#1838 Building Resilience & Other Hard Things - Bobby Cappuccio

you know what, not interested in doing that anymore. Let me play this game. And I think my my intro kind of went, Okay, I'm I'm really excited to be here, and I'm grateful to be here. I absolutely don't want to be here right now. I literally rab to be doing anything else. And this is a unique engaging topic. And they had to guess, like what was the lie, and the lie was the last statement, So the first

thing was completely true. I was excited to be there, and I was grateful, and I absolutely did not want to be there at the same time, and I'd rather be doing literally anything else than hanging out there with them. Because what I had lied about is this is not a unique and engaging topic. What people are increasingly asking for is around some form of how do we build resilience and how do we stave off burnout? So people are suffering, and they're struggling, and they're feeling a less

sense of control and agency. So as much as I love a lot of these people I work with, I hate the subject matter because it's indicative of the fact that people are kind of on their knees and it's been getting worse. So why do you talk about that for a while?

these threads, nobody's really talking to each other. They're talking at each other. So I think there's a complete lack of social cohesion, which I believe, regardless of the popularity of a monomaniac on a MID, is one of the greatest contributing factors to well being, longevity and long term cognitive performance and emotional regulation. I think that fragmentization of

relationships at work, at home socially is devastating. I think people feel more things are out of their control than in their control because they're getting all of these inputs. Now is that true? I don't know, Like Steven Pinker, well, we'll show you how we've we've come from one place a few hundred years ago to a much much better place. The world has arguably never been as good as it is now. But yes, a few hundred years ago, I you know, I was kind of like contained within Dumbbar's number.

You know, you had about groups of what like maximum one hundred and fifty people. Where now it's just you're getting input from everywhere. And I think I think when thinking as much.

someone was trying to sell them on this thing. Doesn't matter what it was, but it's the thing you have in the home. It does all this stuff to your air, apparently, and you know, and it's amazing, it's incredible, right and it's not. And fortunately I came up two days later and I saw this brochure and I saw this appointment time. I'm like, what's this. My mum said, Oh, it's amazing, and I anyway, it's not amazing and it's a scam. But you know, she's like, but the lady said, I go,

but the lady's selling you something, Mum. The lady her job is literally to make money, and that's we shouldn't begrudge her making money. But don't confuse a sales pitch or an opinion or anecdotal evidence or whatever it is with data or science or truth or I think that, Yeah, because everything can be so well sold and produced and presented. Like you look at the stuff that constantly. I don't know about your feed, but I get a lot of stuff about supplements and training this, and like a lot

of stuff in the health, wellness, high performance space. And you would think because it's almost presented as a mini documentary rather than a sales pitch for something. So if you don't really know what you're reading or what you're listening to, it's so easy to lack the knowledge or the discernment to be able to pick the bullshit from the truth.

also do quite the opposite. And I've heard you say this a thousand times. I think I've actually repeated it, to be completely honest. Where you're working sixty hours a week in a job that you can't wait to wake up in the morning and you're just completely engaged, you're in love with it, or you're working thirty hours a week and a job that you absolutely can't stand and sucking the soul. Idea which ones are going to contribute to burnout? I think the answer for everybody listening to

this is pretty obvious. We don't you know, Robert Green. This is just popping into my head. I am a Robert Green fan for a few reals, and.

think that's really bad for us. So there was a study published back in twenty twelve Nature, which is probably one of the most reputable journals in the world, and what it was showing is a correlation between higher levels of dopamine like which rewards goal seeking behavior, and lower corresponding levels of cortisol. So you know, like everybody's talking about self care, I think, and I think self care

is really important. Like to meet you, Mendelief was working on the periodic table and just grinding and grinding and grinding, and it wasn't coming to him, and finally he just quit. I don't think he quit forever. It's just like, okay, I can't keep this up. So he just like dropped

it and went to sleep. So he goes to sleep in a dream, the periodic table comes to him, and that's your default mode network, like in operation, because like when your your prefrontal lobes are overtasked, grinding hard or is not going to help you. But when it comes to most things, I think it is that immersive focus and work an effort in something that's meaningful, Like if I feel like life is happening to me rather than

