#1778 Why Do We Wait For Sh*T To Break? - Harps

maybe don't even care. But for those of you who want to know what the show, the new project might look like in twenty twenty five, and my plans moving forward, keeping in mind that we're heading towards two thousand shows, and I'm always thinking about like, I don't want to do shows for the sake of doing shows. I don't want to have conversations that are not adding value or

not potentially adding value. Having said that, of course, I acknowledge that over the course of seventeen hundred and eighty odd shows or whatever, at as of this episode, of course, some conversation is going to be more and less engaging,

more and less valuable to you the audience. Have I loved every conversation that I've had, of course I haven't have I disagreed with people that I've had on of course, that's part of the human experience, and I will continue to and we don't need to align or agree do I think every work that I've put out here has been a masterpiece. Far from it, Probably very few, if

any masterpieces. But I'm always conscious of trying to be authentic with what I do, trying to share content that is going to be hopefully valuable and relevant to the biggest percentage of people that listen as possible. Having said that, sometimes I feel compelled to talk about a particular topic. It's like sometimes I write a whiteboard post. If you follow me on Instagram, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

I write things on my whiteboard, take a photo of it, like I might be a thought, an idea, a message, a strategy, and then I post it. And some of those, some of the cheeky, funny ones that have got a fuck or a shit or some kind of you know, swearing word in it, or some kind of humorous idea or you know, something that's a little bit controversial. Quite

often that's the stuff that takes off. Not always. Sometimes I'll write something which for me is really important and profound and relevant and powerful for me, and I write it, I put it on the whiteboard, and I know that it's not going to be well, it's not going to get the same level of attention as a lot of others or the same level of approval I guess, you know, ticks and likes and feedback and comments from one of them.

But nonetheless, it kind of aligns with who I am and how I am, and I just think I always think there's going to be someone, even if it's one or two people that needed to hear this or read this. And with that in mind, I did an episode the other day, Episode seventeen, one hundred and seventy five. I think it was called the Proximity of Death or yeah, the Proximity of Death in the Proximity of Death, Yeah, And I got a lot of feedback. I got a lot of dms, I got a lot of messages through

Facebook and through Insta and some emails. And it's interesting because I think overall it probably wasn't any more popular or well received overall, but you know, it's something that has been in front of mine, just dealing with death and dying and people who were sick and unwell and just thinking about, you know, not obsessing about or worrying about, but being mindful of, you know, my own mortality and other people's mortality, and the fact that in our culture

we tend not to talk about it a lot, and probably we don't need to talk about it a lot, but maybe there are times when we do need to talk about it a bit more than we do. And anyway, so I did this, I did this monologue, and for some people it really resonated. So moving forward, and so thank you for the feedback. Thank you for the feedback. And by the way, we have we have a Facebook page that I've told you about before, and if you want to contribute to or maybe inform or influence what

might come up on the project. And I'm not promising anything other than I definitely read everything. I definitely take it on board. And my main I guess factor or consideration is will this idea or this top be generally will it be relevant to a fair few people? And there are things that fascinate me, but I wouldn't do a podcast on it because I know it's not going to be relevant to too many people. And while you know, I just said a minute ago that there are some

that might not be of interest. But even like, for example, I knew when I did the episode on the in the Proximity of Death, Put your Teeth in Harps, I knew that while some people might not press play because they don't want to think about it or hear about it death, some would And then I knew that for a So if it's that, if it's kind of that, you know, dynamic, then I think I'll go ahead with it.

But there are other things that I could talk about that are passionate or a passion project or an area of passion for me that I know is not generally relevant or particularly helpful, So I'll probably never do podcasts on that stuff. Somebody asked me about how I choose guests. So I get a constant, pretty constant stream of emails from people and contact from people who want to be

on the show. And we're not you know, we're not the Joe Rogan experience, we're not NBC, we're not each Channel seven or nine, but we have a pretty good audience. We have thousands of listeners a day, and we have a very loyal listener base. Thank you, and I'm for me.

