Get a team. Welcome to another installment the show. Doctor Lillian is back on deck high.
Hello, how are you so good?
I love your voice every time you have like when you and I just chatting, you're a little bit more bogan, am I? Yeah? A little tiny bit. Well you're not bogan at all, like the I'm the ten out of ten, but you have this I don't know this beautiful radio voice. Or we've spoken about it many times. But anyway, how's your month been since we've spoken.
Oh, I feel like I'm all over the place actually, like not like we.
Want to hear. We hope you're doing it hard like normal humans, and we hope you're fucking up and getting up.
Yeah, that's it. That's it. That's my life.
Yeah, you what are you struggling with? Tell us what you struggle with? Make us feel good about ourselves?
Well, I think so many things. The years started out pretty rough for us as a family. My mother in law passed away and that was very soon after my father in law passed away.
Wow, just like eleven months before.
So yeah, that's tough. That's tough. Yeah, what when did when did you mum in law pass away? What month was that in January. Yeah, yeah, that's very recent, that's and is it hard for you in the middle of that, because like your first and foremost just a compassionate human, that's that's who you are. Like psychology is not who you are. That's your job, right, But do people expect do people expect more of you because you're you in the middle of like really tough situation.
It's possible. I think I put myself in that position as well.
You know.
Also, Oh, it's really funny because I've been around a lot of people. It might be just like a function of being in your fifties, like people start passing away around then, and so several people have had family members pass away in my kind of circle. And one of them said something really interesting because it was her stepfather and she was in the position of supporting her mother
through that, and she described it as a hierarchy of grief. Wow, And I thought, yes, that's what it feels like for me too, because it's my mother in law and father in law. Now, so even though they're like my parents as well, they aren't actually my parents. They had a
history that's much longer with their own children. So my husband and his two sisters so they kind of get to grief at that highest level, you know what I mean, Like I'm grieving just as much, but maybe you know, I don't know because you can't really quantify it, but there's a hierarchy to it. So I need so like I want to be the support, yeah, at that level. And then you've got like so you've got the actual
like immediate family, and then you've got your own children. Yeah, And you know, I guess also because I've had some people pass away in my.
Life, but not.
That i've been well, that I've been close to, but maybe it's like proximity, Like they weren't in my vicinity, so I couldn't really do that much because I moved here when I was pretty young. So yeah, some of the people passed away, they're like, you know, in America, can't really do anything but feel bad, but here it's like very very close. But I've been, I guess, fortunate throughout my life that I haven't had a lot of
people pass away on me. So it's kind of like in some ways a new experience doing it from this proximity, I suppose. And then my children.
Are having to go through their first experience is quite young.
Yes, yeah, yeah, look at you being a mom and normal and a human. Yeah.
So that's been a real challenge this year. I'm challenge in the way of being the support person, yeah, and also being somebody who's lost.
Yeah, really important people, do you.
I feel like sometimes when like, probably very similar to you in that I've had what I call a second mum my whole life. Who's my mum's best friend who passed away, who I spoke about recently also in January.
Oh I'm sorry.
Yeah, and her four daughters were like my four sisters, Yes, like my four sisters. And there we're still very much in each other's lives. I love all the girls. We're all intertwined. I know all their kids, all their partners, blah blah blah. Right, and so the kid, the only child, me who grew up in this parallel, you know, proximity
to this family, and we did everything together. And then so when Ray, my other mom died on you know, just after Christmas, and I spoke at the funeral and all these really beautiful blessings that I had gifted to me, I like part of me just wanted to fucking fall apart, because that's how I felt, but part of me is like,
you can't fall apart. You can't fall apart because you have to be this for everyone else today, especially which and so I felt this kind of and I know everybody you know, it's such a swirling massive emotions and feelings and states. But I thought, right, I can't lose my shit today. I have to be strong for my mum, to her best friend, and I need to be strong for the girls. And I felt a bit guilty for feeling as sad as I did, because it's like, you, yeah,
this is their actual mom. It's not your actual mum, so shut the fuck up, you know. But what was funny was I had this intersection of sadness and guilt and all of he's weird. I'm like, because grief, you know this better than me. You're an actual psychologist. I'm just a shitkicker who pays attention. But like, grief is such a diverse response, Like, yeah, everyone grieves differently like it. And I know this is an obvious but there's ain't
a four step plan. And I just noticed in the middle of my sadness and my grief, I noticed this guilt, like for being such a big baby which I wasn't. I know, I'm being hard on myself, and I'm like, you don't deserve to be as sad as they are, so shut the fuck up and just go and look after everyone.