I'm acting from a sense of agency. That's stressful. Or if I feel like I'm at work and my relationships are contentious rather than collaborative. I think that's a lot to deal with, And I feel like people are going into those environments increasingly or people are gonna hate me for saying this. I think that when you structure work around certain conveniences and you allow people to work from a sense of freedom and autonomy, if you have the

right people on your team, performance will increase. But I think what I struggle with is absolutes, like everybody needs to come back to the office, Like if you're at home, I don't know what you're doing, well, then man, you've hired the wrong stem. And I also disagree with we should never be in the office again. We could be completely virtual because there is like there's research out of

MIT by Thomas Allen about proximity. We know from Paul Zach's work on a moral molecule like like proximity and connection, being face to face. It just does things that virtual doesn't do for us. So I think there's no we need to find a balance of how we work with one another that makes.

because they're not me. So, you know, I think one of these ideas that we need to get over in personal development and self help and even behavioral psychology, is

that what's the best way too? Rather, it's like perhaps what's the best approach for me rather than the best singular, the best way, and trying to help people understand that, and then to operationalize the idea that, yeah, there are really broad kind of theories and ideas and habits that in general terms create positive outcomes like being consistent with

good behaviors whatever they are. But then beyond that, you know, should you train three days a week or seven days a week, should you have you know, two big meals a day or five small meals a day? Should you you know, does running work for you? Or should you

do something that's no impact cardio? You know, It's like there are just so many variables, and I think that us learning how we work, Like because your body, you know, and you're you know, you're subconscious and your you know, your internal sat nab that wisdom that comes from who knows where, Like that's all that stuff is always giving us feedback and data and insight, you know, to then go, oh, well, when I work around people, I'm I'm happier, I'm mentally

and emotionally I'm in a better place. Or when I work around these people, I'm in a worse place. I fucking dread going to work. But I did have a job once where I was really excited to go to work, So maybe it's not going to work that's the issue, but rather this particular environment, culture, place, people, whatever, you know.

So I think this just thinking beyond the you know, the global kind of this is good, that is bad, this is better, that is worse, but trying to understand our own individual responses and I guess reactions and our own kind of I guess operating system that's optimal for us around all of these other variables.

what really works for you. But within that there one thing that you said that I grabbed onto was this guy to be consistent and see and quote unquote good behaviors, good behaviors, being supporting what you want. Because I'm all for the breath work, I'm all for the day at the spa. You would appreciate this. So one of the executive leadership team that I was working with, I talked to Tiff about this. I just love this lady. She is so brilliant and so cool and just she's so effective,

but she's easy to be around. She actually looks and has some of the mannerisms and characteristics of Lisa Stevenson. And she had said she had said something to me. I won't mention her name, so this is complete respect for her privacy. But she said, oh, you know, over the weekend, I spent the whole day learning how to make sour dough bread. I thought, oh, wow, that's interesting. So you're a baker. I'm not a baker. I was like, you're a bread fan. She's like, nah, I'm all right

with bread. I was like, well, would you spend all day? She said, because it's really really hard, and I like doing really hard things that require a lot of effort. And then we got into this, like she gets invited to a spa age like that would just drive me absolutely crazy to just sit there. And the conversation went in a direction where self discipline is self care. You know, we talk about self care. A lot of times people confuse it with self indulgence. And this almost like pampering,

but it's really not one. It's an act of generosity and responsibility too. It's kind of analogous to Stephen Covey sharpening the saw. You know, if you're going to be effective, you've got to take a step back. But leaning in and having rituals and disciplines and exerting a lot of effort, I think psychologically and biochemically sets us up for a

less stressful life. And I don't mean stress in terms of in what we're putting forth, but distress rather than you stress like stress can make our lives a hell of a lot better. Stress can make us perform at optimal levels, and it can do exactly the opposite. And I think when we don't have discipline, we don't have effort, we don't have rituals and consistency, we sacrifice you stress for distress, and then we say, oh, well, stress is bad, I need a break. How are you framing stress? What

does stress mean to you? And what are you doing to contribute to that type of stress that some powerful?

complicated and madness and mayhem and unfair and painful. Life can be all of that. We don't want it, but doesn't matter that we don't want it. It's coming for all of us. And so you know, with that in mind, how do we how do we build resilience. It's like we talk about resilience a lot, but we also talk about self care days. I'm like, where's the line, you know, so tell me what self care is in the Bobby model.

