#1701 Getting Unstuck - Harps

habit of getting stuck. That is spinning our wheels, that is living life or part of our life in a perpetual holding pattern, thinking about doing different while not doing different, talking about doing different and better while not doing it, talking about transformation and improvement and growth and learning and unlearning and becoming the best version of ourselves and exploring our talents and our potential and building our best whatever,

while simultaneously not fucking doing it. Ah, And let's be honest. Let's be honest. That's a lot of people a lot of the time. And that's not me being critical. That's me being an observer of people. Also myself being one

of those people. So there've been many times in my life when I have been I've been, I guess, trapped in a kind of a holding pattern, a holding pattern of mediocrity, like a groundhog day, like same shits, same stuff, same doing the same things with my business or my brand, or my money, or my body, or my relationships or my spiritual life or my mental health or my emotional health or my academic pursuits, my learning, commitment, my training,

my nutrition, doing stuff that didn't work, but nonetheless getting up each day and essentially doing a version of what didn't work the last day, month, year, decade sometimes. So I'm very interested in, as you are well know, I'm

interested in human potential. I'm interested in possibilities. I'm interested in what we can do, what I can do, what you can do when you and me get out of our own way, when I can get out of my destructive habits, my self destructive self talk, thinking, my shitty lifestyle, not so much these days, but at times, my relationships, my operating system, not just relationships with people, but relationships with food, relationships with my body, relationships with all of

the things that I do, habits and behaviors, and stepping into out of the self destruction and the overthinking and the self doubt and the imposter syndrome, and slowly stepping into self awareness and self genuine self improvement and self

regulation and self optimization for that matter. So many years, for many years, I worked with people who came to me to get in shape physically, and then more recently last decade or so, you know, mentally and emotionally, but who were stuck and stuck physically sometimes or stuck mentally or emotionally all three, or socially and or socially practically behaviorally you know, just in this normal operating system that

doesn't work. So there's there's a there's a degree of unconsciousness that all of us in habit, and as the name suggests, we're not aware of it. That is, we unconsciously do a lot of things, and we do a lot of things that really will require very very low level decision making in that you know, we've got to open the fridge to get the thing out to put it in our mouth, but it's almost like we do that without thinking, without choosing. It's just a habit, it's

a pattern, that's a ritual, it's a behavior. I feel I'm not hungry, I'm not actually hungry, I don't actually need food, but I'm having a bad day. So now I'm grabbing chocolate. Now I'm eating chocolate, I feel a bit flat, I feel a bit anxious. Now I'm grabbing booze. I fit whatever. And so we have a propensity and a tendency, many of us, to do things for an extended period of time, sometimes decades that clearly do not

work for us. And when I say do not work, I'm saying do not work on the understanding or the premise that we want to be better. We don't want to be unhealthy. We don't want destructive habits. We don't want to overthink. We don't want to overdrink. We don't want to overeat. We don't want to be the procrastinator. We don't want to be the excuse maker. We don't want to be the avoid or the denier. We want

to take ownership, we want to take charge. We want to optimize our genetics, optimize our potential, optimize our IQ, our intellectual capacity, optimize our creativity. We talk all the time, especially in the personal development, self help space, human performance, human behavior, we talk all the time about optimization, that is,

getting the most out of ourselves. But truly, truly, as unpopular as this might be, or as uncomfortable as this might be for some to hear, and I don't know you, so clearly it's not personal, or clearly you're one of many listenings, so I'm not targeting you. So all I ask you to do is consider what I'm about to say, and that what I'm about to say is that some of you have probably been doing things that don't work for a very long time, and maybe lots of things

that don't work. And if on some level you've kind of resigned yourself to that fact and you're kind of okay with it, then okay. However, if you're not okay with it, if you are sick of being the one day soon person, the almost person. I listened to so much self help and personal development, behavioral change, in neuroscience and neuropsychology and nutrition, and I've read every fucking thing and listen to every fucking thing. But here I am,

and I'm still in groundhog day. I'm still spinning my wheels, I'm still going nowhere fast. I'm still in a perpetual holding pattern of mediocrity and dissatisfaction and wasted time, talent, and energy. If that's you, then then one, do you need to figure out if you're really desperately, passionately committed to changing that? And then two, whether or not you are genuinely willing to pay the price of whatever is

