#1735 Mediocre Me - Harps

they are. I'm fascinated with our capacity to be able to waste our neate ability or optimize our ability, to be able to manage our mind and manage our choices, and manage our motions, and manage our behaviors and our resources and our physical energy, and our relationships and our choices and our life and our lifestyle, to be able to produce the thing that we want to produce, or create the outcomes that on planet US are desirable and I have personally. So this is a very selfish interest.

But I've always been interested in how the person with not outstanding innate or natural abilities or attributes could outperform their natural talent or their natural predisposition to be good or not so good at something. And the reason I say selfish is because that is me. So I was, you know, I was the kid who didn't have great genetics, and surprisingly they didn't get better. My body got better, and my choices and my behaviors and lifestyle and nutrition

and exercise got better, but my genetics didn't. Because I can't change them. I can influence them. But what you've got is what you've got for the most part. Yes, you can, as I said, influence how they operate. For one of a more fancy term, we call it epigenetics or genetic expression. But you know, I had what I had, and I had a certain amount or lack perhaps of sporting ability or creative talent or academic natural academic ability. I had certain social skills that and my social skills

were not bad. They're probably better than the other things. My ability, my natural ability to communicate was probably better than average. But all of the other things, genetic, sporting ability, academic ability, you know, all that stuff that really matters when you're all were told, we're told, really matters. All that stuff for me was at the very best average,

maybe lower than average. And so growing up with friends who were gifted, and friends who had natural abilities and talent and a natural predisposition for learning and for understanding the certain things that I did not have. And by the way, there was no hardship. There was no massive disadvantage. But for me, it meant that if I wanted to be as good as my friends at sport, you know, in particular, I was. I was all about Aussie Rules. I was all about Australian rules football. I loved it.

And so if I wanted to make the team, I wouldn't get in on my natural ability. I wouldn't get in on my natural athletic prowess because they didn't have any. So I would need to do more work. I would need to train harder. I would need to consciously, you know, do things that other people would not need to do to get So somebody who might need to work at a three out of ten to get to a certain point, and that's great for them, by the way, there's no

resentment in this. There's a little bit of jealousy. But for them to get to a certain level, whether three out of ten workload or effort or application, I would need to do it. I would need to give a seven or eight or nine out of ten effort to be able to create the same outcome. And so growing up being you know, the morbidly obese kid with not very good genetics who was a you know, at twelve thirteen years old, heavier than most adults. I was heavier

than most of my teachers. I would suspect the kid who didn't ace the exams, the kid who didn't have the natural disposition to study, the kid who wasn't picked for all the sporting too. There's no self pid in here, by the way, this is just my life and where a lot of things, most things did not come easily or naturally. But and I've said this before, what I did love about all of that was in the middle of all of that stuff that I didn't have, what I did have was I had curiosity. I had hope.

I didn't have much knowledge and didn't have much natural ability or talent, and I didn't have a high IQ. And it wasn't brilliant scholar. But what I was was I was really interested in getting better. And there was a lot of false starts, and there was a lot

of peaks and troughs. But and for me, the door opened, as I won't bore you with the story, but for me, the door opened when it was always kind of cracked open, it was always slightly a jar, but it kind of the door blew open when I was fourteen, I lost a whole lot of weight, and I mean when I say a whole lot of weight, I mean like a

lot of weight. And I went from being, you know, one of the fattest, if not the fattest kid in my school to definitely one of the fittest kids in my school, just because I did a lot of work I did. You know, I don't know what the other kids were doing, but I'm pretty sure that there was very few, if any kids in the entire school that were putting in the miles and the work and the effort and the energy that I was putting in to

turn myself into a version of an athlete. And while that was fun, and going from you know, last to sometimes first in our compulsory cross country runs that we had at school, and going from not being seen to being somewhat more socially included, that was nice too. Being picked in the first you know, three or four or five for a sporting team instead of being picked last. All that stuff was good. And as a kid, of course, you want that. You want to be socially accepted, you

want to be seen, you want to belong. You know, all the emotional and psychological and sociological ramifications of being left out and excluded. They are shit, indeed. But what really blew my mind when I had this kind of teenage transformation was not, well, look at my body. Now. I can run fast, I can jump higher, I can do push ups and chin ups, and I can you know, I can play a whole game and I'm not exhausted.

All that was good, But what really kind of struck me was that when I applied myself despite my limitations, but when I would do everything that I could, everything that I could, some amazing shit happened. And while I couldn't I couldn't. I couldn't create better genetics or I couldn't be smarter. But I could get more knowledge. I could get more understanding. I could develop new skill. I could build my innate fitness and competence. I could build strength.

