever,
and you've always been smart. You've always had this beautiful energy and a nice way of communicating. But I feel like you've realized. I feel like you're better. I feel like you've evolved. You know, like you were good, but now, like last time we chatted. I don't know whether it's you know more stuff, or you're more confident, or perhaps I'm less terrifying to you, or or you've kind of
figured out the art and the science of podcasting. Like when I listened back to me six years ago, I fucking that I don't love me at the best of times. That's a that's a whole episode. There isn't that, Carli. And then when I was eight, no one came to my birthday.
Well, Lie, you're on the couch.
Yeah. Yeah, but I you know, I feel much better now doing this because it just feels like my natural habitat What about you, Do you feel more comfy? Yeah?
That is such an interesting observation because I don't know if I feel more comfy. But I think what I'm able to do is sit with the discomfort. And I really yeah, so I always, I always get nervous. So and I guess the nerves are around God, Am I going to say the right thing? Am I going to be interested? You know that internal chatter they're in a chatter it's like and which is normal because you know, I think you have to have that because you care and because you want to do a good job. So
it kind of comes with it. And I think I've accepted that.
Yeah.
I will often talk to myself and that part of me who I call Wilma. I will I will actually say, look, thanks, this actually isn't helpful. Can you just sit out in the other room? Like I know I can't get rid of it, and I know this sounds really weird, but I actually do talk to that part of me and them just to leave, just for the moment. What cha.
I mean, this is good. I mean, I know what we're going to talk about, we're going to get there. But I love this because it's organic and real and unplanned. Right. So one of the things that one of my is one of my issues, is if I've got to do a gig, like a corporate gig like your husband does a lot, and I if I've got to talk at nine o'clock, I want to get to the room at five to nine. But they don't want me to get
to the room at five to nine. They want me to be there at fucking eight o'clock for a sound check, which nobody needs because anyone can do that. And then they want me to be in the room at like
eight point thirty. But I often say to them, if you want the best me, just don't make me sit up the back for an hour listening to shit I don't want to listen to or like it doesn't I need to be off doing something, even if I'm in the gym until eight thirty, Like if I'm at a hotel, then I come up, I go, I'm in my room. I know I'm speaking at nine. I'm not going to learn anything more. I'm not going to be any more prepared.
I'm not going to change my strategy. Then I put on you know, I splashed my face because I've already had a shower. I'll change you into my fucking frock and then I walk down and then about eight minutes after I get in the room, they intro me. And
it tends to work well. Like I I was going to say, even that sounds arrogant, but even someone who's been doing corporate gigs for nearly thirty years, I still have to have my little protocol because I can, I can overthink it if I have too much time just in limbo, you know.
Yeah, so what happens when you do You have to be there early because that's very much that you need to have control over that process. And then sometimes you don't have control of it because they are going to insist that yet early. So how do you handle that? How do you if the overthinking starts?
Well? What?
So?
On a practical level, they'll say, you know, we want you to do a sound check or something, which is silly. They just really want to make sure I'm there. I think, so I do that, and I'll say, look, you know, if it's possible, I'll say, do you mind if I sit in outside outside the room, but ten feet away, sitting on a couch. But I'll just I'll just post it on Instagram, or I'll write an inspirational message, or I'll plan for the thing that I've got tomorrow. Like
I try not to think about what's coming. Yep, not because I'm scared, but because it doesn't improve my performance, you know. So I like to and there's no set way to present, of course, just like there's no best diet and there's no best workout. But for me, when I tend to be at my best, it's when I know who the group is, I know why I'm there, I know what I'm talking about. But I'm not scripted. I'm not scripted. There are no slides, there's no video.
And that's not that slides and video are bad. Paul uses slides and video beautifully, but for me, it doesn't work for me optimally. But having said that, and I know I'm talking too much, I'll shut up. I'm doing a new workshop on Sunday at Deacon called Understanding You Right, And I've tried.
Very hard to bring at least half of the content new content, because you know, my audience know me, Well, there's nearly two thousand fucking episodes and a million whiteboard whatevers, and so I don't want to rock up and say what I always say.
So I've been I've literally been doing for me an extraordinary amount of prep. And then I rang Melissa this morning, who's the boss of me everyone, and said, you're not going to believe this, but I think I'm going to need a couple of slides because there's just a couple of concepts I need to unpack, which I really need
people to see things as well. And I can't just do it organically on the fly because I've created this process I want people to I want to walk them through this process of opening the door on understanding the self right, and there's eight levels, and I thought I probably need a visual representation of that so I could be evolving, Carly, I know that's the word.
