Bobby Kapoucho, Welcome to the You Project.
My friend Greig Anthony Hopper. Good to be here.
Hey, buddy, I want to do something slightly different today. So rather than you and I wax lyrical about the human experience and the mind and the brain and potential and all of those things, broadly speaking, I want to ask some things.
We're not going to.
Delve too deep into anything you don't want to delve into, but I want to understand your mind a little bit. And I want because you've got one of the most fascinating minds that I've intersected with. I love how you think. I love how you tell stories. I love how you teach. I love how you coach. I also love, and I mean this with absolute respect and authenticity, I love the
journey that you had. While it wasn't a fun journey for you, but to know a fair bit about your childhood and your adolescents and teen years and you're to come out of what wasn't a let's say, an optimal or ideal start to life and to do some pretty amazing things all over the world. So I want to talk a little bit about that and a bit about you.
Is that okay with you, yes, but before we get into this, I mean, I appreciate this, but I'm still trying to figure out and understand my mind. So yeah, I don't know how much luck you or anybody else that's going to have with it.
Well let's start there, like what I want to ask you some things, and what I don't want to do is I want to I want to try and spend two, three, four minutes on each thing and then move on. But fuck who knows. But but I feel like we can cover some really good territory. Okay, So when you think about the mind, right, even the mind is a slippery construct. So let's think about your mind. When you say to your you're still trying to understand your mind or yourself,
do you mean that seriously? And if you do, how does that understanding arise? And what's the journey and what are the questions? What's the process?
I think we have to start with when you say the mind, what exactly is the mind? And I don't even think I know that. I know the most of the scientific concerensus not all of it is. The mind arises from the biochemical and synaptic activity in the brain.
That is the mind. But is there any love for us?
Because I mean, go ahead, there's yeah.
When some people think that you know that conscious awareness, all that stuff that happens in the prefrontal cortex. The thinking, the problem solving, the interpreting the world around us is a brain process, not a mind process. There is no mind. The mind's just a story we invented to help us understand thinking. But so for whatever it is, let's just say we've got one. How have you come to understand your and develop your mind when you didn't have a running start at this?
I think as right now, I revel in the fact that I know nothing. When I started realizing how little I know about everything, it was disturbing because I always want to know something. I think when it comes to staying in my lane and kind of like a lane adjacent, kind of like the middle lanes of a five lane freeway, I'm rather curious, and that curiosity and frustration, whilst it drives me understanding how inept I am and so many suff checks was frustrating. I love it now because it
just leaves me open to possibility. I think what started with me is understanding that with all those possibilities, I could prove most of them, and not control but influence which direction I was going and how I evolved into a possibility that at the moment excited me. And that was about deciding things, or having the illusion of deciding that I knew I was certain of, even in the midst of complete uncertainty around everything else, eventually, around what
are my values? What do things mean to me? Things that happened in the past and the present. They might not have any meaning at all, but we have that imagination and we have the autonomy to decide. Okay, well, if it did mean something, what would be constructive? If that makes any sense? What so happened? Yeah?
But I mean, you can't honestly say you don't know anything, because you know a lot.
I mean, I know facts and figures, and I know about like how I feel about certain things, how I interpret things. But what do I really know? I mean, but think about the conversation we were having before we hit play on this. I think we should start doing that earlier, because those conversations are actually fascinating.
Tell people what we're talking about.
Well, when you get to the age of Craig and I, you start to deal more consistently with.
Matters of life and death.
And we both were connected to people who are not here anymore recently or who.
Might not be here much longer.
And we were talking about where does this person go?
So there's this essence, there's this person, you.
Know, and there they're them to themselves and then they're gone.
What happens to that person?
If we're honest, nobody absolutely knows. I mean, people have beliefs, but we don't absolutely know the most basic fundamental aspects of the world we live in life and death, right, the unavoidable, the imminent.
We know nothing even about that. So I don't really know all that much.
But that's great because I find more. I find more interest and satisfaction living in the question sometimes than I do having the answer.