required to create that shift on planet you. And this is the big kind of gap, This is the chasm between the idea and the action and the idea. Everyone's in love with the idea. Everyone's in love with the idea of better. Everyone's in love with the idea of lean and strong and functional and successful and joyful and wealthy and focused and fulfilled. We love all that shit because who doesn't want that. We all want that or a version of that. I rarely speak to people who

say I am totally content. I don't want anything else. This is a whole other conversation, by the way, but I'm there, I don't need any more. I'm happy. I'm content, you know, for the most part, not anxious. Life's great. That's generally not the case. And there's another conversation, as I said to you, had around that. But for the moment, I want to talk to you about whether or not

you are genuinely ready. Firstly, I'm going to operate on the assumption that you are at the very least interested in getting unstuck, interested in getting out of your own way, interested in stepping out of the rules and habits and rituals and the perpetual holding pattern that you may be in in some areas of your life that doesn't work or don't work. To step out of that. So firstly, let's talk about what are the drivers? What are the things which cause us to get stuck? And so this

list is not in terms of significance or important. They are all equally important. And some of these may relate to you, some of them may not. It's seven or eight or nine maybe, And some of them seem like overly simple. Well, come on, Craig, I need more than that. I need some deeper science. I need something more profound than that. I need something more wise and insightful and deep than laziness. For example, this sounds funny, but I just meet people who are fucking lazy, and that's why

they're stuck. It's not even that they're scared, they're just lazy. They just don't They just don't want to do the work. They like the idea of the outcome, they like the idea of the destination, but they are not ready to get up every day and walk the path, or drive the path, or take the path, or or take the journey. Like the destination, the idea of the outcome is brilliant, but the idea of doing what's required to create that outcome, they're like, ah soon, And so you know, if laziness

is the overriding kind of factor, then we're stuck. And so that and I think sometimes that that kind of general apathy, laziness, apathy, lack of motivation, perhaps they're tied in together. And my just my thoughts. This is not science, this is my thoughts. I think that, as I've said a lot on this show, there's almost like a psychological and or emotional tipping point for a lot of us,

and that is we kind of just go. We just kind of trudge along in blah, you know, in Blasville, in mediocrity in three out of ten, and it's not fulfilling or rewarding or awesome or joyful, but it's also not complete shit. It's okay. There are moments of okayness, and you know, until we get to that point where we associate more pain with staying in it than getting out of it, most of us will stay in it.

And you can see as an observer of human behavior, you can see people staying in things, sometimes relationships or jobs or situations or circumstances or environments or patterns or habits, staying in things that really don't work, but on some level they're scared of the option. They're scared of the work, They're scared of the unknown, They're scared of the uncertainty. Should they shut the door on that thing and step away and head in a new direction with no safety

in it? So fear comes into it, laziness, apathy, fear. Mindset. Now, when I talk about mindset, clearly we could and we have done many shows on this, But it's, you know, being aware that my mind is not in charge of me. I am in charge of my mind. And yes I'm not talking about my brain here. My brain is different, is a different animal. But in terms of managing regulating my thoughts, what I pay attention to, what I focus on? Am I the problem person? Am I the solution person?

Am I making good decisions? How do I process the world around me? What is the thing that happened? What is my story that I'm telling myself about the thing that happened? Why do I think the way that I think? Where does my thinking come from? What role does my programming play in my current internal paradigm, in my internal framework? What role does my programming play in terms of how I live and what I do and my values and

so on? So, becoming aware of these internal kind of drivers that influence, perhaps determine whether or not we stay stuck or we move self doubt. Self doubt is like almost a pandemic, you know, aversion to discomfort spoken about a lot of times. People want the work, they don't want the pain, self limiting thinking, crap, self esteem, and so on. And the truth is that at some stage, should we really want to move forward, we need to

feel what we feel. Feel lazy, feel not good enough, feel like a fraud, feel like an impostor, but nonetheless start the ball rolling. I've spent most of my life still feeling like the insecure, fat kid that got picked last for every sporting team. At some stages, I feel like that. I don't feel like literally that, I just that those emotional and psychological remnants live on. You know.

