#1809 Quit Every Day - Bobby Cappuccio

more than ever, do you think? Or is that just that we're more aware of it now these echo chambers and the confirmation bias and if you don't think like mey, you're bad, You're horrible. I hate you wear enemies? Is that more or is it the same but with more awareness?

survival mechanism. So I don't think human have changed very much. I mean it was it take one thousand generations for heredity, natural selection, and gene mutation to alter us in any meaningful way. So you figure the average life expectancy of each generation has been about twenty five years. Yeah, so we're probably the same people we were ten thousand years ago and a little bit different than we were fifty thousand years ago. But the environment we're in I think

exacerbates some of those natural tendencies. I mean, we've never been fed monologues back and forth on a social media platform, you know, inundated with people who are exactly like us, you know, being forced into an ever increasing echo chamber that were plugged into twenty four seven. So who knows.

me and read me, who for the most part probably think somewhat similarly. Ergo the allegiance and the alliance, and then in the middle of that, like for me, I think it's really important to go I wonder what I'm getting wrong, or I wonder what could be wrong, because when I reflect and I think, well, have I gotten things wrong in the past, Oh, only about a million? So what am I currently quite adamant about that could

be completely fucking wrong, you know. And I think, unless you look through that lens of this is what I believe, and this is what I think. But at the same time, I've been wrong frequently, So perhaps some of this, all of this, or none of this I could be wrong about.

are lightly held, that are malleable. You kind of have a have to have a point of view as an anchor point that people can relate to form much to start a dialogue, you know, good luck starting a dialogue with just you know, just ambiguity. But on social media that's going to bleed through to the people that it attracts. Where on a podcast you're sharing dynamic ideas and you have a very wide range of guests with different opinions that engage with you, and by extension, you know, we're

engaging with your audience right now. So I love podcasts because it's a medium to kind of vicariously flush out ideas between two or you know, sometimes more people. I think it's different than when you belong to a certain group on social media or and algorithms trying to say, okay,

well what's Craig into. Well, we're just going to feed him people who think exactly like him, and eventually, you know, you would come to the conclusion that well, this is just the way the world is now, it's just the way you are and the people that you're communicating with, or it's not necessarily the way the world is. So I don't know I favor one medium over another.

and your truth, and then the objective truth. And then with some things, I don't think there is an absolute objective truth depending on what we're talking about, you know, And I think that people don't sometimes and this is me as well. You don't realize that this thing that you think is not the objective, practical, real world reality, but just rather your version of it that you think is the actual reality.

not the only truth. But then there's also the collative truths, Like we all agree on this, and I think that's where we have to be really careful. Some collective truths. Obviously, justice and fairness and respect for the individual. Those are

very good. But I think when your thought processes and beliefs are tied in with a collective truth of an organization, a certain society, I think you run into trouble because those can be manipulated, and because you so strongly identify with belonging to that group and believing that thing, you could be easily manipulated. And I think you know, very often we probably are, to varying degrees, and.

to think this, believe this, and do that. Oh okay, so it's a cult. It's like I can't push back or I can't you know, and I understand why that happens, but it is, you know. And I've been in a few cults of my own and different shapes and sizes and forms.

aren't they. I went from being in my twenties highly dogmatic about what I believed. I was unwavering, unyielding. I knew I was right. I didn't necessarily think that everybody else was wrong unless it came to work practices, than I was highly opinionated, and I think it caused me a lot of pain and frustration, growth edges that kept me stunted, and it definitely didn't enhance my relationships and

my ability to connect with others outside of work. But then I went the opposite direction to where I started challenging my own beliefs and I became hopelessly agnostic about all things. So my answer to everything was it depends. I kind of think where I'm at now is an internal versus external frame. Internally, I think there's value knowing these are my principles. This is what I believe to be true. Not absolute truths, but my truths. These are the rules I live by, you know, So this is

what I value. I think that gives you a level of consistency when everything else around you is beyond your control and increasingly unpredictable, which exacerbates the stress response or the adverse impact of the stress response. But I think when it comes to things externally facing, I try not to have very strong opinions about who people are or why they do what they do, unless unless there's something that so strongly contradicts one of my principles, not even

necessarily my values. I can associate with people who have different values than man. I enjoy it because I feel the time I become enriched, I grow. But certain principles like justice or fairness. So if you feel like you know, people of a certain height don't deserve the rights and the dignity that I deserve, Yeah, that's that's kind of a problem for me. But with everything else, Like I said, I have very strong internalized opinions that are held quite loosely.