And we were talking about how I told you that one of my one of my best friends got some not very good news yesterday, and which is life impacting news, and and how you know I wasn't expecting that obviously. I was just going about my day, probably a bit caught up in my own self importance and bullshit and my to do list and how busy I am, And you know, oh, woe is made. I don't think there's
a lot of self pity. But you know, all of a sudden, I get a phone call and I talked to this guy, and everything else instantly is unimportant in that moment anyway, right, And I'm not saying that nothing else matters, of course it does.
But you know, you and I were saying.
How how incredibly quickly perspective changes and focus and priority changes, and you're like, oh, yeah, this is right now. And in that moment, it's like I wouldn't have cared if I had chatted with him, been on the phone with him for the next five hours, Like everything else didn't matter. It's like, I don't care what else I've going on now,
Nothing is this important as this moment. Yeah, And I think that it's interesting that sometimes we have to have not always, but sometimes things happen that are, you know, in the ballpark of tragic, to have a perspective that maybe well for me anyway, and maybe I should have more often.
I think we're more I mean the film Fight Club the book actually, but I think more people have seen the film at this point than read the book. That was the unnamed character in part one. There's actually a graphic novel that's a Fight Club Part two. So Ed Norton was playing the role of a guy who was revealed to be named Sebastian, and that was the whole point when he was having an existential crisis and like,
what is the meaning of all of this? He started going to cancer support groups because he said, it's only when people get to that point where it's the end of their life that they talk about something vulnerable and visceral and real. And I think, you know, like you said, of course things are important, Like even the trivial aspects of our day. Are they as important as matters of life and death. No, But if they weren't important at all,
we wouldn't do anything, because like, what's the point. So they are important or they connect to things are important. But every once in a while, we're knocked out of our routine and we're brought face to face with something that is of deep importance. And I think that's when we get really vulnerable, when we open up and we drop the mask and all the other bullshit and facades that we navigate through our world with. It really doesn't
matter because there's no time. We don't have time for that shit.
Yeah, And I guess also, like there's the thing, and then there's your story about the thing and your one to ten importance writing. You know, there was a time where for me, and this is maybe a silly example,
but it's practical example. For me making a certain amount of money every week, it was about an eight out of ten important because that's where I was in my life, and I had employees, and I had all these moves parts in order for me to survive financially and then to build a career and to you know, not liv an impoverished life. I needed to hit these gada da
da da all that. And now it's not that I'm some wealthy, retiring mogul, but just the way that I think about money and the importance it has for me. It's not an eight anymore, Like I still need it. I've got to pay the bills, But the exact same thing that we're talking about is for me a two or three.
It's just a thing.
It's a resource that helps me do stuff. And it's not that money is different or that money is required more or less in our culture, probably more, but it's that, like whatever that thing is, your relationship with it changes, you know, Like for some people it's really important that they're in a relationship in the next three weeks. That's like a not like their priority is that they can't be alone, they can't be single, They've got to be And for other people it's like it's not even a two.
So it's not so much necessarily that there's an arbitrary level of importance about things, but rather our perspective of that. Like, you know, and I told you about my friend yesterday, and I've also shared this, I think two or three times on the show. But someone really close to me and died passed away between Christmas and Year and New Year, and I sat with her on Christmas Day and just it. You know, it was sad and beautiful and all of that.
But I had a profound experience on me because I had this awareness in the moment that most of the people in my life that have passed away, I never had a time with them where I sat with them saying goodbye because I knew this would be the last time.
You know, she was at death's door, so to speak, and she was in hospital in palliative care, and she knew and I you and it's just like it's kind of painful and beautiful and it gives you this I don't know for me, this awareness and this I don't know, this perspective that I guess I can't carry that all the time because I probably wouldn't get anything done. But definitely I need more of it, you know me.
Anyway, I think what's beautiful about moments like that? As painful as there are, I can't imagine many things more painful than losing someone you deeply care about, not only that you deeply care about, but who brings value and emotion into your life.
I think what is beautiful.
About that is just that raw connection where you talk about stories, like what's our story that we tell ourselves about life?
And what's the meaning of all this?
Well, he's a different meaning for everyone. Maybe maybe there's this overarching meaning that we'll never discover in this plane of existence, or maybe there isn't any and it's up to us to decide what it means. But I think, in one way.