I could be in the middle of, like right now, sharing this with you, at the same time feeling like, oh, this is shit and no one's going to enjoy it. Like that. Self doubt never fully goes away from me, that imposter syndrome, not good enough, not smart enough, not academic enough, not lean enough, not likable enough, not fucking it what. That stuff never fully goes away. It doesn't dominate me, it doesn't render me paralyzed. But do I ever feel supremely confident? Never? I never feel that I

feel somewhat confident. I feel content and pretty calm and pretty satisfied most of the time. But what I know is that the psychological awareness that I can do things, I'm not useless. I can succeed, I can write well, I can speak well, I can talk to an audience. I can build a business and brand, while also knowing that I've fucked up a lot of things and all of that. But that knowledge that I can do well, oh, exists at the same time with those feelings, those emotions

of inadequacy and self doubt and periodic self loathing. And that's not weird or broken or terrible. That's normal. Even the people that I've worked with that many of you would know that are high performers in the in the areas of thoughts or politics, or media or entertainment or the creative arts. Some of the people that I've worked with that are wildly successful are also insecure, also riddled with self doubt, also have self esteem issues, also could

talk themselves into analysis paralysis in a second. So if any of that is you. That is not a reason to not succeed. You can be scared and successful. You can be inherently kind of naturally lazy while choosing to be active and proactive. You can do that. You can override things. My genetic default setting is endomorphic, which is I gain fat very easily. But my genetics don't need to be my destiny because what I look, feel, and function like is about twenty to thirty percent about my genetics.

The rest is about what I do, and what I do is optional. What I eat is optional, how I live is optional. How I move my body, whether or not I drink booze or use drugs, or how I sleep or how much I sleep, or how I put all this shit together. My over arching values, my overarching operating system for life. There are We can rationalize anything if we want, if we want to come up with a reason why we're not succeeding, and life's not fair

and my mum did this or my dad. And I'm not trying to be disrespectful to people who've been through legit trauma. Of course we recognize that and respect that, but at the same time, guess what a lot of people have been through trauma and a lot of people

have been through some horrible shit. I interviewed Joelsarti the other day, who's speaking on our program, who went to Afghanistan, served for Australia in the military, spent eight months there on an active tour, came back, was having a quick break before he went back to Afghanistan, fell over, railing, railing on some stairs, broke his neck, broke his neck is a quadriplegic. Now, if anyone's got a reason to

get stuck, it's that, dude. If you want to rationalize doing nothing, feeling sorry for yourself, being in a holding pattern, you know, getting stuck in all kinds of ways, you would look at, at least from the outside looking in, and look at that scenario and what happened to Jijol

and go, man, I get it. I get it. But guess what, He's not stuck in the middle of the mess and the mayhem and the pain and the dysfunction and the physiological limitations and all of the challenges, massive challenges of adapting to a brand new life in a body that doesn't work as it once did. In the middle of all of that, he's growing and he's learning and he's developing skills and insight and awareness, and he's courageous, and he's doing fucking amazing shit. And you can do too.

We all can. It doesn't mean we can all do anything. We can't all run one hundred meters in ten seconds, we can't all win a Grammy. We can't all become president or prime minister. We can't just practically, we can't because we can't have a million prime ministers at once. But there's a lot of stuff that we can do. There's a lot of stuff that we can do. So let's have a look at some ideas on how to get unstuck. So I've got a list for you, because

you know the occasional list doesn't hurt. Number one is, recognize your stuckness. Like that, Recognize that you are stuck, that you are trapped, that you are in a holding pattern, that you are spinning your wheels, whatever metaphor you want to what to use, but recognize that you are stuck

and identify the cause. So for a very long time, for example, with my body, my starkness, my holding pattern, my inability to look or feel or perform or achieve the level of health and performance, and body composition that I wanted for me. The cause was food, specifically, my relationship with food, specifically, how I thought about food, how I chose food, how I behaved with food and around food, how I socialized, how I bullshitted myself with food, how

