I get a you bloody Champions, Welcome another installment The Year Project. Tiffany and Cook, Peter Brian, Kevin, Mannix Shepherd. I'm not sure why Mannix man. We'll start with Cook, who's in the top left square.
Hi, Cook, I don't know where you find all the random names that just fall out of your mouth when you do it.
You know, can I tell you the etymology, No, not the etymology, the origin story of all of those names that I tend to spout. So when I was growing up way back, you know, just after Jesus passed away, so my dad, my dad, he used to tell me real deal. His name was Ronald Edward Patrick Nan Patrick Personval, Clarence Terrence James Ambrose Alowish's Harper. And I thought till I was about sixteen, that was his real name, Ronald
Edward Personal, Clarence Terrence, James Ambrose Alowish's Harper. And I never even asked, but he would say that on repeat, and so that's what I thought he real name was. That's the best story ever. So I grew up, yeah, with that kind of bullshit. And you explain, basically, well, you become your parents fuck, which that is not a good thing. But anyway, God bless him. What is your actual middle name? Jonathan?
But I just have to say, it's no wonder where you get your piss taking from, given that was what your old man used to do to you.
Ah. My man used to constantly bullshit me about things, and I didn't know he was bullshitting me, so I would just be like, no, that's really my dad's name, and everyone's like, I don't think it is. I'm like, no, it really is, and they're like, you're thirty. Stop. Ah, we'll start with We'll start with the lady because we've got to be respectful from the school I haven't seen yet. Do you like that that I called you a lady? Yeah?
Well we What have you been up to today, lady? I've been I went Do you know what I went for? I went for a walk with one of your mates.
I don't have any mates, but go.
On Nicole Ladell. She's in town. I met her for a walk and some brecky. Then I come home, did a party. I've been head down, tail up since then.
What is she doing in Melps?
She was coming to do some rail crossing analysis.
Oh that's right, she's she's part of a PhD. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's wow. Can I just ask here? You rubbing moisturizer onto your hands?
Yes?
So I was do you reckon you could do that before we start? I mean, you know, I don't want you to be totally present, but could you leave your fucking beauty regime? I don't know before or after the show. I don't ask too much as an employer, but I mean, I feel like if you're rubbing shit in your hands, you're not at optimal kind of operating system. You don't see Pete rubbing anything into himself. No, I'm trying to find some moisturizer. I might join it. I feel like
my hands are feeling a bit drying. Ow tif Maybe we should bring you into the show, seeing as you are the focal point, but allegedly not yet yet. Hi Pete, how are you? I'm great? How are you?
Craig Anthony? I've forgotten all those middle lams already. I was going to try and repeat him back to you, but I've forgotten very good.
Craig Anthony. Is that that's more than enough? How's you? And I have not spoken for a long time. I do not think we're spoken in twenty twenty four? Am I correct? I think we know? You might be right. I was going to say, we have, but maybe that was last year. I'm realizing that I've lost track of time. Yeah, I was going to say, but I had my son.
But my son's now eighteen months old, so that was probably about twelve eighteen months ago that we caught up.
Yeah, how is? I was going to ask, how is the little dude?
He's good, mate, Little Ollie's gone. Well, he's eighteen months and full of energy.
I joke.
He's a bit like a shark in that if he stops moving at any point, he might die. So he's in a constant state of motion and chaos, which is great.
Is he in the ninety nine percentile for height? He's pretty, he is. He's essentially the ninety or something. I don't know.
He's long and lean and got arms and legs popping out everywhere, just like me.
So he's so good. For anyone who's wondering what that's about. Pete is two meter, Peter, ergo the question, two Peter, what is being a parent taught you? Oh gosh, how long have you got? I think the short answer is no, pun intended.
It's a yeah, the long answer, it's a constant mirror to your own.
Lack of pati. It's presence and concentration.
That's how I currently feel because Ollie can stick to an activity on repeat, I don't know, for twenty minutes at a time, for example, and after about the third minute, you can feel you. I can feel myself. I'll speak for myself, going, my god, I can't read this book one more time, and we're really going to read it again. And that constant need to change the activity I recognize
comes from me, not necessarily from him. And it's like, I find this happens multiple times throughout the day where I'll want to do something different, not because Ollie wants to, but because I want to. And it's like constantly checking yourself on where's that coming from? Why do you want to change activities? Why are you bored?
Why you aren't interested in this book anymore? Yeah? Why can't you stay focused? Dad? This is important? You're not getting all the lessons in this exactly.
There was a we had a pediatrician just after he was born. You get a sign a pediatrician and we saw him and he said something off the cuff, which I think about almost every day. It was one of those like off the cuff comments from a doctor that I think has so much wisdom, which was is it bothering him? Or is it bothering you? And I just think about that all the time, because, especially in the early days of being a first time parent, you're like, oh,
he coughed three times? Is that okay? Like is he going to die? And they're like, look, it's okay, he's not bothered. You're the one that's bothered by the coughing. And I just think there's so much wisdom in that of like I'm constantly thinking something's bothering him, when in reality it's actually just bothering me. It's actually just that I want to go for a walk and get some fresh air. Not that only wants to get some fresh air. He's perfectly happy.