Shape or formance, to connect to one another.
So my wife had asked me to watch this documentary and it was about pets and there was this one guy that they followed, like, you know, he's an old guy, but They followed him from when he was really young and he was living in the inner city in South Washington, d C. And he just was like, I got to get out of this place, like, look at this place, look around me.
I was like, I grew up in Cornell and Brooklyn, and.
I resonated what that feels like. And he started getting into taking care of animals and like different types of injured birds like owls and falcons, and would he would nurse them back to health and release them back into the wild, and people would give him messages like if they're suffering, or they lost the loved one, or they were sick, and it was almost this prayer and he would attach them to these animals and release them with this prayer and almost like it was a surrender.
And then it was horses, and it was like.
And I'm watching this And there was something he said where whenever I help an animal, I feel like I've done my small part.
It's a very very small part. I thought, Wow, small is really significant, because this guy has found a way to connect to creatures and to connect to people around him through the work he does and make a small yet very significant difference through kindness. I mean whatever we're here for, it's got to be in my mind to connect with one another, to somehow touch something in one another. You cannot do alone, which is why so much and talking about self help advice, so much of the being
independent and not needing anybody. And Tiff and I had a podcast episode where somebody who's quite famous was talking about like, just avoid friends, avoid deep connections.
It's like, wow, Like, forget about all of the countless empirical evidence on the importance and the nature of relationships to well being, because none of it contradicts that. None of it says, well, well, you know you better off being disconnected like some people. No, doesn't show up. That's your life philosophy. Just think about, like what that feels like the best moments in your life, because we all have these moments that show up as sacred for us.
Who else was part of that? They never occur in isolation. So I don't know. Maybe this fine a need for a life is what makes it absolutely sop urgently beautiful. I'd say, what do we do? How do we fill that?
So tell me about this for you, this connect, this deep. So I could get stuff wrong here, so correct what I get wrong?
If I get anything wrong.
But like, so we're talking about this deep connection with humans which we all need. We might say we don't need, but on some level we all need at least a person at some stage maybe hopefully we'll have many beautiful people connected and intertwined with us through our life. Do you have Have you found it difficult over the years to trust people deeply to open that door? Because you are like me a bit in that you can do the persona thing. You can, you can talk, you can,
you can build rapport and connection. You've got all the words, you've got the charisma, you've got all the shit that you need to be the Bobby Show. But underneath the Bobby Show and I know behind the Bobby curtain and you know behind the Great curtain, Like, has it been a struggle for you to get close close, like real close with people and to trust people? And maybe tell us about that either way?
Well, I think the short answer is yes, there is nothing that I talk about, or write about or teach that I have not personally at some point struggled with and been a hypocrite in relation to I mean, we both know someone very well who said to me quite emphatically how dare you even call yourself a coach? And I think you know when I think we teach what we need the most. And I have always strived to be absolutely consistent with what I.
Say and what I do and what I believe.
And there are times in my life where I have failed epically in that. And you know, the way I grew up, I would imagine that I would have had a very hard time trusting people, but it was the opposite.
In the beginning in my twenties, I trusted.
Everybody openly, like I'll get into business with you, It's like I'll meet you on emotional level, Like there was just like whatever someone said, I took it at phase value, like I will extend trust until you prove me wrong, rather than I don't trust anybody until you prove to me that that I can trust you, or respect has to be earned. I was like no, no, like who, like who the fuck am I that you have to earn my respect. I'm going to give you respect freely.
Until you prove me wrong.
And a lot of people proved me wrong, Like I had people that refused to work with me, or they were concerned to get into any business dealing with me because they're like, you are very naive and you trust.
People to the point where it can hurt you.
And if I'm close to you and like your success is tied into my success, well that could hurt me. Another person who we know very very well, very close personal in front of mine. I was like, Capuccio, you're not allowed to talk to anybody, sign anything, agree to anything unless one of us are around you. And that was the because if you told me this is my intention, this is what I want to do, It's like, okay, let's do that. And I would get burned a lot,
and I would I would reconcile. You know that has more to do with that person than it does with me. Hmmm. And the chances you know what I mean, I'm trying to create something. If you do something and that violates me or that betrays me, that's on you. There's nothing to do with me. I'm going to go out and do this again. But it got to a point where that was no longer the case.
