#1836 The Inappropriate Bogan - Harps

on Instagram, feel free Craig Anthony Harper. And the post was this, there's a little heading that says, there's no fucking wagon. Here we go. There's no fucking wagon, and you didn't fall off it. You stopped doing the healthy thing and made a decision to do the unhealthy thing. Zero percent wagon one hundred percent. You stop blaming fictitious

wagons and start taking responsibility for your choices, actions and outcomes. Now, knowing me, that's not a it's not a particularly outrageous kind of a thing for me to say, you know me. The point being, I guess the thinking was, broadly speaking, we like we like it not being us, we like it being you know. Something happened. Oh, it was my daughter's birthday, or it was school holidays, or it was Christmas, or it was it was the wagon that I fell off. It wasn't me, it was the wagon, and it was

the subsequent falling from the wagon. And all of that sounds very much out of my control, like the birthdays, out of my control. The business lunch. I had to go to a business lunch, I had to have thirty beers, I had to eat four fucking courses. It's not me. It's the business lunch that was inflicted upon me, and definitely not me. It was that fucking wagon that is

very unstable. And because of the instability of the wagon, not my decisions on my behaviors, on me, there was a subsequent problem and I'm the victim of the wagon. Of course, something facetious and silly, but it's almost like like people talk about something as though something happened in my life and they had nothing to do with it, whereas I'm like, well, okay, that thing that you did that you did, how did that thing that you did happen? Did you do it unconsciously? Were you awake? Did you

make a decision? Did you how did that thing that you know shouldn't go in your body? How did it get in there? That thing that is at odds with your intentions and your goals and your standards and your values, which is I want to be the healthiest, best version of me. And then you made a decision and you did a thing, and that decision and that that action created a consequence. Now is there anything I'm missing? Now? I know this sounds smart, assie, I do not mean

it to be, But is there anything else? Is there? Is there something I'm missing? Rather than going by the way, if you ate ten bits of cake, I'm not saying don't. I'm not judging you at all. I'm saying, let's be real about what we're doing. I ate ten bits of cake. How did that happened? I chose the ten bits of cake, I inserted the cake, I ate the cake, and now I'm dealing with the consequences of the cake. Good well done you. That's all very honest. I'm not mad at you.

I'm not blaming or shaming you. In fact, I'm kind of respecting you because you said what actually happened. You made a choice, you did a thing, and now here we are. Bibbitdy Bobby boo. What you're not saying is that somehow this fucking cake happened to me. And this

is the point. When we talk about behavior, when we talk about choices, when we talk about accountability, when we talk about personal sovereignty, when we talk about self responsibility, we talk about optimization, we talk about health, we talk about the role that we play in our own destiny, the story that we are individually writing. We can't, when it's convenient, blame everything and anything except us, especially when

we are talking about something that we literally did. And I guess you know, there's there's a myriad of things came out of this. Somebody wrote and by the way, it wasn't a nasty or anything. I can't even remember. I think it was a dude. He wrote something like, well, somebody's fallen off the positivity wagon, and then he wrote, you know another one. We just kid and love your stuff, so it's all good. Nobody did anything wrong, but it

was funny. And then a few people kind of loved his comment, and I'm like, it is interesting that people would think that me sharing a message about accountability and responsibility and self awareness and the fact that there is no mythical, mystical, magical wagon and we don't fall off the pretend wagon. Right. This is just a this is a story. This is a fiction that we share because it's much easier to say to someone I fell off a wagon. Then I made bad choices, and I did

bad things, and I created bad outcomes. Although that is actually what is truthfully happening. So you know, when I was morbidly obese, when I was forty kilos heavier than I am now nearly forty kilos heavier than I am now, I didn't fall off a wagon. Nobody made me fats. I wasn't a victim of any circumstances. Nobody was holding a gun to my head. I didn't somehow accidentally gain a shitload of weight. I did certain things. I made

certain choices. I embraced certain habits and lifestyle and behaviors. And the consequence of all of the things that I did was I created that outcome. I created that outcome. Now, are there certain people who have certain variables that are beyond their control? Yes, some people have medical and clinical and hormonal issues that they really can't control. And that's not what I'm talking about here. But even that, I