It's really about what's going to be good for the audience, and so at this time of the year, like right now, it is difficult to get people that because a lot of people are away, a lot of people are not available or contactable understandably, So getting what I would call high quality guests at this time of the year, as in brand new people that you've never met through the

Youth Project, it's tricky. So I've changed my model a little bit this year, and we're going to continue to have new people, but we're going to also tap into the pre existing typ regulars in a more significant way. So some of them that you know, like David Gillespie that we get pretty much only good feedback about. Doesn't mean everyone likes him, but most people do. Most of

you find him interesting, a little bit provocative. He doesn't get everything right, like none of us get everything right, but he you know, I really enjoy the conversations with him, even though he shoots me to bits half the time. That's that's good for my ego, isn't it. But I

like that. And doctor Denise Finess that we had on Oh I think she's up today As I record this twenty six of the first which is a Sunday, and a lot of our regular guests doctor Bill Sullivan from the States, people that are really good at what they do and they kind of provide insight into things that are broadly relevant fast, So we're going to have lots of those people on. I feel like I'm waffling now,

I apologize. I'm going to keep doing solo ones. Sometimes I feel a bit awkward in that I'm like, do people really want to listen to me talk essentially to myself or to of course I'm talking to you, but you know, me just banging on doing basically a fucking thirty minute monologue. And if it was only up to what I think, I probably would not do many at all. But every time I do a not every time, but nearly every time I do one of these, I have

several people say, Craig, I prefer those over interviews. I like the teaching, I like the workshop kind of vibe. I like you, I like kind of being mentored by you. That's what it feels like for me, So please keep those up. And then other people understandably like, nah, I want to hear other people. I'm fucking sick of you. And whichever camp you're in or maybe you're in another camp. That's all good. So but for this year, we're going

to use tap into our regulars. That's going to happen a little bit more people that I know that you enjoy, people that don't know that bring value. I'm going to do some solo ones, and of course we're going to be talking to brand new people and people that have never insected with the U Project. So if you're not on the Facebook page, our Facebook page, of course, it's just the U Project Facebook page, jump in there. If you want to be part of that, feel free to

send a message, leave a message. We have over three and a half thousand people in there, and to be honest, it gets used and people comment, and I would love it to be used even more than it is, and not because there's any commercial reason for that. There's no hooks, catches or agendas. There's no cost, there's no sales pictures, not more than there is on any other thing anyway

of mine. I try not to do too many sales pictures or promos because I want it to be just a genuine I want that to be a place where people like minded people can go and go, hey, i'm reading this book that's fucking amazing. Has anyone else read this book? Or I read this book because anyone got another suggestion for me in the area of xyz? Or can someone recommend what I should watch on Netflix that's going to be a little bit uplifting and funny? Or

Craig did this conversation called the Proximity of Death? What did you think about that? Had it? You know whatever? I don't know a little bit of an online community for people to get together who, in general terms, might have a similar energy and focus in that we want to do better, think better, be better humans. I would love to create a space which is more positive, a more positive online space than is what we see a lot of in that kind of virtual world these days.

Having said all of that, my last thing before I actually talk to you is what is it? Oh? Yes, feb three, which is not too far away, is my news. So not Monday, you might well, it's a Monday night as I record, It's Tomorrow night week so eight days from now. But February three is my new mentoring program. It might be for you, it might not be for you. It's not cheap. We're not giving that shit away. But a lot of people that have done it have really got a lot out of it and gone on to

do bigger and better things. There's no sales pitch in that. There's just me telling you what's coming up. If you want to see what that looks like. There's a ten week overview. It's ten weeks, it's Monday nights. There's literally a syllabus that I've created so for me, quite the groundbreaking approach because I'm bloody, you know, Freddie freestyle. So

