#1767 Interpersonal Neurobiology - Harps

and the people that we have in our life. And without giving away too much, we're talking about a few people that are in this person's life, one in particular, who I can say, because you don't know who they are, I can say this person is quite toxic if what I was told is accurate, which I believe it is, and the impact that this particular person is having on my client or the person I was chatting with, psychological, emotional, physical, and this person is really not only in a kind

of almost a metaphoric sense, but in a literal sense, quite toxic to this person's my client's mental, emotional, and physical health that's really having an impact on them anyway. So we started to chat about, you know, the people that we have in our world, the people that we let into our heart and into our mind and into our life and into our inner circle, and how sometimes we do that really unconsciously, and we all do that

unconsciously to a point. But then there's a time when I think we can open this kind of social awareness door where we start to consider, you know, who we want to have in that kind of a mental and emotional and social kind of inner sanctum. Who are the people that I want near me? Who are the people that I want to allow into my head and heart because I know the people that I let in have

an impact on me for better or worse. You know, there's that not very accurate or scientific saying that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. I forget the origin story of that, but there's definitely something in that. I don't know whether the number five came up from a not four or six or ten or twenty or three, but anyway, but nonetheless,

there is this kind of social osmosis. There is this mental and emotional consequence for better or worse, and physical consequence sometimes that comes from who we spend time with. And we see that in the workplace, where you know, there are toxic cultures, there are toxic relationships, there are toxic individuals, and conversely, there are places that are great to be in. There are cultures that are uplifting and rewarding and positive. And there are humans that literally can

change our biochemistry for the better. There are people that there are people that you can be around. This sounds weird, but this is actually really true. There are people that you can be around that are literally good for your

physical health. There are people that you can be around that make your over time, make your immune system stronger, that change what's happening in your brain chemistry that's changed, what that change what's happening with your nervous system, that can put you in a parasympathetic not an elevated sympathetic state, that can put you in that calm kind of relaxed and safe kind of space, depending on who that person

is in the relationship you have with that person. And we also know that there are people that sometimes even when you know there may be a personal couple of people in your life that even when you hear their name or you think of that person, it has an adverse consequence or a negative impact on everything from how you're feeling in the moment to your ability to focus and concentrate, your nervous system and the crime system, cardiovascular

respiratory system, just hearing someone's name, or thinking that a particular person might be in proximity to you, or having a conversation about a person a particular person, or somebody quizzing you on that person can create all kind of negative outcomes. So we know that the people that we spend time with, the people that we hang out with, the people that we allow into that let's just call it that kind of in a sanctum, that personal, in

a sanctum where we invite people in. We want people into that part of our heart and our head and our life. We know that, for better or worse, that can have a real significant impact. And with this in mind, over the last you know, forty years, I've really been conscious of this because I've been around amazing people. I've been around people that have not been so amazing, people that have really supported me and I've supported them, and people that who have been for the most part, are

positive in my life. And then there have been people that I had a reasonable relationship with and this is no bloody mystery here, this is not a revelation, and then for whatever reason, that ended, And there's also been as there are with all of you. I'm sure people that I really loved and trusted and gave access to me. That proved to be unreliable, that proved to be dishonest, that proved to be a whole lot of things that

I didn't initially think they were. Now, having said all of that, I need to I need to open the self awareness door. And I need to also, as we all do with all of this stuff, acknowledge that I am not always a treasure or a pleasure to be around. I am flawed. I am a constant work in progress. I don't think I always bring up the tone of the room. I don't think that that one hundred percent of the time or probably eighty or ninety percent of the time, that I'm making whoever i'm with that I'm

making their experience better. I try to. I try to be the kind of person that is good to be around. I do my very best, but I have to acknowledge because I'm a human and flawed, I have to acknowledge that I'm not always that. So back to who you and I choose to spend time with. I probably have and this will surprise some people. I probably have about six to ten people. You can tell I haven't planned this or written anything. Down right, I'm thinking out loud