Yeah, I feel like you and I are similar in that in that when I was when I was young, I was you know, flawed, but well meaning and very trusting, and I don't know I think I had a pretty simple childhood. Like I grew up in rural Victoria, grew up in the country.
It wasn't a.
Particularly complicated existence, and most people said what they meant and meant what they said and did what they said they were going to do. And it wasn't like it. I don't know, maybe it was more complicated and I was just simple, but it seems simple. And then I
started my businesses, I pretty much like you. I just trusted everybody and took them at face value, and then you realize, oh, people are stealing from me, people are taking things, people are lying to be, people are saying one thing and doing and then you're like, oh oh. And then so I went from and this is probably not a good thing to admit, but this is just true. So I went from kind of trusting everybody to then not well, not that I didn't trust anybody, but I
didn't automatically trust people anymore. Like it. I don't know if this is an indictment on me, but I'm like, yeah, I And so even in the last few years, I've said to people that I've come into contact with that I'm maybe going to do some kind of alliance or we've got some kind of strategic arrangement. In a nice way, I let them know that I don't trust them, but also I say I don't distrust you. I just don't
know yet, just because what you're telling me. I've had one hundred people tell me a version of the same thing that you're telling me and then prove to be either dishonest or unreliable or not trustworthy. And so it's not about you. It's about my history. But I bring my baggage with me, and so for me, and I don't know if this is a good, bad, good or
bad thing. You can tell me what you think, but yeah, I'm I will definitely give people the opportunity, but in terms of unreservedly trusting them, that does not happen quickly.
I think somewhere in the middle is probably the wisest place to be. I am a nature a neurotic individual, and sometimes neurotic individuals can see details in their environment. Because I had to, I had, like again trying but explain to people why you had to?
And sorry, two questions, One, why did you have to? And to explain to people a little bit as much as you want your neuroses.
Well, i operate on a high level of anxiety, and I'm always thinking, Okay, what can go wrong in this situation, what's the and I'm going to go somewhere with this around trust? And there's a risk benefit ratio in every situation. You learn this when you're a trainer, like you're selecting an exercise.
There are so many.
Variables that you need to assess because there's a risk and there's a benefit, and you don't want to be on the wrong side of that ratio, especially when a client's and trusting themselves to you. So I'm always looking for that because if I misread a situation growing up, I could get hurt very very badly. I don't mean them yes, emotionally, but physically, or I could die. So my life was at stake. So when I'm highly emotionally invested,
I have so many blind spots. But if I sit down and I look at a situation like Richard Boyd, I've been multiple businesses with him, which was like you could tell what's gonna happen like months out. It's almost like you could tell exactly what people are going to do, how things are going to work out. And it's not because like, I'm a genius at pattern recognitions because my survival depended on me being able to do that with the people around me that were a constant threat to me.
But let's talk about trust and let's talk about risk benefit because somebody gave me really good advice years ago. Yeah, and you know, you know when something makes so much sense to you logically and in your heart, you know it's true, but you're in so much pain that you're like, yeah, I don't think so. And that's kind of the attitude I took, and man if I paid for it. So one of my clients was a relatively famous.
Comedian in the United States.
So I'm not going to mention their name because of privacy, but I will say they were on The Daily Show with John Stewart at some point, so I won't say any more than that. But this is a really intelligent individual, obviously talented guy, and just a beautiful human. I really enjoyed our relationship and we were out having some coffee and somebody sole from me and it wasn't just money,
it was intellectual property. It was my heart, my soul, part of my identity, and it was one of those things where I led with complete trust in a deal, and that trust turned out to be really stupid on my part. But who knew right hindsight, and we're sitting there, I'm talking about what do I do about this? And this is an individual who you know, he's in this arena, and you know he's got great intellectual property and he's dealt with this stuff. And he said a few things
to me that were brilliant. He said, first of all, if you're any good at all, people are going to steal from you. If nobody's imitating you, nobody's stealing from you. What you're putting out there is not worthwhile, it's not very valuable. So do you want to put out valuable stuff or do you want to protect yourself? And he said, there's a few things that you can do. You could sue,
You could go after this person. You have enough proof, there's the evidence there, he said, But understand it's going to be very costly, not just financially but in terms of time and energy. And no matter what you gain if you come out on the right side of that lawsuit, you got to think about what you're absolutely going to lose. He said, you are going to lose the creative energy and source where all of your ideas and creativity come from that.
