#1782 What I Know vs. What I Think - Harps

one of Year twelve. Imagine day one of Year twelve. Jumbo rocks up, Fatty Harps rocks up to talk to you, to give you the lowdown on what's coming up in the next world, the world's worst Year twelve student. How ironic turning up to talk to a bunch of year twelve students about how to navigate the next kind of nine slash ten months of academ and personal survival. Anyway, it was fun. They were good. Shout out to the team, all the teachers and all the kids. They were fun.

You know what I love about what I love about working with that age. They're not children, but they're not really kind of adults. They're in that they've got kind of one foot on each side of that line. And they they are still at school, so they haven't begun work. And you think they're either going to step out of school this year and into university or into work. But they're definitely stepping out of being a teenager, although they're still a teenager at eighteen, aren't they, but out of

being a child technically to being an adult. And so it's a whole new world. And I don't need to tell you that, but you know, now you can drive, and now you can vote, and now you can drink, and although we don't want you to do all of

those things at the same time. But it was really interesting to talk to them about, you know, talk to them about a bunch of things, but interestingly, we open the metacognition door, and I spoke to them about how they think and why they think, and how they see the world and why they see the world the way that they do, and how they see themselves in the world, and why they think about themselves for better or worse the way that they do, and the way that we

navigate and negotiate the different components of our life at school away from school with family with friends, with work eventually, and you know how the way that we think impacts

that for better or worse. And I was talking to them a bit about self doubt and self limitation, and I mentioned that, you know, there are times when so even after thirty five years of being paid to speak to groups so professional speaking, thirty five years, you know, probably only really the last twenty years only I would say that I've been somewhere between not terrible and recently

good at it. But you know, doing lots and lots of that, and I've done I don't know how many I've done, but in the thousands thousands of professional gigs this year, i'll do around one hundred. I've already got a lot of work book, which is great. But anyway, that's not the point. The point is I was talking to a kid came up in the break, a young a young man, and we're talking about self doubt and how we think, like what is what do I think of? What do I feel versus what is real? Like what's

my thought? But what's the data? What's the evidence? And I was telling him about even though I've done this thing lots of times, and I know, just from experience, and evidence and data and feedback. I objectively know that I'm quite good at my job. I don't think I'm

a superstar. I don't think I'm the best in the business, but I think I think the fact that I get repeat work and companies asked me to come back, and I get paid reasonly well, and I'm represented by quite a few speaking agencies, and people often not always, but often say really good things. And so there's that. But at the same time, I have this ability, as I'm guessing to you, to have evidence or data or proof that I'm quite good at something while also feeling I'm

not good enough. Or Today's the day, and I've said this before, Today's the day I'm going to go in front of an audience of corporate audience and everybody's going to realize, you know, this is what's going on in my mind. Everybody's going to realize that I'm not good at all. I've just been really fucking lucky for thirty five years. I've just been getting away with it. Today's the day that people will discover I'm pretty stupid. I can string a few words together, but if you scrape

below the surface, there's not a lot of depth. Sure he can remember a few big terms and it can sound smart, but in truth he is not actually smart. And today's going to be the day where that gets publicly revealed. And of course that's going to be the beginning of the capitulation of me and my brand and my business and my income. Pretty soon I'm going to be fucking broken. I'm gonna and so on. Now, that might not be you, but it might be a version

of you at some times or at various times. So my thoughts and my feelings have been you know, like your ideas and your thoughts and your feelings can be almost it can be something that's very positive or something that's very negative. Your mind can be a prison or your mind can be a launching pad for amazing stuff. So I've always had when I say chronic self doubt, I'm not going to say overwhelming, paralyzing, crypto self doubt.

But I've always had a low hum. There's always been a low hum of insecurity and fear and self limiting thinking and self limiting beliefs and self doubt. And despite the fact, despite the fact that I've done quite well with some things, obviously, I've done many things that didn't go great, and that didn't work. And from an outcome point of view, not from an experience or a learning point of view, but purely from a result point of view, you go, well, that didn't work or that was a failure.

But I've also done things that you know. I've written books, I've worked on television. I've worked in radio. I've got a pretty good podcast, thanks to you for following and supporting. I've built businesses. I've owned multiple gyms, I've employed hundreds of humans, I've made a few dollars. So, purely, just

from that point of view, not shit. But here's one of the amazing things is about us humans and our mind and our emotions, and our fear and our anxiety and our amazing capacity to fucking get in our own way, is despite all of those wins and all of those successes, I often feel like, or think like the opposite of that, And it's this is and I'm sure so do you.