as I always do. But I probably have about six to ten people in my world that I truly, unequivocally, one hundred percent trust, that I have zero doubt that they are who I think they are, and that they love me and care about me or for me, and that they are trustworthy. Now that's not to say I think everyone else is not trustworthy. I do know a lot of people, or that I would never rely on

anyone but my small It's not to say that. It's just to say that the practical reality of being a human is that you will be around humans that you do trust, that you do care about, that you do like, that you do even love, who will do shit to you that you just don't enjoy, shit to you that you don't see coming, and maybe not even anything so terrible, but you just know that being with this person, hanging

around this person, it's just not good for me. And it might not be that they're terrible and you're fucking amazing. It might just be that you and them together it's not a great formula, A little bit like social oil and water. It doesn't really work, it doesn't mix. So I'm always thinking about I'm not always that's an exaggeration. I have thought often over the years about who I let in, who I let into that space, that inner space,

that inner sanctum. Because I spend a lot of time with a lot of people, I have a lot of conversations. I know a lot of people, like I know a lot of people, and I am friendly to a lot of people, and they are friendly to me. But the people that I would call close friends are not many. And that's not an insult to anyone. That's just how I work. And it might be surprising for me to say to you, or for you to hear me say that I don't. I don't. I don't trust a lot

of people. And that doesn't mean I automatically think, like I said before, that they're going to do something bad, or they're going to let me down, or they're going to be It's just that for me, it takes and I used to be more trustworthy. I will say that, and you know, and I'm also at the same time, I'm not bitter or resentful, and I don't wish anyone who's hurt me or harmed me. I don't wish anything

bad and upon them at all. In fact, if you could get everyone in the room, everyone in the room who's ever lied to me or stolen from me financially, and there are plenty, or let me down or you know, sabotage me, or all of those things that happened to all of us. If I could get all of those people in a room and I could magically make their life better or worse, I would absolutely, unequivocally choose to make their life better. I could go into that more deeply,

but that's how I feel. I don't I personally don't want to. I don't want to open the negative emotional door. I don't want to, and I don't resent people. I don't hate anyone in the world. I hate some things that people do, I hate some behaviors, I hate some toxic attitudes, I hate some of the things that happen,

but I don't hate people. So but at the same time, I have to acknowledge that who is around me, especially people for whom I have opened the aforementioned door, they really have an impact on me, or they can have an impact on me. So I am conscious of who I pay attention to, who who I listen to, and

who I hang out with. And that might be physically hang out like in a three dimensional space, you know, hanging out with somebody spending time together, or it might even be I just thought of this now as I'm going When you're thinking about who you hang out with, who might be good for you to hang out with, it might be via a podcast. By the way, I'm not suggesting I am someone you should hang out with. This.

It wasn't some long winded fucking hawk, right, But there will be people that maybe you never actually meet in real life, but nonetheless you can tap into their knowledge or their energy or whatever it is they bring to the world and hanging out with that person. We use this in inverted commas, hanging out that might be a positive in your life. I mean, there are people that I hang out with in the virtual world, people that

I've listened to, books that I've read. And this is a slightly slight departure from what I was talking about a minute ago, But at the same time, I still think that there are people that we can hang out with is in this kind of virtual capacity, which also can improve our life. So there's that as well. But back to the real world, the practical physical, three dimensional world.

So I want to give you, like I guess, almost like an inventory of possible attributes or behaviors or characteristics or traits that I that I want in people that I choose to spend my personal time with. So I want to hang out with people that overall drag me up, not drag me down. And that doesn't mean my elevation

and my growth and my journey is their responsibility. But I want to be around people who, in general terms, when I not all the time, and not every time, because it's also my job to drag them up, but in general terms, when I leave that person, when I get out of that conversation, that interaction, that experience, that social setting, whatever it is, when I walk away from that,

most of the time, I feel fucking great. I feel psychologically, emotionally and maybe even physically uplifted because I've been around that person. They help me think better, they help me find clarity, they help me understand myself more. They have knowledge and insight that I don't have as well. We might fucking laugh together, we might just enjoy each other's company. It doesn't have to be anything groundbreaking or mind blowing.