And so there's this. I think you can realize that for you, certain beliefs or ideas or truths might be super valuable and appropriate, But knowing that that's just for me, it might not necessarily work for the next person. Like I've spoken a lot about the fact that I didn't want a job when I was young. I wanted to work, but I didn't want to be an employee, and I realized that that was I didn't think that that was globally the best idea, but I realized that for me,

that was a good idea. And then and it turned out that I was right about that. But then to pursue that fully knowing that this is not a general thing, this is a Craig thing. And so when I would talk to people and I would coach them or mentor them or help them, I would not on any level try and sell them on what works for me, but

rather to try to understand them. Of course a coach should do this, but to figure out where they're at and what they value, and what might be the ideal you know, path or process or protocol for them.

as you put in the work. It's inevitable. And there are two types of people in the world, and you know you could be of the good kind, and then you know there's the bad kind, and they're bad because they choose to be bad. And it's like, oh, okay, great, so I'm guaranteed success as long as I grind. But I still had all this insecurity and fear that I was going to be found out, and I still had an unhealthy attachment to what people thought of me, even

though I pretended that I didn't. So if I encountered somebody with a completely different philosophy that was threatening to me, oh my god, what if they're right and I'm wrong, then I have no guarantee that I'm not safe. I am in crisis, I am in threat. I haven't really moved beyond the circumstances that I so desperately tried to escape from. I think that's one aspect. Then there's the aspect of, you know, maybe people are just secretly it's

kind of like a shadow characteristic. It's unacceptable for me to come out and say I enjoy hurting people because I am resentful and bitter that my life did not work out the way I thought it should have worked out for me. So there's this enemy, and all of the problems in the world are because of people like this. So me, I'm not this horrible human being that hates people who disagrees with me or will maliciously try to harm individuals who have done nothing wrong to me or

objectively nothing wrong at all. That's not me, Like I'm a good person. What I'm doing is defending righteousness and truth because that's the enemy. But not what I'm really not doing is taking responsibility for the fact that, hey, your life might suck because things happened that was outside of your control. But there's not this enemy to blame.

It's kind of like when you, like when you were in school, like my dad could beat up your dad, Like you believe that there's one type of person that's responsible for all the evils in the world, and you and people like you are responsible as being the beacons of truth and goodness. That is a juvenile way of looking at the world. You've got to look at a

little bit deeper and take a little bit more responsibility. Again, not saying that anything that is causing that resentment is your fault, but you do have the ability to respond responsibility. I think that's a far more constructive way than creating an imaginary enemy to aim all of your ankstat which I think but some people might be the case.

get that, we acknowledge that. But here we are now, and that's you know, being able to work through the shit, like just being able to roll up your sleeves and go, look, this is unfair, this is this is tough, this is horrible, and yep, I agree with you. And today's a new day. And even though all that's happened, what are you going to do today? What decisions you're going to make, What action are you going to take? And how are you going to do the very best you can to optimize

you and what you have to work with? And I think also there's another bit to that you were talking about where I just wrote down here, the need to know you know, it's like when we, like you said, the need to for consensus, like why do we have to agree? Also, why do we have to why do

we have to have an opinion? Or why do we have to like, oh, what do you think of this or that I don't, I don't know, or what do you you know the amount of times where people have asked me like a men question because you know, they think and I'm like, I don't know. They're like, but what, I go, well, one, I'm an excised scientist. And even then, you know, a five out of ten. But you know, you're literally asking me a question you should ask a neurosagin,

you know, just going ah, look, I don't know. I could make some shit up, you know, like the amount of times people have said, can you put your hand on my shoulder or something similar? And I do that then they move their arm, Oh what's that clunking? I go, Fuck, that feels and sounds terrible. I've got no idea, but good luck with that.