I've actually created a syllabus for the next one. So every week we're going to work on focus on talk about explore a predetermined area or topic relating to the human experience. Just go to my website, Craikcarpa dot net, go to education, have a look at that. All right, today we're talking about and thanks for still being here, the three of you that are talking about this propensity that we have to be proactive, not reactive. Sorry, sorry,

say that again, harps. Reactive not proactive. In other words, why we often not all of us, but often we wait for shit to go bad, or for shit to break, or for the catastrophe to happen before we do something, Before we take action on the thing that we knew we should have taken action on. And that could be a thing with our career, it could be a thing with our money. It could be a thing with our body, or our fitness more specifically, or our diet more specifically,

or a relationship not necessarily thoroughly a romantic one. I'll say that again with my teeth in not necessarily a romantic one. But the truth is that you and I are always getting data. And if you think about your life as like an ongoing kind of experiment, which in a way it is, because we're trying things and learning things. We're doing things and getting outcomes, and the outcomes our results.

That is our data that is telling us well. Craig, For example, I know there was a time in my life when my behavior, my operating system, my protocol was eating way too much food and eating way more food or putting way too much energy into my body than my body needed. Now that was my behavior, that was my operating system, and the outcome of that was obesity. The outcome of that was that I was morbidly obese. I was overweight, I was un healthy, I was unhappy.

And not only was there this physical consequence as a result of the things that I've been doing, But there was also an emotional and psychological and behavioral consequence. Now I knew, And I'm just using me as an example set, don't get upset, And it doesn't need to be about body weight or fat or obesity, if it can be about anything. But I'm just using this as a practical example, right, And I think back, Now, I think about why did I Why was I doing that thing that didn't work?

And I think all of us and am I right now in my life? Am I currently doing something that doesn't work? Or am I currently doing something which is perhaps not optimal for me? Yes? I am? I am I'm sure nothing right now springs to mind, but I know I'm not doing everything optimal. But there are times when I've got There have been times in my life where I was actually doing stuff that I knew fucking stupid. I knew that over the long term, this is bad, This is not good, this is unhealthy. This is not

aligned with my values or my goals. This doesn't sit right with who I want to be and how I want to be. And there were times when as an exercise scientist and jim owner and person with a profile where I was and I've said this before, but I was literally telling people to do things that I couldn't

even fucking manage to do myself. So what I was pretending to be that the persona of me, the high performance, disciplined, in control, you know, educated exercise science guy, away from the persona of that, the actual person, the human, the psychological, emotional, you know, physiological creature that is me. I was eating

shit and doing dumb shit and producing bad outcomes. And in the middle of that was self loathing and shitty self esteem and embarrassment and fear that people would find out in all of that and that may or not in some way relate to you. And so the thing is, why do we do this? Like, why do we do dumb shit that doesn't work? And why do we wait for shit to break? Why do we wait for things

to fall apart? Often not all of us, not all of the time, but why do so many of us so often wait for the shit to hit the fan or the catastrophe to actually go, Oh I'm that fuck, I'm changing, I'm doing it. What is that about? And so I want to unpack that a little bit because I think you know there are a bunch of reasons. And again, this is not what I'm giving you. Is not a three step plan, it's not a cure, it's not a miracle anything. As always, this is just me

thinking out loud. This is me just talking to you about how I think this stuff works based on my own flawed nature and behavior and journey, my own experience of fucking up and getting up, and also on a professional level, my experience working with thousands of people who all want the same thing on a level, and that thing is to be better. Now, of course, better means different things for different people, but better in terms of everyone wants to be successful. Everyone wants to be healthy.

Everyone wants to be happy. Nobody wants to be miserable, Nobody wants to be unhealthy, nobody wants a shit job, nobody wants to be broken. Right, So we all on a level. And I'm not saying necessarily that a great body or a great bank account equals nirvana or happiness. No, but I think there's a commonality across the board of the things that we want, and we want to be physically and mentally, emotionally, spiritually, financially in a good place. But Nonetheless, so many of us, so much of the

time self sabotage. That is, we do shit which is stupid. I could make it more complicated, I'm not going to. But based on who and how we want to be and what we know matters, we do stuff that is somewhat somewhere between stupid and toxic and self destructive. An obvious one being, you know, putting crap in our body, and whether or not that crap is booze or drugs or low quality, high sugar food like it is what we do, but we know that it is not good