Right.
It's so interesting.
That's really interesting too, because I feel like guilt plays a big part in it. I think because it's not only like what you're saying, which is really interesting, but also when you have to just get on with your life.
That's hard too, Like.
Life just goes on and there's like nothing that you can do about that. And also like obviously I haven't talked to that much because I'm clearly having break.
Down right now. You know what, doctor Lillian's getting therapy and I'm not a good job. I'm not even going to charge it. That's what a good black client. You're the best, thank you.
But like you know, if you've got like if my husband, my husband's been obviously struggling. He lost both his parents in the last year. So if I'm struggling, like I don't feel guilty about that like you do, but I also don't want to bring it up because I don't want him to struggle. If he's having a moment where he's feeling. Okay, I'm not going to like spoil it by bringing it up. But then I'm like, well then I'm not acknowledging it at all, And so that carries with it some guilt, sorry.
Yeah, like knowing what to say and what not to say and when, because like I know, with the four girls, right, the daughters, I could say one thing to one of the girls and they laugh their ass off because we're having a fond, funny memory of their mum and what about when she did this fucking stupid yeah, yeah, yeah, And you'd say that to one of the other daughters
and it might be a full breakdown. So so you know, what would make somebody smile and laugh reflecting on this silly thing that their mom did might evoke like a really different response in somebody else. But it's the exact same stimulus, you know. And you're like just trying to navigate the fucking mindfield of emotions around all of this when you want to, I mean, your intention is I just want to be whatever you need. Yeah, but they don't even know what they need.
And you won't know necessarily until you cross a line, right.
I mean, in some ways, yeah, I think it's it's really common to cross the line, and I think you would just have to, like, you know, sometimes take chances and see. Like, but yeah, everyone's personality is different, everyone's kind of way of grieving is different, everyone's readiness is
going to be different. And so you do get to know like the different you know, like my husband and his two sisters, you know, they're processing things in their own unique personal ways, and yeah, my way would be different, and my kid's way is different, you know, my parents, my parents, you know, and their ways of reacting are different as well.
So yeah, it's it's a real it's a real beast, I think.
I think until you really confront it yourself or like have that experience, you don't really completely understand.
And nobody misses it, like nobody avoids it. Like everyone is going to have to deal like something we don't have to deal with in our life, right, Like some people never are going to deal with poverty, They're never going to deal with things, you know, physically assaulted. Perhaps we know many people are. But everyone's going to deal with grief. Everyone's going to deal with someone that they love dying. It's an unavoidable part of the human experience.
But yeah, even though we know that there's no training for it, I don't know what training for grief would look like.
Yeah, you're right, there isn't. It's like this, we have this protective.
Denial I think around death in general, like our own and others, and I think that's a good thing. We don't want to be thinking about that all the time. I mean, people who do get stuck in thinking about death and dying can be very anxious or depressed. We certainly don't want that. But at the same time, yeah, it's part of It's part of everyone's life. So yeah, I think, Yeah, it's been really interesting moving through with the kids and really like helping them understand.
Out of how you move through it.
And also it's been really different with both you know, both my mother in law and father in law. They the readiness for us for them to pass away was very different, right, Like they both passed away within within twelve.
Hours, like of having any.
Symptoms of like distress, which was very fast.
Twelve I was from wow.
From yeah, it was. I mean it's so I mean, you don't usually hear that. I think in a lot of ways that's a blessing.
Like my father in law was feeling fine, and then the next day he wasn't and he went to the hospital and twelve hours later he passed away with his whole family around him, and it was really beautiful, except unfortunately my husband had gone on a conference and wasn't there.
He was overseas, So that was like that was the hardest part of it, that he couldn't be there.
But my father in law was, you know, more frail. He was just about to turn ninety one. We weren't not expecting it to happen at some point soon, and so I think there was immense grief around it. And it was my kid's very first experience of that and seeing someone dying, and you know, they were there when he not when he passed away, but like very close to that. Just see, that was quite a shock and
traumatic event, I think as well. But then and so my role was just like okay, answering questions, you know, the practical stuff, how do you move through it, what's going to happen next, whereas my mother in law was like completely unexpected. Yeah, like we expected her to live for like another ten years, you know. So and that happened within the same amount of time, like her back hurt.