or a thought. Like this compulsion that we seem to have to want to know things and to have certainty in a world that is largely uncertain. It's almost like an emotional handicap.

have the answer. I respect those people, Like there's nothing more respectable than an educator person authentically saying I don't know, yeah, and it's like, oh wow, that's curious, and maybe it's like, hey, let's go find out, or maybe it's just I don't know, I'm not really interested. But I there's this thing about how we interact with ourselves that is probably even more

important than how we interact with other people. And this is something I've really struggled with still do so I find it fascinating, you know, I've kind of looked at things like self compassion when people talk about things like that as a bit self indulgent and almost the antithesis of mental tenacity or grit and God, the more I'm diving into this, I kind of knew, like, there's there's some empirical evidence out there that would suggest I'm dead wrong.

But I'm discovering increasingly that I couldn't be more incorrect. Have you ever read any Kristin Neff or Susan David? I have not. I think you'd love Susan David should be a great guest for the show. Actually, And in like Kristin Neff's research, people who are compassionate with themselves.

But people who act from a space of grace with themselves and acceptance of their limitations, that flaws, where their knowledge ends things that we're talking about, tend to take a lot more personal responsibility and they more readily transform and grow throughout their lives. I think, if I'm not stuffing this all up. She did an experiment where there were people who operated with a high level of self compassion and those that you know pretty much had globalized

internal beliefs about themselves that were not kind. You know people like that. We've probably been people like that where you do something, God, how can you be so stupid? And in a job interview when it came up discuss

some of your weaknesses and shortcomings. The people who were highly self compassionate and accepting were able to articulate and take responsibility for what their weaknesses were and either accepted it and they had ways of working around it, or they were working on transform and becoming better, where other people who lacked self compassion became highly disturbed and flustered, which is really not a good look in an interview. So we kind of look at these things like acceptance

of self compassion as being soft qualities. They're nothing, They're nothing of the salt. I think it's reflective of strength. What I wonder is, does compassion just begat compassion? Are we discompassionate with other people? And do we have no tolerance for people who see the world through a different lens than us because we hold that same space of complete intolerance for ourselves in our inner world. I wonder

if there's an inverse kind of causality with that. My guess would be, yeah, probably.

to grow, to evolve. So it doesn't it's not just about self compassion, but also being able to then leverage off that and do something positive.

are optimal capacity. And when you have that internalization of that identity, you're bound to or you're far more likely I should stay to kind of repeat those behaviors that you strongly identify with, you know, like I'm so I'm so fucking lazy. Well what a lazy people do? Not much?

they could have possibly done. I mean, if Dmitri Mendely didn't like quit and just like take a nap, we wouldn't have the periodic table, would we. Because there's a point where you're grinding and grinding your prefrontal lobes into absolute submission and you have to step back and just let your default mode network operate in your favor. So you know, it's just or you know what, maybe you really were lazy. What does that mean? It means you were lazy and like you said, all right, maybe it

it's time to make a change. What's my first step in doing that? What's going to be different today. What's my plan? What's the one thing where do I start? That's going to be a far more constructive conversation if you're not engaging in the emotional intensity that comes along with self loathing. And I'm not saying if you're doing something like really wrong, you don't deserve to feel guilty.

I think. I think guilt and pain and a little bit of suffering is good when you do something that violates your values or you know, hurts somebody else, you know, in even a worst case scenario. But long term internalization of shame is probably not a good transformative strategy. It's probably one of the worst things you can engauge in.

