I'm got to agree with this.
Welcome to another installment of you project. It's Fatty Harps. It's Monday morning at seven point thirty seven. I've had my caffeine. I'm fucking good to go. I'm fired. Dr Cam McDonald from the Shay Group, who is an old friend of the show and straight up smarty pants, joins me.
Hi, mate, how are you great?
Thanks Harp.
It's great to be back to man, it's been a little while. It's lovely to see it.
It's been what do you do you reckon? It's been a year or maybe more.
It could be it could be eight en months. I think we were just starting. I think I just started some of the pilot groups in the precision learning stuff that we were doing when I was talking about some learning differences between people last time.
I think now in the last eight ten months, we've got a whole lot of new listeners and a more expansive audience from all over the world and of course primarily Australia. But tell everyone who you are and what you do, and for those like some might have forgotten, but some have never met you.
So give us the Cam story.
Yeah, so it started in Gunder Guy fast forward twelve years, actually twenty years.
I'm in Sydney wanting to do a lot with sports.
Ended up doing exercise and Sports science because I thought exercise and sports science is as close as I can get to sports without being an the lead athlete. And our third year had an incredible moment where an a lecturer started telling me about how you can reverse diabetes with exercise, and I just made this decision in my mind that we needed to reverse diabetes immediately, and why isn't everybody exercising all of the time.
This seems insane that we're not doing it.
And in my last term of my last semester of my four year degree x FIZZ, I found out about nutrients. It had been fairly exercise focused, and I said, geez, I think I should know a little bit more about nutrients. So applied for a dietetics Masters and got in at Griffith up at the Goldie that worked in hospital. Realized that I don't want to support people who have had a heart attack.
I want to prevent them.
So I did my PhD in prevention of chronic disease in individuals that have been through breast cancer treatment.
So we're looking at a Mega three and exercise in that.
And then I was working in private practice realized that I was giving.
People in my research the same.
Protocols and I was seeing completely different responses, like some individuals losing five kilos and they're just loving life, and then another person's working much harder than them and gained a kilo of fat and lost muscle in the same period of time on exactly the same protocol.
And I was seeing that in private practice as well, and that started a.
Journey that sort of took me, took me through my PhD, but it was too late to adjust my study. I've now been in the space of precision health and medicine for the last eleven years, ten years, and what I do now is I educate health professionals, I educate corporates, schools, gyms, pretty much anybody who will listen for at least five minutes on how we're different. So how we are genetically different,
biologically different, finotypically different. That is the expression of our genes and if we can measure that, And this is what we've been doing for the last twenty years as an organization at Shay Group.
Is what makes you different?
And how can we quantify that so that we can provide the best possible thing for you in that moment, because your requirements are always changing as well, and so it's morphed from any journey of oh you got to eat more spinach and you've got to lift that weight to what is it to be a human on the planet? Like, what are all of these signals that are coming into our body? How do we interpret them with our mind, with our body? What makes life incredible? And the answer
is ultimately getting back to yourself. If you unders down yourself and if you can then contribute to others, then you're under a winner. So all of the work is about elevating people's awareness around themselves, how they can contribute, how they can be the healthiest self, regressing disease as a whole lot of research going on at the same time.
So that's a brief summary.
We have a guy another guy on who's almost as brilliant. Know, he's just as brilliant as you, I'll say you the same, doctor Bill Sullivan from the States, and he's a researcher and also brilliant. We were talking the other day about essentially, you know, something works for everybody, but not everything works for everybody, So you've got to find you something, you know what I mean.
And it's like, especially on the fucking interwebs.
Cam you're probably not familiar with the into webs, but there's this thing called social media. And if you pay attention to social media every second, fucker's got some product that's going to fix everyone, some single product that's going to universally fix every ailment known to person kind. And like it's so it's like when even when people say to me, from an excise physiology point of view, what's the best way to you know, fill in the blank,
and I go, well, for who? Because the best way to achieve, you know, to put on muscle for you won't be the same as me, won't be the same as that lady over there or that guy over there or and and you know, and even then you go, well, even if we get say that the strength training stuff right, or the muscle building stuff right from a lifting point of view, then there's all the other variables, the genetics, the sleep, the nutrition, the stress, the anxiety, that there's
all of the other variables which impact recovery and hypertrophy. And like people keept like you and I don't want to overcomplicate it because then we just alienate people. But at the same time, this kind of group think that happens on the internet, which is or here's here's a thing that will create that outcome for you, it just ain't.
True, is it?
Well exactly, and I mean to your point, if you watch social media very very closely, you end up on a high fat, low fat, high protein, high carb low carb diet that involves hit training and strength training in the same session and endless endurance but no endurance. It's and then, as you were saying, it's what's been so fascinating and probably going back to our first ever podcast,
we're talking about chronobiology. Even the timing of when you do these activities can actually be the difference between if you get a result and if you don't. And then the mental stress that plays down into your body and influences your results as well. And everybody has a different thing that's going to stress the mentally. So just this
idea that you've got to find exactly your something. It is incredibly complex, and there is a really really simple path, and that is go and meditate on a mountain for three years and you'll find yourself and this is this is where we're trying to essentially, is what modern medicine is trying to do. It's trying to shorten the path back to you. But we lost our way with just trying to look at one chemical and one product and
one pathway and one drug. It's you've got to look at the whole system and how that's interacting together.
And that's where the complex it is.