I could improve strength consciously. I couldn't improve my natural kind of talent or ability, like I said, but I could. I could just get better through work. I could build insurance and endurance and speed and confidence and awareness and competence at a range of things because I was prepared to do the work that the others weren't prepared to do.

And it wasn't like I had some big I guess epiphany about work ethic at any stage or optimization of my own potential, but rather, over time it kind of dawned on me that, oh wow, if I can change my body, the thing that pretty much defined me in a massive way, I can go from being morbidly obese to being the opposite of morbidle EO. I can go from being one out of ten fit to for my

own potential, nine or ten out of ten fit. I can go from not being able to do a single chin up because I couldn't even I was so heavy. I couldn't even hold my body weight. I couldn't hold my own body weight for ten seconds. I couldn't hang off a a monkey bar or a tree or whatever, or a chinup bar. I don't think I even knew at a fucking chin up bar, A proper one was. At that stage, I couldn't even hold my body weight, and a year later I could do comfortably. I could

do fifteen proper chins. And it's not like, well, that's because you know you've got better genetics now, No, that's because I just did things that created that change. And so I became really interested in how could I leverage my mediocrity. How could I didn't say it like this, but how could my mediocrity be the driving force behind my success? What a weird concept. And when I leaned into that, and I just owned that and I accepted that, and I went, all right, well, here's all the things

you're not creat here's all the things you're not. And this is not self loathing. By the way. You might think I'm throwing myself under the bus or I'm being unnecessarily mean to me. I'm not. But I think what is really important is that we are It's hard because we live in our own subjective reality. I get that. But as objective as I can be about me, I know that there are some things that I have more natural ability out And I would say, you know, doing what I'm doing right now is it has been a

skill that's been developed. But I also had a natural capacity to be able to communicate and think clearly and understand, to a certain extent, understand human beings and human behavior and human nature. And that's something that over time I have developed. So that's a certain kind of intelligence, of course, but kind of classroom intelligence and academic intelligence that wasn't innate. I really really, me and university we don't go together like peas in a pod. Me and University, We've really

had to figure each other out. I've really had to learn to understand that culture and that language, and that operating system and paradigm that for me is not a natural fit. Research for me is not a natural fit. There's been a lot of things that I have had to work harder than other people alongside me because I didn't have what they had. I had to train harder than people. I had to lift more than people, I had to do more miles than people. I had to

ask more questions than people. I had to fail more times than other people. And all of those things are and this might sound a bit cliche, but all of those things, while they are uncomfortable and painful and undesirable,

in the moment, they are fucking a superpower. They're a superpower, or they're a super resource because what they're doing is they're helping us become the thing that we need to be to be able to thrive, or the person that we need to be to be able to thrive and survive and navigate and negotiate and problem solve and adapt because life is messy and things are messy, and relationships are messy, and business and learning and you know, becoming successful,

whatever that means for you, it's messy. It's not a three step process. And the thing that will work for you know, the thing that would work for my mates at school, they would do a certain thing, and that would work for them. I would do the same thing. It wouldn't work for me. And the way that I would do it, they might roll their eyes and go, why the fuck do you make that so hard? You go and definitely go on the long way, or maybe

the wrong way. And for them that was true. And if they had have done it the way that I did it, it wouldn't have made sense because they weren't me and I wasn't them. And so I have spent my life in many ways trying to figure out not what is the best protocol, but what is the best protocol for me? What is the best protocol for me with my brain, with my cognitive capacity, What is the best work out for me with my genetics and my body. What is the best kind of relationships for me, not

for the average or other person. What's the best kind of career for me, what will work for me. I'm not lazy. I want to work, but maybe having a nine to five job won't work for me. And so not only not only learning how to leverage off my own mediocrity, and not only learning how to optimize what I do have to work with, but also understanding who I am in the middle of all of the things that I am, not all of the people that I am. What will work for most people might not work for you.

It might not work for you. There are lots of things that a lot of people do a lot of and they are not bad things or good things. They're just things. And clearly that works for them, not always, but in general terms. But there are a lot of things that a lot of people do that for me don't interest me, they don't stimulate me, they don't grow me. And that doesn't on any level mean that I'm better or worse than them. That just means that I am not them. And so I have always been very excited.