I thought we thought, oh, probably kidney stones or something like that, and then it wasn't that, So it was just like So I think that that in a lot of ways has been harder to process because nobody was nobody was expecting or ready for that. So not only is it the other parent, but it's also what the hell like she was meant to be around for ages longer.
So I think there's a real relationship between. It's funny because expectations, right, you know, when you like you kind of expected your father in law because he was old and his life, but probably not as quick as it happened, right, But with your mom, you're thinking your belief, your expectation was or your mum in law should be around for ten years, right. And I feel like that in life, our expectations often set us up for pain based on
or depending on what we're expecting. It's like when someone says to me, I really expect my partner to do this or be that, or what has he done the last time? What has he done the last hundred times? That's probably the best predictor of future behavior. And so yeah, and I'm kind of digressing a little bit, but it is. It's when it comes from nowhere or seemingly comes from nowhere, it's tough. But I remember I was spoken about this once on the show. But a friend of mine's dad
passed away. Loved his dad and got through the whole the funeral, the everything the family was, you know, obviously stated. And I saw him about I mean I saw him, you know, I was at the funeral, and I saw him regularly. And then we sat down about four, I don't know, four or five weeks later, and I'm like, how are you going? And he's like, yep. And he had had a blue with his sister, not a blue, but an issue with his sister, who was mad at him. Listen to this. She was mad at him because he
wasn't grieving enough or grieving properly like she. He hadn't grieved the way she thought he should be grieving, right, And I'm like, well, what, okay, what are you doing wrong? And because he hadn't had and I don't mean this as an insult into anyone, and no one knows what I'm talking about, because she had a full on, understandable emotional breakdown. She was devastating all of that which is
completely understandable and not a bad response. It's just a response, right, he didn't have that, like he's devastated and I know, yeah, but he just didn't have the tears and snot and the on the ground and the why why and the out of control emotion. And I'm like, wow, isn't it like you're dealing with that and then you're getting hate from your sister because you're not doing it the right way?
Yeah, I think that.
Yeah, Like you said, people express their their emotions differently, and it's not always something you can see. Yeah, yeah, And that's for any anything, not necessarily you know, grief, but anxiety and depression and you know, stress for some people is very obvious and you can see it and others can't see it at all.
It's all inside.
And we always look at others' behavior, obviously because there's no other way. But we look at how they behave through the way, through the lens of our behavior or what we think is good, right or appropriate, Like we're judging their behavior through our lens.
That's right, because if.
I responded that way, well, I'd be an uncaring sociopath. So therefore you're not grieving enough. For Dad. You know, it's like, oh, well, maybe I'm just not like you. Maybe I'm more devastated by you. But it it manifests itself differently, you know. Yeah, it's I don't know if this is good or bad. And my mum hates it, and Melissa, who you know, she hates it. But I I kind of make obviously not when people that I love have just died, but I kind of make a
little bit light of death, like you know. It's like I'll say to Melissa, well, like the other day she was she was cloning my voice on AI.
Oh yeah, I saw that that post about that.
Yeah, right, so she literally could and I said, well, look, this is good because I mean I could be dead soon and it means you can carry on with the show. I said, you just need to and she's stop it, stop it. I'm like, well, why else would you be doing this because you could literally do another two thousand episodes just using my voice. And and she does not like it. She knows I'm joking, I'm fucking right, but
she does not like it. And even like, Mum's fucking eighty five, right, and I drive up on the weekend and she's like, drive carefully because it's very busy. It's Hans act that to that today it says lots of people out, and it's also it's a bit slippy on it, like this is my eighty five year old mum telling me how the fuck to drive to her house? Right, And I go and I go, mum, and she's like, well, I go, listen to me. I'm not going to take care at all. I'm going to be reckless. I'm going
to drive way too. And she knows I'm kidding, but she hates right. But I think with me, that's because I've had a bunch of people that I really loved die, like a bunch of a bunch of people, you know, like starting starting early. You know, my first ever, my first ever employee in Harper's, my gym's. His name was Mattie Matthew and we work together all day, every day, three years. Breakfast together, lunch together, trained together, hung out together,
socialized together. And he died when he was twenty four, my goodness. And then the next day at work he wasn't there. And then when you're I think I was twenty six and you're twenty six and you're carrying your mate's coffin at his funeral, and then you're you know, this is just not what you're meant to be doing when you're twenty six, you know. And it kind of went from there, and I was clearly not prepared, but I just had to. And the other thing was and
this ain't about me, but it is on topic. So Matey passed away, and then there was about I don't know however many days later his funeral, but the day that he passed away, you know, I had to turn up the next day and train a bunch of clients
all day because that was my business, yea. And we were and I had other trainers working for me, and you know, we were doing I can't even remember, but at that stage's probably a couple of hundred appointments a week, two or three hundred appointments a week between me and the rest of the crew, and so we couldn't just cancel three hundred. So I remember turning up the next
day and I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to talk to the team, I didn't want to talk to my clients, and I remember just turning up and just faking it and just just trying to find a way to literally like twelve hours ago one of my best friends in the world died or whatever it was, you know, yeah, eighteen hours and thinking and a few people said, why don't you just take the week off? And I'm like, because I'll sit at home and I'll be worse, and I don't think there's a
great option in the middle of that. But I remember dealing with that and just trying to just trying to survive and just trying to you know, just wait for enough time elapse, time to elapse, so it wasn't so fucking painful to them.