I'm sure that there have been times when, despite the evidence or the data that you're not shit, that you do in fact feel shit for a range of reasons. So let's talk about that, and let's talk about how we might be able to survive and thrive and have these two things. I know I'm good enough while simultaneously so that's evidence, that's data, that's knowledge. The reason I know that I'm good enough is because I've done this certain thing many many times, and I've created outcomes somewhere

between okay and brilliant. There have been a few time times where I've fucked up, but overwhelmingly I seem to be doing okay. Now that's started. That's evidence, But the feeling is, as I said at the top of the show, I'm not good enough. So I mean, there was a time when I absolutely thought that I could never be athletic, I could never be sporting. Now, of course I wasn't

inherently athletic or sporting. I wasn't naturally gifted genetically. I wasn't I wasn't the guy who would just rock up and you know, run a race and win a race with I was never that person, right, And so I I genuinely believed thought that I was destined to be basically the fat, unhealthy, non sporting, unathletic person. I thought that was just going to be me. And as you know, I lost some weight and all of that and So that was the starting point for me that you know,

as a teenage kid losing all of that weight. But what happened, what happened in the middle of losing all of that weight, and that was really that that internal shift, that kind of swinging of the emotional and psychological and behavioral pendulum that was precipitated by or facilitated by a

painful moment in front of hundreds of people. So this social experience which turned into an emotional and a psychological experience that wasn't great, but what it was what was great was that it was a catalyst for me to go and not get better genetics, but to optimize the genetics that I did have. Now, as you all know, I got in shape. As you all know, I'm in reasonably good shape these days. I'm not missed a bloody universe, and I'm not an international male model, never will be,

never could have been. But I'm in for my age and all of that, I'm in pretty good shape. Nonetheless, So that's the evidence that the data. You know, I know what my body composition is, I know how tall I am and how much I weigh, and I know what I look like and for my age in genetics, I'm in pretty good shape. Nonetheless, do I ever feel like shit? Do I ever think? And this is going to sound emotional and stupid, but I'm just being honest.

I'm being honest, and this might be this might get me some ridicule, but I'm just going to say it. Do I ever feel that? Do I ever think I'm out of shape? Do I think I look like rubbish? I do? I still do, and that comes from a bunch of places, but not all the time, by the way. But do I ever do I have a look at myself in a mirror? Do I ever get out of the shower and go, I look fucking terrible? I'm I'm

now I know objectively that isn't true. Neither do I think I look brilliant, by the way, or that I am in magnificent shape. I'm not. I'm just talking about the relationship that we can have with how we look, with how we feel with our body, that whole body dysmorphia thing. And I think I suffer from a smidgeon of body dysmorphia. I find it hard, which is understandable, to be objective about how I look. But as objective as I can be I know, like the evidence, the

data says I'm not in bad shape. Like, for example, yesterday, at the aforementioned gig I did with these kids, I had a photo taken with a young man called Declan. By the way, if you haven't seen that, fucking hell, go and have a look at Declan. Here's a unit he's going to be. He might be the next big thing. Great kid, nice young man, six ' five six ' five, and a budding athletic superstar. Perhaps we'll see what he does with it all, but definitely got a running start.

Good genetics. Anyway, we were chatting and we got a photo taken and I'm standing next to the seventeen year old giant, and for a moment I looked at myself and I went apart from the fact that I looked tiny,

I went, ah, I don't look terrible. I don't look And because I was just looking at a picture, I was just looking at a photo, and I went oh, And for a moment I could objectively, objectively realize that, you know, and so this this propensity that we have to let our thinking and our feeling get in the way. I think I'm this, or I think I'm not. I think I'm too old. I think I can't do this. I feel like nobody would want to hear this or that.