I was thinking, You're evolving, and that's good. That's good. Change, Change is good.
Ah. Do you have any kind of even if you do something like this, or if you're doing a speaking thing or an educational thing, do you have any rituals or any particular prep that is kind of a non negotiable.
You mean on the day, Yeah, like.
It, Like before this, do you just do your shit and go, oh it's ten to one, I better get ready for Craig Or do you have a little kind of process.
I really hope that I am going to evolve to that, but I'm not there yet. So my process is to is to do a bit of exercise. So I had I went into the land room. I've got these club bells, you know, the club bells, yep, And so I do a little flow routine with those and just to get my heart rate up, just burn off a little bit of the stressholmemand that. I don't want to burn all of them off, but yeah, so I'll do that. But I like your I like the way you you know, if you do have a bit of time before you
present that you use a bit of distraction. Like if if we're going to talk about attention, which we're probably going to talk about today, is you're taking your attention off the what's going to happen in twenty minutes and just going, Okay, I'm going to put my attention onto what I can do right now, and for you, like you know, posting on social media or whatever.
Yes, which is well, I always think like attention is energy, right, yes, Like whatever I invest my attention on, my focus, on my mind in well, that's that I'm deciding where I'm spending my my psychological, cognitive and emotional energy, you know, because I'm I'm now thinking about that thing that that bloke did yesterday morning, that fucking inconsiderate bloke, and what I should have done and what I could have said, and what I might do next time if the same thing,
if I bump into and then twenty minutes has gone and I've done no work. All I've done is fucking you know, activated my sympathetic nervous system to my own detriment. I'm now a bit stressed and anxious, my blood pressures up, and I've been completely fucking unproductive, and it's all my fault.
Out and it's and it's the thing is it's normal for us to think back on the past and go, you know, I should have done that, and but it's it's actually being aware that you're doing it and then taking control over where your attention is and going, well, actually, this thought is not helpful to me right now, So what I it might be there and it might chatter in the background, but you want to just turn it down a bit by using your attention to what is
important right here, right now. Yeah, what you have is now, isn't it. It's you just have these moments. But our minds go often to the past and into the future, and it takes us away from what's happening right now.
I created this little model, which this is not giving anything away, but the first two steps of self reflection and self awareness right the thing I'm going to unpack on the weekend, and it is just that that thing of like like we're going to talk about attention and burnout and busyness, good busyness, bad business. But I think that like one of the things I want to talk about this weekend. If you're not come along, anybody, come along. It's a deacon. It's nine thirty Sunday. Go to my website.
But I want to talk about See what I did there, Culli, but I want to talk about it just fucking just like an advertising fucking ninja just in between sentences. It's almost subliminal.
Made me want to go, I'm like, what am I doing Sunday morning?
Nin I'm thirty, Wow, you can you can come and bring a friend for free. So not that you need to hear me, but if you are really bored, then feel free. But I was thinking about how much we live on this kind of auto pilot, or in this auto pilot of unconsciousness, where we keep doing things that clearly don't work, but nonetheless don't stop them, right because it's easy to be, you know, to get up and kind of do what you did yesterday, same kind of communication, conversation,
same breakfast, lunch, dinner or version of it. Even going to the gym. Like me as an exercise scientist, I love watching people at the gym who basically do the same fucking workout for ten years in a row and then go, I don't know, you know, I'm here all the time, I train hard. Nothing changes. Well, no shit, Sherlock, because your body doesn't need to adapt because you don't give it a reason. It's like opening the door on
self awareness and consciousness. It's kind of one of our ongoing challenges.
Yeah, especially in the digital wage as well. Yes, because we can get so trapped into that passive consumerism, can't we where any space that we have our attention can be stolen from social media, from emails, from the news, and the thing is, it's all designed to capture our attention. If you if you write, if you google expert in attention, it's not going to come up with, you know, Buddha, it's going to come up with an agency that that works on social media. And so that's what it is.
And so I think we are, Yeah, we are living unconsciously because we're not taking control over what we're putting our energy into.