But that's also where you know, we have an inner intelligence that allows us to get there too. It just it can be assisted by a lot of these new things that I'm fortunate to work with these days.
Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. Before we jumped on the show, I said, what have you been up to? And you told me a few things. I said, let's talk about that because I think people will be interested. So just repeat for my group what you're telling me that you've been kind of opening the door on recently, and let's have a chat. Yeah.
Yeah, going back a bit to the piece around like, oh no, I was a dietitian. Everything in my focus was I've just got to get this person to eat the right food, and I would essentially assess them as a person and I would get them to assess themselves as a person based on am I putting the right vegetable into my mouth?
Yes?
And what I've what's been so clear and I guess in my own personal development, but also just watching how people interact with health at a much bigger scale and what I always wonder one the I've been so fascinated by what truly makes a person happy because it's not your weight, it's not your food, it's not your exercise, it's not your relationships, it's not the place you live. But it's a combination of all of those things, and
then who you are in it too. And when you start looking at some of the research around someone having purpose, you know, there's every philosophy from ancient to modern has some sort of you've got to have a purpose. Then there's also this whole thing around love and relationships and the importance of community and connection and how important that is for survival. Whether it be in nursing homes or blue zones, it's all the same. You need connection to be to feel like you're living and to have a
meaningful life. And then there's also the idea of flow, which is this I guess in a way a fancy. It's not a buzzword, but it is. It's a real physiological state of doing the thing in your strength and feeling like the world has just disappeared and the only thing that exists is this front thing in front of you right now, with a transcendence of time and all
a euphoric state of productivity and contribution. So what was so fascinating about all of those things is in each of those things you feel like you are completely alive. Like when you love, you feel like you're completely alive. When you're living on purpose and you have a really clear purpose, you feel like you're alive when you are in flow.
It's a holy crap.
That felt so good, And it's sort of come to the point of thinking, why are we not chasing this feeling all of the time? You know, and how much of our education is actually about purpose, how much of it is about connecting with a person incredibly deeply, how much of it is about, Hey, what's the what are your natural strengths and what's the best way that we can bring them to life with what you can do and mastery and get you into flow so that you
are absolutely flowing. We compromise, We as a society, we don't focus on the things that truly make us happy. And what gets me excited from a physiological standpoint, being the slight science nerd that I am, is that the physiological signature, so the chemicals that release and the system, the blood pressure and all of those blood sugar levels
and quarterisle levels. Whenever you look at each of those states purpose, flow, and love, they have almost identical signatures except for the one individual kind of chemical that they speak to that represents that thing I want, which we can get into, I'm sure, and the I guess it's sort of helped me come to a point where I'm thinking, well, if we're going to be talking about anything, why wouldn't we be talking about I'm talking about just in general,
Why wouldn't we be talking about what actually truly brings you happiness? Because as a dietician, the best meal plan didn't really bring someone happiness.
It was It's a much greater thing than that.
But what's so fascinating about it is to get into that physiological state is actually different for everybody as well. What love is to one person is very different to another person, what flow is it, etc. So that was the preamble probably longer than what you planned, mate, but that's the preamble to my thought process.
I love it.
I love it well, all of those things I wrote them down, happiness, purpose, love, connection, flow. Yeah, they're intertwined and like what I find interesting ause you come. I mean, obviously, originally I came from an exercise science space, but the last while more I think about the head stuff, the psychology of it all. When I'm talking to someone about happiness.
You know, we've got right now, thousands of people will listen to this and even the word happiness, Like you think about a word, and so what the state that I might be in or the feeling that I might have Craig Harper and I attach that label. I mean, it's just a word that we use to describe a state, psychological, emotional, physiological, you know. And for me, I have this feeling or this sensation that I'm in and I call that happiness or I call that contentment, or I call that joy,
or I call that calm. Now, you and I unlikely, But let's say in some alternate universe we're in the exact same state, but we each have a different label for it. Yeah, because there's that, you know, that cognitive, educational, philosophical window through which we analyze and interpret shit and I go, oh, I'm happy, and you go, yeah, I'm just joyful. Or so there's that there's that other other than all the physiological individuality, there's that cognitive, emotional, psychological
perception stuff. That's that that's interwoven in all.
Of this, right, absolutely, and it's absolutely and it's and as you were saying so many of those things. It's what we've found is that there's the like the genetic differences that we have, the biological differences that we have, can determine you know, someone running up a hill and about to vomit is euphoria for one person because their brain is so geared towards that pain. And I know that's a little bit different to what you're saying, but
I'll come background on it. Whereas another person it is the worst possible experience of their life to be almost vomiting, running up a hill, trying to do exercise. It just
feels like the world is collapsing on them. At the same time, you have two people that are you know, sitting down on their birthdays, surrounded by their friends, feeling lots of love, and in the expression of that as well, someone just get One person gets really really excited and wants to explode and shout and sing, and another person wants to is completely exhausted by all of that attention and connection and need to have a two hour break
away from everybody because it's actually so expensive for their energy as well. So it's yeah, these are the It's the beautiful thing is that our experience is so different and probably talking to many different people, like primarily health professionals, corporate schools, there is the first assumption that everybody is different to you is something that is so hard to get your head around, and it's to truly sit in empathy and to really understand what somebody is feeling. It
takes an incredible amount of self awareness and mindfulness. It's the assumption that other people think the way that we do, and therefore the disconnection that we have with them as a result is it's so big and the it's even in this space for so long, understanding what it's like to be in somebody else's feeling is it's it's it takes a long time, and it's taken me a long time to even get a whisper of it in a real way that you know.