for us. But what it does do, what it does do, and this is one of the reasons that you know, we delay and we deny and we avoid. What it does do or what it can do, is those toxic things, the you know, the high sugar, low nutritional value, highly processed crap, the drug cigarette, the twenty cups of coffee. Coffee is not bad, but twenty cups not good, you know,

the drugs, the booster, all that stuff. What it does do is it puts us temporarily in a state where in that moment, in that moment of consuming that thing or having that thing in our system, for a while after. It makes us feel good. We love instant gratification, we love feeling good in the moment, And so we have

this real addiction. And I mean addiction because you know why it's an addiction because it's almost impossible to stop for so, like how many people who are unhealthy essentially know what to do but don't do it, I would say the vast majority. How many people who are unhealthy don't want to be unhealthy, all of them. Everyone who's unhealthy wants to be healthy. Everyone who's got an addictive or an addiction that's toxic, that's destructive, that's fucking up

their life, they don't want that addiction. But it's easier said than that. And I, by the way, I'm acknowledging this is not easy. So I'm not saying try harder, be disciplined. No, what I'm trying to do is to help us all understand the psychology and the physiology and the nature of addiction and also the nature of habitual behavior.

When we do something for long enough, that just becomes a hard, wide, subconscious operating system that now you think about when you've been and forget addiction for the moment or drugs or booze or that harder end of the scale. But just you know, it might just be that every time somebody says something nice to you, you put yourself down. Now, if you deflect and you self low, then you have all of these sociological kind of behaviors that are really

fuck looking you up psychologically and emotionally and sociologically. But when you've been putting yourself down and calling yourself a piece of shit and hating on yourself for thirty years and then Craig Harper does a podcast and he says, hey, that's no good for you. You know that's bad for you. You know that. Well, that doesn't fix anything, does it. All it does is maybe make you think or maybe open the awareness door or the curiosity door a little bit.

So I'm fully acknowledging that it is not easy to change these things. But I'm also fully acknowledging that it's possible. And that's the good bit. That's the good bit. The challenge for us is in overcoming these things and being the person who doesn't wait for things to fall apart, who doesn't wait to be diagnosed with some kind of medical condition that's potentially life shortening or life ending. The challenge for us is to be able to start, be able to make the decisions, and to be able to

change our behavior. What I'm about to say is crucial when we don't feel like it. We don't feel like it, and so often we don't feel like it because who the fuck wants to do something that's hard and uncomfortable and unfamiliar and is wrapped in uncertainty. We don't know what the absolute outcome is going to be. But what I do know is if I eat this piece of cake, what I absolutely know is I'm going to feel good

for a little while. It's going to give me a dopamine response, is going to make me my taste buds come and fucking come alive, and I'm going to feel awesome for about ten minutes, and then probably in fifteen minutes I'm going to feel shit and guilty in all of that. But nonetheless, I know what's coming. And by the way, I'll give up the cake, or I'll give up the self loathing, or I'll give up the gambling habit, or I'll get out of the toxic relationship, or I'll

do that soon. But I'm not doing it today. I'm not doing it today and then tomorrow comes. In course, tomorrow is now, it's today, and of course it's not today, it's not today, but again it's soon. And by the way, Craig, you don't understand my situation, You don't understand my genetics. You dah da da da da. And now I'm fifty right.

I don't know how many people. I was going to say thousands, but I've literally had tens of thousands of conversations with people, but conversations with people who essentially said to me. They didn't say these exact words, but essentially said to me, I've known that I should have changed this forever, and I just haven't done it. I've wanted to change this forever. I've almost been turning my life

around for twenty years. Or they're sitting in front of me, they're forty five, fifty five, sixty five, and they're essentially saying to me, where I am is not where I want to be. But I know I got here by my own choices or lack of choices, my own action or inaction, and where I am is not my plan. I didn't plan to be here. And I think it's really important that with these conversations, we be what's the word harps, we'd be pragmatic and realistic, but without hating