Do you, because you're such a student of the mind then human behavior, and you know all of the bits and pieces that make up the human experience, do you feel like turning him into a little experiment where you think, how many languages can I get this little motherfucker to speak by the time he's five?
Totally, I'm like, if I read him twenty five books a day.
Is he going to be absolute genius by the end of this? Like you know, when you know, like everyone talks about how incredibly malleable and kind of teachable a young brain is. Do you factor that in? I try to.
I mean, the flip side is the fear based recognition of when you do something that you know you probably shouldn't in front of it and you go, oh, he's malleable. He's probably going to pick up on that. The fact that I just swore at the top of my lungs because I dropped the pan. I wonder if he's going to pick that up and start swearing very shortly.
So yes, on the.
Positive, But also, you know, I feel like I don't know if this is a gesture of me, but I feel like it's really easy to beat oneself up as a pins to look at your behavior in a negative light, which I guess I've already reflected on already in this short conversation. So it's it's a yeah, it's it's like a tiny little mirror that follows you around just reflects back all of your little isms.
This is a very cragish question, but do you ever wonder what it's like for him to be around you. Do you ever think, like, what's the me experience for him? Like this little tiny dude looking up at this like skyscraper of a human. I wonder what it is like for him? Totally.
I wonder if he's looking at me thinking why are you still here? I wonder if what is your purpose?
And where is Mum? Was there?
Like some days I joke to my wife Tracy that she gets home from work and oh, he'll run straight up to her and he's like, thank.
God, I'm so sick of that.
Like, I'm so sick of hanging out with this giant skyscraper who's offering me absolutely no value except providing me a little bit of food every now.
Yeah, So I do.
I constantly think about what I mean, what is going through the mind of a tiny toddler who is able to.
Absorb and grow.
Like if I think about how much I've changed and grown in the last eighteen months, I'd like to say it's heaps, because I'm a growth minded, you know, individual who practices what I preach. But the reality compared to an eighteen month old toddler, the amount they grow and absorb and learn is mind blowing, mind blowing. So I do I think about it. I nerd out it on a lot, probably to a fault.
Has it been an exercise in ah, because you have your own business and you're busy, But has it been an exercise in time management, resource management, energy management? High level problem solving? Because all the flexibility and freedom that you have, well, that's.
Gone right right right, yeah, and yeah, so yes to all of that. It's an absolute head fuck, if I can say that in the sense that you I've deliberately set constraints on my time because I want to prioritize my family and my wife works full time as well. Now, so I don't work Mondays, for example, and I try and stop work at three pm to pick up Ali from daycare on the on the couple of days that he is there.
And the.
Thing that that does is creates new stories in my head around are you being lazy? Are you not working hard enough because I run my own business. Are you losing momentum? Are you going to lose clients? Oh, you're not working on Monday? What if the phone rings on Monday?
You know?
So there's these new internal self flatulating stories that I can hear and feel that I'm now navigating, whereas in the past I think the story was probably you're working too much, You're doing too much. Are you staying present to your wife and your friends and your family.
It feels a little more like the.
Opposite now, where I'm not enoughing my own work, which is, you know, not super helpful.
When you first become a parent, I don't know, and neither does Tiff, because well, TIF know, it's more than me. She's got animals. She is an animal, so she's a dog mum and a cat mum, but you're an actual, proper, grown up adult parent. When you first became a dad, did you feel like a fraud? How long did it take before you go before you really felt like somewhat you knew what.
You were doing as a parent. I don't think I'm there yet. I think I'm still trying to figure it out if it's such a strange experience and adjustment, because I don't even know how to articulate this, but I still am Tracy and I joke about this. I feel like we still have days where you think, when are the adults coming to take care of.
All of us?
Or who tasked us with this responsibility because this is now forever, and I keep thinking that it's just this little experiment we're doing for.
A year or two.
But it's constantly reminding myself that.
This is a forever decision, which is great.
And I constantly feel like I don't know what I'm doing because things are changing so rapidly. It's like the ultimate exercise in humility. Guess what You've got absolutely no idea what you're doing, but this person's life depends on you figuring it out.
So good luck. What perspective did it give you? Did parenthood give you? And looking at the little dude give you that you couldn't have got otherwise?
Oh good question. You're on fire today. I think that I think my first reaction to that is the the realization that how I feel about him is how my parents feel about me. Right, And so I'm sure that a lot of listeners can relate to the feeling of when your parents frustrate you or annoy you, or are watching you do something when they're there and you're like, why are you watching me? And stop bothering me? And
why are you asking me so many questions? And yet I could sit on the couch and watch Ollie play with a toy car.