Make you you.
You're going to lose your originality in this process. And he said, you know, when people imitate you, there's just something that instinctively, any audience knows, and that is an original. They can listen to the same material with the same inflections, the same timing, and know this material just doesn't feel right. It's not innate to the person delivering it. They're not the source, they're not the author of what they're trying to deliver, and they can listen to someone else and go,
that's it. There's there's this resonance. It's truthful, it's authentic. It's like, you got you gotta make a decision about what you're willing to give up. And the cost of chasing everyone is much greater than just letting it go and keep creating, staying one step ahead. I heard that was like wow, thank you.
Yeah, And I didn't listen. It's like and he was right, Wow, the cost of that.
Is so steep. Yeah.
I I mean, as you know, I write on the white board, I take a photograph for the white board, and then I put it up on Instagram. And I've done that. I think it's about six thousand times, and not all of them are terrible, a few of them are okay, and some of them that are okay get ripped off a lot, I mean a lot like that.
I wrote twelve fucking Rules for success, probably seven or eight years ago now, and that's been plagiarized, turned into posters and cups and teetowels and pieces of art and all products for sale online like word for word my work without my name on it, of course. And yeah, I went through that where I actually had a couple of lawyers go to me who follow me, like do
you want me to do? And I'm like, I thought about all of that, and for the potential I do the cost benefit analysis and not just financially but emotionally, mentally, creatively, and I'm like, I want to invest my energy in that. That's not and I just go, okay, it's And if I'm if I'm really not all about money and I'm really just about or I try to be as much as possible about putting good stuff into the world, then
fuck it, you know. And I don't want people ripping off my shit, but I know they're going to anyway, I want to circle back to your anxiety, and you said something like I'm anxiety driven or whatever.
What is what is the.
What is the upside of anxiety for you? Or what is potentially the upside if there is one? Like how does your anxiety serve you in a positive way?
If it does, I think there's an upside of every emotion. I don't believe in positive and negative emotions. I believe there are negative interpretations, behaviors and ingreened patterns of thought and behavior in response to emotions, but all are positive. Otherwise we wouldn't have them.
They help us survive.
And I think a level of high anxiety makes you acutely aware of what's going on around in your environment. You start to notice like micro expressions. You start to notice incongruency in situations or in patterns of communication, even if you don't know exactly what's not right, you know, like think about it. When you're like really happy, not
a care in the world. Things are fantastic, and you might be able to conceptualize and come out of a creative space, but your attention to detail situationally might not be as attuned as it is when you have a level of anxiety, not a level of anxiety that overpowers you and defines you in the moment. But you know, a little bit of a NORP and efphrin boost can
kind of help with focus, can it. Yeah? Yeah, I mean after a certain while, if you're looking at threat and you're at the point where you're scared all the time, you're very good at seeing what's in front of you. It's like a train going through a tunnel. You have that tunnel vision. But whilst you're more aware of what's rate in front of you, you're kind of oblivious to the possibilities all around you. So it's a dose response. But I think a little bit of anxiety is good
for you. A little bit of anger is good for you. Could you imagine the Civil rights movement without a level of anger?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well even the Bible talks about a little bit of righteous anger. Brother, Bobby, So you said that, Body, Our mutual friend Richard Boyd shout out to body, said that you kind of almost have this ability to know what might happen down the track with certain people and like this crystal ball, not that you said that, I'm saying that, but how do we and again, this is just a conversation piece. This is not advice everyone,
or this is not necessarily research. But like, for you, anecdotally, how do you gain an insight into what somebody's saying that they're not actually saying, because you know, I'm more interested in the words to me sometimes are almost a distraction from the actual story or the message. Riff on that for me a little bit like trying to really know what people what's the message that's being sent apart from the words.