I always find that you travel a lot. I travel a fair bit, and I find that I see things differently just when i'm in another state or another country. Like the way that I think about things is different, just because I'm in a different environment and I'm in a different room. I'm looking at a different I'm looking at an ocean, I'm eating in different places, I'm talking

a different It's like, oh Wow. The way that I get better in that spot is to get away from that spot, because I can have a level of perspective and understanding an insight when I'm away from the thing than when I'm in the middle of the thing. I can't see it. It's like I can't see my house when I'm in my house. I'm going to get out of the fucking house, walk to the other side of the street and go, oh, my gutter is falling down. I didn't know because I've been in the kitchen for

three years. Ah, the fucking three of the tiles have come off. Ah. I needed to get out of my house to see what was really happening.

little as you want me and the listeners. What are some things that either you've just revisit it where you're like, I'm not sure about that anymore, or you've done in one id, or you've let something go and let something else in, like if you could. Because I think this understanding and being prepared to learn new things and unlearn old things is hugely important.

I was so difficult to travel with. I would get into the office every morning at six am. I would not leave the office until probably eight pm. And when we were on a road trip, I should travel with my friend Rob, who is one of he's one of the greatest presenters teachers I've ever worked with. And you

know those like in flight magazines. Yeah, I have all like the cars and the watches, and he'd flip through one and he would showing me something like, oh, check this out, sitting next to me and with complext God, this is this is ridiculous, with complete disdain. I would look over at him, my textbook in hand, and I would say, travel time is working time. You should be preparing. Wow, thanks,

this is this is gonna be a fun trip. And I kind of had that personality type to the degree that my girlfriend at the time was in my apartment joing nine to eleven and she has like a lot of stuff coming down on top of her literally, and she has no idea what's going on. Because I had no TV in my house, I had no radio because to me, I used to call it the the electronic income Reducer. The TV.

me to call my girlfriend. I was in midtown and say hey, get out of my house and start walking north as fast as you possibly can. And I had to come down and get her and then living in Lower Manhattan, I started getting progressively sicker and sicker. And I think how I described it once, because you know it's hard to explain, is that to produce a thought. It felt like somebody was cutting through my brain with a jagged, rusted piece of metal. And that's how I functioned.

So I couldn't work fifteen eighteen hours a day. I could only I could only work like three hours before I was completely wiped.

a different experience, which probably still persists today. But in everything that I thought I was and everything that I thought made me valuable, being in question and being threatened, I kind of went into a panic. And then I moved to the UK June two thousand and two, and I kind of started up again with my rigid behaviors and my lectures about work ethic. And this person who I was working with, the client, Helen, who was kind of a mentor to me, we have switched on, Lady brilliant.

She's like, you know, you're kind of getting in the way here and the way you engage in work doesn't work for you, and it doesn't work for anyone else. At one point we were on the phone and we were getting it kind of into an argument a little bit, which I was on the losing end of, and she said, Okay, this company you're consulting for, we've been a successful business

longer than you've been a nation. Do you think we were clueless until you basically rocked up, Like we didn't have any of the thoughts that you're having right now. And she's like, if you would have a little bit more fun in your work and connect on more of a deeper emotional level, you would be more effective without being this way. But you know what else would happen other people around you would be a little bit more

effective as well. And I was like, okay, you know, I was so physically worn out that you know, like when you're sometimes when you're really exhausted, your plane's delayed and you don't sleep as much, which is catastrophic for cognitive performers, but you get up the next morning to do a presentation and you're so much better because you just can't be asked about self editing and you're just

like putting it out there. I was like that for months at a time, so I just started experimenting with a new way of being, and I also kind of had the thought, wow, you know what, I've kind of really poisoned my body living down there. I wonder how long into adulthood I'm going to live? What? You know, I didn't say to myself, Well, if I was going to die tomorrow, what would I do today? How would I live my life? That's stupid. I don't know if I would shower or brush my teeth. Kind of not

a great strategy for life. But what if I was going to die six months from now? What if six months from now I've got all these toxins in my body and it gets really bad. I'm going to approach my work and only do what it is that I absolutely love to do, and serve people that I love working with and for, and I construct my front it.