Right, just about what I said earlier.
All day like I just want to absorb and watch and ask him questions so much the love and the.
Care that I have for him. I don't know.
I just feel like it's so easy to take that for granted when you think about your parents. But like the recognition that how I feel about him is how my mum and dad must feel about me and my brother and sister days has been mind blowing. And I think I heard that intellectually, but I don't know if I understood it emotionally until I experienced it myself.
Does that make sense? Now? Feel free to not answer the following question, but I'm just curious if you could, and then we'll move on from parenting, which is not Well. I didn't actually have a plan. I never have a plan. My only plan going in was that I would probably talk to you. That was That's the extent of my plan. So my question is how does it work practically? So you said the little guys in daycare twice a week. You work full time and your wife works full time,
So how did the other five days a week work? Yeah, so.
This is one of the great juggles that I feel like I appreciate everyone around me with kids has been doing for a lot longer than I have. So how we structure it, because Tracy's only been back for six months, is I take Monday off with him, yep, and do a little bit of work when he has a nap,
but mainly take the day off. He has daycare Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, so three days not too and then Friday we have a sort of Tracy works from home, there's a babysitter that comes, and then I finished a bit early.
There's like a juggle that happens.
She takes the morning, babysitter takes the middle, and I take the end, and then weekends we have as a team as a family.
And that's at the moment what's sort of working for us.
And I say sort of because one of the reflections we've had in the last couple of weeks is she said, don't know if we need to go this hard in the next six months or the next felve months, because having both of us work so much and travel so much.
Yeah, I don't know.
I'm sure you've experienced this too, that the days of us saying during COVID we'll never travel again, we'll do everything virtually seems to have gone out of the window. And I seem be on a plane every week, which is awesome and I love it, and being in person with a bunch of humans is great. And the reality is like we've had weeks, and we have multiple weeks where Trace will be on the plane and get home on one a Wednesday, and then I'll high fiber and get on a plane and go way till Friday. And
there's just so much juggling in between. So that's how we're.
Doing it at the moment, and I don't know how sustainable it is, though it's hard just remind my audience or inform my audience who've never met you before, like what you do? What's your job? I spend.
My days thinking about working within and helping people in organizations, mainly in the frame of leadership development and executive coaching. I would say I could put a bunch of labels on it and fancy stuff on it, but essentially it's all about helping leaders be better leaders, helping executives be better executives, and what sits behind that? As you know and your listeners will underly know is helping humans be hopefully slightly better humans.
So yeah, I.
Run workshops, I coach one on one and work with a bunch of clients and corporates around Australia.
As we're recording this, it's eight days away from Christmas and whatever day's bloody fifteen or sixteen days away from January one, and it's traditionally a time of the year where everybody reflects, and not everybody, but a lot of people reflect about what they did and what they didn't do this year and what they're going to do or want to do next year. And you know, we've had
repeated conversations about New Year's resolutions and so on. What's your kind of thinking and messaging around this time of year because everybody does do a little bit of a stock take, I think, or most people do a bit of a stock take. And I'm doing a workshop tonight, which by the time everyone hears this it will be
done and dusted. But it's called pre season twenty twenty five, right, So we're having a bit of a chat about what's your kind of thinking around Broadly speaking, you know these times of the year where we reflect than when we sometimes press the reset button or the refresh button and actually making that work or making that a productive and an effective thing rather than a thing that we just do on auto pilot, which kind of rarely amounts to much. Yeah.
I think that last part is so crucial because I think it's awesome to reflect, and I do it myself. I encourage anyone listening to do it. To reflect on what went well, what went less well. To reflect on what gave you energy or what gave you less energy. To reflect on what let you up in twenty twenty
four versus what didn't. And you know, there are tactical ways you can do that, Like I like to look through my phone at my photos because my assertion is the things you took photos of were generally things that were interesting to you during the year. You can look through your calendar, you can do whatever it is you need to do to reflect. But your pointint, which I think is a sound one, is and then what YEA,
what do you do post reflection? So I, as a professional development personal development NERD, as a longtime friend, fan follower of you and many others, I love this stuff and I love thinking about it and earning out on it. But I know that a lot of people don't necessarily or don't have the desire, the interest, the capability, the skill of committing to change and making it happen. Not
to say that I always am able to. So I like to oversimplify things, and the current oversimplified version of this that I look at is what do I want to do more of and what do I want to do less of next year based on what I've reflected on. So I haven't done this for myself this year, but I could probably almost do it on the fly, which is if I reflect on twenty twenty four and go, what are the things I want to I really enjoy it? And gaming energy, it would be traveling and experiences with
Ollie and Tracy, my wife. So what do I want to do more or of? I want to do more of that, and so what does that look like? Well, it probably looks like pulling out the calendar and going at least once a quarter we're going on a weekend trip somewhere there.
