#1779 The Pracademic - Harps & Tiff

All my studies have then done, All the data's in, all the interpretation is nearly done, or what they call academic milestones have been ticked off for of those. I'm writing papers. I'm writing multiple papers. I'm writing a systematic literature review. I'm writing two maybe three empirical papers. What that means is when you do your own research, that is your own new research. You're adding new kind of stuff to the world of science, so you're doing empirical

studies and then reporting on that. I'm doing that, and I just spent the last two hours going through the first draft of one of my papers, which is both exciting but also makes you want to punch yourself in the face. So that is where I'm at. And I think I may even like I've never thought I have ADHD and I probably don't.

the cognitive traits, like the kind of the brain things, and what are the emotional kind of attributes that influence the like in day to day real world conversations out out and about doing life. It's fucking fascinating, right, But when it comes down to looking at is the data analysis from you know study too, and here's here's a fucking Excel spreadsheet with fifteen million numbers. And then me and the sixty one year old brain.

if I was. I didn't get monach, didn't stand out and go hey, we would love you to do a PhD. But I did some work for them for the brain Brain Park kind of group, which is the Neuroscience Neuropsychology Psychology Lab, and I went in to do a talk to them about just which was hilarious because I was the least qualified in terms of academic you know, I had an undergrad degree, and I'm talking to everyone who at the very least is a PhD student and you know,

professors and department leaders. But they were fascinated with the way that I do my work, and because I essentially help people change, you know, physically, mentally, emotionally, practically, behaviorally, and they're like, how do you do that? What's kind of watch your protocol? And and I'm like, what's a protocol? You know a little bit, because yes, of course I have a I had, you know, a mild academic background. I had a degree in exercise science and a bit

of other experience and other stuff. But you know, really it's like you're learning, You're not when you do a PhD in psychle or neuropsych you're not really learning as much about the mind as you are about how to do research at that level. And so of course I've learned more about you know, the specifics of metaaccuracy and meta perception, and I can tell you more than I could have told you five years ago. But you know, five years ago, I still understood the nuts and bolts

of what I now understand to a a level. And I did that intuitively and instinctively over time, talking to thousands of people, realizing that how I see me isn't

how they see me. And so it's important that I do have an insight into what the Craig experience is like for the rest of the world, not for my ego or my security, but so that I can build connection, rapport and trust, and solve problems together, and work as part of a team together, and resolve conflict, and to be an effective podcast, to teach, a coach, mentor corporate speaker.

All that because if you stand in front of a group, whether it's even a group of two or three or a group of a thousand, and you've got no idea what the Craig or the Tiff or the U experience is like for the rest of the room or the podcast audience in this case, then you're guessing, and you're just as likely to create disconnection as connection. But everyone's goal is connection. Everyone's goal is understanding, you know, But you might be creating more confusion than anything. But you

don't fucking know. So, But I mean it's been great for me because I'm not a natural academic, I'm a pro academic, and so to make me learn this new language and this new protocol and this new universe, like it's a fucking universe where it's my analogy was the first year, it's like going to Russia and you know that you're not dumb, but you feel dumb because everyone speaks Russian and you don't, and people are talking to you, and even three six months in you're getting you know,

two in ten words, so you're piecing together what they're saying. But they literally use a language. I mean literally a language like you know, words and phrases and constructs and concepts that not only don't you use, you've never heard of, right, And so now you're learning this new language as well as learning how to do the highest level of research. And then you've got to write papers which are going to be published in academic journals and you know all

of that. So it's really yeah, I've I've learned a fair bit about obviously the focus of my research, but also more I've learned about how to do a PhD and how to do that kind level of research?

the research say, It's like, yeah, that's nice. Next it doesn't matter, Like it doesn't matter in the sense that your experience, by the way, outside of this particular world that we're talking about, it is very important. Like your experience, your ideas, your insights, your understanding, your conversations, your real world learning on a practical life kind of reality or in a practical life reality or level, it really matters because it's appliable, it's usable, it's practical, right, But in

an academic environment. When you are bringing science or new research into the world, it doesn't matter what you think. It matters what you can prove and what the data says, and what the research tells us and what your experiments, for one of the better term show us. That's what matters. Now, what you think and what you've experienced and what you believe can inform your research. That is the way that you create design your studies, or the kinds of questions

that you ask or the hypotheses that you form. But you know, what you think you know is irrelevant in terms of the final product. It's all about what the data says. And yeah, and really you are studying such a specific thing, you know, in it's like I've said this probably fifty times, so I apologize, But I'm studying a drop of water in an ocean of human behavior.