Thinking that people think like us. There's a name for that. It's called the false consensus effect, you know, where we automatically assume that because we speak the same language and you and me are both blokes and we're both into that. Whatever I might assume like, I wouldn't because I'm this is my area of research. But I typically typical people, which is not bad, of course, It's just the human experience.
We think that others think like us, and so therefore we get surprised when, for example, our intention is not their experience. Yes, it's like, oh, I was just giving I was just helping Cam.
That was my intention.
Cam's experience was why the fuck is this guy always give me feedback I haven't asked for? Or why is this guy interfering? You know, there's that real disconnect between what I think I'm putting out into the world, whether that's an individual or a million people on a podcast, what I think I'm putting out and what the individuals are receiving. And not only just to add another layer of complexity and curiosity, is that everyone that's listening is getting something different.
Absolutely that idea as well, is so.
I have an incredible amount of compassion for it because I'm still in it in many ways, like.
I still have the default thought with.
My ten year old child that they're going to pick up what I'm putting down, like I'm saying no because I love you, and they are saying I definitely hate you right now, and that's not my intention. And I used to rest on that a lot, you know, even speaking personally, like, well, my intention is good, so everything will work out.
But it's just not the case.
You just don't know what a person's history is and what they've experienced and how they've interpreted what you've said. And that's probably one of the more fascinating things that has really dawned on some of the reading that I've been doing in preparation for talks and things like that, just around this idea of purpose, and in the Western world, it is purpose is what am I going to do? What am I here for? What's my goal in life?
What's going to mean that my life is meaningful? And what's so fascinating when you go back through the Eastern philosophies of purpose, which which speaks to what we're talking about here, and that is their philosophy on purpose is what is my role in the community, What are the things that I'm great at? And how can I contribute those things to the community. And from that frame it is so different. And when you think about your intention,
it's well, your intention doesn't matter in that context. What matters is what am I here in the community for? And yes, that has been that. It was a particularly powerful moment for me to read that to actually it completely changed so much of my thinking about what my
purpose is and where my focus is. And I was wondering why I was feeling so unsatisfied for a couple of years focusing on a purpose that was just mine rather than thinking about the role that I'm here to play in the various people in my life and the people that I connect with. And in that way, if we're thinking about purpose in that perspective, it starts helping us navigate this idea of intention and what's received.
Yeah, I love it. So there's a framework that there's very similar things around. I kind of expanded on a version of it which I'm doing a Monday night mentoring group, and we went through it not last week, the week before shout Out to my mentees.
And it's kind of this. It's almost.
An exercise in trying to understand yourself, right, And it starts with self reflection, no judgment, just fucking.
Oh why did I do that? What's that about? Or why am I? Oh? Right now I'm trying to impress cam. Oh what's that about? You know? Just awareness?
Right?
But where's that coming from?
Or just reflection and then the awareness, oh, this is what I'm doing this, And then it goes through self knowledge and then the last two you'll like. So there's eight steps. You don't need me to send it to you, but I'm happy to send it to you because it fits in with your stuff, right. The second last one is self actualization, which is you becoming kind of the best version of you and you starting to fulfill your potential and tick the boxes and reach goals and all
that kind of stuff. But the last one is self transcendence, yes, which is about you having a purpose and an awareness and a reason bigger than you.
Yes.
And this is where the fucking great stuff happens, you know, because we're so much in our culture, very much about self actualization. Me me, me me, I want to be the best me I want to be this me.
I want to be that me. I want to reach my goals.
I want to fulfill my potential. That's cool, that's cool. But the next one is like, I want to be all that. I want to serve and I want to you know, I want to have a purpose and an awareness and a reason, like I said, bigger than the self that sits in the middle of my life.
Yeah.
Absolutely, And so just picking up on a few of those points the self awareness piece. This is what's so fascinating about the personalization thing in that if you compare yourself to like, let's say that you're both going through the same emotion, like we were talking about before, and you compare yourself to, Oh why am I feeling that way?
The answer is so different for each of us. And some individuals are.
Naturally fiery, they're naturally competitive, they're naturally direct, they're naturally just say first and think later. And compared to somebody else, like they might be in a partnership with somebody who's incredibly calm, considerate, they like to take time on their thoughts. They only say what they truly mean. And when you've got those two people in a room and they're trying to understand each other, and they're coming from both of
their frames of reference. One person saying, why an't you just more energized, Why don't you just to have a go, Why don't you just take a chance, And the other person's thinking, you waste so much energy, you know, you know, doing all of these things and trying lots of new things and not sticking to one thing and whatever it might be, and just you can end up thinking what's wrong with me?
And I see this with food as well. You know, some individuals are doing.
Their five meals per day paleo diets and getting to boot camps in the morning, and then they put on three kilos and getting the injury, and then all I have to do is actually do a completely different protocol of food, which is, you know, three meals a day and wait training in the afternoon and slow cardio in the morning, and all of their dreams come true health wise.
When it comes to that self awareness piece, we aren't educated in truly understanding all of the different factors to us because and that's just the biological piece, is that we are genuinely physically different, and then it infiltrates how we then interpret ourselves, whether we judge ourselves, whether we accept ourselves. And so when it comes to that concept for me of self actualization and self transcendence, it's not about being great like your hero or whatever it might be.