I mean, distraction can be really helpful, and you know, like throwing yourself into doing things or like you know, you're doing things that involve training and helping other people too, that can be really really helpful.
Yeah, I think that sometimes you do need to do that.
Look, and sometimes people don't have a choice, Like sometimes they just have they like don't have a choice.
They can't just take a week off or two weeks off. They have to do something.
To make money or you know, for whatever reason. So that can be really tough because then you are like you are putting like this professional stance on closing closing part of your like compartmentalizing your emotions so that you can get something done, and again that that's perfectly reasonable
to do sometimes too. I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that unless that's your like go to all the time, you know, like to avoid painful emotions, that that doesn't work as as your always strategy to distract, but it can absolutely work as a sometimes.
I was thinking now, just as like all of the really tough emotional things that people deal with, then also psychological, practical, physic you know, people that are in abusive relationships and the kind of the ongoing trauma that they deal with in the middle of that, you know, they've got to pay the bills or after the kids, or turn up to work or go out in public and look like everything's okay or whatever it is that they've got to do.
You know, it's like, I'm like, what what I'm talking about was, you know, thankfully you know, temporary albeit horrible and painful. But for other people, like their life is for some people, their life is kind of all part of their life is ongoing trauma, ongoing grief.
Because that's very true.
It's not a short thing. It's it's a permanent part of their existence with no clear easy path out. I mean I think about I Mean, the obvious one that comes to me is, you know, women in abusive relationships And I'm thinking, man, imagine dealing with that imagine And I don't want to be you know, I don't want to make it down, but it's just true. It's like
that that's reality for some people. Is is that every day you're going to be sad or anxious or scared or all of that, and there's no silver lining that you can see. Yeah, and then you've got to walk out of the house, you know, and do whatever you've got to function. You've got to operate. You've got to in some cases protect and feed and cloth of your kids and do your thing and go to work and make some bucks or whatever it is that you've got to do.
Like, yeah, that's really true. And I think that.
When sometimes you see people emphasize mindset as like.
The thing that you need to.
Help everything in your life, like you just don't have the right mindset. It's like, you know what, that's mindset's so important. I'm not saying it isn't, but there are circumstances that people are going through that you have no
idea about. And there are real actual obstacles getting in the way of someone maybe reaching their goals or having a healthy lifestyle, or being able to regulate their emotions or have you know, sustained their relationships or whatever, do a good job at work, that they might actually.
Have no power to do anything about.
Yes, correct, And we I think really need to be more mindful of the messages you know, that are out there or are put out there, or that we put out there. That you know that there's just like one key like to life like and if there is one, it's it's mindset. Well there isn't and mindset is, like I said, important, but there's like so many other things that are important.
I agree with you and the whole you know, I can imagine how fucking frustrating it must be for people who are really in extremely complicated even dangerous situations where when when people are going just.
Try harder, Yeah, email was brilliant.
Yeah, yeah, just pick up your bottom lip and soldier on. It's yeah, that is that must drive them nuts. And there's you know, and such a lack of awareness even for me, I realize, I don't there's so much I don't understand because I haven't been in the middle of it, but I do. I do know that there are people in those situations, and I've worked with some of them, and I've worked with that X and alcoholics are in extreme pain, and so I have a little bit of
an insight. But when I then I revert back to my life and my situation, I'm like, shut the fuck up. You have nothing to complain about. What totally privileged. Your life is a fucking Disney movie compared to many people. So I don't feel sorry for yourself ever, So that that kind of keeps me in check, you know.