And I know that it's an amalgamation of other people's stuff as well, but just as you explain it, so explain to me how to do self care in a way that is and by the way, we're not saying, you know, scrap the spa days. We're not saying that, we're saying, on top of that, how do we do self care in a way which is going to empower us rather than just make out back more relaxed.

what is resilient. Resilience is adaptability. I mean, you know, like bridges and buildings are built to be resilient, so they bend with the imposition of stress and then they return back to optimal function. Human beings can do that, but sometimes with resilience, we don't return back to optimal function. We return to optimal function in a little bit more aside. So we actually experience growth as a stress response to

stress within limits. So the first thing I'm thinking about is if you have rituals and you have frameworks for your life, that gives you freedom because you need flexibility. Adaptability needs frameworks. So if I'm driving like today, I spent like a lot of time on the road and it exhausts me. And as I'm driving down the road, my sat nav said, well road is closed ahead. Well it's not like, ohhez, I'm never going to get to

my next event. It was able to adapt and recalculate and put me on another road and I didn't lose it much time at all. Well what if I didn't have that structure, I didn't have that road map, Well, the roads closed, I'm screwed. So discipline lends the structure from which adaptability can flow. So a lot of people think, oh my god, all those rituals and structures, that's an imposition on No, it's a mechanism for freedom, not an

imposition on it. So I think that's like one of the concepts around structure and discipline being an element, one element, not the element. Right, Like some people it is a spa day, you know, for some people, it's a Netflix day. For some people, you know what, it's just walking like in the evening around something scenic and just not overthinking and not being plugged in, leaving your phone at home. But like, look at it this way, Bowmuster's research on

decision fatigue. So if discipline is glucose mediated functioning of the prefrontal cortex, so we need glucose to regulate the parts of our brain that allow us to say, Hey, you know what I really want right now is a piece of cake, but I also want to complete this project. Let me delay gratification. Right. We make enough of these decisions, and we're doing this throughout the day. We have a

limited reserve. So let's say I wake up in the morning and it's like rather than just like hanging out and joy my coffee, I could do that, but I also know that that's where I'm most alert in those hours. I'm going to study and work really hard for the next two hours, and that's grueling. What did I do for the rest of the day. I actually decrease cognitive load because had I done that in the evening and

had to be done. And when I have the least amount of mental reserve for discipline, I'm engaging in activities that require high level of focus. I'm not going to be optimal. But I just freed up all that cognitive load by getting that done through my own volition rather than being told to do that. I think that's powerful, but it's even more than that because I plan to do that. So that's an intention, right, So for neuroplasticity, for brainer, you need an intention, you need focus, and

what really helps is relevance. So I'm doing this because it's important to me. So I just elevated my dopamine levels, dopamine and self efficacy. So look at how I'm priming my brain. I'm priming my brain to scan my environment for the rest of the day for goal seeking behavior to get my next dopamine hit. So I'm motivated to

engage in goal seeking behavior. I've increased focus, I've increased awareness, I've increased the biochemistry for learning, for development, And because I'm elevating my dopamine levels, I'm also taking steps to kind of mitigate some of the biochemical responses to stress that make me less effective in everything. And I'm getting more confident doing it because I have some wins early in the day that makes my day easier, not harder. Like people think about effort as it's like, oh, this

intense sacrifice. It is I need to choose one thing in lieu of another, But it doesn't necessarily mean you're suffering through it. It might actually alleviate some of that.

want to increase my sporting performance or whatever. So I go to the gym and I do some kind of strength training whatever, kettle bells, body weight, traditional bodybuilding, pinloaded, blah blah blah. But the bottom line is I go into the gym and I do something that's hard, and over time I do this thing called progressive overload or progressive resistance training. And over time, if I do it strategically, intelligently and consistently, I start to explore my physical potential.