It's actually about really really knowing your strengths, really knowing the things that provide you energy, knowing the things that make your body feel best. It's doing all of those things routinely and then and then understanding how you can bring your gifts but also recognizing somebody else's gifts at the same time. And this is where you get that beautiful combination of purpose and connection all happening at the same time.
Truly, we have the the.
Mechanics, the intellect, and the knowledge to truly have an incredibly blissful existence on this planet, and we create so much noise as we are lost in all of a lack of self awareness, a lack of self acceptance at a core level.
Yeah, so good, dude, I like it.
I'm always interested in the conversation around identity in relation to what we're talking about, because that who am I? That's you know, the self that like, what the fuck am I about?
What's my reason? What's my purpose. Who am I?
But in our I'm generalizing here, so listener, this might not be you. But for a lot of people, their identity is about their stuff. It's about their body, it's about their brand, it's about their balance, about their job, about their reputation, it's about their fucking the number of podcast listeners. What are you saying, harps nothing, fuck off? You know, it's about all of that stuff that other
people can see. I get my sense of self, or I get my identity from knowing that I'm right by the way, I'm in the One True Church.
We're going to heaven. You're not. You know, I'm in the light, you're in the darkness.
Blah blah, all that kind of all of that external stuff of trying to understand the self, and then one day you find out that something that you believed is bullshit, something that your identity was intertwined with, and then you're fucked because you go, well, shit, if that's not true, then who am I? Because that's been part of you know, my existence and my purpose and myself.
Yes, absolutely, and yes, and that's a it's a mismatch of.
What identity is and what my immediate purpose.
It's describing the identity as a being in it's who you are as opposed to what you do. Then the purpose it is the personification or that the action related to that, and probably the thing that came up for me and I guess I'm just turning some things over my mind as we talk. Here was the transition from working professional partner into mum and the identity crisis that happens at that point because we mix up the idea that.
What we're doing is our identity and at the core of things.
And this is what we see genetically, is that people become more like their.
Genes as they age. So the longer that.
You're on the planet, the more predictable your personality is compared to your genetics. So it's like our whole life, we are discovering our genetic makeup. And an example of that is, let's say that you've got some testoster and sensitivity.
You will know that you're more competitive than other people.
You'll know that you're more aggressive, you'll know that you're more direct, and that's a genetic marker that creates a receptor that influences the way that your body responds to things. And that's there, and you discover that and become more comfortable with it over time, and you get criticized for it, and then you question yourself and you get very confused
about who you are and then you realize. And probably one of the other things as well that you see is people when they start to interpret and get the information on oh, this is my makeup, this is this is my natural biological self. The things that they thought they were they now know that they are. And there's a huge sense of grounded relief that comes along with the sense of knowing rather than an inkling and questioning as to.
Oh, should I be like that? Do I like waking up later? You know?
I mean, I guess I get up early, but do I really know? Actually, I just love waking up later. I love being more relaxed in the morning. Like that's who I am. I am a thinker, or I do act impulsively, whatever it may be. So I've definitely lost the train of thought of well, that's her identity and purpose. And so when we're looking at identity, even at children, like the level of children, is that this biology and
these responses e genetic influencers are actually playing out. But what we see is that kids represent about their personality is fifteen percent genetics when they're younger, and that's because they are constantly monitoring the environment to say, how do I fit in? How do I survive? And what we're doing right now is we're helping children understand, hey, this is your makeup right here, and you can do some
incredible things with that. And that child over there they've got a different makeup too, and they're going to do some incredible things with that too. The more sure you are of yourself earlier on, in an accepting, an encouraged, and a celebrated way, stress that you'll be under because when you feel like you are yourself when you're and this is where you're in your strength, and this is essentially flow. You get this incredible release of nora adrenaline
and don't meant to make you alert. You also get more serotone to make you calm. You also get low cortisol and a better heart rhythm that indicates lower stress. So you're calm and attentive and focused, and that's where great stuff happens. That's where flow happens. If you add in an andamide, which is the cannabinoid sort of reward hormone, then it's flow. If you add in oxytocin and it's
happening with somebody else, then it's love. And the for a person to sit in their strengths and be competitive because they're competitive and direct, and then somebody else to say, geez I love your competition, geez I love your directness, it firms up their identity. And so when they become a mum, and this is what we see with this type of individual. Normally, this kind of person have a really intense, short attention span and they don't want to
sit with their child all day long. They just want to like interact with them and then leave because they're like, Okay, I'm a little bit bored now. This child's just lying down for six months NonStop and I'm not going to survive through that.
So but them knowing it's.
Like, oh, I'm competitive and intense and I like high intensity action and then I like rest. And they realize that their identity still exists. Their purpose has changed and now they've got a high intensity interval look after their child. And if they do that, if they bring their natural sense of self to the activity that they're.
Doing, it informs them and then allows them to stay and flow.
But normally because we have norms around this new change of who you've got to be and what you've got to do as a new mother or whatever it might be. It's just a really clear identity change that I see a lot.
Then it creates a whole lot.
Of confusion if I was this person and now I can't be that person. But in fact, the essence of who you are still there, and it's a matter of just knowing that, and then you can apply it to your next immediate purpose, which is now looking after a child, which wasn't your purpose, you know, two years before.
That's so interesting. I think that we're always that, you know. It's funny this which I.