Yeah, I think it's Yeah, I think that's important.
I mean that's like, yeah, it keeps us in check, but also helps us to be grateful, but also helps us be really empathic.
Yeah.
I think even going through this experience, like any painful experience you go through, the if you're paying attention to you know the things that the good things that could come out of it. I think one of the main ones is empathy and compassion because now you've got it from a lived experience place, but not only necessarily for your specific situation, but just.
Knowing that.
Other people are probably going through stuff that you don't know anything about. So if you see somebody who's having a bad day you know, or you know, says something what are inappropriate or is a bit irritable or you know, all sorts of things that we see when we're out and about right that you know, with people that we don't know, or even people that we do, it's like, well, do we actually know the whole story, like what's actually
going on for this person? And we might never know what that is, but we could be more I guess or less judgmental when we're seeing these behaviors that other people might display from time to time.
Yeah, well, I think that's just having empathy and kindness and realizing that even with you know, like my mum. I love my mum. Of course everyone knows that, but like for Mum, a little, a very little thing can produce like a one out of one problem can be a fifteen out of ten problem for mom. And it's like part of me wants to go, M'm literally creating a fucking problem settled down, But that doesn't help, right, of course that doesn't help, And of course that's not
the right thing to say. So I I just I listen to her, I talk about it. I understand her level of emotion and I understand her state. Like part of me wants to just fucking fix it. That's not going to help it. Part of me wants to explain to her why she's wrong a disproportionate response. Right, I know that's stupid and I know that's me getting in the way, But like, the loving thing to do is just listen and just then move towards a solution with her and then tell her, yeah, it's it's going to
be all right. I'll fix it or we'll fix it, and and then she's okay. But you have to let her voice her fear, yeah, and not you know, just even if it's even if the fear is completely irrational and disproportionate, Yeah, it doesn't matter because to her it's neither of those things. To her, it's one hundred percent legitimate and real.
Yeah.
So what I'm doing is I'm judging her reality with my reality and telling her to be more like me or how fucking arrogant? Hey mom, I think I'm better, I think like really really, So yeah, that's that's been and as you I mean, you know that. But yeah, my dad eighty six in a minute, and I did it. I took up some stuff the other day to do a basic workout with him, So we're recording this Monday Saturday. I was up there and I did a workout with him in his chair. I got him up on his
feet and did a few things. But his level of function at the minute's pretty low physiologically. And yeah, he like the things that I tell him to do that he could do that are pretty easy to do. Most of the things he won't do, Like he'll tell me he's going to do him and then he doesn't. And part of me wants to go, listen, cham you're going to die three years before you need to, so fucking do this stuff on you know, Like I took him equipment and yeah, so it's but I just I don't
do any of that. I just love him, just support him, and I just I try to be which I'm not always, but I'm pretty good. I think I try to just be compassionate with both of them without time.
Yeah, I mean that's a real exercise. And I think patience and but you know what, the story about your mother made me think of a couple of things. One was there's a really great video. You can find it on YouTube. I'm happy to send it to you or post it if you want. It's called It's not about the nail.
I've used it.
Have you seen it? Isn't it so good?
I used to actually use that in lectures.
Yes, say I do too.
Yeah, I'm like, well, explain, No, don't explain. It's just it's not about the nile. It's on YouTube.
Yeah, And it's basically, like I mean, what it explains is why why validation works so well? So instead of being the problem solver, fix it solution focused person, when someone tells comes to you with a problem, no matter how you think about it, whether you think it's rational or irrational, the most the most helpful thing to do is to validate that person's experience and then you might get somewhere.
So that it made me think of that.
The other thing it made me think of was when I was working in public mental health. I used to work on the inpatient psychiatric wards and the crisis assessment teams and early psychosis and things like that, and we had a lot of clients or who had schizophrenia, and so you know, one of the main symptoms of that is that they have delusions, which are strongly held beliefs.
That are not based in reality. Right.
So one of the things that we learned as clinicians was how you talk to people who have strongly held beliefs that are not based in reality, and also teach families how to talk to their loved one because the instinct is to correct them, to say that they're wrong, right, to show.
Them that they're wrong. You know, see there's no cameras.