I lied to people. People would ask me about what I eat, and I would be too embarrassed at times to tell them really what I ate sometimes, so I would make up some bullshit to sound good, And so I was in a holding pattern. I was stuck. I had this toxic, destructive relationship with food. By the way, food wasn't the problem is the problem. It's just that food was the epicenter of the problem. And so that was for me, you know, owning up and stepping up

and being honest and raw and real. And the reason that I share that this was part of my journey is because I know other people do the same. I know that I don't live on an island in this respect. I'm not Robinson Cruz. I'm not the only person to have done this. I've spoken to maybe thousands of people who have very very complicated relationships with their body, very complicated relationships with food and with exercise and with self

esteem and with body image and body dysmorphia. And I think the starting point for a lot of us, the unstuck getting unstuck starting point is just being fucking honest. I eat shit. I don't need the end not ah, yeah, but my genetics. But yeah, but you know, I didn't want to offend anyone, but oh it was all I could get my hands on. Ah, but it was my birthday, but it was it was you know, and you're fifty there, and now you're fifty and you're still telling yourself why

you're not doing the things that you allegedly want to do. Like, you will not accidentally get in great shape. You will not accidentally have a fucking awesome body, awesome health, amazing immune system. You will not accidentally run a fucking marathon or whatever it is that or build a business or build a brand, or do an undergrad degree or overcoming it. You'll not accidentally do these things. We need to acknowledge

the reality of us. This is why I'm doing a Part of why I'm doing a PhD in self awareness, literally is because self awareness with so much of this stuff is the starting point. Not self loathing, not self hate, self awareness, This is what I'm doing. Okay, my life's not working in this text. What part of the problem am I? It's not to say you're always the totality of the problem, but let's just be brave for a moment and courageous and grown up and mature and let's go, yeah, look,

at least I'm part of the problem, all right. Number two is this identify the thing that you're not doing that you should be doing. So what might that be for you? Maybe that is maybe that is you need to study thirty minutes every morning. Maybe that is you need to start having a cold shower every day. Maybe that is you need to commit to some I don't know what it is, doesn't matter. It could be something to do with your kids or your partner. Could be

something to do with your career. Could be something to do with your physical, mental, or emotional health. It could be something to do with a toxic relationship that you need to deal with. It could be something to do with your lifestyle. It could be a million things. But what is the thing that you're not doing that you know you should be. Number three is kind of an expansion of that, and that is to do a stop, take or audit on what's working and what's not working

on planet you. And this is not something that you do in three minutes driving to work, listening to the radio, looking for a park. This is something that I think really we need to take seriously about when we talk about living consciously. We spoke before about unconscious stuff and how you know. In many ways, for a range of reasons, many of us are periodic passengers in our own life. That is, life has its own energy, Life has its own life force, Life has its own momentum, and life

happens despite us. Life keeps going on, and the things that we are in the middle of have their own momentum and energy as well. And sometimes we need to get out of that river, that ever flowing river that we are sitting in our canoe just being swept, that we need to paddle to the side. We need to get to the metaphoric bank, pull up our canoe and our paddle, sit on the metaphoric rock and just take

a minute. Take a minute, get out of the river, get out of the momentum, get out of the busyness, get out of the never endingness, even if it's for thirty minutes to sit. No phone no computer, no distractions, just you thinking about how's my life going? How is my life going, how's my body going? What about my rituals? What about my social life? What about my sleep? What about my self talk? What about my mental health? How's that going on? What's that about? What about? What about

the results that I'm producing? Are they the results I want to produce? If not, why not? What am I doing? What could I do better? One of the challenges for us is that, obviously my world view is subjective. All of my experiences are influenced by the goings on in my external world, but ultimately created by me. And when I say me, I say my brain, my mind, my data processing center. I am always doing a subjective assessment,

an interpretation of objective things. Something happens to me around me despite me, a person, a situation and outcome, a result, the weather, some piece of news. Then what I do, automatically and almost unconsciously, is I break it down and