Like there are so many variables and so many factors and so many components and jigsaw piece puzzles to the human experience from a psychological, emotional, and sociological point of view that you think, oh well, ah, I understand. Saying I understand how the mind works is like saying I understand how the universe works.

know nearly fucking nothing. So understanding the mind is pretty much an impossibility if we're talking about totally understanding the mind, and also even you know, interestingly proving that there is a mind, you know. And the thing with psychology is

that it is. And this is going to now sound like I'm throwing my own field under the bus, but it's probably the hardest, if not the messiest, if not the most unreliable science, because you know, when we think about, like all of the stuff that I or most of the stuff that I did, was using a range of different psychometric tools for testing, you know, scales and questionnaires and all kinds of things, but it's all subjective self evaluation.

And as I've said to you many times, and I'll shut up after this, but the problem with psychology is that I could listeners, I could get Tiff to complete a questionnaire which assesses her her overall let's say mental health, or it's an insight or a tool to assess mental health, or emotional health, or extraversion or introversion or conscientiousness or you know whatever, all of these different factors or traits now, and then I get all the data because Tif did

this protocol and filled out all of these answers, and then I get it and I go, here's my data. And then I do the same protocol with Tiff. A week later. She's in a different headspace. She hasn't slept well, she's a bit grumpy because the dog ate the cat, and a whole lot of shit's going on. And I get completely different data from the same human using the same protocol. Now you don't get that typically in other sciences.

It's like if I measure your body composition today using a reliable tool, and now I measure it tomorrow, I'm going to get the same outcome. If if you know, I if I drop some if I drop a bowling ball in a vacuum, it's going to fall at the same speed every time as is a feather. Right, there's consistency. If I go all right, anatomy. Well, that bone in the top of the it's today we call it the fema. Guess what we call it the fucking fema tomorrow as well. It's not going to be a humorous or a bloody

patella tomorrow. Like, there's consistency and reliability. But in in the research of psychology, and this is not the right term, but listeners will understand it. The measurement of the mind, or the components of the mind, or the attributes of the mind, it's at best messy.

This is the go to. So depending on which field of psychology, because there's different fields of course, you know, social psychology and sports psychology and clinical psychology, and you know that all the psych work they do in the corporate space, Like, there's different areas of psychology, same field, different areas, but that'll be defined differently in different contexts.

So there's a lot of convergence. So coming together in agreement, there's probably just as much, if not more, divergence of disagreement disparity, Like I don't know about that, but I will say, you know, I was talking to Chris, who's my senior supervisor, and you know that I was talking about the oldest kind of reference to self awareness that I could find anyway, is like two and a half thousand years and it's Socrates who said the beginning of

wisdom is to know thyself. Right, that's self awareness. It's like and he was talking two and a half thousand years ago about basically to know yourself and understand yourself. It is an indicator of wisdom, you know, if not intelligence. And so it's been something that people have been thinking about for a long time. But you know, I truly believe and I'm not saying it because it's my research. I think, you know, it's one of many interpersonal superpowers.

But if you can really understand how other people experience you, or think of you, or perceive you, and then you use that information in the right way, you use that understanding, you use that knowledge in the right way, then you can become much better at all things communication, problem solving, leadership management, friendship, parenting, because you understand stand what they're getting because we always look at the situation, conversation, negotiation

through our lens, but they're not looking through that lens. So it's in our interest to, as you've heard me say many times, to walk away from our window and metaphorically try and have a peek through theirs, because it doesn't matter if we agree or disagree, but to see through their window is to have a level of awareness and understanding that you don't when you are, you know, thinking that everybody else thinks like you. We've spoken about

the false consensus effect. The false consensus effect which most people are trapped in is they think that other people think like them, which is broadly not true.

side of the belief you're going to lean towards. Were there any of those crossroads that came up for you that you felt biased pulling you in a way, that logic was probably pulling you the other way, and we were there areas that you had to kind of I don't know.