mean I have friends with diabetes. I have friends with thyroids that don't work well, which means they gain weight easily if they if they work at all. A whole lot of people with clinical and medical challenges that that particular thing is out of their control. But what we know is what is still in our control, even whether medical or clinical or genetic challenge, is that we still get to choose what we put in our face. We still get to choose what we drink or don't drink,

eat or don't eat. You know, whether or not we use certain supplements or drugs or this or that. That's still within our capacity to control. So we are not looking to blame anyone or offend anyone, or to be what's the word insulting, but rather to say, okay, this is what I've got to work with. Now. If you're listening to me, and well, you are listening to me, of course, so that was a stupid thing to say. But if you're listening to me and you're thinking, yeah,

that I get it. But so my coaching for you is whatever you have to deal with, whatever situation, circumstance, environment, genetics, resources, whatever you've got that is beyond your control, then let's not waste time or energy or emotion on that easier said than done. Yes, Let's now bring our attention and focus and intellect. Let's bring that to the things that are in your control. Is what you put in your

mouth for the rest of the day. In your control is whether or not you expend x amount of energy or two X or three X or four x today. Is whether or not you move a little bit or a little bit more or a lot or somewhere in between. Is that in your control. I don't know the answers to these you do. Is it possible that you make better decisions today than you made yesterday? Is that possible? Right?

These are good questions, These are empowering questions, and these are questions that help us get out of the I fell off the wagon. Life's not fair? How come shit happens to me? It gets us out of that victim mindset and gets us into the I'm in charge of me mindset. And yes, there are bad things that happened to me at times, and yes there's shit that has and will continue to go on in my life that

is beyond my control. And there'll be shitty people and great people and beautiful people and shitty situations and amazing situations. We acknowledge all of that. We're never pretending that life's a fucking Disney movie or you're a character in a Disney story. But what we are doing is we're saying, all right, wherever I am, whatever I've got to work with, whatever my capacity is, I am going to optimize everything

I can. So back to the message. When I am writing a message, when I am sharing a thought or an idea on the podcast, whether I'm putting something up as a podcast or as a whiteboard post or an Instagram or LinkedIn or Facebook post. Sometimes I put stuff up just for shits and giggles, you know that. Sometimes it's just about having fun and being silly and might

make someone smile or laugh. But for the most part, when I'm putting up for one of a term better term personal development or human behavior or psychology kind of stuff, I think, is this real? Is this helpful? Is this strategic? Could this idea? Could this strategy? Could this story? Could

this bit of information help someone solve a problem? Because unlike many people, and I'm not better or worse, I'm just saying, unlike many people in this space, my priority is not to make people feel good in the moment. I'm not interested in making someone temporarily happy or feel positive. If I do, that's great, but that's not my number

one goal. My one goal is that I might help people have a moment of awareness or realization or motivation or inspiration that might then lead to some action, a decision, some action, some change, some real world benefit. My objective, you know, is not to protect everyone's feelings. It's not to say what is comfortable. It's not to say what everyone wants to hear. Having said that, I don't want to say things just to be blunt, or just to be overly direct, or just I don't want to offend anyone.

It's never my goal to offend anyone, right, But you have to understand that offense. Offense the noun is that was bossy. You have to understand, Okay, I suggest that's maybe a good idea to think about the fact has that that offense the noun is an individual experience that we have as a result of a personal reaction to a stimulus, which is why so an internal response to an external thing, which is why I can say fuck with and one of you gets offended, nine of you

do not get offended. And of the nine that don't get offended, three of you think that's a little bit amusing, and two of you roll your eyes and whatever. And the reason that we have all of those different experiences and responses is because it's not about the stimulus. It's

about how you, the individual, respond to that stimulus. Now, whether or not that stimulus is a beautiful movie that you're watching, or a sunset on the horizon, or something that you put in your body, or a word that you hear on a podcast, or a piece of information, all of these things are individual personal responses to some

kind of inbound data or information. My overarching driver is in this space anyway, in this personal development space, is to present information and ideas that I believe potentially the most helpful. Do. I want it to be funny, if I can do. I want it to be a little bit like, oh oh, so people might share it? I do? I do, of course. I want all the normal things. I want lots of people to read it. I want people to like it. I want to get a million

fucking followers. I want all those things that people who are on social media want. But will I compromise myself to get a million followers and share shit that I don't believe is true or helpful or empowering. No, I won't, No, I won't. But fortunately I don't think it needs to be one or the other. I mean, I believe that. Of course. Sometimes you know when you're helping someone or you're trying to help someone, and you know this because you've done it and you've maybe had it done to you.