Know exactly why you said it, because it gets said all the time, whereas people go, I was that person now and this person. No, you're the same person. You're the same You're still you, You're still one hundred percent you. You're just maybe have a different focus, you maybe have a different reason you maybe have you know. But like I think the idea of purpose is. I think it's important, but I also think it's complicated and it's confused.
This is just a personal opinion. This is not research.
I think it's misrepresented because the idea of you know, find your purpose, find your purpose.
I can watch your purpose like you're.
Going to find it under some mystical, magical, ethereal rock. You're going to go, fuck hey everyone, And I've been looking like a motherfucker. It's over here, behind this cave, under this rock. Ye. Firstly, maybe you choose your purpose, right, Maybe there's that, maybe you just go. And also maybe you don't have a single purpose. Maybe maybe you don't have one purpose. Maybe you live a really full, fucking rich life with a bunch of different things that stimulate you and light you up.
And also, by the way, Craig Harper.
Maybe your purpose when you're thirty five or thirty and owning gyms and running around the gym floor like a fucking idiot. Maybe maybe your purpose then isn't your purpose now when you're sixty. Maybe maybe things evolve and changes, You evolve and change, and you know, so I think I think in our culture there's probably an unintentional but nonetheless.
A very real pressure on people to fucking discover their purpose.
By Tuesday Camp, Yeah, totally and completely, and that is we have many purposes not only in this moment in time right now, but also as things progress.
What can be helpful is that if you've got essential theme that.
Feels really, really good, and this is where I believe that there's a co creation that goes on. There's natural gifts that you're imbued with, there's also your conscious choice that you have, and generally you'll find yourself doing something. If you're feeling very, very purposeful, you will find yourself doing something that is aligned with your natural gifts, which you had no choice in, but also feels intellectually and philosophically right to you. And there's a co creation of
your nature and your nurture at the same time. And to the point of the multiple purposes that you think about, if we're trying to find that physiology of attention with calm and low stress, if you are at home and trying to work and you've got five kids running around that desperately want your attention and you also want to be a great parent and an attentive parent, working at
home is incredibly stressful and it's not productive. You're not going to be in flow your purpose right then and there, you're not fulfilling.
It by.
Attending to your children, and that takes that tension away, that leans into obviously something that you've co created that exists these children, and also your natural want to be there and the.
Hormones that are related to that as well.
By you attending to your children and you know, lifting them up and creating a great foundation for them of love, whatever it might be in that moment, that's incredibly purposeful, and your body will show that in its physiology.
I actually feel better.
Looking after my kids than I do trying to be distracted looking after them doing work. Whereas when you go to work, you know you're not running around padding people on the back, I mean you could or you know, giving kisses and telling them much you love. Like you want to get into your office or you want to get into your space, and you want to be as productive and as useful as possible and moving towards the
outcomes that you're looking for in your job. In that your immediate purpose in that moment is not your kids. In fact, your kids will be a distraction once again and work is now the priority. If you go to the beach, you know your purpose shifts once again.
And I guess there's a the way that I like to think of it.
And again this is in part stuff that I've read and in part of the things that I agree with, and that is goals in cement plans, in sands's if you get a sense, a persistent sense of the type of thing that you want to show up for, and normally it's quite broad like for me, I want to inspire elevation. I want people to know themselves better and live their potential.
And so that is my central theme, which has changed a few.
Times over the years, and as I've grown and as I've developed and understood more, and then I'm acting on that purpose in a different way with my kids, in a different way with my work, and I'm not perfect with it, of course, but in a different way with my team, in a different way with our clients. It's the way that I show up is constantly changing, but it has a central theme, a central governing sense that allows me to have a north star. And so everybody's
going to have a different interpretation of that. But even just probably a huge thing that I'm a thing that I'm finding is so relieving to people is that your your purpose is allowed to change, so you might have a purpose that's our data, they're not inspiring you anymore, and you might just be sticking to it, thinking this is what I've got to do, when in fact you have aged, you have grown, you have seen different things.
There are more things that are present in your life now, and as a result, your purpose must change in order for you to get that same sensation of I'm on track and this is where one more thing, mate, I know I'm going on.
But there is.
This idea that even if you don't like what I love is the commonversation for people that don't believe that there's a purpose, You don't need a purpose, or it's not important, whatever it might be, and it actually doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what your beliefs are. If you have the physiology of focus, calm, focus, with motivation, drive and low stress levels, then you're on purpose and you'll also
it will also mean that you recover better overnight. And I mean to make it simple, you'll live a longer and happier life because your sleep will be better, your digestion will be better, your recovery will be better because you've got the physiology that's not as stressed. Whereas if you're not on purpose and you only need to be in a relationship that's a little bit misaligned to experience.
What this is.
If you're not on purpose, you don't sleep as well, you don't eat as well, you don't move as well, you don't recover as well. Things don't feel as easy, things feel more tiring. And that is a way crap a version of life. So whatever gets you into that space, I feel like I was built for this moment that if you can strive for that in whatever that looks like, and it's different for everybody.
Something.
And I was sitting with some school teachers the other day and we've done their biological assessment. One of them hyper oxytocin sensitive, so everything is about socializing.
And another individual she was virtually the opposite to that, very introverted, and we were talking about when of you felt purposeful in the last little while, and the introverted.
Person says, I was reading my book and then I did some coding by myself in a dark room by about seven hours or for about seven hours, just really enjoying my and just that intellectual stimulation of doing.