is how the works. You're not doing that, you kind of you're kind of telling them your best understanding of what your research tells you, and your research is informed by or guided by what you originally thought before you started the research, right, what your questions or hypotheses were, but also what other people in the field have found or not found. So when you're doing a PhD for example,

especially in the psychology space, but most spaces. I've never done mine outside of psych But I assume you know your job is to build on existing science, Like what do we already know? Yeah, well, don't do that, Greg, We already know that. Or I might have a theory that contradicts a current theory and I might disprove something, or I might recognize a gap in you know, well we haven't looked at this particular thing through this lens

or factoring in this variable. So we're going to do that, right, So, like, do you want me to bore you for one minute? I just bought up one of my papers. This is the working tile, right, and this is very This is quite understandable because this is just an abstract and this is very much a work in progress. So the name of this paper, don't get too excited. It's called gender

and Mental health as Determinants of meta Accuracy. So what I'm doing in this particular paper is looking at the way that mental health, positive or negative, can impact a person's level of meta accuracy, in other words, how good they are at predicting how other people see them, and also the role of gender, so meta accuracy. So this is this is the world's never heard. Yes, this is the abstract. This is a work in progress. This will probably change a bit, but this is what I was

working on before. And this is a five thousand word paper about twenty pages at this point. Metaaccuracy, the ability to infer how others perceive us, is a critical component of effective social functioning and interpersonal relationships. This study explores my study the intersection of mental health, gender, and metaaccuracy within close relationships, focusing on how positive and negative mental health states influence metaperception accuracy across personality traits using a

partner based correlational design. Ninety diads. That means ninety pairs n equals one to eighty. That's the total number of participants that many people completed self reports, partner ratings, and metaperception assessments online. Now this is what nobody in the world has heard, and so I could be fucking myself up here. But anyway, results reveal, so this is very preliminary. Results reveal that positive mental health enhances metaaccuracy for emotional

stability and openness. So, in other words, what that means is your ability to predict. So if I say to you tif one to five. How emotionally stable are you? You go, I'm a four, and I predict you're a four, then you're quite meta accurate regarding that particular trait. So to openness, right, So I'll explain it briefly at the end. With gender specific patterns, males showed greater accuracy for emotional ability,

while females exhibited greater accuracy for openness and conscientiousness. So your ability to predict how other people see you tif in terms of openness and conscientiousness. Females are typically, in my research, better than that. Negative mental health, particularly stress, consistently impaired meta accuracy affecting consciousness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. That is the prediction of those two traits in terms

of accuracy, with greater susceptibility observed among females. Depressions selectively reduced emotional stability meta accuracy in male I know this is complicated. These findings unscore the nuanced interplay between mental health and gender in shaping social cognition, providing insights into potential tailored interventions to improve relational and psychological well being. Implications for theory, therapeutic practice, and future research on social

perception dynamics are discussed within the paper. So that's my that's a snapshot of what the papers about.

way or the other. It doesn't show a positive or a negative relationship, or it doesn't show a correlation between this particular thing and that particular thing, right, But what does seem to be showing up with this particular Remember this is one study in a million billion studies, So this is Craig study with one hundred and eighty people, ninety diads, ninety pairs. It seems that women are better

at it. This is not a shocker. And also that also that people with more positive mental health, So people who are generally happier, more optimistic, more positive generally have greater levels of better accuracy than people who have depression, anxiety, and stress. So there's a scale called the DAS twenty one which is DAS is depression anxiety stress and the second S is scale Depression anxiety Stress Scale. So that's

one of the psychometric tools that I use. But yeah, it's really interesting and you because what it does is it takes out my opinion and my emotions, and all it is is me kind of getting all of the data data that we've collected and interpreting that as best as we can. Having said that this is my and this is not about my research or anyone in particularly. But one of the problems with science, and I've said this and you and I have alluded to this many times,

is that all scientists are human. All humans make mistakes, all humans have bias, all humans have emotion. Humans want to to an extent, be right right, And so this is one of the things is to produce great science, you really don't want to have an emotional investment in the outcome because if I want a certain outcome, then I'm not going to be completely objective.

with the world. So I will say that, you know, we need science, absolutely, and science is great, but science is not perfect one because the protocols are not perfect, the execution of the research is not perfect, the research design is not perfect, and the people doing all the science are not perfect. So I always think when we

say something, our science tells us. Firstly, when someone with a broad fucking brush says science tells us already, I'm like, that's bullshit, unless you can tell me the research, the researchers, the studies, how many people were in it, what was the risk of bias with that particular research? Was that research funded by any organization? With some research, it's nearly as high as ninety percent funded, depending on what field.