And I think, yeah, I love that, and even the idea of conscious you know, it's like social media is not going away. Podcasts are not going away. I'm not not in the near future anyway, you know, online everything is not. So I think it's about even even in that space of listening to something, I give things five minutes, give or take, and in that five minutes, I go, I'm either going to Sometimes I might go I need another couple of minutes because I'm not sure, but generally,
by five minutes, I'm like some time, that's one. But I'm going to listen to this or not. Yesterday I went for a walk and I was listening to Lex Friedman. Do you know who he is? No, Lex Friedman is an engineer PhD mit Genius got one of the biggest podcasts in the world. Is this Ukrainian slash Russian. I think he was born in the Ukraine, grew up in Russia, lives in the States. Anyway, really smart guy. Polarizes people
a bit. But anyway, he had Donald Trump on his podcast, right I'm like, ah, okay, sure, And I listened to Lex kind of periodically, and I went, fuck, well, I'm just curious to what this is going to be. And I thought, it doesn't matter, I'm going to listen to all of this because even though I have quite strong opinions and I just want to listen. And I was walking and I was about I left time. I was probably about a seven or eight or nine minutes in. I'm like, I can't. I can't do this for an hour.
It's going to fucking make me dumber. It's like, I just I can't. Ah. And I don't hate Trump, and I'm not a Trump fan either, but I just like, I'm like, this is not a conversation. And some people would love it, which is fine, but just for me, I'm very careful about what I what I allow my brain and my mind to consume. Just like I am with what I allow my body to consume. And I don't think people understand that, you know, our cognitive diet has an impact.
Yeah, yeah, definitely, But I think a lot of people are putting their focus like when you look at say something like TikTok or you know, or Instagram, and there's a lot of just scrolling, so just looking at other people's lives and kind of looking at what they're doing. And of course, you know, my kids do this all the time. I'm just like, oh, even, you've got something
better to do. But that's that that sort of constant scrolling and constant draw to social media to look at other people's lives is taking us away from actively participating in our own life.
Yes, yes, and it's really easy to I do it too, because my you know, the algorithm knows that if you bring up a review on a motorbike or some fucking Jack Doude deadlifting two thousand pounds, I'm going to watch it, you know. So it's just it's so clever. Oh my god, it's just like a little dopamine machine in my hand. I just keep hitting the fucking button, you know.
And it's it's even just having the mobile phone there, like I find that if it's on the bench, and I'm very aware of you know, how much time I spend on my phone, But before I know it, I'm like reaching for it. And if I don't consciously go, is this actually what I want to be doing right now, I'll just get get sucked into it. It's so easy, and that's why there is we need to take control of where we're putting our energy and our attention, and that starts with awareness.
Yeah, yeah, And it's so easy to like in a time as well, where so many people are anxious, so many people are burned out, so many people got kind of quarters all overload or you know, like and so many people are so distracted and also so fucking sad and miserable, like you know, and without trying to sound judgy, I just like I want to say to people, I get it, like I care and you have my empathy, and but what are we going to do though? Yes, like, yep, I'm going to support you. I'll give you a hug
if I can tell you I understand, and yes, yep, yep, yep. However, what are we doing though, let's fix this? Simply's good cares good, loves good, compassions good good. But we also need to be strategic because your life ain't going to end up magically fucking amazing in a year. So here we are, and you've got this awareness that what you're doing isn't working.
So what's the plan? Yeah, what's the action. It's like, Okay, this is your situation. What are you going to do? What's your next step? And it's that that burnout situation, Like we are the number one burnout country in the world. And burnout is different to stress. It's like it starts with stress and then it leads to burnout. So what's happening in that stress space, It's is people are not able to manage that stress or they're not reaching out to get help or whatever they need to do, and
then it's then it's moving into burnout. And there seems to be this culture in Australia of people being workaholics. Like I used to I worked at Sony Music in the nineties and there was a culture there of working long hours and so you wouldn't leave before seven and if you did, you felt guilty and you felt like you're being judged, and you might leave you job so
it was a bit of fear there. But the difference is now is that I could leave the office at seven or seven thirty and no one could contact me because back then we couldn't be contacted. But now what I'm finding and from my experience, I haven't got the data on this, but from my clients, a lot of this is in the financial sector, is that there is this culture of you work hard, you are available what seems like twenty four to seven, You get home, you might spend a bit of time with the family, and
then you're back online. Yes, and that is that is this constant, constant state of being switched on and no recovery. And that's where I talked to my clients about treating themselves like their athletes, because you don't have an athlete that goes jews a really hard date the track today and I'm feeling exhausted, I might crack open a bottle of wine.
You know.
They want to recover, yes, so they prioritize their sleep, they prioritize their nutrition and their hydration and you know, and their mindset stuff. So treating ourselves and looking at how are we racow am I recovering is just so important because that recovery can be really effective, active, mindful recovery, or it can be mindless and numbing recovery. And it's knowing the difference between the two.