I get stronger, I build muscle, I get better. Right, It's very strategic and we know that. Well, Bobby, you were doing a ten kilo last week in the last few weeks, so maybe we'll go to a twelve and a half kilo dumbbell today. Let's see how that goes. Yeah, you're fine with that. Call. In two months now Bobby's doing the fifteen. Then in six months he's doing the twenty. It's been very strategic and there's a method, and it all makes sense. How do we apply that to building

mental and emotional fitness and or resilience? Like, how do we you know, because as you said at some stage in that monologue, you know, too much is bad depending on you know, you throw someone in a situation that's they're just not mentally or emotionally ready for, that could have a catastrophic outcome. You give them too little, there's no adaptive response. So for people who go, you know what, Bobby, that makes sense. I want to build. I want to

be more resilient mentally and emotionally. I want to be able to deal with hard things. I want to be able to navigate the bullshit and the mayem and the mess, unfairness and the injustice, because that's just going to happen along with the great stuff. Right, how do we is there a conscious, intelligent strategic I know there's no one process fits all, but how do we start the wheels turning on becoming more of that.

You're gonna that's gonna be a payoff. I think when when you take a look at what is that sweet spot for me, it's where frustration meets curiosity. We're curious about things that are important to us, things that we're interested in. But if we're really applying ourselves to the point where we're facilitating learning because we are increasing our epionephical levels, let's say as the tue coline as well.

So when you're like, you're like, when you're really focused on something, and it's kind of creating a little bit of frustration because it's hard to like get it and it's hard to stick with it. I think that's a really good sweet spot when it goes to like overwhelm that that's something that probably exceeds our adaptive capability and it can have the set I mean, you're not going to break your brain. Well, we hope not. So that's a little bit dramatic. I think starting out with things

that reasonably fit. What's what's going on?

about ten and one? What makes a three? Why did you not rate yourself a one? I think that's really important because in between one and three is where you have a level of confidential. You believe that there's ability. Between one and three is what it is you want out of speaking. Between one and three is why you feel that you need to improve your skills. So let's take a look at what you already can do well

between one and three. Now, what would a four look like? Yeah? Yeah, and walk me through what a number four would look like and feel like if you were speaking at a four level? What would happen and what would be the indicators?

What's an environment that is relatively safe still challenging, where you could test that your next meeting, when you're sitting around with your staff, you know that thing that you don't want to say because you're worried about how it's going to come out, Take a chance and say it, but don't just say it. Practice saying it the way a number four would say it. Now, come out of that meeting. What happened, What was the result? What went really well? What was surprising? How did people react to?

How did that feel in terms of what you were able to contribute? Because if you sat there and didn't say anything because you were worried about how you would be perceived, that's normal, that's understandable. That's not generosity. It's better to contribute when you're on a team. So how did that feel? Now? What would have made that a five? Okay, what's the next meeting after that? You know, so you know, somebody in my organization she wanted to she wanted to

lead a mindfulness session for the organizations. It reached out, Hey, does anybody Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and do that. Now that might be a little bit of a bigger leap, But what could you volunteer for? You know, like, what is a small audience that you can get in front of, and every time you're getting in front of something that has relative safety but also a level of challenge, and it scares you a bit, Go ahead and do it and evaluate what did I do well? What would I

have done differently if I could do that again? And now show me six, seven, eight, nine, ten one thing that I use when I'm training speakers. And this works because it's really funny and it kind of gamifies this and it's silly, but I'll tell you why it works. Where do you think you are as a presenter? Well, I think I'm about a four. Okay, stand up in front of this room of five, six, whatever. Sometimes it's like fifty people, and show us a number four. Okay,

