I'll get o to him. I hope you're bloody terrific. No, this is not the show. It sounds like it's the start to the show, but it's not. It's an AD so quick run, but it's an AD for me, So maybe stay. I'm doing a ten week mentoring program. Some of you know that I do those. I've done a couple in the last few months, and he says humbly,
they've been fucking amazing, really good feedback. Lots of breakthroughs, breakdowns, wow, not too many breakdowns, few revelations, but it's not in tears and laughed, a bit of joy, bit of transformation and inspiration and education.
And all of that shit.
And clearly, if anyone's got all the answers to all the big questions in life's greatest mysteries, it's jumbo. It's fatty harp. So you should definitely come. No, not really, but I have spent a lifetime swimming in the deep end of the human experience and talking to people for a very long time about their stuff psychology and physiology and emotion and career and all that stuff that kind of comprises our life and how we can think better, do better, create better and be better.
So that's what it's really about. It's ten weeks, it's.
Online, it's on zoom, it's you know, it's you and me in a zoom room, as the kids call it. And you can watch it in real time, you can interact in real time. You can watch it on delay, or you can do both. Some people come every Monday night, which it is, and they sit in there and take notes, and then they come back through the week and take some more notes.
That's what some people do. So we're talking about brains.
And bodies and beliefs and bullshit.
And why and how we keep getting in our own way.
And we're going to unpack fear and self doubt and communication and motivation and purpose and money and meaning and mental health and a lot of that shit that we don't deal with until it punches us in the gob.
So it's structured.
It's kind of structured in that we have a different theme and a different topic each week. As you know me, I'm like four year old in a lolly shop. I do veer from the intended path from time to time, but we get there.
We cover everything.
It's deep and philosophical, but not cheesy and cringey, and if you're expecting you know, firewalks and ice bars and unicorns and dream boards and just think positive, well you'll be disappointed. But having said that, I'll probably bring my drain catcher at least one night, so there's that. Anyway, if you're ready to stop fucking around or roll up your sleeves and actually do some work in a supportive and fun and curious and probably sweary environment, then saddle the fuck up, kids.
We start April twenty eight. Are we there?
And I hope you are too. Head to my website which is crakharperdt net creak Harper dot net for all the deats I get a him. I hope you bloody terrific. So this won't be long. This won't be long, I don't think as I sit here right now, and I'm intending it not to be long because I think it
doesn't need to be. But I think some people think that sometimes that I'm a hard ass, or I'm all about people just like going to the limit, redlining it all of the time and exploring their ultimate potential and their optimal everything, And that's not exactly true at all. In fact, I think we're always going to be works in progress. I don't think I have ever been, or will ever be, the absolute optimal version of me.
But what I do know is.
My willingness to get uncomfortable, and my willingness to lean into uncertainty and inconvenience and a bit of psychological or emotional or situational or sociological or financial pain, and to put myself in that place where I just have to learn and grow and evolve and adapt and survive and eventually thrive. I know that for me because I wasn't wildly and I'm still not wildly talented or clever or genius.