I give it meaning. And one of the challenges for us, in the continuity and the never endingness of the human experience and the never ending stream of information and energy and people and events, is to be able to find some space, some metaphoric space, sometimes some literal space to say, well, here I am, I'm thirty, I'm forty, I'm fifty. How long have I been thinking about changing these things? How many times have I had the same story or told myself the same or others the same story about the

same things that I'm going to change soon. I'm going to I'm doing it soon. But here I am and now I'm fifty and I'm not doing it. What are the things that on planet me are not working? And what are the things that are working? What are my results telling me? What's my life telling me? What are my relationships telling me? Things won't accidentally get better. You

and I will do the audit. We will observe the thing, recognize the thing, We'll take ownership of the thing, and then will work to change the thing that needs to be changed, or we won't. That's up to you, that's up to me. Number four on my how to get Unstuck list is choose to do what scares you. That is the thing that you need to do to create the outcome you want. I'm not just talking about what

scares you running in front of a truck. Do that, And no, of course not I'm talking about strategic, intelligent, purpose driven facing your fear. Be courageous. Your goal is not to be fearless. Your goal is not to eradicate all self doubt. Your goal is, despite your fear, despite your overthinking, despite your self doubt, despite your insecurity, do something really fucking brave because you can. Because you can. I know you don't want to sometimes, I know that

you doubt yourself. At the very least, you're going to have an experience. You might fuck up, you might fall down metaphorically, you might get it wrong, and then at the end of that you have a challenge. By the way, you might get it right, might be fucking great. Whatever the outcome is, you're going to learn something. You're going to learn something. I've spent years doing things that didn't work.

In fact, most of the things that I tried, at least initially didn't work, or I got a four out of ten, not a ten out of ten outcome, sometimes a minus two out of ten. And that is because I knew. I knew that I well, I didn't know. Actually I thought that I could probably do this thing eventually, But in the moment, at the start, I knew that I wouldn't win. I knew that I wouldn't get it right. I knew that it wouldn't be perfect. I knew that

it would be flawed. But I also knew that that imperfection and that flaw and that three or two out of ten result was a pathway. It was a conduit to understanding and skill and development and growth and better outcomes. It's in the middle of doing the things that scare me that I get better. It's in the middle of doing the things that I'm uncomfortable with, that I'm unfamiliar with, around which there is little or no certainty. It's in the middle of that that I become the best version

of me. It's in the middle of letting fear control me that I become the worst version of me. Because if I don't manage my fear, it will manage me. And I do want to not be ah a prisoner in my own emotions, and neither do you. Number five is practical, not sexy, not mind blowing. Number five is right yourself for to do list, and that might just be two things, that might be two hundred things. Let's probably not go with two hundred Right yourself a to do list and fully commit to it, Like fully, this

is me, Now, this is what I do. Now, remove the escape clause and the safety net, take away the get out a jail card. Tell somebody else, perhaps, so that now you've got a level of accountability. Take the emotion whatever it is that you feel, the thing that you want to do, that you're excited about but scared

to do. And then with that emotion, that excitement, that goal, that vision, that dream, that thing that you want to change, that thing that you are moved to change or do or be or create, take that emotion and wrap it in a strategy, Wrap it in a plan, Wrap it in logic, wrap it in accountability, wrap it in wrap it. I'm not saying rabid rap wrap wrap it in something

which is almost impossible for you to not operationalize. In other words, do so many people set themselves kind of a goal or write themselves a to do list, but they're on no level committed. Like if I'm fully committed to something, fully committed, I mean mentally, emotionally, behaviorally, one boots and all. Then on the days when I don't feel disciplined, I'm not you know, ah, inspired, I'm not motivated, I'm not feeling it. I'm not loving it. It doesn't

matter because I'm fully committed. So barring sickness or injury or some unavoidable reason, but barring that, I'm doing it. And the reason that I'm doing it is because I am fully invested and fully committed to this process to create the thing I want to create. And we need to get our head around the idea that this won't

be fun, quick, easy, or painless. And not only is that okay, it's fucking great because in the middle of all of that, I'm still going to I'm going to create better results anyway because I'm doing the workhead down, bum up, I'm focused. But also the bonus and maybe even the real gift in the middle of all of this,

is that I'm becoming better. I am making me a stronger me, a better me, a more resilient me, a more capable me, a more resourceful creative me, and hopefully a better me others a better leader, a better communicator, a better dad, a better mum, a better sister, a better brother, a better friend, a better problem solver, a better creator. Like this is kind of the refiner's fire, where we put ourselves in the fire of that challenge and we come out the other side. Ah, So that

was five and six. Number seven is extricate yourself from people who perpetuate your stuckness. Oh, I'll say that again. Extricate yourself from the people who from people who perpetuate your stuckness. In other words, as much as possible. And I know there are a lot of variables around this. You say, yeah, cool, Craig, but what if one of those people is my partner, or my brother, or my sister or my Barcelma. I get it. And so that's why this is global, that's why this is broad in general,