It is in action.
So in my mind it's the reflection is great, capture what works, capture what's not. But then to your point, the action of what are you going to do about that, I think is the critical question, and I think that I think that making it as small and attainable as possible is key.
Yeah. Yeah, what about the balance between, Like, when we think about goal setting or change most of the time I'm generalizing in this not always the case, but we tend to set goals around external things, what we have, what we earn, what we get, what we accumulate KPIs numbers, stuff like data results, yeah, versus the internal stuff who I am and how I am and like emotions and mindset and ticking those kind of for one of a
better term psychological, emotional, perhaps spiritual boxes. It's like, maybe it's not about out there, Maybe it's about maybe the next year is about in here. Maybe my situation, circumstance, environment isn't the issue, And maybe it's maybe I need to look inward not outward, because so much of goal setting is an inside out not an outside in process. Yeah.
Yeah, I think I agree with you that we tend to focus on external and outcome driven goals and objectives. Part of me wants to defend that in the sense that I think the reason we do that is because they're measurable. Yeah, And I think what can be hard to measure is how how do I measure my inner work, my internal monologue, my more present state. It can be really difficult to measure, notwithstanding the fact that it's actually hard to do. But I don't think that means we
shouldn't try. So what I would what I would ask or put forward or or I guess, query or noodlene is can you have outcomes that are possibilities of a process that you are committing to follow, and not to have the outcomes as the thing that will determine your success, but to have them as possibilities that may happen if you commit to an internal process. In this case, that is your version of a success. So, for example, what
am I even talking about? If I was to say an outcome driven goal would be I am more present with OLI, Well, that's really hard to measure and quantify, and what does that even mean? Versus if I focus on a process of trying to, I don't know, meditate every day, and I break that down to be anywhere between one to twenty minutes, then whether I get the outcome of being more present is a little bit outside my control. But I like to think that if I show up and commit to that daily thing, I'm more
likely to get that outcome. So in my mind, it's less about the outcome is the thing that's going to make me happy. It's more about the outcome is the carrot that I hope I might get towards, but I know I can't guarantee that I will.
Does that make any sense? Yeah? Yeah, clearly, you know what? No, no, no, it does. It's funny because also without knowing it, what you identified in there is what I don't know if others do. But I call it the psychology problem. And like as a science, as a studiable, observable, measurable science, psychology is bullshit. And this is someone doing a PhD in it, right, because I could test Tiff today, like right now, we could do an assessment because it's all
self assessment, it's all subjective valuation. And Tiff does a fifty item kind of protocol, you know, based on psychology, emotion, sociology and whatever, right, how she sees herself or how she feels. And then we get all this data from Tiff and we go, here's TIFF's data on these criteria. But you know, Tip's a bit distracted and tired and she's had a blue with her cat, and then she you know, then she does the same test tomorrow and
we get completely different data. But virtually every other science that is not the case, right, you know, Physics is physics, Biology is biology. You know, engineering is engineering. It's like, you know, it's it's it's all kind of going to produce pretty consistent results. But but you're right. I think it is that marriage between what is the practical, observable, measurable thing that I can do in my physical three dimensional world which will create this internal shift.
Yes, or will increase the probability of an internal shift? Is how I think about it. Because you know, if I think nothing's guaranteed, there are so many things outside my external control, then everything is a game of probability. And so I'm a mass nerd. So I like to think about how do I increase the probability of the outcome that I'm hoping for or seeking? And in answering that question, I usually you can come up with a couple of things that you think might be the keystone,
things that will increase their probability. At least That's how I think about.
When you're in front of a group, and all of us get in front of groups, but you do it full full time. That's your job, that's your thing, and you rock up one day. I get asked a lot about speaking and just people to help people become not necessarily corporate speakers or professional speakers, but that right down to people who just don't want to be terrified when they're making their birthday speech, or it's speaking at their
daughter's wedding right and everything in between. So you stand up there and you're talking to a group for let's just say it's a keynote, So you've got forty five to sixty you're doing your thing. What are the things that you are aware of than the fact that you know the room, you know who you're talking to, You've done a briefing call or two, You've kind of got the lay of the land in terms of demographic and sociology and who's you know, what's the theme of the
day and why you're there. Then you look around five minutes in and people are looking at their iPhone or they're disconnected, or they're looking out the window. What do you do in that? You know, because we can only
prep and know so much. But in that moment, What are the skills that you have or what's the awareness that you have where you can kind of get back to some kind of connection or apport or like, what do you can you teach us something like because I feel like for a lot of us, we we might lose the room or lose ourselves and we're like, fuck, I don't know where to go from here.