It's only been my readiness and willingness to be able to do the hard things that has helped me achieve some I say, very moderate success. And we really live in a time where people are not all people, but many people are enamored with comfort, enamored with easy, enamored
with the quick fix, enamored with instant gratification. And while that is understandable, because in many ways we are hardwired for pleasure and we are hardwired to avoid pain, but the other simultaneous truth is that when we do the hard thing, I'm not talking about the reckless, silly, crazy
hard thing. I'm talking about the conscious, intentional, strategic hard thing, like, for example, going to a gym and training progressively and being consistent and doing hard things and a systematic, methodical, intelligent way over time, and the byproduct of going and maintaining that momentum and using the gym membership the way that you intended to at the start, and doing the work and embracing all those scientific principles of progressive overload
and adaptation and all of those things over time. In the middle of the hard, in the middle of the inconvenient and the uncomfortable, and initially the uncertain and the unfamiliar. In the middle of all of that, we build strength in the gym, literally physical strength and endurance and power and capacity and function to be able to do all of these awesome things. So what we do is we
stimulate our body in a certain way. We interact with these certain things that we call whatever dumbbells or barbells or cables or machines or whatever it is, or a
skipping rope or a bike. We go in and we subject our body to these various stimus lie that are uncomfortable, and then the byproduct of that is that our body changes, and it's in the doing of the hard, the doing of the unfamiliar and uncertain and uncomfortable, and repeatedly doing that, just keeping on showing up and showing up and showing up. Over time we create this body, this thing that we live in, that is now way more competent and capable
of dealing with hard shit. So when life requires us to run or to lift, or to move, or to work against some kind of physical resistance in a way that an untrained body would really fucking struggle with us, and our trained body can not only survive but thrive because we've done the work. We've done the hard work
that now makes the hard thing easy. But for the untrained person, that hard thing is hard, that hard thing is fucking hard, that hard thing is potentially impossible, just like when you know, we keep showing up and we walk up the hill. Every day, we walk up the hill a slow walk, then then a faster walk, than a fast walk, than a real fast walk, then a slow jog, and then a normal jog, and then a quick jog, and then eventually maybe we're running up the
hill at quite a gallop. We're walking down, we're running up, and then maybe we're running up and running down, and maybe over time the thing that was really fucking hard becomes really quite easy and comfortable. Not because the hill has changed, obviously, but because we've changed.
We're different.
Our body is different, our thinking is different, our capacity is different. But the truth is metaphorically, most people avoid the hill. Most people choose the elevator or the escalator. Most people don't want to even walk the stairs. Most people, in most situations, if in front of them as an easy option or a hard option, most people, people in the moment, will choose easy because in the moment, that's going to give me a thing that is more comfortable.
Now I understand this, and I'm not being critical of this. I'm just speaking awareness around this. So when in the moment I choose easy, I choose to eat junk food. I choose to eat the crap that that is full of sugar and fat and calories, and it gives me that dopamine hit. And while it makes me feel momentarily good, it doesn't make me feel good ten, fifteen, twenty minutes
later and over the long term. When in the short term I'm always pressing the dopamine button or the doughnut button, or the hamburger button, or the dim sin button, or the Coca cola or the beer whatever button it is that gives me that momentary pleasure that hit right, which I understand. But over time, what I'm doing is I'm actually making myself weaker and sicker and less resilient and more likely to be hit with disease and dysfunction and
loss of mobility and cognitive decline. And I'll live shorter, and I'll live healthier for less longer, So shorter health span, shorter lifespan more than likely over time versus the same human who made different decisions.
So what we know.
Is that this instant gratification habit, this quick fix, this quick hit, this dopamine kind of obsession that we have of pressing this metaphoric button that makes us feel good. Now, when we perpetually and repeatedly do that, over time, it leads to not instant gratification, but sustained pain, sustained discomfort physical, mental, emotional, financial pain, because we've created a version of us. We've created a version of us that now is not strong physically, mentally, emotionally,
is not resilient cannot perform under pressure. Because whenever pressure or the opportunity to step into pressure, or the opportunity to step into the mayhem and madness and the tough stuff and to climb the hill or run the hill, whenever that presented itself, that opportunity or situation, we chose to avoid it. We chose not to have that opportunity
of growth and strength and skill and resilience development. And so when we systematically and intelligently and strategically go, you know what, I'm going to do this thing that's hard. I'm going to do this thing that's uncomfortable. Now again I'm talking about not in a reckless or silly way, but yeah, it's like I'm going to do this PhD. This is hard, This is not comfortable, This is not painless, This is not quick, this is not convenient. This takes
a lot of time. Fuck, I'm not suggesting anyone needs to do that. I'm just giving an example. And the middle of the five and a half years that I've been doing that, guess what I've evolved and I've developed and my ability to study and research and focus and write academically and learn new things and keep my sixty fucking one year old brain in some kind of shape.
In the middle of all of that hard, tough, inconvenient, uncomfortable process, this academic process of one, you're achieving something good if that's what you're interested in, perhaps in doing a PhD. But apart from the actual achievement of the PhD itself, all the psychological, the cognitive, the emotional, the behavioral, and even the physiological right, it makes your brain work better, all those benefits that come with doing a hard thing.