Now here's what I want you to do. Show us a number three, ah, number three? All right? Now, show us what a two and a one would look like. And sometimes we get ridiculous. So if someone was like a negative three public speaking, show me that. Now that's clear why it works, because if we're so worried about how we're being perceived, the assignment is screw up as bad as you possibly can have fun exaggerating the worst presentation you can ever imagine giving one, you're starting to

laugh at yourself. Two you realize it's not so bad. Three if you really fail, you've just succeeded, so you don't have to feel self conscious and insecure. And then we take people back up. We take them back up to a one, to a two, to a three, to a four. But then we keep going. Now show me five, Now show me six. What would what would seven be like? Stop? Stop presenting just seven? Okay, demonstrate it. And then we take them up to ten. And what's interesting, and we

don't expect anybody to be a level ten. It's like, oh wow, we did that exercise and you know Tony Robbins is a level ten. No, you're not going to be there. But what what you understand is by taking a risk and amplifying the way you communicate, you improve remarkably within the span of fifteen minutes. Now, if you can do that, what could you do in fifteen months? Yeah?

experiences and it's a bunch of shit. But I think it's fair to say that a percentage of my audience, and maybe a percentage of the hosts on this show have experienced people pleasing or are people pleasers. And obviously it's not a great thing, and it gets in the way of a lot of things, or it can get in the way of a lot of things. As I always say, it's nice to be nice, but it's not nice to be a doormat. So how do we with this same kind of not necessarily the same approach as

public speaking, but how would you work with somebody? And I'm only bringing this up because I know right now half of my audience are going, fuck, yes, Bobby, tell me how to deal with this because I'm such a people pleaser. Again, I know there's no simple solution or three step protocol. But because I think you, over the year have been a people playser a bit, and I know I have. When you know, I think both of us at times, and probably I don't know about you.

I think I'm better at it than I used to be, but they're depending on the audience. Sometimes I'm still a fucking wanna be and a tryhad.

And I love that, and they weren't talking about your job is to, you know, be so divisive, Like people listen to you and they're divided, but you are going to Your job is to attract people. But that also means you have to repel them, because if your message is palatable for everyone and you're trying to please everyone, you're not going to resonate with absolutely anyone. Really, And I thought, wow, isn't that Isn't that a great way

of framing it? And I think when we look at these things like if you are going to be your own coach, you can use Whitmore's grow model, Like what exactly do you want? Like, like, let's get clear on the outcome first, Like what are we talking about to find the conversation to find the outcome the experience that you really want? What's most impactful to you about that? Right when that happens? What's different? What do you gain? What do you feel go through that? Who does it serve? Okay,

what's the reality? How far apart are we? Right? So you could scale that if you want, Like I want

to be at an eight, but I'm over here. Okay, Well, what are you What are some of your options, Like if you wanted to get better at something, whether it's like you know, not people pleasing as much because that could be pretty debilitating after a while, or whether it's to get better at a certain skill, like do a little brainstorm with yourself or someone else, What are all of the options you have in front of you to develop that.

It could be taking a course, it could be next time I feel like I'm going to say no, I'm going to politely, empathetically but directly say no and take that risk and see that response, right, you know, keep going until you get like half a dozen ideas. When you look at that, what is what is the most reasonable, most exciting, or maybe even the least threatening options you just came up with. What are you willing to do in the next seven days? How are you going to

go out and test that in the world. I think that's that's probable a pretty good system to use if you're self coaching. Does that grow? Right? What's the goal, what's the reality? What are your options? And what are

you willing to do? Because if you're going to meet changes in any aspect of your life, you're going to have to meet changes in your brain and behavior change is probably one of the most effective ways to facilitate neuroplasticity, like to literally become someone different by doing something different.