But sometimes the help that you're giving somebody in that moment doesn't feel like help to the receiver. Here with me, And look, do I ever get it wrong? Do I say things that might be at their core true but don't land Well, of course I do, of course this particular post that I'm talking about. And by the way, I'm not saying that people that don't like my stuff are precious and they need to get their shit together, because clearly I'm flawed, and clearly I get a lot

of things wrong. But what I am saying is that being addicted to feel good pseudobabble, pseudo psychology, personal development fluff, that's not a way to grow, learn evolved, that become better. That's not how we get the best out of ourselves.

Sometimes we get the best out of ourselves is by hearing something or reading something, or individually ourselves becoming aware of something and acknowledging that's something that is not what we want to acknowledge, but what we need to acknowledge to be able to, as I always say, grow, learn, evolve, adapt,

become the better version of us. You know, there are often there are times in a meeting when I'm with someone, or sometimes even in presentation where I'll say to the audience, which could be a person or a thousand people, when someone asks a question or we end up in a certain place in the conversation or the interaction where I say, I can tell you what you want to hear, or I can tell you what I believe to be the truth. One of those is going to be comfortable. One of

those is going to be uncomfortable. What would you prefer or what would you like to hear? Sometimes people go tell me what I want to hear, because sometimes and obviously most times, say tell me what I need to hear. But they feel somewhat obligated. But this is the challenge,

isn't it. It's like when someone like me says, there's no wagon and you're not falling off a wagon, but there are choices and there are actions, and there are consequences to those choices and actions, which, by the way, that's not a theory or an idea, that's practical reality. We know that what is bullshit is wagons and fucking falling off them. But instead of acknowledging what is like, somebody else wrote to me, are you okay? And I'm like,

I haven't looked yet. Maybe there's a response, which is fine, And again that's not a criticism for me, I'm just curious. I actually wrote back to that person and said, what about my post made you ask that question? Again? This is the person's not right or wrong. They're curious or I'm curious about the question, and it's all good. But isn't it funny that when someone just says what is right?

People can very easy. Now I'm not talking about stuff that's contentious or in debate, but you know, we know there are no pretend wagons that people fall off. We know that, so this is unequivocal. We also know that every human makes decisions and every human makes takes action. We also know that every human produces good and bad results.

That's all I'm talking about. You know like the propensity that we have to be enamored by confirmation bias, that is, to only pay attention or respect or align with stuff that we want to hear, stuff that is comfortable, stuff that is familiar, stuff that for us makes us feel better about what we already think or what we already do. This is the opposite of growth. This is the opposite of personal development. Living in the echo chamber is a

recipe for failure. It's a recipe for you being controlled by an ideology, a philosophy, a cult, a group, a mindset that you didn't create, but rather you inhabited or you adopted from other people. Thinking critically, not responding emotionally easier said than done. Before you send me a message, I'm with you? Am I ever emotional? Sure? Am? Do I ever respond poorly? Sure? Do? Do I respond out of emotion and say or do dumb shit? Sure do? Probably done it already three times, ten times in this

little monologue that I'm sharing with you. But when I'm sharing, this is what I'm thinking? Is this real? Is this truthful as I understand it? Might this help someone solve a problem? Might this get a nose or two out of joint. I think about that all the time. I rewrite something so many times because I'm not interested in disjointed noses. I'm not interested in confrontation. I'm not interested in problems. They're going to come right, and I'm not

scared of confrontation. But I'm trying to share what I believe to be insights and wisdom and knowledge, not mine. I'm just a conduit. I didn't invent any of this shit. By the way, I'm not the wisdom. I'm just pointing you towards the wisdom. I'm trying to figure out how I can share this in a way which resonates, which

people understand, which people see themselves in that. You know the old teach a man to fish, or teach a person to fish, and you feed them for a lifetime, I think, or something like that, and teach someone or do the fishing for them, and you feed them for a day. I'm like, I want to teach people to fish.

I want to teach people how to manage themselves. I want to teach people, or encourage and support people to be real and to be strong and to be resilient, and to be self aware and to be brave enough to go. You know what, there's no wagon. There's me and my choices. There's no wagon. There's me and my actions. There's no wagon. There's me and my results.