on ourselves. There's a difference between self awareness and self loathing. As I've said many times, I can acknowledge that I have been the problem without throwing myself into self pity and regret and resentment and self loathing. I can do that. I can say there have been many times, many times in my life where I have knowingly taken the option that I probably shouldn't have taken, but in the short term, that was the comfortable or the familiar or the easy

option for me. Have I done that? Have I done that? Many times? Will I ever do it again? I'm sure I will. I'm sure I will. We are not chasing perfection. We are chasing improvement, awareness, growth, personal development, authenticity, and these these are the things that are empowering. These are the things that are transformational. You know, we sometimes because we have no symptoms, like right now, I'm doing stuff that's not good for me, but there's no major symptoms,

so we tell ourselves it's all good. And it might kind of be all good for the moment, but we know it ain't going to be all good in a while, because shit catches up to us and there'll be a period of time where you can get away with certain behaviors. But is that what you want? Is that what you want to get away with it? And then to wait till it catches up to you, for you to wait till shit breaks, the shit hits the fan, the wheels for off, the catastrophe happens, whatever you want to call it,

Is that what you want to do? Or do you want to use that brain that you have, that intellect that you have and say, listen, I know what I'm doing over the long term is going to be bad for me. It's going to be bad for me, and look it is. I acknowledge. It's tough and starting when you don't want to start, but you probably need to start. It's tricky because you and me are we're wired. We're wired for comfort and certainty and safety and predictability and

we love insta gratification and all of that. And the truth is that I can eat this or I can do this thing. Forget food for the moment, but I can do this thing, whatever the thing is. Let me think of something I decide I want. I want one hundred inch TV. I've got a seven inch TV. I'm already struggling with Bill. I don't one. I don't need one hundred inch TV. I just want one. And I'm

not really in a financial position too. But I know that I can make it work because I can manipulate things, and finance companies are happy to help me out in bibbity bobby boo. So I do this thing that I know. I do this thing in the short term, which is going to give me a moment or a day or two or three of pleasure and satisfaction. Look what I have, Look what I own. I've got this new hundred inch TV. And then but I know, but I know that this is not a great decision. This is not a good thing.

Now I've got to find more money. Now I'm over the long term. I'm putting myself under more pressure because I'm making poor decisions around money. So the challenge for us is that sometimes, in fact, quite often, the things that we need to do to be who and how we want to be and not the things that today

we're going to enjoy. You know, I remember getting to a point when I was in my twenties and I'd lost all this weight when I was a teenager, and I've gotten really fit and strong, and I ended up owning all of these businesses and I had you've heard the story, lots of businesses, lots of stuff, and I kind of slipped out of elite training mode. I was still training, but I was also eating everything that wasn't

nailed down. And over a period of about two years, I'd probably gone from around ninety like when I was at my leanest and lightest as an adult, I was close to eighty helos. But at this stage, before I started to slide, I was probably around ninety kilos, quite quite muscular, quite lean, in very good shape, very disciplined, and over time not proud of this. But over time I ended up blowing up and putting on the best

part of thirty kilos. I was nearly one hundred and twenty kilos, and I was, you know, I was the guy who owned the gym, who had all the knowledge, who was telling people what to do, who wasn't doing it himself right. And then but I knew. I knew when I was wearing bigger and baggier clothes and sweatpants and baggy windsheets as we did back in those days embarrassingly. But when I and I was always you know, for

that two year period, I was ashamed of myself. But I still love food, right, but food, food became my That was like my escape clause, that was like my safety in it. That was my like, no matter what happened through the day, how much stress, how many hard decisions, how many difficult conversations, there was always ice cream, or there was always cheesecake, or there was always pizza or hamburger or pastoral, whatever it was that I was doing.