You know. When I started my PhD, I was fifty six, and of course part of me felt like I'm too old to do this. And then on my first day, which was November one, twenty nineteen, I was at union. I was sitting in a room with a bunch of other PhD students and I think there was about six people in the room that I was in, six or seven. I was in my cubicle. I had my own cubicle. I looked around and they were all amazing, and they

were nice. Everybody welcomed me, everybody was gorgeous. But the bottom line was the average age was probably twenty four or twenty five, and at this point I'm fifty six, so I'm more than double the average age. And overwhelmingly I was thinking, what the fuck am I doing? I can't do this, I'm too old. This was a dumb idea. You know, I'm not them. I don't have the skills I don't have. I don't understand all the tech like they do. I don't know. There was so many thoughts

and feelings going through my mind. Well, the evidence is five years later, I'm still doing it. I'm still hanging in there. I did the work. I'm still doing the work. Hopefully I'll be finished in the middle of the year. Am I a great student? No? Am I the best student? No Am I gifted at that? No? Am I a natural? No? But was my thinking wrong? I can't do a PhD? It was was my emotional state driven by fear. Yes, it was also totally understandable. But am I too old? Well?

Apparently not, because I'm doing it. You know, I think about one of the kids said to me yesterday, how old are you? When I said sixty one. It's funny how kids don't have a filter, right, I don't mind anyway, And I won't say what he said exactly, but it involved the EF word. There were no teachers around, and he's like, you know, he was really complementary about what shape I'm in. You know, you're in good shape, and

blah blah blah. And it's interesting because where typically at and again remember there's there's no or I intend, no ego to be in this, but at sixty one, most people are really on the slide. Cognitively, brain stops working as well as it did. Physiological decline, you know, bone density drops, muscle drops, balanced speed, coordination, cardiovascular fitness, strength, you know, body composition. All of these things naturally start to happen. And it's very easy to buy into that

that thinking. Is it well, of course, of course? But what happens when you change your thinking and you think rather than I'm too old or I can't or typically people my age are doing this and not doing that, what if you, even if you acknowledge all of that, but you say, yeah, that's cool, But what would happen if I did these things? What would happen if I took a chance. What would happen if if I'm not talking about me now, I'm talking about potentially you. What

if I enrolled in a course. What if I started a small business. What if I went traveling by myself? What if I for the first time? What if I got stronger and fitter now at my age, whatever age you are, than I've ever been, even when I was in my twenties. What if I explore my talent, my potential and my possibilities. What if I optimize what I have?

You know, there were times when when I wrote my first book, for example, I didn't I had not a lot of faith that I would ever finish that book, or that I would ever publish that book, or that anyone would want to read that book or recommend that book, or that I would make one dollar from that book. They are all the things that I thought. But I also thought, well, what if I just write it. What if I just write the book, and at the very least, I'm going to have an experience, At the very least,

I'm going to put some thoughts and ideas. I was working in a gym at the time. I didn't even own my own gym when I first started writing that. But what I thought was, at the very least, I'm going to have some thoughts and ideas and stories and strategies that might be valuable or of interest to my clients. At the very least, I put it all down. I wrote it down, I rewrote it, I showed it to a few people, I edited it, I refined it, and

eventually it got published. And then eventually I wrote another book, and that got published, and eventually a big publisher hit me up and asked me to write a book for them and paid me in advance and then another publisher did the same thing, and so on, and then I after that I self published. Am I brilliant writer? Probably not? Would anyone have Would anyone have been able to derail me doing that? Probably if I had have listened to them.

But here's the thing in the mid the self doubt, in the middle of the well, you've never written a book, and you're not a writer, and no one's you know, you've never had anything published, that kind of thinking. And by the way, of course every author wrote a first book. But in the middle of all of that, I can still find a way. You can still find a way to say, all right, well, I'm going to try, despite my self doubt, despite the negative thinking, despite the disempowering beliefs.

What would happen if I try? I don't know, but

I'm going to try. I for a very long time thought that while I thought, maybe this is arrogance, but I thought some of the things that ruminated in my head about training and about change and about growth, and about human potential and about the way that the mind works, and about communication and connection and happiness and joy and purpose and fulfillment and life and lifestyle and all of these fucking amazing variables that make up the human experience.

I thought the shit that I thought about was interesting, and I thought maybe some other people would want to hear about how I see it, or how I work through it, or how I navigate it and how I help others. But at the same time, at the same time, there was a lack of self belief. At the same time, there was doubt, at the same time, there was fear. At the same time, there was a parallel story saying, who the fuck wants to hear or read what you think?