For me today because I have no idea how I developed this in childhood. I mean, you know a lot of things you develop at a necessity. It takes a lot of reflection and I'm not even going to try to unpack it here. But today I listen, and when I'm talking about listening, I'm not talking about words. So yesterday I had a couple of hundred people in the room and we broke them up in exercises into different
levels of listening. And whenever you go through a course, eight out of ten times when someone talks about listening, they deal with facts, kind of like Joe Friday.
Just the facts, ma'am.
And you've probably been through those sales courses Okay, you're gonna listen. And now who remembers two details from the conversation? Who remembers three, four or five? Oh?
My god?
Seven? First in the front row? That's the best listener. Yeah. No, there's more than just words and facts. What are you listening for? And factual listening is a lot better than downloading. I'm just gonna wait until you say something that I agree with or prompts me for my next thought or or my next line. It's almost like you're listening for cues. But what is the person feeling?
Like if you had to.
Take your best guess, being a human being connecting with another human being, what's the emotion that's driving what the person's trying to communicate right now? What's their need? What do they really want? And sometimes you know that that
comes from examining different positions that you listen from. You know, Otto Shahma talks about different levels and positioning within generative listening, like where in the conversation are you something that's that is another way of looking at this commonly used an NLPA.
What position.
First position is is my point of view? Second might be yours. I might go to my point of view Okay, if I was this person and I was saying that, what would I want? What would my needs be? What would I be feeling? And then maybe shift to Okay, but it's not me understanding what I know about this person or what I can extrapolate from whatever context is present in the communication. What would be what would the
world feel like from their experience? Okay? What if I was just sitting at the table, I wasn't part of this conversation, I was just a witness, would I perceive anything different? And then maybe even going further out? So if I was listening universally to a conversation like this, what would any human being in this situation saying this because of these reasons be feeling and needing and wanting.
I think it's that ability to take different positions, almost like different camera angles, Yeah, in a scene in a film that kind of you know.
Stephen Covey and many others seek first to understand right and theory of mind in psych which is just trying to have an insight into someone else's version of right now or reality of thoughts or that it's not it's not at the front of mind for so many people. When when I do corporate stuff. Last week I did two gigs and I spoke to I spoke to it doesn't matter, someone in leadership, and I said, do you think about how they think?
Like?
What do you think?
And it's and it wasn't a loaded question, but in terms of trying to understand, not agree with, not condone, not support, not aligne not you know, just just awareness and understanding nothing more. And the answer is no, I don't really, I haven't really thought about that, you know.
And then more specific to my research, and then how do you think they see you? Again, not something to worry about or stress about, but rather to be aware of, because if you've got some insight into how this person thinks and what their version of right now is, what their current experience mental, emotionalps, physical, sociological, whatever. If you've got some insight into where they are at in this moment with you, then you exponentially increase your chances of
building rapport and connection and trust. But if you're sitting there waiting for them to shut up so you can say what you need to say, we're doing the opposite, right.
I think it's like any skill you develop, it requires focused concentration and intentionality And the great thing about intentionality is if you're paying attention and you're aware, there are times that what you expect to happen happens, and then there are deviations from expectations, and that's when you get to go back and evaluate, Okay, I wanted this, but this happened.
What got in the way, what went wrong?
What would I have done differently? If I can have this conversation over again, and that's when you start to get myollenization. That's when your brain starts to communicate through these newly forming pathways with greater efficiency. So the mistakes you make, be generous with yourself about them, because not only are they part of the process, they might be even more important long term than the wins, especially because
they hurt more. I mean, think about like going out and saying the exact right thing to the exact right person in a social setting or a date. You probably won't think about it twice. You say something that you believe is the wrong thing unintentionally but the wrong thing.
You learn from that.
Yeah, or you have a greater probability of learning from that because it provokes an emotion, an emotion that's painful and it causes you to think and evaluate, So I think mistakes and communicat like I was working with an executive leadership team a couple of weeks ago, kind of like this group coaching, and I offered a reflection and people got a little bit nervous because the reflection very much to the point. And I do that for a reason because I want to hold a sharp mirror up
to what someone's saying. So instead of going, well, I think what I'm hearing here, which is fine, or what I'm observing is that I just came out with you're frustrated, and like, I don't want to tell someone what they're feeling? Whoa whoa whoa? We're going to tell someone it's like, oh, well, first of all, think about the sensitivity, right and the awareness that comes out of that statement. Second, when somebody tells somebody what they're feeling, where does that come from?