but as much as possible. When you realize that there is a personal person's on planet you and we're not blaming them, but we realize that perhaps they are a contributor, then either if possible, if possible and appropriate, we extricate ourselves from that relationship or that environment, or we perhaps change the dynamic, that is, we maybe see them less, we maybe realize there are certain conversations we don't have

with them. There are people in my life virtue of situation and circumstance who are over my journey, have not been encouraging or supportive and that's okay. Have not had faith in me or confidence in me, and have at times undermined, questioned, and done a whole lot of things that really did not help me to move forward to

grow to a vole. In fact, if I had have paid too much attention, and I did pay too much attention, but if I hadn't have been able to extricate myself from that influence, I would not have done a lot of the things I've done. And I'm definitely no high watermark for success or post a boyd for success. But I've done some really cool things and I'm very happy

and proud of that. But I realize that there are certain people that although I may have to have a relationship with them courtesy of just my life or situation, there are certain people that I won't have particular conversations with, I won't open certain doors. And that doesn't mean I hate those people are dislike them. It doesn't mean that at all. It just means it just means that there are there will always be people who don't understand you,

or your potential, or your possibilities or your vision. And that's okay. We're not about hating on people. We're just about realizing, Okay, I need to And by the way, we're not just looking for people who tell us what we want to hear. That's the opposite of what we need. But we're talking about people who people who genuinely love us and care about us and will support us, but also give us intelligent, critical feedback, you know, when required.

So we don't need the haters, and we don't need the over the top, gushy, backslapping, you know, support group. We don't need that because that can create problems of itself. But just realize that who you hang around with matters. In other words, hang out with people who drag you up. So that I kind of meshed seven and eight there. So number nine is this do new things again? What are we talking about. We're talking about getting unstuck. Do

new things, step into unfamiliar territory. I know that when I do new things with new people in new environments, I expose myself to new ideas. I expose myself to even different cultures and conversations and people. When I do something unme all of a sudden, I'm doing something new in a way that I've never done it, perhaps different place, different experiences, and it opens my brain. It makes me realize that I've been living in a corridor or an

echo chamber. At times, when we have new experiences, it exposes us to things that we are generally not exposed to in our day to day. Sometimes it builds or arouses curiosity. Sometimes it creates awareness or insights. Sometimes it gives us a different understanding. Sometimes it creates momentum. You know, for example, the amount of people that I have worked with over the years that have done something physical which was a challenge for the first time, and I coached

them towards that. They did the work, they did the event, they got the outcome, not me, but I supported and coached them towards that. So somebody who'd never run in their life, never run one kilometer, always consider themselves unfit, unhealthy, a complete non athlete. People I've trained up to eventually do marathons, but even say a ten k or a

five k fun run. When something amazing happens, when people do shit that they never thought they could do and they get unstuck, they get unstuck, they get out of the groundhog danus of overthinking to an extent anyway, But what it does is it opens It opens new doors. It opens possibilities and understanding of possibilities and understanding of potential. Because when people do something that they never thought they could do, instantly they have a new belief. Or the

belief is I can run a marathon. I know because I just ran one or a half marathon. The belief is like, oh wow, I actually have more capacity and moretential then I believed. I got it wrong? What else did I get wrong? If I can do this, what else can I do? If I can get out of my own way and run a marathon, or register a business or build a business, or do a degree, or lose thirty kilos or menda relationship or overcome a distractive habit. If I can do that, what else can I do?

And it's in the doing of especially new things that we've never tried, that we change and that we open new doors and we create momentum. You know, it seems I'm kind of weird perhaps that I say I'm not particularly academic, But I'm not particularly academic, That's just the truth.