I'm not trying to be blatant plugging that plugs to today. But I was just doing a little post that I'm going to put up tonight. I'm doing a workshop next Tuesday, and this ties in and it's just called love your Body, right,
that's the workshop. It's online. It's called love your Body, And so it's got this kind of image love your body, and underneath in brackets it's got you can't get a new one, right, and same you know, with our mental health, our emotional health, our physical health, sometimes we wait till shit breaks. You know. We're kind of reactive, not proactive, all the while knowing I'm not good and this is
not good. You know, we really need like you know, like you think about how much focus and attention we
give to I might sound judging judged to today. I don't mean to, but because I've done it too, right, So I'm putting up just time, energy, attention to shit that really doesn't really matter that much, you know, But what really matters is that my brain works, and my mind works, and my emotions are not totally in the gata all the time or most of the time, and that my body and my lungs and my heart and my muscles and my movement and my posture. You know,
it's life isn't about that. But if you're physically, mental and emotionally, I'm well, well the fuck the rest doesn't matter that much.
Yeah, yeah, And I think if you're I think it goes back to that, Okay, I'm struggling. It's that question of what am I going to do? And that's why I know everyone knows about mental health. We talk a lot about mental health, and we talk about self care, but I prefer to talk about mental fitness because mental fitness, like physical fitness, it's something that you have to work on and you have to work on it every single day.
And we're training our brains to be able to not only just cope, but to be able to thrive or to be able to keep going even when times are challenging. And I think mental fitness to me implies action, whereas mental health and self care is just a little bit. And I know we do have to look after our mental health. But that needs to encompass not just our minds, but our nutrition, our fitness, our sleep, our connection, and all those things that make up a healthy, effective human.
For me, the analogy is it's like, oh, don't pick up those boxes. You might hurt your back. You know, you've got to look after your back. But a self care for your back, I might or or I could pick up some light boxes, and then I could eventually pick up some medium boxes, not too many boxes, and then eventually some fucking heavy boxes, and then I don't have to avoid the boxes. Now I'm strong, and if life puts some boxes on my path, I don't have to get someone else to come and cheer me on
or lift the boxes. I can lift the fucking boxes. You know why, because I got strong.
Yeah.
So there's this there's this space in between self care but also self empowerment, you know where Yeah, And I know what you're saying. I think you know is that we need to love, care, support, But there's got to be you know, like the world doesn't give a fuck about your feelings or your emotions, or your outcomes or your sore back. So and the only person who can write your story is you. So you know it's like,
come on, oh, cheer you on. I'll support you, I'll love you, but I can't go for a run for you. I can't have a good attitude for you, I can't make hard decisions for you, and I can't be resilient for you. So while I will care and support you, still need to do some work.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The stoics. The stoics have got this the art of acquiescence, and that is isn't it sound that that's such a.
Cool word, that's fancy for us.
The heart of acquiescence is to really surrender and accept the things that we cannot change, right and so so, and by accepting that, we can then move our attention to the things that we can change. And so it's those it's that epicteators who talked about the zones of control. So we said, our lives are into zone. Zone one are all the things we can control, and zone two. Zone two are all the things that we can't control.
And so often we're putting our focus on zone two and that's where we struggle because that's they are the things we cannot control, and often the wish for things to be different than they are is. It's a contradiction of to what is reality? So being aware of that and then turning out, okay, what can I do in
this situation? So if I get home from seven o'clock at seven o'clock at night, and I have had such a stressful day and my mind is just like going with all the things that happen today and all the things I've got to do tomorrow. Okay, you can accept that you can't change that. You can't change what's just happened, and you can't change what's happening tomorrow, but you can focus on right here, right now, and what's important. What
is my purpose? If we talk about purpose, it doesn't have to be this big, grandiose purpose that's sort of out of touch. It's the purpose in this moment. And maybe that is to be to put your parent hat on your mom hat or your dad hat and be focused on your kids through a period of time. Well maybe you just maybe you just got to cook dinner, or maybe you just got to clean up the kitchen. It's focusing on that, knowing that all the other things beyond my control.
And I think the question we can ask is in terms of what I want to get done, need to get done. You know, I ask myself a form of this every morning. I go in terms of what I want to do be create and change today. You can write this down if you want, folks, In terms of what I want to do, be create and change today, what's the best investment of my energy?
Oh? You know love that love it? Yeah, that's intentional living, that is Yeah.