And that have the light bulber, or no one's spying on you, or you know, whatever the delusion might be. They're really common ones. A lot of them are more paranoid in nature. But what we teach families is, like you said, you listen, you validate not the belief. You're not wanting to validate something that's not valid, but you validate their emotions. Yeah, so you pay attention to what
you don't have to pay attention to the content. I think we get so caught up in the content of what people say and then how we can help them with the content, rather than what's the emotion underlying? What are they actually worried about, what's making Are they feeling anxious? Are they feeling guilty, they're feeling sad, are they're feeling overwhelmed, and then talk to them about that.
So good.
So you can validate emotions even if you don't agree with what they're.
Saying, even if you don't think they're appropriate. Appropriate emotions for the level of dry or lack of drama.
Well, see, the emotions probably appropriate. The intensity of the emotion isn't. So you can still validate the emotion without validating the intensity of the emotion, right.
But what you can do is validate the emotion but also understand, not agree or align with, but understand the intensity of the emotion. It's like there are certain people that you know, like, for example, for some people, walking on stage and talking to a group of people is pretty much the scariest thing for them that they do.
A lot of people like for.
A lot of people, And through my highs, I'm like, that's Tuesday, right, That's just you know, like tomorrow I've got a half day gig in the city, and then the next morning I've got a half day gig on the Gold Coast. Tonight I've got my you know, MYNU mentoring groups that's kicking off, and it's like these not things on any level that I worry about, Like there's zero fear, but there's significant excitement and anticipation.
Yeah, it's not.
That I'm better or worse, or right or wrong. It's just that my reaction around that particular stimulus is very
different from a lot of people. Yeah, and so to try to understand when I'm talking to someone who's literally got to get on stage for twenty five seconds and introduce someone, and they worry about that for two weeks, right, Like they're going to get up on stage introduce someone that's doing something and they don't Like I've literally had people who hardly slept for the three nights leading up to that twenty five second.
Yeah, I'm not surprised at all. Yeah, No, totally. And you're right, like, we're all different.
So, and we're different from a brain based level, like a biological level, but also our personalities are different, our experiences are different. We are going to have different reactions and responses to different situations.
If you rocked up at my house tomorrow and you said, Craig, I know this is short notice, but here's my one year old. I need you to look after him until tonight. I'll be I'd be terrified, do you know what I mean? Like something that the majority of the world could do
without thinking, which is looking after a kid. You know, I don't know that's true, but I mean there are a lot of people that are very good at it, you know, like a lot of amazing women and some men, of course, but it tends to be women that are more the caregivers and looking after the one year olds. I guess. But if you if you gave me that responsibility, I'd be fucking terrified because I've done I've never done it.
And so my point is for what many people would be not effortless, but certainly not fear producer.
Like you know.
So I guess it's just context dependent, situation dependent, task dependent. There are so many things that I'm scared of that other people wouldn't be scared of at all, you know. So it ain't right or wrong, good or bad, it's just oh well, of course, you know. So when I talk to people who are or terrified of that twenty five seconds, I totally understand I'm not.
Yeah, and you know, like you've told me this before, that they're almost one hundred percent of the time you're comfortable talking in front of people.
But if you were put in a situation where you had.
To do a stand up comedy routine other people, you wouldn't be able to cope with that. Well, you say you want I don't know if I believe that, But that's scared. That's something that scares you one hundred percent.
And I tell you what else scares me, and I'm no good at it is standing in front of four or five professors at university. Oh yes, who are doing you know one of my kind of progress checks? You know they're called academic milestones, right, and in my course or in my program, there's four of them. Fortunately I'm
through or four. But if you ever want to see me look inept, uncomfortable, stupid, because I realize, because I'm so dependent on my ability to talk about pretty much what I want in front of and go where I want and run the show and be funny and tell a story and be cheeky and use my charisma and read the room and be freestyle, well all of that goes out the window in that particular setting and that context.
They don't give a fuck about. They don't even know that they need to know, because I'm not anyone but they don't know who Craig Harper is. They just know I'm a student doing a PhD. Yeah, so you rock up and you go, oh, this is my research, this is what I've done, and then they grill you lock motherfuckers. Yeah, I don't care if feel comfortable or uncomfortable if you file or well that might be care and they're not bad. That's just their job.
Yes, it's for me.
Yeah, that's one context where speaking publicly I can terrifying. But yeah, context dependent.
Right, totally. I remember having to do that. I remember in my during.