My own work.
And I was like, that's amazing, Like what an incredible flow. She was describing the calm, focused, low strands. And then the very super social person with the oxytocin variat got in and she said, oh yeah, we were like playing games.
With the kids.
We were doing like a new game every five minutes, Like all of the kids were going absolutely nuts making all of this noise, and we were just in there having a great time with them. I felt completely inflow. I felt completely purposeful, like I was built for this moment. And so just whatever that is to you. And this is where you know, we now have a lot more science that helps us understand this so that you can
navigate to the biology of this a lot faster. But think about those times in your life where you have been like I was made for this moment right here, and they're a nice thing to reflect on, the stepping stones to get to, well, what could be creating that sensation for me right now? Because that right there is that's life like, that is what we are here for. That's what our capacity, our potential is here for.
To just feel.
Incredibly rewarded living the moment that we're in.
That's what it's all about.
You don't get excited about this stuff enough, you need to put it up.
I'm just dragging myself outside.
You need hard you know, I was thinking about as you were talking about, you know, how different we all are and how we need different things and respond to different or the same thing in different.
Ways, and blah blah blah.
Like a really good example of this, which I'm sure you've experienced, this is as a speaker. Most people who aren't speakers, which is most people you don't, you wouldn't think much that you can be up saying something to a group. And because I've done it so much and I'm in front of so many groups, I've done it for forty years and I've read rooms pretty I still fuck up. I still have good and bad days, but for the most part, it's somewhere between not bad and
pretty good most of the time. Right So, and I'm very interactive and I'm way more fucking organic and freestyle than most presenters. I don't have slides, I don't have graphs, not that there's anything wrong with that. But what's interesting is sometimes I look out and I could tell I can go that dude fucking loves me, and that laid your next team fucking hates me, and that one next
day she thinks I'm hilarious. The next one's confused, you know, And you can just tell that on the same day, in the same room, shit, the same guy with the same intention, the same energy, sharing the same message. So everyone's got the same inbound stimulus, right kind of. But there are so many different experiences being had and you're like, yeah, this is how it works, and I can almost I can you know sometimes ago that lady up the back of that dude, they're gonna they have a problem with me.
And then sometimes you'll just see him walking up to you at the end and you're like, here we go, here we go.
You know, it's okay.
It's like that's literally that's the reality, you know, that is you are. It's like you you've got a team, You've got staff. Like I don't know about you, but for me, I employed hundreds and hundreds of people, and there would be certain staff members God bless them. There might be in a like a gym where I've got forty staff, there might be three staff members that take ninety percent of my energy and the other thirty seven
take ten. Yeah, and it's like that consistently, you know, So that like when you were saying purpose changes and I was thinking of a couple of other things.
Is that one.
It's okay, Like uncertainty is okay, Like we are so addicted to We've got to know, we've got to be right, We've got to be certain. Things have got to be familiar things. I've got to be. No, it doesn't have to be. Here's an idea, just try this. I don't know, Like I don't know, and it's okay, what do you think? I don't know because we feel so compelled to look fucking smart. I've so many times going, look, I could make something up, but I actually don't know.
So I'm just going to go with I don't know. And also, here's another one. Here's a good et. I was wrong, just fucked it up.
I was wrong. There was some strange combination of words. You just mentioned what there was the three of them. Iand I know, I know.
It's I know it's fucking weird, but you know, And the thing is that I would be a moron, and I would be the most arrogant man on earth to think that I'm not currently getting things wrong, because I've always got something wrong. Not all the things all the time, right, but I have Yes, I've had some wins and I've
got some things right. But if I speak to the guys doing a PhD and self awareness, if I'm not saying right now, more than likely I'm getting several things wrong in some way, and moving forward, I will continue to fuck up. I'll also try to grow and learn and evolve and serve people. But will I get things wrong? Will I operate an ego? Will I fuck up?
Yes? I will like that. Just to me, that just takes a bit of pressure.
Off totally and probably one of the best lessons that a really powerful mentor gave to me. He's still my chief mentor is. I don't know if I'll ever outgrown him. Actually, he is an incredible man. He it's that when you don't know, you will still feel something and you'll still have thoughts on it, and you'll still have a belief about something. And what's really helped is because we don't truly know, Like even if you think you know, you don't know, because anything could happen.
There can be a sense of knowing in your body if you allow.
And the way that he explained it was like if you've got traffic lights that are saying go and stop on some decisions, you'll have a couple of amber lights, a green light and a hard red light, you know, and then on other decisions you'll go, you know what,
everything's green on that I'm going to do it. And that's been a really really powerful exercise for me to say, well, I don't know what's ultimately going to happen, but if I was, And it encourages you to actually tap into an intuition, tap into your deeper feelings, tap into what you might what might be best for you to say, if I was to do this, do I feel aligned with you know? Does it it doesn't make sense?
Yes? Does it feel good?
Yes?
Is it?
Do I think it's it's right for the people around me? It's like green light, green light, green light.
Well, that that's good. That's as good as it gets, like as far as knowing and confidence becomes. That is it? But then what's so fascinating about that self awareness?
And we haven't touched on it just because it's pend I mean, not for any particular reason. But you might have a fear from your childhood or the last relationship that you had that creates an amber or a red and.
This is where it's only in that quieter space.