Well, it's like it brings my focus to where because I you know, I'm like a dog with three dicks. I've got the attention span of a fucking fat kid in a cake shop shop because I used to be a fat kid in a cake shop. So, you know, but I really need to keep raining my mind back in because my mind is busy and sometimes busy good
and sometimes busy bad. But it's fucking busy. So if I don't have some you know, some guardrails, some metaphoric guardrails, like for the bowling ball, the mind that is the bowling ball that is my mind will not stay in the fucking lane.
Yeah.
So I go in terms of what I want to do, be creating change today. What you know, where does my energy or my attention or my focus need to be. And then I jot down. Then I kind of do my you know, my to do list, but my priority list, you know, because I go, well, this needs to have sixty percent of my attention today, Like today, sixty percent of my attention is on my Sunday workshop and we're recording this Thursday afternoon, and so I do other things.
But I've got two documents open. I've got a massive screen here, you're on your on one screen in the middle, and then right right to either side of you, I've got two a four documents, which is my workshop. And I just keep you know, I work for a bit, then I'll go have a cup of tea. Then while I'm having a couple of hours, fuck yeah, then I'll
come up. I'll jop down for twenty minutes, and I keep coming back, and by the end end of today, I'll probably have six or seven hours of energy and effort and productivity gone into my workshop that came out out of this morning six thirty kind of you know, rumination about the day.
Do you when you're ruminating about the day, I would say, planning your day? Yeah, are you writing it down on your whiteboard?
Yeah? I write stuff in my I write stuff in my phone and periodically take my laptop. But I am between about six ish and eight ish. Yeah, my mind's great, and I just mean for me great. Yeah, so fucking excited, so curious, so fresh, so many ideas. I also have. You know, you can't see them because I've got a backdrop. But over my left shoulder, I have a big whiteboard, right shoulder, big whiteboard. In my bedroom, I have a gigantic whiteboard, which is very sexy, I might add, doubt
so like a seven foot whiteboard. In my kitchen, I've got a seven foot whiteboard, and in my recording studio, I've got an eight foot whiteboard, and I'm constantly and I've got whiteboard markers all over the house, so I'm constantly stopping at a whiteboard writing an idea down. And people come into my joint and go, this is fucking weird. I go, I know, and then I take them because
obviously I don't take people into my bedroom. And I go, well, here's the weirdest one, and they go into my bedroom. The whole wall is a whiteboard with ideas and quotes and fucking you know, like thoughts, questions. But it's just I feel like the wacky scientist who's got experiments going on everywhere. And if I don't get it out of my head and onto a screen or a whiteboard or a bit of paper, I might lose it. So I'm really I'm really careful about that.
I love that. And I'm the same. You can't hear my dog barking hand no, no, heismans bloody dog.
We love dogs. You we're a dog. We're a dog friendly postter post. Yeah.
So I'm the same. So it's that morning, and this is what I want to encourage everybody to do, especially if you are crazy busy at work, is find some space in the morning where there are no inputs, like don't even don't touch your phone, don't look at your email. Just find that time to have some space just to be creative, just to even sit and think, like just spend time with the dog. And because it is such an opportunity to to be able to have a bit of freedom, just to be you and not have all
these distractions coming in. And I'm the same. So Paul for my birthday bought me this. It's like a digital notebook called Remarkable. Have you heard of them?
Yeah?
Yeah, so, and.
I love it. I've TI got one. Tiff writes notes when we're doing a show, and then she sends me a screenshot of the notes. So yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Love it because I'm the same. I don't have the whiteboard scattered everywhere, but I was having notebooks like I just have. I've got shelves full of notebooks where I'm just like scribbling stuff and then I kind of forget where things are and I might not go back and read it, but I find the remarkable is good now because I've got it with me. And in the morning, I will get up, I will make a cup of coffee, which I know maybe I shouldn't be doing, because that's
like a stimulant that I enjoy it. It's like that is part of what I will call my iggy guy. It's my little joy that I have in the morning, and I will sit there before anybody has got up, and I just ideas will just come and I'll just start writing and it excites me. It's really it's such
a good way to start the day. If you start the day like a lot of people have their mobile phones by their beds, and yeah they've got them on aeroplane mode, but you wake up and the first you seeze your mobile phone, there is that temptation there to go, oh, just check the newser I'll just check, you know, my Instagram post. It's it's immediate input before you've even put your feet on the ground. So I would encourage the fine out of the bedroom and you get yourself just
an alarm clock. I've just got a normal alarm clock, and so you're not tempted with that, and you can ease into the morning and give your brain a bit of a break all outside stuff coming in. And if it's a nice day, go outside and just breathe the air and feel the feel the know the breeze on your skin, and smell only aroamas and just just be a bit in nature as well, even if it's just in your backyard.