What's the intention? What does that look like like? When somebody's saying something you're about to invalidate them, what are you feeling? Where are you feeling that? What does that look like? Represent that in your body? Now, when you are completely with someone and your intention is to understand as much as you possibly can albeit without being them what they're experience of life and the situation is at the moment and you're offering that reflection back to them.
What's that emotion? What does that feel like sensationally in your body? Is it different? Do you think that's going to impact the delivery Because a lot of time, like half the time you offer something direct like you're feeling, somebody will come back and go yes because they feel seen. And it's not like you said anything that was genius. It's not an insight you came up with. It's just
what you were observing. But you didn't have to preface it with well, i'm observing this, I'm hearing this, which does soften it and it's appropriate sometimes, but you're so with them and that person knows because there's congruence between intention and what is being reflected and what was felt and like, oh, yes, that is exactly what I was trying to say, And there's almost like this relief and the breakthrough and a gratitude.
There's a connection because.
I got what I want most as a human being to be seen and heard without a judgment attached to it.
Yeah, that's a real unique Well I shouldn't say, unique but not particularly common kind of awareness is that, you know, self other awareness, self other agreement.
It's called in research and understanding, having an insight into someone else's right now, Like we're talking, but then realizing in the moment, realizing that you are looking at their behavior or their response or their words through the Craig window or the Bobby window, like and you're interpreting, you know, and trying to trying to recognize your your bias from the actual thing.
You know.
It's like they maybe they're not maybe they're not frustrated at all, but maybe that's what you look like when you're frustrated. So your assumption is they look like you when you're frustrated, so therefore they're frustrated. And it's a it's a special kind of intelligence. I think that you know, that social intelligence that seems to be you know, like not that common sometimes.
Yeah, that is that is in.
Business, in coaching and teaching and leadership, in parenting. That kind of intelligence and awareness is a it's a fucking superpower, you know.
Like developing any superpower, though it takes a tolerance for risk. Yeah, so think about it this way. You can never see the wrong thing to the rate person. Who's the right person. The rate person is someone that you're invested in and what it is and the communication you're having is more important than how you might feel about it. Yeah, And that requires a lot of attributes. That requires focus, it requires framing, empathy, it requires a little bit of courage. So there's a
lot of things attached to that. But in that moment, if I say you're frustrated, yeah, and my tone is one of empathy and connection, and they know I'm not employing a writing reflex where oh, I see what's wrong with you. I see what you're wrong with your thought. But here's how I would fix you, or I think you're doing this. They feel that if you're wrong, they'll tell you. No, no, I don't think it is frustration.
What I think of actually feeling, and you're misinterpreting is that you just got to a further point in the conversation because they have an idea of how they're feeling, right, they have an idea of what, and sometime it's like, oh no, that's not it it. So by contrast, you both move forward to appoint a greater clarity. Yeah. Yeah, and that's not about oh I got that wrong. I didn't reflect right. It's like the more you try to bring about something, the greater the chance it's going to
elude you. And I'm not talking about effort. I'm not talking about not putting forward at Like, immersive listening takes a ton of effort, and that's why a lot of people probably don't do it consistently. And I don't think you need to do it consistently, but you need to do it intentionally in the right situation with the right people. But it requires effort. But it's it's something that you are allowing to happen. You are evoking, you're not trying
to push it. It's kind of like getting on stage and going, I'm gonna, oh god, how can I deliver a great presentation? I really want them to like me. Oh jeez, good luck. You've already you've already taken yourself out of the room. I've spoken.
I've spoken a bunch about my first few speaking gigs, which were understandably horrible for everyone, although actually I didn't I didn't hate them. I enjoyed them weirdly. But in the middle of you know, the catastrophe that was my speaking debut, do you remember, do you remember the first time you got paid to speak to a group?