And I think I was doing all of it. But I remember, I remember when I just got to the point where I hated myself enough and I hated my behavior enough where I knew that it it's going to take me six months to really turn it around. And I don't mean it's going to take longer than that, but to actually get my body back in shape would be a solid six months. And I remember, I remember

where I am right now, sitting in my studio. I remember walking out the front of where I am now, and across from my house is another street that goes kind of straight ahead from where I'm sitting, and I decided I was going to go for a run I knew would be hard, I knew would be horrible, had my big baggy, fucking everything tracksuit, you know, top all that, and I started to run. And I'd always been pretty

good runner, you know, and I could run. I could literally when I was younger, and not run for six months and then go for run and still run five k's easily and quite quickly and come back and not blow out a candle. Well, when you're nearly one hundred and twenty kilos, that is not the case. And I remember thinking, well, this will be hard, but I'll just tough it out. I'll go and run a few k's. It'll be hard and horrible, and I'll tough it out. Now I'm embarrassed to say this, but this is true.

So I was probably, I don't know, late twenties or something, maybe thirty ish, and I started my run inverted Commas, which was not a run at all, but rather a fucking embarrassingly horrible plot. And I plodded about four hundred meters and thought I was going to have a heart attack because I was literally running with thirty kilos more than I had on So imagine you right now running up the street, you come back, then you put on a thirty kilo vest and you try and do that

same run. Well that's not only was I thirty kilos heavier, I was infinitely less fit and so on. And it was And it was in that, you know, like in that moment and moments like that that for me, I went, I just I don't want to be that person anymore. And it did. It took me at least six months to get my body back to relatively lean and fit and strong. But if I'm being honest, it's for me. It's been a lifetime of trying to manage my mind.

It's been a lifetime of trying to manage me self, regulate, you know, and to like me knowing you know, my mum's had a heart attack, my dad's had hurt too, heart attacks. My dad's got some significant issues. My mum has had cancer three times. I don't come from amazing genetics. Like I knew early that if I wait until I get diagnosed with something terrible, that could be you know, you think about this. Sometimes for some people, the first sign of a problem is death. Like literally some people

have seemingly no symptoms, no parent health issues. I say a parent, and then they die and people are like, oh my god, understandably. And what I know is that, well, I'm pretty sure I know that this is the only life I'm going to have. Maybe something happens after we die and this mortal plane, maybe we go, maybe we go somewhere bigger and better. Who knows, But right now we don't know. We just think or believe we do.

And that's cool as well. But what I do know is I have this life, and I have this body, and I can't get another life where I can't get another body, and I can't do any I can't undo anything that I've done or not done so far. I can only optimize what I have. Now. You know we are You and I are constantly getting information. You and

I are constantly getting data. We're constantly getting results your body, your relationships, your bank balance, your career, your internal sat nab that internal wisdom that you and I can't really explain, you know, the stuff that you just fucking know. No one taught you or told you you didn't do a course. You don't know where it comes from, but there is

a knowing, there is a wisdom. I guess It's like it's analogous to instinct or intuition, but to me it seems more like sometimes it's like the other day when I recorded that podcast about death, I felt quite compelled, And of course I didn't know that people needed to hear it. And maybe it was coincidence or not, I don't know, but I had. As of this morning, I've had almost fifty emails or private messages from people telling me that they needed to hear that, that it was

like I had recorded that for them. I don't know where that comes from. And maybe that's just a coincidence, and maybe it's just my thinking because that suits me

and I like the idea of that. But the bottom line is that you and I are always getting information and data and feedback from what we do, from what we don't do, from the life that we live, from the way that we interact and intersect with others, and from what we do and don't do for our brain and for our mental health and for our body, for our financial health, for our professional health and our career

and so on. And so it's in our interest not to put our head in the metaphoric sand, but to be able to turn down the emotion a little bit and to turn up the logic and strategy and say, all right, well, what is my life telling me? What is what are my results telling me? I think most of us know. I think at our core we know what we should be doing. We know that we know

that the best behavior is this. But right now I'm not doing the best behavior because from where I am to where I need to be, it's going to be messy and uncomfortable, and right now I'm not ready for that. So what's the take home? The take home is we don't have to be ready. We don't have to be ready in that we don't have to feel like it. We don't have to be pumped and excited and motivated and inspired to turn our life or our behaviors, or our habits or our health around. We don't need to

be in the zone. We just need to be willing to own up and to step up and to do the work, even if it isn't fun, quick, easy, or painless.