And I think, like, which is following on from what you're saying, is that different things work for different people, right, So some people like for me getting up, getting on one of my motorbikes, riding to the cafe, having a coffee. You know, it's like this little ritual that works on a range of levels for me. But for someone else that would be the worst protocol. But for me it's great. And like me breakfast and then dinner. Great. That works for me, That keeps me lean, I'm not starving through
the day. Great. You know me lifting weights in the afternoon. Great. If I want to do cardio mornings better, right, you know. And so in this whole kind of what we could in general terms called process of self management. You know, we get to figure out because we're always getting data, you know, we get to figure out how our mind or our brain, our our body best operates under what conditions. And then when we pay attention, we go, you know what,
my fucking I'm smarter in the morning. Cool, So do that cognitive stuff before midday if that's possible, or when I'm when I do this, then I get grumpy. Cool, let's not do that then, or let's figure out a way to do it when you're less tired, or you know, when I eat this food, I always have intergestion, interject, well, here's an idea, you know, and it's just I know
these are simple things. But the amount of us, including me, at times, who we keep fucking doing what doesn't work, and our body or our outcomes or our internal sat nab that internal wisdom is screaming at us and we're like fingers in the la la la la. You know it's it's that's the epitome of living unconsciously.
Yeah, is that Aristotle know thyself, isn't it.
That's the first thing in my thesis. Did you know that?
I no, I didn't.
Yeh, yeah. Yeah, Well that's one of the first things because it's all about because my whole you know, project is about self awareness. Anyway, sorry I interrupted.
Well I was, I use I use journals for that to know myself, and I put down I write, I used my journals to write down data. So I will write down what exercise I've done, you know, if I go for a run or do the you know, how long it went, how long it took me to go, what distance and and or and then I'll write down,
you know, my nutrition and so just the data. And then i'll you know, might write down how I felt like I felt a bit tired today, and then I kind of work out why it's like, okay, well it's because I didn't have a good night's sleep last night, or I had a glass of wine with a friend last night that's affected my sleep. And but then what I can do is I can kind of look at
my journal and see patterns and isn't that interesting. I'm just repeating something that wasn't working for me, and I can see in my journel I keep doing that, like what is that about? And that's that's been amazing for me to have this, I guess, heightened awareness of my own behaviors and my automatic behaviors, so got my unconscious conscious go tos, I guess. And then once you once you work out these default behaviors that are not working
for you, then you can change them. But you have to know you first.
Yeah, I love in that sense. Before tracking was a thing, they have trackers these they have trackers, you know, the young kids, electronic trackers. Back in my day, we had a fucking exercise book. But when Paul first started working with me up at Harper's on the Highway, even before that, we had what we then called food and training diaries. And this is quarter of a century ago. Can you believe that, Carlie fucker long ago?
Was that? And when did you meet Paul? Because my daughter's eighteen and I'm sure when you met Paul, I don't think she even born, so it must be no.
Oh no, no, I met Paul, not like close to the turn of the century, like it's twenty twenty four, right, it would have been very two thousands. But even back then, twenty twenty five years ago, even thirty years ago, when I was thirty, all of my clients had diaries, all
of them. All of them had training, food, exercise, lifestyle diaries where sleep, food, micros, macros, energy levels, booze, supplements, medication, coffee, tea, anything that would have an impact on basically performance, health, wellness. Energy was tracked and people used to go to me, why do you bother? And I go because it literally teaches me what works for the individual. You know. So let's say I'm training you on a Monday morning and I haven't seen you since Thursday morning, So then you
rock up with Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So that's ninety six hours of data and then you jump on the bike. I go, just do a warm up, Khli. I look at four pages of information, and then I talk to you about what's going on, and then you become more aware and because you've got to track it and then I'm going to read it. Now you're more accountable and you're more likely to stay on track, and so there's
a whole bunch of benefits. But people would make progress in six months that other people who didn't track anything would not make in two years, because you're literally teaching yourself about your own body physiology and responses, you know, and what works. Oh guess what? When I sleep this much? My energy is a three, my moods are a one. I'm a prec to be around. Oh here's a good correlation or here's a good realization.