So if you know that your ability to keep doing research is dependent on that company financing essentially your livelihood and your study and your research, you don't want to give them data that doesn't work for them commercially. And so, of course, obviously nobody funds my research because gives a fuck,

and I don't want it. I don't want it to be like I'm just genuinely interested in the outcome, you know, And that's not saying my my research won't be flawed, but I think it's important, you know, especially today there's so much shit online with fucking influencers going oh, well we know that if you eat that and you don't do that and this is the result, and you're like, no, that's that's just just because that's coming out of your face.

That doesn't mean it's true. That's just used saying words, and you know, like most firstly, I'm literally getting towards the end of my PhD, and I think even I'm not a good source half the time.

For me, even if all I got out of this was learning how to study properly with I have, which I have, and learning how to design a research project, which I have, and then learning how to run studies with humans and get ethical approval and assess risk of bias and read fucking copious amounts of academic journal papers and understand even if that's all I get, it's been worthwhile, right, So selfishly that are But on a more practical level,

it's okay. If I'm being completely honest. Does it hurt for me to rock up to a company and be doctor Craig Harper with a PhD in psychology? Of course that doesn't hurt. That's not my reason, right, But that doesn't hurt. Of course. We're just talking about perception and brand and you know, commercial viability. So Craig, the bloke who used to left heavy shit and be a fat guy versus you know, this guy with a PhD in psychology. Probably that gives me some kind of slight advantage. Maybe

maybe not, But I truly believe this idea. You know, like at least one hundred times in a corporate environment, I've said to the manager of the leader, the boss, him or her, what do you think it's like being

around you? And ninety nine times out of one hundred they say something like fuck, I don't know, or I've never thought of that, or oh wow, that's that's And I say, look, probably what you think is probably not how it is, you know, and that when you think that how people experience you, like, for example, on your podcast, and your podcast goes great and you go great. But let's say, for example, you thought you were doing a podcast and oh, this is fucking fascinating, right, but you're

audience disagree. Guess what all that matters is what they think, because they're the fucking listeners. Doesn't matter what you think. It matters that you understand what is going to resonate with for this, It doesn't matter what you think this example. What matters is one how they think, because they decide if they're going to come back, same with the you project listeners, right, And two your ability. And I'm always thinking about this, what do my audience want to hear,

like to hear, need to hear? And what am I like for them? Am I fucking Noel? Do I say fuck too much? Tom? I?

So my mission in regards to this is to once I'm done, then hopefully go and talk on a bigger level and around this idea of understanding how others see us, just purely so that we can do all the things I said before, better solve problems, work together, understand you know, there's so much hatred, right. I'm not saying let's get rid of the hatred. I wish we could, but that's not practical. What what I'm saying is understand why he hates you. That's a good start. Understand why you hate them.

That's meta cognition, that's you trying to understand you. You know, just like I think, better connection, better business, better leadership, better management, better efficiency, better productivity is built on greater understanding between the various mind in the room, and this is part of that.

I think this shit's fascinating. And I'm not talking about you know, every now and then, some usually Olpha Male goes, I don't give a fuck what people think of me. I'm just going to fucking be me, and if they don't like a day can get I'm like, yeah, well, I'm John. How's that going for you at work? Do you ever wonder why you've got fucking zero friends and

why people think you're a douche? Because you know, that's not tough, that's not intelligence, that's insecure, and we're not you know, if somebody doesn't like me one, that's totally okay. Not everybody needs to like me, of course, but I'm interested in what that's about. I'm interested in. And if somebody just wants to be a hater, I'm not interested. But if somebody, you know, it's like early days, maybe one hundred episodes into the You Project, a lady sent

me a message. She went, You're great, love you that that are all good. By the way, sometimes you talk over the top of your guests. And I went, that's a good point, thank you. That's valid. What you're saying is critical, but in a good way. It's informed. And I went and listened to a bit of stuff. I went, she is exactly right. I wrote her an email. I said, I listened to a couple of episodes. You're right, thank

you for the feedback. It's actually valuable, right, because I can't be objective about me and you can't be objective about you. And while we humans say, oh no, I love feedback, no we don't. We fucking hate feedback unless it's positive. We don't want critical feedback. We want support, we want endorsement. The moment that you give somebody feedback they don't want is the moment they start to resent