Just like when you fully fucking commit to working out or doing some kind of movement or exercise every day of your life Ryan hale or shine, convenient or not, fun or not, painless or not. Because you choose this thing, you now create a different version of you when you choose to optimize what you've got to work with. When you say, you know what, I want to be the best version of me physically, mentally, emotionally, physically, mentally, emotionally,
I want to be the best version of me. Now, if I could ask you individually, do you want that? If you and I were sitting at a table and I said to you, do you want to be the best version of you? Do you want to be a drastically better version of you in a year from now? Your brain, your mind, your emotional system, your mental health, your physical health, your strength, your resilience, your aerobic fitness,
your posture, your immune system. Would you like to, if possible, be a much better version of your current self in a year. Depending on where you're at right now, I know many of you would say, fuck yes, I do. And I'm going to say to you that that won't accidentally happening to say to you that there is not an easy path to that. Now here's the thing saying. What I'm saying in twenty twenty five, when everyone is fucking enamated with quick fixes and magic pills and instant gratification,
is not easy to sell. But and I mean this with total respect, I don't care. I don't care because I'm not trying to sell you on anything. I'm not going to do an announcement for a program or a product or a pill because truthfully, truthfully, the gift in your life is you, The magic is you, the solution is you. I'm just telling you how strength and adaptation and growth and development and resilience happen. I'm telling you that all of those great things that make our life better,
because here's what happens. They happen in the middle of pain. That's what I was going to say. But here's what happens. When you choose to do the hard but correct thing, when you choose to do the inconvenient, uncomfortable, unfamiliar thing, that's going to make you a better version of yourself when the actual challenges that you didn't choose, or you didn't want, or you didn't predict, when those real challenges rock up, you are way better equipped than the average
punter who spends their life choosing easy. Because choosing easy makes us weak. Choosing easy makes us more likely to end up in pain. Does life need to be an ongoing process of pain and struggle and adversity, And of course it doesn't.
Of course it doesn't.
But every day, if you can, every day, if not every day, most days, choose to do something that you just don't necessarily in the moment enjoy, or perhaps you choose something that isn't convenient or it isn't fun, but you understand that it creates the outcome that is going.
To serve you.
It creates a byproduct of whether it's mental, emotional or psychological strength, or it lowers your blood pressure, or it produces changes in your physiology. Broadly speaking, that it means you're going to sleep better, You're going to cope with stress better. You're going to be able to be the calm and the chaos equanimity, the person who can deal with a hardship. And now, because you've over time, you've chosen to do the hard but important stuff that makes
you fucking awesome. When the shit hits the fan, and the shit hits the fan for everybody, and say that again, the shit hits the fan for everybody, Nobody gets out alive with all that shit. Everybody has to deal with shit, with pain, with inconvenience, with tragedy, with loss. Everybody has to deal with adversity. Everybody has to deal with it. What I want for you is I want you to be prepared. I want you and this is me coaching.
You feel free to ignore me.
I want you to choose the path that is the path of growth and development and building resilience and understanding and awareness and getting you closer to what is optimal you. You're never going to be optimal you, but you can be fucking much better you. I want to be much better me. I truly believe, as I've said too many times on the show, that it's sixty one. I think in many ways I'm better than when I was thirty one. And it's not because that's what's meant to happen. It's
not because, oh, it just worked out like that. It's because I'm doing these things consistently. Still fucking up, by the way, still making mistakes, by the way, still human, still full of ego and bullshit at times, of course, But for the most part, I'm creating an operating system, a way of doing and being and eating and living and sleeping and exercising and moving and socializing and working. That for me means that I am atypical for my age.
I'm not special, I'm not better. But because of the work I do, and because of the hard that I lean into and the inconvenience that I lean into, and the optimal pain and suffering that I choose, it produces good outcomes. And you can do the same. You can do the same. You're all about personal growth. You're all about personal development. You don't fucking grow or develop or learn or evolve on the easy path so get the fuck off that