Yeah, I don't really talking about that's never having before intend it had, no, it has it has. I mean I've got a story from this either I could share it. I think firstly, i'd say you and I perhaps have this in common, which is a comfort in throwing out the maybe the plan that we might have had based on where the audience is at. I think so much of keynotes, workshops coaching comes down to the same skill, which is can you meet the group where they're at?
And if they're at a place of complete distraction and boredom or distraction with emails, then continuing the way that you have been for that first five minutes is probably not going to change that state. So in my mind, it's about can you meet them where they're at and if needed, change the state, change the energy, change the focus of the room to create a pattern, interrupt to get people away from the thing that they're currently doing if they are distracted. The way I think about that
is connection over content. So I think that for me personally, go one of the days where I'll talk to an audience for forty five minutes without some sort of interaction. And in fact, if I was doing forty five minutes, for example, I would probably break it up into three fifteen minute little sections or three ten minute sections with a five minute interactive piece at the end of each one.
And so if I had, for example, a group that I was five minutes into my first ten minute thing, and I was like, I've got an interactive element or a question i want them to explore with the three people around them in ten minutes time or in five minutes time, because we're five minutes into this, I'd probably just bring it forward and go and maybe even call it out and go, look, it's been a long day.
If it's been a long day, I recognize.
There's a bunch of stuff going on for you all, and maybe a few of you are a bit distracted, a bit sick of hearing my voice. So why don't you turn to the person next to you and answer a question, which is, what's one thing you're hoping to get out of today, or what's one current challenge you have right now as it relates to this topic, or what's a story about something that you had for breakfast this morning, purely just to break the pattern of everyone's
distracted and no one's making any attention whatsoever. My assertion is in most of my workshops based on how I think about them and structure them. And this is not for everyone. And that is the thing that most people remember, isn't the thing that came out of my mouth, It's the thing came out of the mouth of the people
that they talked with. So I see my role as almost a facilitator of those small conversations and almost to get out of the way to ask a question, to create space and connection with others, but to kind of not even need to be the one talking, if that makes sense. So yes, that would be That would be my response to your very good question. I have a warm story if you like, if it one earlier today, earlier,
yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, go No, this literally happened. I was running a workshop ironically on being more effective in communicating and storytelling, and about about five or ten minutes in I asked a question of the group one hundred and twenty people in the room, and I asked a question and not one person said a single word for what felt like eight minutes was probably only ten seconds.
Yeah, And I was told prior you talked.
About briefing call that this was a super engaged group, very extroverted. You won't be able to shut them up, so be careful when you ask questions because they're so keen and eager. No one said a single thing I had. I had this, not even the person organizing the event, by the way, which gets I love that what are you doing? So I had this kind of out of body experience. Rather I think you might be I think you're bombing, Like I think this is going terribly So
why don't you try something else? Because that didn't work? And so I said something like, let's scrap that idea. Clearly that's not going to work, So why don't you turn to the person next to you and answer the same question and introduce yourself if you don't know them, And all of a sudden, it was like the room caught fire. I couldn't shut them up. That were interacting, they were shaking hands, and it sort of became evident in this process that I realized that these people don't
know each other. And so when we finished and the rest of the session went really well. When I finished, I walked off stage and someone came up to me and said, I'm so glad you did that turn to the person next to you activity, because we've been sitting here for four hours and not once have we had the opportunity to talk to or interact with the other people on our table, and they're total strangers. So I didn't feel comfortable speaking up in front of one hundred
and twenty strangers. But I do feel comfortable introducing myself to the person next to me. So that very experience was what happened to mean. I think changing the approach of talking to a person next to you, connecting with another human, in my mind, is the simplest way to break that cycle.
That's great, I love it. Can tell Can I tell you one? Please hear me with a war story? I love these all right, so I need to be very careful about I'll tell you off air, but I can't tell you the name of the organization. But okay, So I had to do a talk about a year ago for one hundred about one hundred people who were a mix of psychologists and counselors. Right, so everyone in the room was basically like a mental health professional, all qualified,
all smart. I had to do a whole day, a whole day, So I had to talk from nine till five with breaks maybe eight thirty, No, nine till five. Anyway, So my plan was, and there's some other variables around this that I can't really share that it was just it was a tough group anyway, but that's okay. I was grateful for the gig I went in. My plan was, I'm going to do like my first bit will be just really a key, while little kind of fresh start of the day. Energy is good, a bit of interaction,
a bit funny, a bit you know whatever. And it went. It went well. It was about anate, right, It wasn't a ten. It's about an eight. Good interaction, pretty good energy, not amazing. But I'm doing a whole day essentially around self management, self regulation, individual kind of optimization, how to get the most out of them, you know, like and I'm speaking as the excise scientist, but also the psychology researcher. Obviously I'm not trying to teach them about psychology, but
really I'm just like, how do you manage you? You? How can you show up at work and be the best version of you physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, practically whatever that is for you. Blah blah blah blah blah. Like simple enough, cool, which have done a lot anyway, So I do my opening keynote and then the boss comes up to me, and the boss says, that was good. And you know when people go that was good and you're like this is not good, it's like, no, that
was really good. Butt. I'm like, fuck, what's the butt? So I've still got the best part of you know, allowing for lunch and morning play, lunch and all that stuff, I've still got at least five hours of speaking actually speaking to go and he or she said, yeah, look, just don't talk about diet or exercise or fitness or you know, anything to do with the body, because some people will be triggered.