It's only in that state of where where you feel connected, where you feel loved, where you feel purposeful, that often you can start to separate out what is fear from before and what is actually real and you know it's it's it's you can't undo trauma with additional stress. You've actually you've got to be in a space of love. You've got to be in a space of calm. You've got to be a space of connection.
And so.
I didn't expect to say this by the end of this little paragraph, but this is the importance of having a routine of where you're connecting with yourself, not to fix a problem, not to necessarily be focused on your purpose, but the ten minutes of deep breathing to understand your internal world, to navigate what those those feelings are, so that when you actually do need to call upon them,
you've got a familiarity. It's just mindfulness is just a muscle, and that when it comes to purpose, it's this is a feeling that is unique to you.
That is.
That that someone else can't instruct you to. It's got to be something that you feel out for yourself. And the pathway to that is actually connecting. This is what I'm because there is a vast lack of this education in schools right now, and it's this this term I'm actually really really We're going to be building in mindful routines into part of the research progra that we're doing, so five year old kids will have their personalized mindfulness
routine before they start school. But that this is the this is where it needs to be because it's that internal sense of knowing that you can have confidence and you say, you know what, I don't know, but it feels and thinks and looks like green lights, so let's see. And then it's you know, it's the moving forward without expectation of result, but just giving it your best and seeing what happens.
Yeah.
Yeah, And I think I think for some people that that vulnerability, that vulnerability of being okay with being wrong, and especially when as we were talking about before with Ida, especially when your identity is tied in with some a certain thing being a certain way, then you find, you know, like religious stuff is an easy example, just because you know, I grew up or whatever, we grew up in this theology or this doctrine or this philosophy, and we know we are this or that you know, we are the
one true hotline to God or whatever the you know. And when you take out the religion and the theology and you just think about it from a cognitive point of view or a metacognitive point of view, Oh, we think this way. I think this way because Mum and Dad think this way, and Uncle John and Arnie Marge think this way, and the pastor thinks this and all the people in my world think this way. So I haven't actually been taught how to think. I've been told
what to think, and now I think that. And so this when I get to the end of my programming, and then I open a door into self awareness and consciousness, Like this is the interesting Like where does my programming finish? And where does my ability to think for purely for myself, to think critically and whether or not what I think aligns with those around me or not?
What do I think?
And it's very fucking difficult to overcome your programming for all of us, me included. Right, I haven't been to church essentially for forty years, but I grew up in a very very churchy life, and so there's still psychologe
and I'm not saying it was bad. It wasn't all fucking terrible or anything, but there's this still there's this residual where there are certain things that if I'm talking about certain things a certain way, I feel this discomfort or this guilt, and I'm like, oh, wow, that's interesting. Forty years later, there's still shit I'm uncomfortable to say. But just in case God smites me from the face of the earth or something, you know, it's so interesting
to realize how much of that stuff lives on. Probably you're going to tell me in ourselves, but it's fucking and trying to trying to be I don't know if the word is aware enough or courageous enough or curious enough to go, look, maybe a lot of what I think, or some of what I think is flawed or.
You know, somewhat flawed.
It's an interesting door to open because it opens It's very hard to be objective when you believe that, or open minded when you believe that you are already right. So therefore anyone who doesn't agree or align with my version of right is wrong. So now I've made myself unteachable. Now I'm living in confirmation bias. The echo chamber of Craig.
Yeah, as you were. As you were talking there, I was thinking about that.
Like to think of it.
The way that I've kind of or thought about this and been supportive to think about this as well, is the past experience that we have personally. I'll give an example one person that's come through one of our health professional courses, very fiery, direct type of individual, with very subdued, grounded, steady parents and didn't realize that they'd been suppressing him his whole life out of care and love, that we need a grounded, quiet, calm, considered child because that's who we are.
And then he has this complete realization moment, you.
Know, really only two years ago, by understanding his makeup is actually fiery and freedom and taking chances and being impulsive, and he's been living in this conflict and it's just been building up and creating an incredible amount of stress in his system. And the release of that was absolutely crazy like, and the mid life crisis almost that followed because it's like, well, I don't have the things that
I felt safe with anymore. Now I've actually I understand myself and with that freedom comes a whole lot of unknown and I'm not used to this new muscle that I have, so that first the first thing is just the most loving, well intended people. If they don't understand your differences, they can be completely different to you, and they projected onto you.
And this is what happens with kids.
And this is what's so exciting about working with schools, and that is we are telling them to like, this is this child, and when they explode, it needs to in an indirect way, needs to be validated and celebrated as to why they did that, rather than just you are the wrong child and you've done the wrong thing whatever it might be, which then creates this conflict in them of like, oh, I did this thing that felt natural to me.
I've been told that that's wrong. She's what's wrong with me?
Like this is the story that gets created rather being around people that allow you to just that proactively encourage you to be yourself. So I know that you are a really quiet person.
Like my mum.
She's the introvert of introverts, and it's like, hey mum, go take some time by yourself.
Hey mom, Like, go and have a lie theut.
Hey mom, go and get into a dark room where you can just dull your senses down.
Like being encouraged to be yourself. There's another my niece actually over over the weekend.