Yeah, mm hmm, I do, or is that one of the first times. It was a small group at that point. At that point it was okay, but because because very early on I I developed I was so passionate about what I was doing that and it scared me. I think that's good because again it's like, that's just your biochemistry. What are you interpreting from that sensation, that feeling. So I was always very nervous because for me, the stakes were always very high.
Speaking was very important. But I was so passionate that I was able to.
Flip my focus to what needs to happen for the people in the room. So I became as time went on, less and less aware of myself, which is I guess by the time I got paid to speak, which was somewhere late nineteen nineties, but I know before that, the first couple of speaking engagements I have, Oh my god, I remember I was asked to go speak to a room of people. I forgot who set this up, and I had done you know, I was just doing team meetings at my company, like would you talk about you know,
fitness and goal setting? And it was more about life than fitness. I was like, what do I know about life? Right? I was like, yeah, I'll talk to them about you know whatever I know.
And I wow.
I showed up and there was this ballroom filled with like hundreds of people. If I didn't have my girlfriend there with me, I think I would have left. Yeah. I was so physically sick. And she was like, you're already here. It's like, you can't leave. That would be the worst possible thing you can do. I'm not letting you. You have to go in and you've got to speak to these people. And like they were very lovely. They were anywhere from like age thirty to like eighty five.
I think in that room and I have never been terrified of a group of people more. And I felt like I was just going to vomit. And yeah, I learned something important that day. If I don't like scripting presentations, I've been getting away from that lately because in my work environment, it's like, Okay, what's your data? What are you going to say? What are the three main points to takeaways? And like, if you don't have that on command,
you're not doing your homework every single day. If you're doing that before presentation, you're probably getting.
In your own way.
But when it comes to scripting that there's a point where I completely disagree with that, and that's the first five to ten minutes. What are you opening with? Because if you can get yourself into a state aflow and have your opening story, your takeaway points done, if you're really there for the right reasons, after you're in a state of flow, you're going to start losing awareness of yourself.
You're going to become more immersed into the room. And that's why I learned because the first oh, man, I think it was like an hour presentation. The first fifteen minutes were I thought I was going to vomit in public. I'm surprised I didn't. But as I started getting into I was like, Okay, this is becoming.
More and more doable. So I don't think.
I don't think it was it was particularly a really great presentation, but I think it was. It was a decent one. People said they got stuff out of it, they enjoyed it, and that's great.
So I think I'm getting off topic.
Because I'm nice. My first presentation was Lacklustos.
A group of eight people.
We spent like half a day and you know we talked about selling personal training, which is great. That's cool.
Well it's uh, you did better than me, but everyone everyone did better than me on.
Their first gig.
I think, hi, mate, we've got to wind it up because I've got to chat with Dr Jody in seven and a half minutes, Dr Jody Richardson. So tell people how they can connect with you and listen to you and potentially employ you.
You Kim, you can get a hold of me on Robert Copuccio dot com, myself, ipantidote dot com.
I'm on LinkedIn. You can send me a message, say.
Hi, and thanks for listening. Thanks buddy.
There were some valuable takeways here.
It was good. I loved it. I love chatting to you. I love the I love that I.
Don't have to prep I love that that's probably just because I'm lazy, but I love that we always I know, I don't really need to think too much because I know I just need to ask a question and off you go. And with some people that's a bad thing, but with you, it's always a good thing.
So we'll say goodbye. Last thing.
Yeah, going back to going back to the great Richard Boyd. He said that at conferences, the most amount of value is not in the sessions. It's lead at night, when people have had a few drinks and they're too tired to care, and they're sitting around a table in flow talking about what they really think.
Yeah, yeah, I concur I've been in at a few of those tables with you all mate, Well, say goodbye, fah, but thanks.
Again, good a Craig, thanks for everything, Thanks buddy, thank you. I'll let you prepare, okay, Yeah, I mean I think I think that some value there conversation. Sorry to cut you a bit short.
I'm just I've just got back to back and I probably need three minutes to go and get a.
Drink water, totally get it. So I'm gonna let I'm gonna let you on, so your heads straight on.
Yeah all right mate, Thanks buddy, take care of have a good inbay.
Love you, buddy,