Well that was literally about half my day's talking about just looking after and I'm not talking about being fit or being jacked or you know, eating paleo or I'm just talking about how do I manage my body to also manage my mind and my energy, because the better shape my body's in, I'm more productive and more efficient, you know, the better my brain works, because you know, there's all these physiological, psychological, and emotional and cognitive benefit
through weight training, for example. You know all these stories about lifting weights and cognitive and you know all this shit.
So fifty percent of my content I had to handle. And then there's like a fifteen minute break and I've got to come back now, and I've ejected two and a half hours of content. At least, Do not talk about food, Do not talk about exercise, Do not talk about anything to do with the body, because now, remember I'm talking to psychologists. I'm like, surely, and I'm not talking about, Hey, how much do you weigh or what do you look like? You know, I'm just so fair
to say that was the toughest gig I did last year. Yeah, you know so, but just you just got to adapt, don't you. Yeah?
Do you I feel like I've seen you do this live, So maybe it's a it's a loaded question in the sense I know the answer of it. Do I've seen you do really well? Asking the audience for a bit of like we could go this way, we could go that way, and almost doing a straw pole in the moment, so that it's it's adaptable and flexible based on where the audience is at.
Do you still do that? I still do that. I don't necessarily plan that, but I mean sometimes I'll go in and, like, what you don't want to do as a professional speaker everybody is you do not want to talk after lunch for a range of reasons. One, they've been listening to people that may or may not be boring for at least four or five hours, and then they've just eaten all the free awesome probably not very healthy food lunch, so they're in a fucking food coma,
so they'reques dropped by thirty percent. Yeah, and they're not really that excited about you speaking because they're thinking about drinks at five point thirty and then you come in there like captain fantastic. So yeah, I it depends on Like sometimes I'll go in there and I'll say, tell me who's spoken, what's happened already, and when based on that information, I will create a different plan in the moment. Nice just because like I know they've been sitting, Like
you said, they've been sitting for four hours. Yeah, so I'll go, well, let's not sit for an hour because that's probably but that will be context and situation dependent. But I think that's I think that's part of it. Mate is going, well, this was my intention, but I didn't know the dynamics or the lay of the land for sure.
I think the other thing you do really well, which is something that I don't do this to the same level. But I have a similar philosophy, which is I'm not going to use slides because ninety nine percent of the other speakers are using slides. So I deliberately don't use slides and usually use a flip chart. And I know you love to use a whiteboard in a lot of your presentations, which I think already creates some sort of
I think of it as a patent interrupt Yes. And so if I'm a speaker thinking about my presentation on a day where there's six other speakers, I could pretty safely assume that five of those six will have a lot of slides. And so if I'm an audience member, I've sat through five presentations and slide decks and you know they're not all the same, but you know, one
PowerPoint presentation starts to look like another PowerPoint presentation. So even before walking in the room, I'm thinking, like, how can you be the pattern interrupt of Oh look this guy's not no slides that's interesting, or look at his handwriting. His handwriting's quirky, or something else that just triggers a slightly different part of their brain to react or to hopefully switch on.
I And the problem with a slide show, well, the potential problem is what if your entire hour is dependent on like that's all you plan for. I've got twenty slides and you're at slide three and everyone's fucking nodding off, right, what do You're?
Right?
Everybody's clearly not you know, with you, And then you're like, ah, well this is not working. I'll go to slide for and then it's like, oh, but I don't have another plan because my plan is the next sixteen slides, and I think that back to your whiteboard point. I had one with AGL last week through our friend Lisa, and what was interesting was I'm up the front with my big fat black whiteboard marker and I'm writing on the board, and I go, all right, what are your thoughts on whatever?
You know? I go, tell me, tell me when I say the term success, what comes to mind for you doesn't matter. Just go. And people are so I'm writing their words on the board. So they're writing up things, and I go, all right, now, let's talk about what stands between us and success? What do you think of the things? Don't overthink it, but what are the things that really get in the way, Not the bullshit things like time? Fuck time? What are the other things? You know?
And they're like, oh, fear, procrastination, avoid, And so I'm like, yep, good, good, keep it going. Then all of a sudden, we've got this dynamic and everybody's energy is good, and they're saying stuff that's now becoming part of the tapestry of what's going on. And what they said is now literally written in front of the room, and they're like, that's my that's my word up there, like look at you, look at you steering the ship, look at I love that.