My PhD, I had to we had to present at several times, not just in front of the professors who were involved in our research, but like all the whole faculty and students were invited to hear our presentation and ask questions. Oh my gosh, and like you don't know what people are going to ask, and so because you don't know what they're going to ask, you can't prepare for.
Like I'm such a preparer, So like I want to know.
I want to know what's going to be asked, how I'm going to answer it, like literally word for word, how I'm going to answer something. And so I remember once at one of the presentations, I actually planted a question with.
One of one of my friends who was in the courts. Yeah, and like, ask this question, I can answer it.
But she was such a bad actor, like you could totally tell she wasn't actually answered, like asking the question genuinely. It was like she was reading it off the script. So the whole place was like, Haha, that's hilarious little question. But yeah, that's what anxiety can do to you. To try to control it as much as possible. But yeah, it's good, it's good for you. I've noticed since COVID because I haven't done as many in person things. I
used to do in person things all the time. I used to run workshops, i used to run groups, like all. It was like part of my job.
I used to do it all the time.
And since COVID, it's been like most of the stuff that I've done has been online. So I'm happy, Like I'm really happy to present things, but it's been almost exclusively online for like the last five years, so I know that i'll be if I'm doing I've had an experience fairly recently where I've gone in and done something in person and I really challenged myself too, because I didn't I didn't do the whole prep that I normally do, and the slides and the everything was you know, I know,
it was like, what am I doing? I shouldn't be doing.
What's like I was?
I was so nicured.
Did you take your favorite video it's not about the Nile? Did you take that?
I didn't.
No, all I took was one It was one slide with a drawing on it and then a worksheet and I got people to analyze the drawing and then answer questions and then we just had a discussion about it. And so I had no way of knowing what people were going to think about it, how they were going to interpret it, what questions they were going to ask, where the discussion was going to go.
I had some ideas about where I wanted it to go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I couldn't control any of those variables, and so yeah, I was superner.
I probably didn't sleep that.
Night, That's hilarious. I didn't.
Well.
I did a gig recently. Oh, I think their name was Violine. I should give them a shout out. I apologize. I'm pretty sure it's byline anyway, This company was like two or three weeks ago, and it was mainly dudes. It was mainly blokes and a relatively new company and all the blokes kind of blokey blokes who tradees and install stuff. And the owners of the company were great husband and wife, but everyone else in the room was just dudes and they've never done a professional development day. Wow,
And oh my god, it was so funny. I rocked in there and they're like, what's this fucking bullshit? Like like, what is this dicka going to psychoanalysis or something? Is he? Or you know? And it's funny because you I said to Melissa when I finished, if that was a like a lot of speakers would have really struggled because they go in with a prepared thing, right where basically it's scripted and there's whatever. They've got their fifty slides and we start at slide one, then we end up a
slight fifty and there's no deviating. There's no freestyling, there's no interactivity or very little, there's no ad libbing, and there's no just kind of figuring it out as you go because it's all me scripted. I said, if I had that, I would have been fucked ten minutes in because you just had to be in the moment. Like my plan was, my loose plan was, I'm talking from eight thirty to one, right, so I'm going to talk from eight thirty to ten ninety minutes straight up while
they're fresh. Right, So by nine point thirty, they're all just ready to you know, fucking mess up or whatever because they're not used to just listening to someone talk. But they were great. But everything in the room told me, all right, this is good time to have a break. So we just had a break and then they got back and they're all good. And then so instead of these pre set breaks at these pre ordained times, I would talk for forty forty five and go, let's have
five minutes. And that way it kind of kept them in, you know, present. At the end of the day, I got overwhelmingly good feedback from a bunch of blokes that initially were not at all enthusiastic. And it's not I don't think I was brilliant, but I just found a way to connect with them. Yeah, And I said to the bosses, I go, is swearing okay, And they're like, I think it's looking compulsory. You better swear right, and
you better and so yeah, but it's like that. But here's the thing with that, right, you can't go learn that in a course. You know, you can't do a three day workshop that you could talk about the idea of being adaptable and flexible and in the moment. But you just need and I'm not saying I'm the high watermark. I'm not, but you just need runs on the board.
You need this experience.
You just need a lot of experience to go all right, well this is And by the way, they were actually a good group and I love it. I loved it because there was no pretentiousness at all. They didn't feel compelled to participate or be politically correct or if they're interested, you knew if they weren't, you knew. Yeah they had a question that go, yeah, but what about blah blah blah, not going that's a good question. You know. It was all just organic and raw.