I can't remember the totality of it, but I was talking about essentially so much of social media anyway, is essentially opinions about other people's opinions right, It's like opinions of opinions of opinions, right, there's not that that don't confuse someone's opinion of someone else's opinion with information or truth. But I think one of the challenges for us is because we do, for better or worse, we do attach

ourselves emotionally to our beliefs. And so when you have when your identity is somewhat intertwined with the thing that you think is the right thing, well, now it's very hard to be open minded because you don't want to be wrong. It's very hard to unlearn when you already know what the right thing is. So this and I've spoken about this a bit in the last year, but just the willingness to go I don't know or I'm wrong. We spoke about this a little bit, you and I

with sitting on the fence. What the benefit of fitting sitting on the fence, I think, or maybe I was chatting with someone else, But just the willingness to go, look, this is what I think and what I believe, but I could be wrong. This is this has been my experience, and so this is what I think, but somebody else

it could be different. And also you know, knowing that historically for me personally, how many things I've gotten wrong over the years, it would be one unintelligent to assume that I'm not getting things wrong today just because I don't want to get things wrong, or that I'm not going to get a lot of things wrong or make mistakes or be flawed moving forward despite my best effort to be you know, right for one of a better term.

And so I guess that just that openness to be able to be okay with imperfection and being wrong and unlearning and saying, look, you know, I fucked up.

not looking to condone or condemn. I'm just looking to seek out an opinion that is one hundred and eighty degrees the opposite of mine and dig into why, what's the rationale, I think, because if you don't do that, I think there's a difference between having beliefs and beliefs that have you, And I think when your identity is inseparable with your belief system, your beliefs have you. And I think one litmus test of this is take a look at everybody around you. Does everybody around you believe

the same thing that you believe? And for you that that can be very self affirming. Yeah, of course this is right. Everybody around me believes what I believe. Well, how much of an independent thinker am I if coincidentally everyone I associate with in my life has the same thoughts and opinions that I do. Yes, yes, First of all, if you're hanging out with ten people and like they all like think and believe exactly the same, none of

them are redundant. Yeah. So that's something that I always ask myself, because I mean, I understand seeking consensus, this affirmation, this security. When we go back to like where we started in this conversation, self discipline is in fact self care. One of the reasons why is because it creates predictability. There's so many things in our environment that are not predictable. And the adverse effects of stress are not necessarily from

the stress itself. It's stress related to our locus of control. The greater the lack of predictability, the greater the adverse response to stress. So like, when we have things within our environment that we can predict, it kind of helps us deal with stress. So if we look around and everybody thinks the same way, we think, well, that adds a little bit of predictability to the world.

how do we grow, learn evolve? You do thing that's a bit scary, and then you know, you get desensitized, and eventually the thing that's scared you doesn't scare you anymore, and your fear response goes from an eight down to a seven to a six, and then eventually it's a zero, and then you might even enjoy that thing. So not only are you not scared now, it's actually producing happy hormones and joyful hormones, not cortisole on adrenaline, this whole

thing right. And then I go, now, with that in mind, who's terrified of public speaking? And I would get someone down the front and I'd say, look, just come down and I would just put my hand on their shoulder if that was appropriate, and i'd just talk to them. I go, don't look at them, look at me. So i'd do this and I'd say, where'd you draw from? And that's how I go, Okay, how long you been with the I go, no, worry about them, You're not

just you and me. So I would talk to them, and then a minute or two in, I go, well, you know what you're doing. You're actually on a stage talking into a microphone and four hundred people are listening, and I go, so you're public speaking right, but but your you know, so this whole thing and they're like, oh yeah, I go so, you know, still scary. But so I did this with a lady. This was in Queensland, Queenstown in New Zealand, at the Hilton, a big auditorium.

Lots of people get I do exactly what I just described to you, and I just start talking to the lady and then I see her face go white. So we're about forty five seconds in. Her face goes white, her eyes go back in her head, and she's she faints. She faints on stage in front of four hundred people. I catch her right, so she doesn't just clunk on

the floor. So I catch her and I lay her on the And yeah, fair to say that wasn't the pinnacle of my speaking career or the demonstrating how we might overcome fear.