And so I think sometimes, clearly I haven't planned this well. So I apologize if this sounds clunky. This is one of the dangers of just doing lots and lots of

these monologues. But I think sometimes our ability to feel that fear, or feel that self doubt, or recognize the thought or the voice or the self doubt for what it is, which is just generally a fear based I've said many times on this that you know, I've been for much of my life driven to I think part of my drive, part of my moderate success, part of my development, and part of my building of a brand and awareness and hopefully a little bit of respect you know,

broadly has been driven by the fact that I don't think much of me. Now. I don't think I immersed myself in self loathing, but I definitely, you know, there's definitely been self limitation and self doubt and you know, self sabotage. I don't think I'm a piece of shit. I don't think I'm worthless. But at the same time, I've for a very long time thought, you don't have a whole lot going for you up, so you better

do the very fucking best with what you've got. And so, as I've said a few times here, you know, for me, that mediocrity, that that not being innately gifted. For me, that was something of almost like a personal superpower, you know, because I knew that if I wanted to do well, I just had to work hard. I knew I wouldn't fall on my feet. I knew I wouldn't accidentally succeed.

And you know, and now at sixty one, you know that that thinking, that self doubt thinking, that self sabotaging thinking, that that fear based thinking, and those feelings and those ideas they still slide into my consciousness and awareness. But I think now I'm more able to recognize them for what they are and what they're not. And what they are is theoretical somethings floating in my head that are probably being generated through fear and self doubt, which is intertwined.

But what my feelings and thoughts aren't is that they're not facts, they're not data, they're not evidence. And so there are times when you know, I need to look out in front of me, like I for a long time had a feeling that that if I stood in front of an audience, I would probably be boring. And I was terrified of being boring. I knew that I could talk, but there's a difference between being able to talk to a group of people and being engaging and

funny and interesting and captivating and inspiring. And I didn't know if I could do that. And then over time that was somewhat alleviated. But I had I had an epiphany about six or seven years ago and I was at Deacon and I was doing a half day. I was a open to the public. Was using Deacon as a university in Melbourne for those of you who don't know, and I was using their biggest lecture theater, which is

six hundred and seventy people. It was full, so just under seven hundred people, and I was talking for three hours, and we were maybe a couple of hours. In three and a half hours, I think maybe we had a fifteen minute break. But I remember looking out at one stage, and as best as I could see, I had six

hundred and seventy people sitting there fully focused. Maybe there was a couple that weren't, but I had an entire auditorium full of people either smiling, laughing, nodding, looking engaged, connected, And my overwhelming feeling was gratitude. It was gratitude. But I remember in that moment thinking to myself, don't forget this, mister self doubt, Mister I'm boring, mister I'm not good enough, mister overthinker, you know, mister inherent hardwired underachiever, don't forget this. Like,

look at is what? At what's going on right now? And of course the priority is not me feeling good. The priority is that I'm helping and serving and creating an experience for people that might translate into real world change. I get all of that, and all of that that is the priority, But also for me, as this insecure, ex fat kid from the fucking country to have this moment in real time where I'm going. I'm looking around, I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm not shit. I'm not shit.

I'm interesting, I'm good at what I do. I'm I'm people pay to come and hear me. Fuck, Like, this is evidence, this is data, And you know, I think that we have we do have this propensity some of us. Perhaps perhaps you're not that person, but if you're a bit like me, then it almost doesn't matter what outcomes you get in your world. You still find a way to, you know, locate that needle of negativity in a haystack of hope. You know, all these things are going well,

but it's like, oh yeah, but what about this? And then that all of these self doubt thoughts and ideas kind of arise, and I think, you know, at the same time, we want to keep our feet on the ground. Humility is good, you know, staying hungry is good. But we can acknowledge the data. We can acknowledge the evidence. Oh I'm not shit, I'm doing okay. Even as I do these podcasts, I'm thinking is this relevant? Like right now, I thinking, is this relevant? Does anyone want to hear this?

You know these these things don't go away. But I think one of our challenges is not to overcome fear, not to overcome self doubt, not to overcome insecurity, not to be this fucking psychological and emotional weapon that feels nothing, but rather just to coexist with it successfully. Of course you feel like shit sometimes that are welcome to the club. Course you're scared, yep. But being scared gives you an opportunity to be courageous because those things go together. Can

you be scared and brave? Of course you can. You have to be scared to be brave. Can you do amazing things despite the fact that you don't feel amazing? Course you can. Can you create amazing outcomes and impact the world or a few people, or make your own life better and your mental and emotional health? Yeah you can. You can. You know, perception is not potential, feelings are not facts. And you, my friend, you've got way more potential and way more possibilities than I think. Do you think?

See you next time?