Like co creation as opposed to you know, like a monologue, it's how can I how can I co create an experience with an audience as opposed to you know, sure, or talk at an audience, they're very different things.
The other thing, I feel.
Like it just is you remind me of and this whole conversation reminds me of is one of my mentors, and I'm lucky enough to say he's become a friend in Seth Godin, who's written twenty something New York Times bestsellers, but one of his books is called Purple Cow.
Yeah, And I think about this.
Concept so often, which is love this I love this concept, by the way, which is it's so I think it's really interesting when you apply it to public speaking, in particular, because the premise of the book is essentially, you know, if you look in most fields, well all fields of cows, you've got either I think it's brown cows, black cows, white cows, or a mixture of those three, brown and black or black and white. And everyone looks the same.
All the fields look the same. Can you imagine what it would be like if you saw a purple cow, like a cow in a field that was bright purple.
You would call your.
Friends, you would take a photo, you would post it to social media, You talk about it NonStop, you tell people later on and his premise in the book is essentially when you're building products, when you're creating experiences, when you're thinking about anything as it relates to a creation that we want people to interact with, you should be thinking about making it purple. You should be thinking about creating some sort of purple cow that is remarkable, which
is worth remarking at. So, if you're thinking about a presentation and you're thinking about your slide deck or not slide deck, or whiteboard or not whiteboard, in my mind, the question is how do I make this purple? What is the thing that people are going to walk away and go either take a photo of the thing that you did in that moment, or remind them to tell their friend later on or their partner of a dinner of like, can you believe I saw this thing or heard this thing?
Yeah? I think you know you.
And I've seen enough sixteen page slide decks or more like sixty page slide decks that there's not a heap of purple in them. And I think it's a really easy way to create a different experience for yourself if you can answer that question, what's your purple cap?
I love it. I remember years ago I just started my pt business and I was probably two years in and my business skills were one. My management skills were one. You know, not fucking everything what. I could train people and talk, but everything else like nothing. And I'm trying to build a brand and a business and I'm trying
to understand it. And I was training a guy called Jim Watts who was the CEO of some killed a football club, and he goes to me, well, I used to pick his brain because he was still is like extremely smart and yeah, so I'd train him and he'd kind of mentor and coach me. And he goes, well, what's your USP? And I go what he goes? I go, you know, when someone asks you a question that they think you should actually called it, I don't understand the question.
I don't even understand the question. That's how fucking dumb I am. Not only can I not give you an answer to the question, I don't understand and the question. And then he's like, so that means your unique selling proposition.
I'm like, oh what, I'm like yeah, and he goes, well, if you're doing what everyone else is doing and you're kind of selling the same thing the same way and delivering the same product at about the same price, and I'm like, purple cow, you know what's your Yeah, it's like it's the same thing, and yeah, you might be. It's like people. Somebody actually asked me. A lady actually asked me recently her son's doing a personal training course
and she goes, aren't there isn't the market saturated? I go, yes, but it's not saturated with brilliant trainers. It's just saturated. Yeah, if you can be, if you can be the one percent, if you can be the unicorn. If you can, and I could give you a list of twenty things that would make you a unicorn trainer. If you can do those and be those, you're going to be busy as fuck.
You know. We had I had a guy on recently, Dre on Who is it Andre Andreas anyway, Dre who was on the show recently who's spent four and a half years in prison, came out of prison for dealing drugs. He's very open about his story and four years down the track, he's just opened his He did a degree while I was in prison, then he did another degree
in exose science when he got out of prison. And I can't say how much he generates a week, but it's thousands as a pt. And he's just opened his first center, but he spent the last four years just out of jail training people in his garage at one hundred and twenty bucks for forty five minutes, and he's
booked out and he's got a waiting list. Now, if you can do that in a shitty garage with all equipment, when there's gyms down the road with millions of dollars worth of equipment, if I was a trainer, I'd want to go and see what that guy does. If I was a budding trainer, I'm like, how does this guy with no equipment and no premises to speak of? What does he have? What is he doing that's making all of these people with lots of dough drive to his
fucking garage and hand him hundreds of dollars a week? Fascinating? That's the thing, right, if you can brilliant whatever it is like, and he's.
I feel like, in a business context, you could think about, like, you know, the flip the flip of that I think about is you know someone with an awesome Instagram account or a beautiful website and they've spent thousands of dollars or millions of not They've spent thousands of dollars with thousands of hours crafting this beautifully unique experience on Instagram.
Looks great, yeah, Versus there's then, you know, there's the person who has this thriving coaching business it doesn't even know what Instagram is, or it doesn't even have Instagram. It's like, yes, they've got the garage equivalent. I'm just coaching people out of my garage here, Like, what are you talking about? I need an Instagram account?
That is so true. And even in the domain of and this. Of course, I'm not anti academia or anti qualifications, but so many people who have got degrees or honors or masters or PhDs or whatever, and they're good things, but it doesn't necessarily equate to any kind of success other than academic. Right.