It might just be like, for example, one of the people that I'm talking about is my training partner, the crab Mark. We hang out every day and every day, we lift stuff, every day, we talk about stuff, every day, we laugh. It's not day to day life changing, but overall he is definitely a positive in my life. He's definitely a positive in my life, as is my best mate Vin if he happens to be listening to this. People who drag me up. Another person I don't want to hang out with is I don't want to hang

out with the person who strokes my ego. So I do want to hang out with people who don't do that, people who their priority is not to make me feel good or to endorse my behavior or to get my approval at all costs. Now, that doesn't mean I want them destroying me or running me down, or disagreeing for the sake of this agreeing. But I want real, I want authentic. I want to know despite what I think,

I want to know actually what you think. My thinking and your thinking, and my beliefs and your beliefs, and my attitudes and behaviors and lifestyle. They don't need to reflect each other. They don't need to converge. There might be a lot of divergence or difference there, and that might make our relationship more interesting, more durable, and more valuable. Perhaps is not maybe the right word, but we might add to each other's lives because we're not the same.

You know, if all of the people that I allow into my personal some might say sovereign space, if they all have to think like me, and be like me, and act like me and believe like me, than one I'm a fucking ego maniac, and two I'm creating a cult of Craig replicas and that don't work. Ever. Having said that, I want people in my life that care about me, that when I'm not looking, say nice things behind my back. And you know what I mean by that,

because we get the opposite. How many times has somebody that is a certain way to your face, usually jovial, friendly or apparently friendly, you hear down the track that they have been quite different about you, or spoken about you in a different way when you're not around. And you know, there are people who for whom a relationship with you might be completely strategic, and there are relationships that can be strategic, and that's okay as long as

both people know what's going on. This is a strategic alliance. This is a strategic relationship. It's win win. We both know what's going on. It's not actually a friendship per se, but it's a conditional strategic relationship, and we both know what's going on. And that's okay. But that's not in my personal space. That's not who I want to hang out with. I don't want someone blowing smoke up my

ass constantly. I don't want someone constantly praising me. But I want to know that if one of my friends is in a space where somebody else is perhaps saying negative things about me, that at the very least they might defend me if if what the other person's saying is perhaps not true. Of course somebody might be talking shit about men. It could be completely true, and that i'd tell my friend Pylon. But I love the idea of I personally love saying nice things behind my friend's back.

I love talking positively about people that I care about in a sincere and authentic way. I want people My next one is and this is this is just a term I use, and it's just a term, but I want to hang out with people that I would go to war with. I don't like war, by the way, but I love people who are brave enough to do that. I love people who are brave enough to represent our country and to represent you and me and to step

up when most people would not want to. I love that kind of that courage and reliability and durability and authenticity. And so when I say I want I want to hang out with people that would go to war with me, and I would go to war with them. That's just people that for whom I would almost do anything, and I selfishly perhaps I want that in return, I would do that for them, and I want to be with people who would also do that. Again, not conditional, it's

not strategic. It's just about love. It's just about I love this person, they love me. Cool. What do you need? What do you need? I also want to spend time

with people who disagree with me. I kind of mentioned that a minute ago, but I just think it's important and not for the sake of disagreeing, but I think it's important that that you know, of course, there'll be a lot of things that we do agree on, but there are you know, if somebody has a different opinion to me, or a different belief or idea, to me about something. I don't want them to not say that, and I don't want them to try to keep the peace.

There's a difference between arguing, yelling, screaming, and creating chaos. But I'm happy for In fact, if I've got people around me who never disagree with me on anything, you know, that's going to be a problem too, as I said before, because then it's just you know, then we're creating a basically an ideological cult, you know, where we all agree on everything, which just isn't realistic. I want to hang

out with people who aren't like me. I want to hang out with people who come from different places, people who come from different cultural and or religious backgrounds. I want to hang out with people who have got knowledge and insight and experience and awareness that I don't have. Selfishly, I want to hang out with people who aren't like me because one, I'm curious and I'm interested in those people. But two, and this is selfish, they can teach me

stuff I can learn from them. I can learn from them, and yes, I still need they still need to be people that I naturally like and respect and want to be around. But I don't want to hang out with a bunch of Craig clones. I don't want. I don't want my friends to have to meet certain criteria that are based on being like me. I want to hang out with people that challenge me and inspire me to be better and to do better. And that might happen in real time. And I do have a couple of

people who call me out. And I'm going to be honest and say that when people call me out, my friends call me out in the moment because I've got an ego and because I've got a whole bunch of bullshit, emotional and psychological bullshit that I'll always be dealing with. I don't I don't always respond brilliantly call the cops.