Yeah, ask go on, I can say I use that the emotion that for emotions as well. So I will write, but what I will try and do is write it down without the emotions. So this isn't I'm not venting anything. I'm not putting down my emotions well as me. I'm going, okay, I felt this way today, and this is how I
responded to it. And then I'm able to kind of then understand what my response is to these emotions or these negative thought patterns come up, So that I think that's bringing that awareness too, and realizing that if you and it's all that metacognition isn't it is noticing your thoughts and noticing the emotion and then creating that space to be able to go okay, well, I get that that keeps showing up for me, but I don't need to get entangled up in that. I don't need to.
I don't need to allow it to dictate my behavior and what I do. And I find that has been hugely helpful for me.
I love that. I remember thinking, remember having this realization, this is this is not going to be good for my brand, my already dodgy brand. But I remember having this realization, Ah, this is years ago, not that many. I wish it was more years ago, but well even still, every now and then where I go, I'm in a conversation or a situation and I have this little, like fucking voice on my shoulder that goes, ah, what's that about?
And I realize I'm trying to impress someone, Like I realize I'm just putting a bit of mayo on the story or maybe leaving a bit out, you know, and maybe just turning up the volume on the good bits. And then I just I kind of in real time, I get amused at myself at like, you're sixty years old, you're fucking insecure, You're trying to impress someone. The fuck is wrong? With you.
But the good news is real time.
I do it, I literally do it. It's like this, this is true. This happened the other day. So there's this young guy that works at the cafe. He's got a motorbike. It's an a Prillia. It's beautiful, it's I think it's a six sixty. He's young, and I arrived at the cafe at the same time as him. I was on my scooter, which is worth about ten dollars. But I've got three beautiful, amazing, big, expensive, fast, powerful motorbikes at home. Right, he's on his Aprillia. I'm on
my scooter. It took me fucking every ounce of self control not to tell him about my motorbikes. Right, He's looking at my scooter and I'm like, oh god, he's judging me on my scooter. And I'm like, what is wrong with you? And so I just started asking him about his bike and told him and it is it's beautiful, you know, it's amazing, and that, aren't it? And he felt great because he had this awesome thing. And I have this bi shit. I fucking hate self awareness. It's a pain.
Gosh. Well, it just shows you human doesn't it.
I'm very human. A couple of things before we wind up. So we spoke before about it's almost like the busyness badge, you know, the busy badge, Oh, how I'm busy?
Yeah?
Yeah, or the busy brag. It's like it's like being busy is like a good thing. I'm going to brag about how busy I am. What's your take on that? What's your take on this kind of I don't know, the pride that we take in being so busy or telling people that we're busy and wearing it like some kind of social badge of honor or professional badge of honor. Is that I a thought? But what do you think? What do you think that's about?
Yeah, it's a lot of people wrap there identity up in this busyness and their work and kind of aspiring to be successful. And I think I think there's a lot of emphasis on individual success. We used to we used to be more community minded, we used to be more part of the collective, but now it's this individualism and maybe that's where people put this importance on being
busy to show that they're worthy. I think what the danger is and this is something about traditional Japanese culture, which I absolutely love, is that they take so much, They put so much focus and join attention into the small things in life, the everyday thing, so you know, whether it's nature or whether it's just doing whatever you're
doing well. And I think that is something that's overall missing in our Western culture, is slowing down and enjoying the moments that we have today and expanding our perspective of our lives to the amazing things that amazing things we are given from others, but also nature itself and just going outside and just appreciating life. And that's something that I'm started to practice, is to take a lot of joy in the small things and do the small things well.
You said before. I love that. I thought it was about identity as well. So we're on the same page. You said before that stress is not burnout. I think you said kind of this how I took it, that stress is like the pathway to burn out. Yeah, it's like it's the conduit to burn out. So we know what stress is. What is burnout then?
Like?
And I know this is I know people define it in different ways, but what's your explanation to us of or your understanding of burnout.
My understanding of burnout is you get to a point where there's a bit of apathy that you kind of there's a lack of interest in what you're doing, a lack of focus and exhaustion. So that I think that's my take on burnout. And it affects your ability to function or function effectively, isn't it funny?
Yeah? I think it's. Yeah, I'm with you. I think it's also physical, mental, emotional. I think it's all of it, and it's funny. How not lately I haven't had one for a while, But I don't know about you, but some days, not often maybe where are we now, September. I've had maybe five this year where some days I
just feel flat and it's not it's very unme. Maybe four days this year, but every now and then and I don't feel like, I feel sad and I feel flat, and I feel like I don't think I've ever been like, I've never been clinically depressed, but I'm not really like. I'm generally all all the stuff, you know, curious, interested, cheeky.