But I'm in the middle of this academic journey right now, and apart from the you know, the work, and hopefully we'll see hopefully the outcome of a PhD and all of that stuff, which is, you know, interesting, I guess the good achievement and all that, But you know what's really interesting for me is I just know so much

different stuff now. I just have a different insight. And I'm not a better person than I was, but I've had in the last four years of my PhD journey so many new experiences, new conversations, new insights in new environments, being exposed to new ideas, and just so much stuff that is so different from the rest of my life that it's fucking mind blowing. And it just and honestly like, what are we now do I'm sixty next month, which is fucking ridiculous, But I've never been maybe I've been

this excited, but I've never been more excited. I don't think I've never been more curious, like to do, to keep learning, to keep evolving, to keep optimizing everything from my body to my brain, to my knowledge, to my performance, to my emotional state, to my outcomes, to my relationships, to my business and brand and all of those things. I'm so fucking excited because my life is well. Fortunately, yeah, fortunately,

I'm very blessed and very lucky. I acknowledge that. But at the same time, I've worked like a motherfucker for forty years. I've born in a great country with great parents, and so I had lots of I had a running start, as most of us who were born in Australia did not all. But it's for me a lifetime of doing new things and to stepping into unfamiliar territory, to exposing

myself to new things, hard things, difficult, unfamiliar things. For me, that's what's kept me unstuck, opening businesses, building, helping build an industry, person training, writing the first course, writing books, getting books published and distributed, working on the radio, working in television, going back to or start doing my first degree at thirty six years of age, going back at

fifty six. You know, for another crack, just this capacity that we all have to just keep doing new things, having new experiences, that we might keep growing and learning and evolving. Number ten is a bit deep and philosophical, but that's me tap into you. Number ten is tap into your internal sat Nab. And if you know me, you've heard this term many times. Your internal sat Nab is that kind of knowing, that wisdom that insight, that

intelligence that comes from I don't know where. Maybe it's instinct, maybe it's intuition, maybe it's divine. I don't know what it is. I really do not know what it is. But I do know that I have that you have. That we all have a knowledge, a knowing, and an understanding and a level of wisdom and insight that is innate. I'm not talking about things that we got taught or things that we got told, or I'm not talking about

acquired knowledge. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about in the middle of the bullshit, there's always this still quiet voice. There's always this deep seated knowing of what we should do and shouldn't do. And sometimes we just drowned that out with noise and with chaos and with busyness and booze and drugs and lack of focus and attention.

But when we can be still, where we can hit the pause button, when we can find some space and some time and some quiet, then we can realize and come to see and understand things that we don't when we're in our head, when we're trapped in our head, when we're trapped in the momentum and the chaos of life. And this requires again discipline, This requires some time. This is not something that you can do in the middle

of the bullshit. This is something that require you. Maybe it means that five minutes, you know you have fourteen hundred and forty minutes a day. Maybe it means five minutes you sit somewhere and you try to switch off and you just see what comes up for you. You just feel what you feel, and maybe you get out of your head and maybe you get into your heart, maybe you see what's going on in there. Number eleven, we've got three more to go. Number eleven is keep trying.

And that's one of those things you think, well, you wouldn't have to say that, But the truth is people don't keep trying. The truth is people try and then they stop. But if they kept trying and they kept trying and they improvised and adapted, you know, and overcame and survived and just figured it out and fell down and got up and fell down and got up and you know, fucked up and got back up, and you know, sometimes it just comes down to not giving up. That's

not sexy, that doesn't require three HDS. You didn't need to pay for that but some people just don't give up, and they're not, you know, and they outperformed people with more talent and skill and a higher IQ and better genetics. And I think part of the reason I've done okay is that, like and for me, I've said this before, because I wasn't the naturally gifted, talented, genetically blessed kid,

I always had to work harder for everything. I had to work harder to get in shape, and harder to make sporting teams, and harder to get academic results, and harder to even fit in socially because I wasn't the naturally charming, charismatic, gifted kid. I wasn't that, And so my my mediocrity in some ways for me was a gift,

and it was a gift that turned into resilience. It was the gift that turned into the capacity that I have to keep going to not give up, to be able to deal with what many people would call failures. I will generally call them insight into you know, what's working and what's not. Fall down, Get up, all down, six times, get up seven. Number twelve. This is an interesting one. Actually, Now I'm going to do that one

last number, so we'll call this one number twelve. You don't know what I'm talking about, but I just switched my own list around. Number twelve is build a new relationship with this comfort. I talk about this too much, probably, but I'm saying this for those of you who are relatively new and haven't heard much of me. I'm going to tell you that our capacity to be able to deal with discomfort and do things that we don't want to do and things that are not fun, quick, easy,