I don't, but nonetheless give me twenty thirty seconds. By the way, I don't explode and fight with anyone, but I just know that when it comes from the right place and I can step away from my ego and the emotional response for a second, generally there's some wisdom, there's some insight, and there's some perspective in what that person is sharing that I can't get without an external voice,

without an external pair of eyes. Because I'm me and I can't be objective about me because the Craigs experience is a completely subjective one for me, because I'm me and so truly objectivity, complete objectivity and open mindedness is impossible if we're talking about across the board open mindedness and objectivity. It's impossible because we all have pre existing beliefs and ideas and biases and experiences and insights and

programming and education and all of those things. We all have that and all that stuff is the filter through which we view the world, process the world and experiences and moments in time. But then the person that I'm sitting with or spending time with, they don't live in my reality. They're not seeing what I'm seeing. And sometimes what they're seeing I need to see. Sometimes what they're thinking I need to hear. Sometimes they're understanding, and their

insight is going to be a gift for me. That feels like a punch in the face in the moment. As you've heard me so many times. Often the things that we need, be the need to experience, or need to hear, or need to understand or need to become aware of, they're not the things we want. Like the things that we want generally are comfortable. Generally, the things that we want make us feel better in the moment, and it's this drive to feel better and be comfortable

and to be certain and to embrace convenience. These things are fucking limitations. These things are while they seem nice and in the moment they might deliver a degree of a joy. They might, but over the long term we need to have an awareness and a perspective and an understanding bigger than our own. And when we have what I call an unreasonable friend, which is a positive not

a negative. I know it sounds like a negative, but an unreasonable friend for me is the person that will tell me the uncomfortable thing, knowing that I might not love to hear it, but they're courageous enough to do that anyway, and in return, I I want to do that for people. Like one of the challenges for me on this podcast is there are things that there are things that I could say a lot more directly, and there are things that I believe and think that I

don't share on here. Nothing you know, horrendous or anything, but because I just know that if I say that, and I say it that way, there will be people who run with that and find the negative and then focus on that. And I get that, and I understand that.

And even though people would say, who listen to me and read my work on social media that wow, he's direct, he's like hard hitting, or he doesn't pull any punches, and all of those things that people say, you know, the velvet sledgehammer I've been called right, Well, if you knew what I really think, sometimes I would probably have fucking three followers because I think more than I say, which is not to say I'm being disingenuous. I'm trying

to exercise wisdom and an awareness greater than me. So there are things that I want to share, but I need to do that the right way, keeping in mind that, you know, so keeping in mind that I'm talking to thousands of people right now. Thousands of people will listen to this, and there, you know, and such is the divergence of experiences and personalities and mindsets and backgrounds. You know, is that right now, there will be some people thinking

this is pretty fucking interesting. There will be some people who have already tuned out because they're bored. There'll be some people who are thinking, wow, this is really informative and educational, and maybe some people are going, I'm not exactly sure what the fuck he's talking about. Despite the fact that the stimulus for everybody that is my voice, my words, my idea is the stimulus is the same, but the response is different. I've kind of gone off the path of who we hang out with, but I

just think that was an important thing to say. The bottom line is, hang out with people who might make you better, and they might not be the people that make you feel the best in the moment. Like I always say, and this is what I want for me from others, and this is what I would say to you if you were mine. And I've said this many times to people that I have worked with one on one it as a mental a coach, a conditioning coach,