I'm still excited. You know, I'm sixty one. You know that most of you know that I'm sixty one, and I'm excited about what I'm going to do, be create learn and unlearn, do be, create, learn and unlearn over the next four years. I'm excited to see what's happening when I'm sixty five. I'm interested in getting better. I'm not interested in hanging on by the skin of my teeth and trying to, you know, decline at a minimum. I'm actually at a minimal rate. I'm actually interested in

getting better. I'm interested in getting cognitively, emotionally, mentally, socially, and maybe even physically better. I don't know if all of those things are possible. I don't know, but I know that if I don't try, they're definitely not possible. They're definitely not possible. And so I've got some questions for you that I ask myself about leveraging, optimizing what I do have to work with. And so these are Craig coaching questions. For Craig. This is literally what I

ask me. And this is not this is not you know, pseudo self help fluff. And some of these might work for you, they might not, They might be relevant, they might not, But this is what I ask myself. So Number one is what do I need to get better at? And that's just a really simple question. And you can preface that with in relation to communication, what do I need to get better at in relation to optimizing my genetics? What do I need to get better at in relation

to using my time effectively? What do I need to get better at in relation to the way that I connect with this person? What do I need to get better at in relation to being a great problem solver, a great leader, a great manager, a great coach? What do I need to get better at in relation to being a better managed manager of money? Right? These are and so we can't get better at the things that we can't acknowledge or we can't identify. I believe, and

you've heard me say this. I believe a lot of us just fucking go through life unconsciously, and we kind of hope that at the end of twenty five it'll be better than the end of twenty four where we're at now. But we don't really have a concrete plan. We haven't really identified our weaknesses, we haven't really leaned into our strengths. We haven't really put our current operating system up on the metaphoric hoist and walked around and had a good look at that operating system and said,

what am I doing? That's currently fucking stupid. What am I currently doing? That's a form of self sabotage. What am I currently doing? That is a waste of me and my time and my genetics and my energy and my potential. What am I doing? We need to live consciously and intentionally, and that means being aware of what we're doing and what we're not doing, being aware of our choices and responsible for our choices and also lack

of choices. When you don't make a decision about that thing that you know you should make a decision about, or you're making a decision, it's like when I talked to somebody about a bad habit and they're like, look, I don't want to make a decision about that yet. Well that's your decision. Your decision is you're not going to address it. So question one is what do I

need to get better at? And that kind of is the catalyst for a decision, that's the catalyst for action, that's the catalyst for a different operating system or approach or paradigm. Do you have a plan, do you have a strategy, do you have a system or are you just kind of bumbling along doing the thing that doesn't really work well. Well. If you are not consciously and intentionally observing your own behaviors and choices and outcomes, then you are doing life on a form of autopilot. That

doesn't work. And if I said to you, do you want to produce better outcomes than you are currently with your body, with your whatever, relationships, money, relationship with God, spirituality, lifestyle, whatever it is? Do you want to get better? Do you want to do better? Do you want to create better? Nearly all of you will say absolutely, I do cool? What's the plan? What does better mean? What needs to stop? Stop? Not? Oh soon? No fucking stop? Is it uncomfortable? Yes? Is

it hard? Yes? Is it inconvenient? Probably? Do you want? Like? Deep down? Do you you know? Like? Do you want to? Ah? How much? Like? Here's the thing. You can listen to a million of me. You can listen to Tony Robbins and Oprah and Deepak and the Dalai Lama and read everything, But it still comes down to what the fuck will you do? Really? What the fuck will you do? Not? What do you know? What? Not? Not? What do you intend? Not? What do you want? Not? What are your goals? Not?

What's your plan? But what the fuck will you do, because what the fuck you will do determines what the fuck you will create. Let that sink in next question what matters to me? What matters to me? I'll do questions two and three what matters to me? And question three? What is success for me? So let me give you a couple of examples for me success. There was a period of time where it was all about building a brand and business and money and all of those things.

And that's not good or bad. At the time, that's what that's where I needed to be. And I did that. I built a business, and I built a brand, and I had lots of people working for me, and I was making lots of dough. And that's not a bad thing. That's in the context of my life at the time, that was good. But guess what, Over time, we evolve and we change and we realize, hopefully we realize that

success isn't only about things. Success maybe isn't only about our bank balance, or our car, or our house, or our brand or what people think. It's not about all the scene stuff. Sometimes success is about what no one can see. Sometimes success is about your emotional and spiritual and psychological bank account. Sometimes poverty has got nothing to do with food or running water, or job or bank balance.

Sometimes poverty is an internal state. I know lots of rich people who are living in poverty lots, I mean fucking lots. From the outside looking in razzle dazzle, but the inside out they are poverty stricken. They are socially, emotionally, sometimes spiritually, mentally living in poverty, living in their own self created prison. This is not a criticism, This is

an observation. And as long as we keep looking for things for solutions and answers and nirvana and fulfillment in the wrong place, we're always going to be trapped in that in a turmoil, that inner bankruptcy, that inner poverty. And it's not about one or the other. There's nothing wrong, of course, with building financial wealth. I'm all for it. Be rich, be richit e fucking rich rich. Somebody says to me, Craig, We've got a corporate gig for you

on Wednesday. We've got two one's worth X and the other one's worth ten X. Guess which one I'm choosing. But this is not a you know, but these things don't need to be mutually exclusive. But we live in such an externally focused culture and mindset and society that we are all about what we can see and what we can see of others and what they can see

of us. And in the middle of all of this fucking preoccupation and obsession that we have with things, We've never had more broken people, We've never had more emotionally, psychologically, spiritually poverty stricken people, because we think that all of that external shit is going to make us happy. We think that all of that and that alone equal success. So when you are thinking about what matters to you, think about what can be seen and what can't be seen.