as I did, something really interesting happened. And Paul Taylor was part of this. This was all around God. This was going back into two thousand and eight where I was on a circuit and I was looking at all these big self help speakers. They were they were rigid, they were judgmental, and they didn't seem very happy on the surface. They seemed great, but they weren't the same

person off stage that they were on stage. And then, you know, mutual friend of all is Richard Boyd rings me and at this point I'm working in education with a company and he goes, oh, that I really wanted to get away from because I didn't. I didn't think that it was a great environment for me for a lot of reasons. And Boydy calls me and says, hey, I want you to come to Australia. We got tons of speaking tours. It's gonna be like a whole month

full on, you know. Then we'll go Meeting of the Minds, then we'll go up to Colorado, come back to you know, San Diego. So this is gonna be This is gonna be at like six week endeavor. Oh and by the way, I'm not really sure if we're gonna be able to pay you. It all depends how the project goes. So it's like, you want me to get on a plane, travel halfway around the world to work NonStop constantly, and you're not even sure if you'll be able to pay me for it. I was like, Okay, book me a ticket.

enjoyment that happened. It's almost like getting into a state of flow, kind of like when you're on stage or when you're you're focused on writing something with no distractions and you know why you're doing it. But it was like that conversationally. So I thought, if I keep thinking like these other people that I just left behind and doing what they do, I'm going to become just like them.

But if I start thinking like these people here and I start engaging the behaviors they engage in and put myself in the environment they put themselves in, I'm going to be a lot more like them. And I looked at like, let's say o D for an example, who will change the energy dynamic of a room just by walking in it? And everybody feels uplifted, Everybody feels like they're engaged, they're having fun.

PTA Global back then and that whole trajectory. But I did live my life where I'm only going to do what I would do if I only had six months to live, and there are some benefits to that, and then you know, there have been obviously some major drawbacks, but that was my decision and that was my path.

But in my defense, your honor, none of what I do really feels like right now, you and I are working, you know, well, you're kind of for you, but you know, this is a podcast, we're sponsored, it's part of my job, but there's nothing about this that to me is a work experience. It doesn't feel like work. It feels like I'm in the middle of a conversation I'm interested in with a guy that I've known a long time and love. Right,

that's it. That's for me. You know, I don't feel like I've had a job for the last thirty five years. But what about you? What's your relationship with work? Is it healthier than it's ever been or is it problematic? Oh?

in the sectors that I work in. And I learned this from my wife, and I call it quit every day. So as a filmmaker, when she had her film company, she would work eighteen hours a day. And she's formerly a trained engineer, an IT engineer, so she would do, like editing, she would do sound directing, like all these different roles that are really unique for one person to do. I was like, I wonder how she can do it.

The writing, and it was exhausting, Like she would just sit at her computer pouring sweat and she'd be there for another six hours. I'm like, that is extreme physical and mental endurance. And at the end of the day though, she would do something that a lot of people don't do. It was almost like she was like, you know what, I quit, I quit the project, I quit my company. I'm done. And she would pour self a glass of wine.

Now I'm not recommending wine as a coping strategy, but that worked for her, and if it works for you, great, But she would pour self a glass of wine, turn on Netflix, and in her mind she didn't have a company anymore, she didn't work anymore. She quit. The next morning, she would wake up and start all over again, and

at the end of that day she would quit. So it's like this quit every day thing, I believe is very helpful because a lot of times what people do, especially me, I'm a ruminator, is I'll take a day off from work because I know it's important and there's other things I wanted to do. But then I'll think about work. I'll think about this conversation. You're not really off work, You're not really taking a mental break that's going to allow you to re engage in a more

effective way. What are you doing? So there's this quit everyday thing that I've been getting better and better at. But I can kind of unplug from work because I do love conversations. I do love people. The caveat is I have a very hard time not working if I haven't been working, if you know what I mean. Yeah, going to dinner after a long day of work, where I feel like, Wow, we've accomplished something far more important

than I've accomplished something. That time out is so deeply enjoyable, where when I go on holiday, I get about two days before I start losing my mind because there's not an achievement, there's not a striving for something. You're just hanging out and it's like, Okay, today, we're doing this bus tour and then we're going to this pub and it's like, ah, okay, great Tomorrow. I'll wake up at five o'clock in the morning and gouge both my eyes out because I can't take any more of this shit.