and ext sise scientist, whatever personal trainer. Many times I've said to people the thing that you need to hear or the thing that I need you to do might not be the thing that you want to hear or the thing that you want to do. And also, I am more concerned with your long term wellbeing. I am more concerned with your ability to survive and thrive and win over the next three decades, for example, than I am interested in making you feel good for the next

three minutes. And we live in a time where you have to tippy toe around a lot of shit. You know that. I know that, and I don't know that all the tippy toeing. Yes, we need to be aware and sensitive and empathetic, and I say that genuinely we do, but oh my god, oh my god, sometimes we just need to pull back the curtain and go listen. Champ, You're the problem in this, not always the problem, but you are with this problem is your thinking, The problem

is your choices, The problem is your behavior. The problem because that is just fucking true for all of us. And sometimes we need that person in our life. We need that person. I need that person for some of you. Maybe I am that person sometimes, which is why I understand why some people don't like me. I'm not even upset. I get it. I get it because I understand how people think. And that's no judgment. I understand. You know.

I've I've mentioned this before, but I once I started reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Toll, maybe twenty years ago. I can't remember when it came out, but it was maybe twenty years ago, and at that time, with my mindset at that time and the way I thought and the way that I processed the world. I started reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Toll, and I kind of thought it was spiritual psychobabble. I kind

of thought it was bullshitting. And then I can't remember how many years, but some years later I found that book on a shelf at my house. I just, I don't know why. I just had had some time, and I sat down and I reread the first few pages. I didn't read that much the first time around. I probably read ten or twenty pages and put it down and thought it was crap. Right second time around, I couldn't put it down. Second time around, I thought, this

is fucking genius. There is so much wisdom and insight. This is such a beautiful, amazing lens to look at the world through. How is this guy so clever? How is this guy so enlightened? How did all of a sudden like he was the same Carttol was the same, The book was the same, the information was the same, the words were the same. But I was ready. I was ready to hear a different message. I was open. The problem was not the book. The problem was not

the information. The problem was that I didn't want to hear it. The problem was that I was not open minded. The problem was me, let's do two more people who keep their commitments. I want to be around people who do say what they mean, mean what they say, and do what they say they're going to do. And I think for me that is a really valuable kind of trait and a really desirable thing to have in a friend, because I've had a lot of people let me down. Again,

there's no self pity in this. There's just part of my journey. My life is good. My journey's been good. There's been way more good stuff than bad stuff. But at the same time, if I'm just being honest, there are people that have been really fucking unreliable, people that do not do what they say they're going to do, and then when they don't do what they said they would do, they don't apologize, they don't own up, they

don't step up, they don't take responsibility. They spew some bullshit about all of these things that happened that were out of their control, and generally that is not the truth sometimes but often not. And my last one is I love spending time with people who like me, value meaningful conversations over superficial interactions. I like stilliness, I like fucking around, but I don't like bullshit conversations. I don't

like talking for twenty minutes about nothing in particular. It doesn't mean that every dialogue, every interaction has got to be life changing or profound. Of course it doesn't. But you know when I mean, you've been in those situations where and I still get in those situations and it's not life threatening, but you know where you're somewhere and you're kind of just by virtue of circumstantial situation or whatever, you just find yourself in a conversation or an interaction

that's just basically fucking verbal fairy floss. It's like, farka, now this is going to give me conversational diabetes, Like this is shit. Now I'm going to have those, but I don't want those with my close friends. That's not who I want to choose to hang around people who

who do that, you know, conversational fairy fluss. Anyway, I just want to I want to finish by saying that it might be, it might not be, but it might be time for you to think about who you consciously spend time with, and the impact that that person or those people have on who you want to be and how you want to be, the impact that they have on your physical, mental, emotional health, the impact that they have on your mission, on your journey, on your work

in progress. Because you know, there are a lot of variables that affect the quality of our outcomes and the quality of our experiences and the quality of our work, and you know the quality of our journey over time, and we think about lots of things. You know, we talk about on this show. We talk about sleep and food, and we talk about lifting shit, and we talk about managing stress, and we talk about making better decisions, but we don't really talk about who do I want to

be around? Who do I want to choose to open the door for see you next time.