I mean, I've got it, gone, I've got it. I was just going to say, I've got a bachelor's degree, nothing more. And I've worked with CEOs of some of the biggest companies in the world from America to Europe to Australia, and not once has anyone said to me, can you show me your call it? Like qualifications where's your master's degree? Have you got a PhD? I've literally never.
Been asked that question. Yes, yeah, I said that in all my years of training people, which was over thirty right, one person, and it was just out of curiosity because they wanted to know how to become a trainer. One person that nobody asked me to see a bit of paper. But one person said, oh, what what qualification do you have? You know, and I'm like, thank god somebody asked, although is at uni? I actually did it. It's like nobody you know, if you can. It's like you think about,
you think about you talk a lot. Firstly, what was your degree in?
I did an arts degree majoring in actually criminology of all things and communication.
Yeah, so you talk a lot about human behavior and psychology, so do I. None of us have got a degree in psychology, none of us.
Elements of it. But definitely this was like why do people solve crimes? Crimes as opposed to be better leaders?
And you're not putting yourself up as a guru of human behavior or psychology or I just think that.
You know.
It's like I talk to people about diet, but I'm not a dietician. But I'm not prescribing a diet, but I don't need to go to university to say, hey, Pete, Coco pops are probably not your best choice for brecky, right, you know, like you probably don't need a psychology degree to understand that calling yourself a fuck with thirty times a day is not great. It's probably not a good yeah, you know, And so do you have any aspirations one way or the other for twenty twenty five As we wind up here, mate.
To be determined if there's anything more than continue to
do what I've done. I've had this experience in the last few years where because I have spent so many years and so much time and energy nerding out on you know, personal and professional development and listening to podcasts and reading books and trying to work out, you know, what's the thing that you need to be doing and what's I felt I got to the where I was looking for some dramatic change that I needed to do every year, and at one point a couple of years ago,
it kind of dawned on me maybe it's less about the dramatic change and more about continuing to compound on the good things that you're already doing, and so it feels like it. It feels like a counterculture un sexy thing to say. But I kind of am at the point of going, what if I just doubled down or continued to focus on the healthy habits that I already had.
What if I.
Continue to try and not work mondays and spend that with Oli. What would happen in twelve months if I did that rather than I've got to completely change the way that I live my life. So yeah, that's how I'm thinking about it, is what are the great things that I know are good for me and they give me energy? And can I just not focus on those again?
Yeah? That makes sense. And sometimes it's just like, well, where I'm at as good nothing, It's like this, this is actually good. Like when I do a stop take on what's going on on planet me, I'm very grateful.
You know, there's always quirks and things, and you know, certain thoughts that you have that you wish you didn't have or you can work on. But I tend to agree with I catch myself in this constance, can catch myself in a constant state of striving, which I feel like can actually be unhelpful to the point of, what if you just were grateful for where you are and what you have right now, rather than looking for the opportunity to be better.
Cookie, if you could do one thing better next year other than be you know, the calm in the chaos now that you Tiff had a big spiritual epiphany and not even being funny, she did have a bit of a she's a bit of a renaissance woman's she's seen the light nice twenty twenty five. Is there something that you want to change in any particular way?
There's something I am changing, and that's just consistency in my in coaching. I like choosing one area of the multiple things I do and making that a real pa to develop me and develop it and can but consistently.
Yeah. Yeah, Can I ask what lane that is because you kind of you've got your fingers in a few pies. Yeah.
So that's the mind pt, the the coaching people in terms and so the workshops and the coaching programs that I'm that I'm doing. So I just want to get that fills me up the most. I want to get really good at that. So and it's just about consistency. It's been three years since I ran a one off workshop, which I did last week, and it's like three years. Why you don't get better waiting three years?
That's true, dude, that's true. If people want to thank you to if if people want to find you, follow connect with you and come and see you and Ali, how do they do that?
Human Periscope dot com is the website. I don't think all these on there yet, but feel free to reach out and ask a question and I'll send you a photo.
That's your podcast. You stood on your pot The Long End six years and counting.
Jen and I have still yeah, three hundred and something odd episodes and we still have The Long on the Short of It. Jens five foot one, I'm six foot seven, and we spend twenty minutes once a week talking about a topic that relates to, you know, being a leader, being a creative, being a freelancer, being an entrepreneur.
I don't want to be precious, but I keep clicking refresh on my email and I don't see an invite.
But stand by, we've we only ever had one guest, and it's Seth Godin. We had no guests on our podcast. That's a good reason to make an exception. Hey, Mate, we'll say goodbye Fair but your ace and father of the year.
You are. That's what I'm going to call this episode, Father of the Year. We appreciate you. Thanks mate, Thanks for having me, Tip, Thanks for having me, Craig.
Thanks guys,