or painless, that is a superpower. That is a personal development superpower because when we can and when we can lean into the discomfort, when we can when we can embrace the hard thing, when we can choose to physically, mentally, emotionally work against resistance. Just like we go to the gym, we work against resistance. The byproduct is strength. The byproduct is we build resilience and capacity and insight. We do

a hard thing and we develop. And when we are prepared to change our relationship with discomfort, that is, we are prepared to lean into the pain in an intelligent, strategic, not a reckless or silly way, but prepared to embrace pain on a daily basis sometimes or embrace discomfort, then we accelerate our growth, we accelerate our learning, we accelerate

our resilience. Every day in my life, I do things that I don't want to do, things that are uncomfortable, but things that I need to do to live my best life. Every day, every day I do things that if it was just up to my comfort level or what I would like to do, or what is fun or what is convenient, there's shit that I would absolutely not do. But because of my commitment to being the best version of me, I do that stuff on autopilot. I don't overthink it because I realized that's the commitment.

That's the price that I need to invest every day. That's the emotional, physical, mental investment that I need to make every day to create the outcomes I want to create. And the last one, Number thirteen is is is deep. Number thirteen is don't ask me why thirteen. I've just come up with thirteen points. Number thirteen is considing or mortality. One of the things I think about is where I am now, Not in a morbid way or a dark way, but where I am now in the totality of Craig

Harper's life. I think about nine Aeen sixty three, and I think about twenty twenty three, So nineteen sixty three September. I was born September twenty eight, So next month, September twenty eight, I'll be sixty and I go, wow, if I'm a typical Australian male, whatever that is, but I'm going to live if I'm typical to around eighty. Might be eighty one or eighty two, but let's just round it out to eighty. So if you go, well, Craig, if you're typical, your three quarters done. If I'm typical,

let's hope I'm not. Let's hope I have a few more years than that. But if I'm typical, I have about twenty years to live. Now. I know that you might go, oh, that's fucking sad or dark or also real. Also potentially that's my reality. Potentially, like I said, hopefully I can live longer and better, but who knows. And so I think sometime times it's good to, albeit somewhat uncomfortable and scary, to think about where am I on my journey, on my human journey. How much longer on

my human journey am I going to wait? How much longer am I going to feed? Myself bullshit, either cognitively, emotionally or literally eating shit crap food. How much longer am I going to waste my time, my talent, my potential. Am I going to do it till I'm seventy? Am I going to do it till I just dropped dead? One day? Like what in the context of what really matters to me, in the context of the totality of my life? This is my only life. I can't get

another one. I can't get another body. And so for me who looks at the you know, just I once drew a dot on the left hand side of my white border dot on the right, and then I kind of I've figured out my timeline where I was at, and I looked at the context of the totality of my life based on eighty years, and you know, that line was three quarters complete. I'm like wow. And of course there are a few variables that hopefully I can influence and control about doing the next twenty years or longer,

perhaps better. But this is great sometimes as uncomfortable as it might be, but it is great to step back and go fuck my life, my life? What am I doing? Like, where am I at? What's going on? With my job and me and my relationships and my body and my staff, and my happiness and my purpose and my reason and my spiritual life and my religion, nor whatever it is

that matters to you. Like one day, you and I we ain't going to be here, yeah, and we need to think about well, we don't need to do anything. But I'm keen on figuring out, Okay, what am I going to do? Be? Create? Change? What am I going to do in the next twenty or thirty years. And it's not all about ticking boxes and achieving, And it's not all about that. I also want to have fun. I also want to laugh. I also want joy. I also want to watch Netflix and ride motorbikes and fucking

hang out with friends. But at the same time, I want to be the best version of me. I want to live as long as I can optimally. I want to eat great food. I want to live in a great body. I want to I want to have a great, healthy mind. I want a healthy brain. I want healthy relationships. I want to do shit that's rewarding, fulfilling and fun. I don't want to let father time or mother nature

take a hold. There are things that I can do to self regulate and self manage, which means I can live longer for better if I do certain things well. I feel like that was worth sharing. I'm not sure if it was worth listening to. I enjoyed sharing it with you. I love your collective gutses. Are enjoy a day over and out.