Annoying, all that, But every now and then I have a day where I'm like, ah, fuck, I feel but it gives me compassion for people because I'm like, this is terrible. I don't know why I feel like this today I can't identify the cause. And then the next day I get up and I'm good, But what do you reckon that's about?
Look?
I think I think that's it's it's normal. And I think we we because we have problem solving minds, we want to solve that problem and go, so, why am I feeling sad? Now there might be whether you're feeling sad or whether you have fear or anxiety, there might be a message there, and so that's a good question to ask. It's like what and maybe rather why am I feeling like this?
Is?
What is this telling me? What is my body telling me? Because a lot of the time, like with anxiety, a lot of the time it's telling you to do something with sad as if you can't work out why you're feeling sad, then I think that's when you just make room for the sadness and stop putting your attention on to trying and problem solve it and go, Okay, well, what's my baseline today? Because normally my baseline's going to be a bit higher, And I can do this, this,
and this and this because I'm feeling great. If you've got lack of energy and you're feeling sad, it's like, okay, what's today's baseline, and you can always do something like you It might be that you don't, you know, do the workout as hard as you normally would, but you can still go and do the workout and modify it
to your energy levels. It might be that you go and just clean out a draw, you know, just do something that there's always there is no point getting so wrapped up in the sadness that it stops you from doing things, because there's always something that you can do. And what happens, and this isn't the end goal here, but what often happens is that once you start to do that thing, then the sadness can dissipate. And I'll give you example of this. My daughter Kira. She's doing
her year twelve. She's studying so hard, and she came home the other day and she's very good at communicating it. She said, I'm just feeling really flat, so I knew she didn't want to talk to me, but she did a good job. We've had this conversation before it's like, Okay, there are going to be days where you are feeling flat, that you're feeling tired. It's big year this year, so let's find strategies of what you're going to do when
you feel like this. So to give her credit, she wasn't that she wasn't sort of snapping at me and being the normal teenager. But what she did do is she took herself off to cross it, and she did with her friend, and at the end of it, she was a different person. So she could have chosen to go into her bedroom and just lie on lie on the bed and just be in the sadness, but she chose to take the sadness with her. She went to her exercise class, and then she felt great.
That is so fucking evolved. I want to be as much as a grown up as Kira. But you know, you also said something else interesting, and this is me craigifying what you said. So if I get it wrong,
correct me. But I feel like, sometimes you know, if we feel sad, or if like sometimes I feel like an impostor, or sometimes there's some self doubt or like, rather than trying to fix it or change it in the moment, just coexist with it and go ah, okay, okay, So you feel a bit anxious, that's all right, it'll go. Lots of people get anxious, You'll be you'll be fine. Or well, you feel a bit of self doubt or
you feel like an impostor that's understandable. That's okay, you know, but that doesn't need to dictate what I do next. Like that doesn't need to define my day, That's right, you know. Yeah, I love that.
I think it's.
Part of that.
I think it's part of that acceptance. Acceptance too is that sometimes you can't have one thing without the other, you know what I mean. It's it's it's like there's always two sides to the coin. So if you really care about something, the other side of the coin of that is anxiety or like nothing that we do really comes with all just the positive stuff, there's always a bit of fear, anxiety or sadness, so that we have
to really understand that that's the balance of life. And so that's where coexisting with this stuff, rather than trying to struggle and fight it really helps. And that's uncomfortable and it's hard, and it's a skill, and it's one that I will. I am still working on, but I think to have that awareness that as part of our human as part of our humanness, we feel this landscape of emotions and some of them are tough and really hard. But if we keep putting our attention on them, that's
when they're going to get even more intense. Because, as you said, attention is energy. So if we can just allow them to be there, but put our energy into other things that are important to us, then we can have that balance there.
You're the best. That's why I get you back, Carli. How can people connect with you? Find you, follow you unless your services?
So Carlie Taylor, it's a mouthful Carlietaylor Coaching dot com dot au. You can follow me on Instagram which is Carlie Taylor Coaching, and I will also plug my Joe Mondays. So every Monday I do just a bit of it. It's really a bit of a coaching tip on the Paul Tayler Podcast. It's just a five minute thing. So yeah, I'm there every Monday.
Perfect Paul Taylor Podcast. Carli Tayler love chatting with you. Appreciate your insight and your input. You are invaluable and I pay you zero. You're welcome, but you know I love you. We'll say goodbye Fair, but for now, thanks Carlie.
Yeah, thanks for having Mesia.