you and shut down to you. Now, I'm not suggesting we should just walk up to everyone and give them feedback, right, That's not what I'm saying. But when you say to me, Harps, how can I be better at corporate speaking? And I go, well, here's five things you do. Well, here's one or two things I reckon you do? Okay, but you could get better at. And here's one thing I think that you're

not doing well at all. Now you can go, oh, let's lean into that one, right, or you can go, yeah, tell me about the five though, right, tell me how good I am at the five Well, you don't need that, because you're good the one or two things that are okay but could improve. Yep, I would be interested, But I personally, tell me about the thing that I'm shit at. Why do you think I'm shit at it? What do I do? And in your opinion, how might I shift that?

Because that's like, if you are truly interested in growth and personal development and self help, and if these podcasts and conversations are really about that and you that is genuinely your mission, then you need to be able to somehow put your ego and your poor self esteem and your insecurity and your fear to one side. Doesn't mean it'll vanish and hear what you need to hear versus what you're comfortable to hear, you know, because it's I mean,

why do you think so few people? And I'm not throwing my listeners under the bus because I constantly get emails and feedback from people who are applying things. But broadly speaking, in the world of self help, personal development, behavioral psychology, how many people hear things that are relevant and potentially helpful and operationalizable or you know, could be

put into practice but don't do it. I would say the vast majority how many people hear something that if they put that something into practice would create some kind of shift pretty quickly. But just go nah, because I'm busy and my ankle saw and you don't understand my situation, and you know whatever. And I'm not saying those things are not real. But if we want to find a reason to be a victim or finder, and I'm not saying there are not real victims, of course there are.

But if we want to find a reason to put off the thing we shouldn't put off, we'll find it.

you know, like how it's very self focused? Oh how do people understand me? So I start reading that and thinking about it and applying stuff. But what if I get to insulin? Forget that? Now I'm not giving a fuck about any interest in developing curiosity around who's that person, which drives a lot of that behavior and connection and interaction as well. So I reckon. That's like I reckon, there's so many things that start interweaving peace well.

but I don't care as much. I care that I'm being authentic, and I care that that I'm I'm as close to you know, public me, personal me, private me, secret, me, you know, those four layers of the me. You know, and what most people give on a podcast is public me. It's that public gnatif how you being Oh yeah, what do you do over? But that's the kind of public that's the persona, that's the I'm on a microphone, we're having a chat, and there's it's not that it's bullshit,

but there's a lot that you're not really getting. And for me, it's more I want to be almost that private me, the one that generally only a few people get access to. Like personal you, that's who your friends and family see. Private you is the person that maybe a few very close people to you or one know. And then secret you is the you that only you know. For me, and I don't always do it, but I

want to. There's and of course there's stuff for personal reasons that I wouldn't share with the world, but nothing nothing controversial law, but it's just wouldn't help people, you know, it's not relevant. But all the stuff about me that like my insecurity, my bullshit, my you know. By the way, I'm like, I don't pretend I'm a great academic. I tell people I'm not because I want to encourage people, Look, if I can do this, not necessarily you can, but

there's a fair chance you can. And if I can get a PhD when I'm sixty one, what can you do? And if I can have average genetics and figure out a way to optimize my genetics, so can you. And if I went to school in the country where we didn't even talk about careers or like there was that wasn't even a conversation, guidance, counseling going, and it wasn't even a thought. You just go get a job, and you probably just got the job that you had access to, right.

And if I can be in you know, relationships that are good and bad, and I can start a business from scratch not knowing what I'm doing in an industry that doesn't exist, a profession that doesn't exist without any regulation or insurance, personal training, and then figure out how to build a business out of something that didn't exist with minimal fucking business skills, commercial understanding, leadership skills. Then and I did that, then you go, oh, sure, I'm

not a genius, but I can. If I can work hard enough and long enough and be brave enough, I can do some cool shit but also soak and everyone, you know. So for me, it's that I don't know how we got there, but that I just think that this whole kind of you know, this this nuanced layer of awareness and communication and people stuff, it's just another kind of piece in the jigsaw puzzle that is human behavior and human connection.

dog half the day. And so I want to get a dog and train the dog and walk the dog and invest the appropriate amount of time and energy, especially in the first six months to bond with the dog and train the dog the way that you know. Of course, I want a high performance weapon of a dog, not that fucking thing that you've got that just licks and eats.