But anyway, great, that's great that they had.
You as a first experience because I think that you, yeah, that you would have been the perfect person. I can't believe that for a first experience it was like three and a half hours.
Oh more more like, why were they why were they doing that? That's crazy?
Yeah, well what we did do though, like and to their credit, the guys who the owners, they were great. I said, at about I don't know, maybe eleven, so maybe two two and a half hours in, I went, I reckon we should. I said, look, I'm happy to go to one o'clock. But I said, I think what's going to be more impactful and more productive for them as if we pull the pin around twelve, Because I think their attention threshold and their curiosity and interest threshold,
you know, we're approaching it. And that's not a judgment of them. It's like when you don't like I remember when I started my PhD, My attention span was so short when I was reading journal articles and listening to lectures, and like I'm like, oh my, it's like being out of shape. It's like you go for your first run. Used to run ten k's in forty five. Now you
run two k's and you're fucked. It's kind of like there's a kind of conditioning that comes with you know, whether or not it's being in an audience, being in lectures, you know, reading papers, or trying to focus and study. Anyway, I feel like we've digressed. I need you to tell people where they can find you and follow you and experience the UNUS.
Can I tell your listeners about something exciting in my business world? Of course, we might have mentioned in a past episode Contain your Brain, which is an app I created to help people worry less and worry better, and
we've made it free. So I wanted to let everybody know that there's a free resource out there if you're in a or thinker, or you are worried you know ninety nine percent of the time or even twenty percent of the time, and you want to learn how to manage your problems more effectively.
It can be a really helpful place to go. So you can just download.
That from the app store, or you can go to contain your brain dot com and you can click on the website and go to the app store from there as well. And the other thing is I would love I know that your listeners are in a Facebook group and I've just you said you like my voice. So I've been recording relaxation and mindfulness exercises specifically for three areas. So there's going to be three albums that come out.
One is.
About anger and frustration, one is about sleep, and one is about anxiety and worry and stress, let's say. And I'm just in the process of editing it. So if people want to be guinea pigs for me and listen to some of these finished exercises and give me feedback, just so I know, like im, you know that they're helpful, they're on the right track. If people have any issues with frustration, stress, anger or sleep or yeah, anything really you know, related to those issues, I can just let
me know. Get in touch with me and I will send you some of the latest recordings and you can you can.
Be my pesters.
That's a great idea. I've got one quick story, but before that, so get in contact with you how like?
Yes, okay, So the best way is on my website doctor Lilliannajad dot com. If you go to the contact page, you can you can get in touch with me that way, and if you if you're okay with it, I can post something in your Facebook group as well, so they can comfort me via Facebook as well.
Yeah, do that. That's really good. That's a good idea. I did a similar thing. My last book is called Twenty Questions for Humans, which is clearly just based around twenty questions that I've been asked a lot or people are curious about, you know, like what's the meaning of life and all that? You know, that easy stuff, right. But when I finished the book, like draft one, a
couple of people read it. And then I thought, what if I got a bunch of my readers, my listeners, followers and readers to read this before we publish it, right, not after? And so I just put up a thing and said, I need twenty five people to come to my office. At this stage, I had an office and a lecture theater up in Arabin. This is just just pre COVID, just sneaking into COVID. And I got twenty five people who came very generously on a Saturday morning.
I gave everyone a manuscript and a red pen, and I said, everything that you think is good or shit, or you might even find some grammatical errors. Like I don't want to give you too many guidelines. I just want I want you to write all over it. And you might just go, yeah, that's pretty good, or you might go it's complete dogshit if it's dogshit, rite why
you think it's dogshit? If you know? And I had twenty five editors, and so I had the book literally edited twenty five times in a morning, and it took me about a week to go through all the you know, just looking at it. But it just helped immeasurably. And people love the fact that they were involved in that little process. And yeah, so I think your idea is a good one. So let's get people involved. Awesome love
having you on the show. I love, I guess more accurately, I love that you comfortable enough to be you and be, you know, be vulnerable with us. So thank you very much. I appreciate that. And of course I know you're human and of course you know you have feelings. But it's good to see people like you who help people for a living. It's good for us normal people. Am I normal to you know, see your humanity. So and thanks so much. We'll see you next time. Doc.
Thanks Craig,