She just talks so much and so fast, and her thinking is brilliant. She's really really sharp. She thinks about things in the right way, but the way that she says it really grinds on a number of family members and just to tell her, Hey, what you're thinking is exactly right, and it's actually amazing what comes out of your mouth, because most of the time at school she's been told her you got to be quiet, like no
one wants to hear right now, and so old. It's eleven, she's eleven, and so she's building this story of geez, I'm rambling, Like if someone lets her actually talk, she'll say, oh, I'm rambling now. I said no, no, no, this is good. But she's so used to being stifled. And so it's what would it be like? And it might seem even unrealistic for you to celebrate and support children that are acting poorly, for example, it might feel like unrealistic to
do that. But what I would like everybody to reflect on is what would it feel like if or who is that person who just loves me? No matter what, I can just be the whatever kind of person that I want to be, and no matter what, they go, Oh, you're such a legend. Let's go get another champagne. Let's just this is just the best. I love when you get all fired up.
This is the best.
You know.
Yeah, no, they are assholes. I totally agree with you. Give me a gimme a five.
Whatever it might be, What is it like to be around that person, to have that level of support in who you are? And that's essentially everything that we're trying to do is help people be more informed about who you are, why you do the things that you might be, and how can I provide you the most amount of
celebration just for being you. I don't know where I started all of this or where this began, but it's definitely like a really key message that we're driving into the world at the moment, and that is who you are is exactly right. And if you've got people around you that allow you to be you, it's amazing how you course correct naturally just because you're calmer and you coming out of stress and you're resolving things that may have happened in the past by being surrounded by that
love as well. So this whole idea about identity and supporting people to be themselves, giving them the space to then find their purpose and use their natural strength.
That's what it's all about.
But we've come full circle. I love it. I love it. I don't know if you've heard of a book called called Bad Therapy.
No. So, there's a lady called Abigail Shreier, I think that's her name. She wrote a book called Bad Therapy. Lots and lots of research, interviewed hundreds and hundreds of therapists and psychs.
And blah blah blah blah blah.
Anyway, that the takeaway from the book, the key takeaway is that for some people, talk therapy is brilliant, and for some people it's catastrophic. It's like everyone thinks that I am going to a psychologist or a therapist and talking about your shit. At the very least it will
help a bit. And one of the outcomes of the book, or one of the revelations the book, is that no, actually, for some people rocking up every Tuesday a bough at three o'clock and talking about that thing that happened five years ago, it actually makes you worse because you just open the door on that trauma and you just get back into that and it takes them three four days to recover from a session, and they're not actually overall
going forwards, they're going backwards. Which is not to say, don't misinterpret me, folks that talk therapy is bad, but for some people it ain't the answer. And I think this is back to our original thing is like something works for everyone, but not everything works for everyone. You know, find you something you know.
One hundred percent. And some of the work that a couple of our psychics are doing in the moment is what kind of talk therapy is going to be best, because some individuals, even if they've gone really bad, need to be complimented, even if there've been an absolute asshole.
They need to be told how great they are, and then that makes them come back into balance, whereas sitting in the criticism and getting their ego bashed makes them worse, makes them angry, makes them more frustrated, make some more shut down.
But actually the therapy for them is just being told how great they are.
Jeez, I love how you've thought about that. And let's let's think to the future. What are the things that we're going to approach in the future that we're going.
To really make great. Let's not worry about the past at all. Let's actually just focus on the future.
As other people really learn so much from going back into their past and they can process it and digest it.
So I hear you.
Completely and even you know, some more enlightened sychs actually go out and they do walking talkies where they know they've got somebody who's more mindful or more more mobile, and they love the idea of moving, and so they get them to move their body while they're talking. And it's interesting. My son is exactly that. He's a talker and a walker. And if we're sitting in a car, I'll say, hey, mate, let's talk about that, because I know that it's important for him to talk about stuff.
To get off his chest.
Otherwise he broods on it and he does feel better. If we're going for a walk, he'll start naturally talking wow. But it's sitting still, it doesn't do it. And there's some individuals with their brain are more geared to they process all information through their movement center and so they take in information and then they want to move and
if they're having to then sit still. It's just like stifling their response to things, whereas other individuals to move and walk at the to move and talk at the same time as a complete distraction. So I hear you completely and the depths of that are absolutely fascinating.
So anyway, it's it's been a wonderful talk with you.
I mate, I think you're getting better. I think you're fucking getting better as you get older.
You've got to give you enough time. It's eighteen months to get some new material, that's all.
Oh, I know.
We've definitely got to get you back quicker than that. Or if you're available, tel point our listeners to your resources and yeah, let them know how they can connect with you and get involved.
Yeah, thank you.
So a part of the Shay Group and the Shay Group we're an organization. They're looking to eliminate chronic disease and pain by twenty fifty and support everybody to live in their best be recognized as that and contribute to the collective good.
That's our vision and our mission.
We've got training for health professionals in the most advanced precision health and medicine that's available, using the most advanced technologies in that space. This is obviously the more psychological conscious component of that for more psychologically driven individuals, but it all happens in the health professional space. We have corporate well being where we can talk about these principles and health and well being at work.
We are obviously working with schools to support.
Them with their learning, and we're doing a whole lot of research in this space of precision and personalized health as well. If you're interested in doing your own biological assessment, the app's called Shay and essentially the link is Shay dot group, sa A dot group, forward slash, dr doctor Dash, cam dash McDonald like the Hamburger mc d O n A l D, and you'll get all the links that you need on that website right there.
Mate. You're so good at this.
Genuinely, I really appreciate you. I don't know why it's been so long, but thanks for coming to play on the You project. Good luck with everything you're doing, and thanks for all the good stuff you put into the world.
The nonor to be here harps, thanks for having me