My next one is how do I self sabotage? How do I get in my own way? How do I get in the way of whatever my genetic potential or intellectual potential or academic or creative or sociological whatever that is right? How do you get in your own way? What is the thing or what are the things that you currently do that is you creating an anchor for yourself? What are those things like? Is it avoidance? Is it procrastination? Is it massive self doubt? Is it fear? What is it?

And again this is just an next size and self awareness. It's cool if you're scared of stuff, yeah, me too. If you're an overthinker, me too. Like, here's the thing, though, You can be scared and still take action. You can feel like a fraud and still step into the unknown and take a chance. You can be full of self doubt, but nonetheless roll the dice knowing that there's going to be an outcome and more than likely you'll be okay. Whatever the outcome is. My next question is what's in

my control and what can I do? What's in my control? Okay, So what's in my control is my mind for the most part, if I try to manage it is my body, is my nutrition? Is my exercise? Is the lifestyle I choose, is the decisions that I make, Is the action that I take? Is the way that I treat others? Is the way that I waste or use? My potential is fill in the blank. And based on all of that stuff, all the stuff that I can control. Not not what can't I change? Your control? But what can I control? And

what am I doing with that? What am I doing about that? What do I have to work with? Imagine if I optimized my potential. Imagine if in the middle of my fear and overthinking and self doubt and self loathing. Imagine if I went right. This is. I know I've listened to a thousand podcasts and I've done this and that, and i know it's nearly Christmas and it's not the right time and I wasn't ready. But what if you you? So I don't think about anyone else listening to this.

I'm just talking to you directly, and I know that sounds weird, but just think about it. What if you what if today you did that thing. By the way, I'm not trying to inspire you, I'm not trying to motivate you. I'm literally asking you. And if this makes you feel uncomfortable, maybe that's a sign. What if today you did it, even though today's not the day allegedly. What if if today you make a decision. What if today you go fuck, I'm just going to find discipline

and self control. Anyway, this is uncomfortable, and it's okay. This scares me, and it's okay, this is inconvenient, and it's okay. This is this is and I'm not saying I'm the high watermark, but this is how I live my life. You know, a part of it anyway. Of course, I still want to have fun and beautiful relationships and be silly. But in terms of me optimizing me, like you listen to this show at least in part because you want to optimize you. That is why you listen.

You listen to me because you want to be better. You want to think better, do better, choose better, create better. That is part of why you listen, and for some of you, it's all of why you listen. It's all of why you listen. Well, here I am for the millionth time I'm telling you there is no fucking magic. There is no right time, there is no tap on the shoulder from the Guardian angel. There is just you, There is just now. There is just this moment. So

many people have an opportunity. Do you know when it's an opportunity? When it's a day. Are you in the middle of a day? Is it a new day? It's an opportunity. Are you hearing what I'm saying? It's an opportunity? Is it relevant for you? It's an opportunity. Can you make a decision now? That's an opportunity. Can you change a behavior or at least change a course of action? It's an opportunity. Can you walk? Can you talk? Can you think? Do you have a brain, do you have

a little bit of courage? Do you have a body that work? Walks and works, walks and works? What do you have at your disposal? What are your resources? I know I get passionate about this. But the reason that I'm so passionate about helping you is because most people that I meet, and I do not say this insincerely, most people that I meet, in general terms, I think

have more natural talent and ability than me. But people don't want to believe that, because I'd rather tell themselves that I'm somehow a bit special because of the stuff that I do. But I'm not. But if you're more talented, naturally talented than me, and I'm not a genius, of course, but maybe you can go and do something fucking amazing. Maybe it doesn't matter that you don't have a cheer squad. Maybe it doesn't matter that the thing that you wanted

to do you haven't done. Maybe it doesn't matter that your genetics aren't awesome. Maybe it doesn't matter that you're forty or fifty kilos overweight. Maybe you can just start. Maybe it doesn't matter that you lack confidence or skill or understanding. Maybe you can build those things. Maybe you can make a tiny decision today and create momentum. Maybe maybe your mediocrity can become your superpower.