pretty medicated, pretty sleepless. But from the outside looking in, they're crushing, killing, grinding and winning a life. And then there are other people like one of my best you know, well, my longest best mate in the world, vin Is. It's not long, he's very long. He's seventy feet long, longest, but like we've been friends since we were eight nine, and you know, I went one way, vin one another. He went and did a trade, became a spark. He lives in the country and a great life and a

great wife and great kids and grandkids. But in terms of the context of what we call the high water mark of like he's just a dude living a life, and it's a great life. But I look at him and I think he is one of the most successful people that I know, maybe in the top three when I factor in he loved his career. He worked on oil rigs in the middle of the bas Straight, which is the water between Victoria and Tazzy Bobby. So in the middle of the Bass Straight, working on oil rigs,

week on, week off. Forever, great wife, great kids, it's mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, financially all good. And I look at him and I go, yeah, that's for me, that's a high one. I think, in many ways, much more successful than I've ever been. But it's like that, how do we evaluate that? How do we like, at what point do we stop hurrying and rushing and grinding and like do we ever stop doing that?

And for some people maybe we don't need to, but yeah, I wonder what the trade off is in there.

fine for me. It's always about creating something, it's about contributing something, and it's also about the process, the nature of the work itself. And I said, I want to talk about flow experiences. You know, you hear these things where people say things like I engage in work not because I enjoy it, but because it needs to be done, And there are things like that. But my question is if the essence of your work itself is not bringing

you enjoyment, are you really doing it well? Because when you look at flow, there are certain conditions, are like nine conditions and I couldn't, for the life of me rattle them off the top of my head. But one, you need to be really clear on why you're doing what you're doing. It has to be personally important to focus and concentration, and there's got to be this gotta be this level of effort like people talk about grinding, as if effort and enjoyment are the antitheses of one another.

It's almost the measure of one another because like to get into that flow state, you've got to have an equal balance of your skill set at the current moment and the challenge. So you know, if you're engaging in something that's so far beyond your skill sets, you're not gonna learn, you're not gonna grow, you're not gonna produce anything worthwhile. What you're gonna produce is a state of

anxiety and frustration. And if you're not working hard enough, it's not gonna be fulfilling and you're gonna be bored and maybe even frustrate. So that challenge is necessary. That's hard. It's hard to focus, it's hard to shut off your mobile phone, it's hard to not multitask and just focus intently on the task at hand. But if you do that and the conditions are right, within about ten fifteen minutes,

you disappear. Everybody's had this, or I would imagine a lot of people have had this where you're working on something that's meaningful and it's really hard work, it's not easy to do, and then you pick your head up and it's like, wait a minute, four hours went by, Yeah, where did where? It's not only where did the time go? It's where did I go? And then you realize at the end of that four hours that you had this

deep level of engagement and enjoyment. So if what you're working really hard on is not eliciting any joy, is it really meaningful to you? Are you single mindedly focusing on something or are you kind of like an octopus on rollerblades a lot of motion but no real direction because you're not really getting down to creating something or producing something. You're doing a lot of stuff and calling that hard work. But what's the outcome you're facilitating? I

think that's an important question. I know that there are times where you know you can't do everything that you want to do, or some people are in situations where it's like, no, I mean, the purpose of my work is to feed my family. I hate my job, but you know I got people depending on me and that's my purpose and that is so understandable. But if you're that person that's saying, well, I do this, because you're also probably the same type of person that's saying well,

the nature of your work is a choice. Doesn't mean it's going to change today, but it's a series of choices. What are the choices you're making that's robbing you of engagement and enjoyment, because that's also robbing you have optimal performance given your personal potential.

that he thinks is kind of cool. That's not success. That is not the mark of a of a successful life.