I get a team, ID your bloody terrific yesterday or the other day or whenever you heard it. If you heard it young Kelly Smith, who's a I guess I could say fan of the show, listener of the show. And Kel and I intersect at the gym. We high five, we say a low to each other. We're not besties, but we're certainly acquainted, and I think I can safely say we like each other. And Kel said, when I was doing a Q and a kind of call out, could I come on and ask some questions? And I said, fuck, yeah,
saves me hosting. So she's put up her hand to host, and she's back with me, Hi, Kel, Hi, Craig. It feels only like a few minutes ago.
We were doing this momentarily momentarily interesting though. I was kind of putting my hand up to ask other people's questions. And then you said, give me fifteen and you can come and interview me. And I thought, challenge, accepted, let's go, well that that.
Is absolutely true you wanted to ask, and I went, well, fuck it, you're pretty clever. I reckon you should, and as I said last episode, I love what you've done. These questions are really good, and I will say that we're probably okay. I was excessively for both. So we're going to do another five questions. We'll try and get through them. I don't think you listeners mine though, but Melissa mins Melsa, She's like, can you do them a little bit shorter? So yesterday we're not going to go
through them again. But we spoke about a range of different stuff like any single messages that are on point in the fitness industry and ones that are missing the point. And we spoke about why perhaps I'm more open and vulnerable these days. And we also spoke about what I've learned over the last ten years, what's been the biggest takeaways or lessons, And also we chatted a bit about my PhD. But question one for today is question six on your list, kel and what is that question?
This question is and it goes back to what we've previously mentioned, but what is it within yourself that has led you towards what could be described as a life of service?
Yeah, that's a good that's a good question. So do you know what There's one thing that I hesitate to talk about because I feel like I'm being disrespectful to part of my journey and some people who are still in a place that I'm not really that much in.
And that is my kind of my my theological background, like my my you know, I grew up in a Catholic church, but then I went and I spent quite a quite more than a few years in other what we would call fundamental Christian churches, very very biblically focused, and I spent a lot of time reading, studying, you know, basically Genesis to Revelation, first book in the Old Testament through the last book in the New Testament and everything in between, and trying to understand that I always had
a I always had what do I call it a God curiosity, and I had a faith of sorts, but
it didn't it was kind of incomplete. I didn't really know, you know, what that meant, but I did I wanted to, like, for me, part of my deep dive into any kind of faith or spiritual kind of path was really trying to connect with something bigger than me, which you know, some people call God, some people call the divine, some people call like you know that kind of you know, mystical not magical, but you know, insight, wisdom, you know,
the conduit to that that's bigger and better me. So for me, you know, realizing that, like there was a lot I didn't like about me when I was young, and we've spoken about that, but I felt like when I was in that that that kind of searching space, that spiritual searching space, I actually liked me more because I was less selfish and and less less about yeah, less less about Craig. And I've always felt like the more my life isn't about me, right, the more I'm
not focused on me. Yes, I need to I need to eat, and I need to have a job and make money, and I need to make sure that, you know, there needs to be a level of focus on myself so that I can manage me so that I'm good for others. But I've always felt through that period, that church period and beyond that I'm a better person when I've got a purpose bigger than me and so that, Yeah, and I know when I'm helping people, when I'm serving people,
By the way, can I be an asshole? Of course I can do I get trapped in ego and bullshit, yes I do. But I know that genuinely when I'm you know, doing something that it's not strategic. There's nothing in it for me other than maybe to feel good, right, But I'm not doing it even for that. I'm just
doing it because this person needs it. You know. Many times people have said to me, how come you're helping, and I go, because you need help, and they think there's got to be another reason that doesn't And obviously I can't do that for everyone, with everyone, and you know, yeah, I still get paid to do different shit. But these days I would say of all of the things that I do, you know, like speaking with people, helping people doing you know, like on I won't even say who
for but we're recording this Tuesday night. Thursday night, I got asked to do a talk for a school at four pm to the teachers and they don't have a budget. And I'm like, sure, I'll do it. And I'm not doing it because makes me look good. I'm doing it
because hopefully, you know, I can help someone. And if I'm getting paid zero or five grand, they get exactly the same quality of me, right, And for me, that's really you know important, Like of course I'm going to go earn money and do stuff, but also I want to have at least a percentage of my life, and I hope that gets bigger as the years go on, where I'm just doing it because it's serving and it's helping and you know, and I think also there's a
kind of wealth, and that's a spiritual wealth that that kind of grows when you're not all about self service, if you know what I mean that. I feel like that was messy, but I I feel like I have in This sounds so lame, but I'm going to say it's not the right word, but it's close. I feel like I have an innate calling to help people. I think that's my purpose.
That's a beautiful thing, isn't it. And I don't think it was messy how you described it, because you started off by saying that you didn't want to be disrespectful, and so it was very you were very selective in the words that you were using and how you were
talking about it. But it also goes back to you talking about how you said previously in the first episode that living your values is quite often very hard, but what you just described is exactly that, and it seems like the way that you do it is that putting yourself out. They're in service to other people leaves less time for wondering about Craig, and that seems to be the spot where I don't know, it's just the golden point for you.
Yeah, and honestly, and this is going to sound weird as well, but I'm just going to say it, like all the hate and hurt and echo chambers and online vitriol, and it makes me sad. And I know it's not gone away, but it makes me sad. And I just and I know I'm an idealist, and I know that you know it ain't going to happen anytime soon, if ever, but imagine, imagine if we just had a world built
around love. Imagine imagine like imagine if you know, like we just even when you think about the division between countries, it's like we're literally killing other humans and rationalizing it. I know that this is much bigger than this chat, but god, I don't get it.
But anyway, it does make you think though, that if if more people were being a bit of service and actually leading with love and kindness rather than ego, where could we be? You know, where could be?
But you know, one good thing, I think I think a lot of people, not all people, but a lot of people at their core can be fucking amazingly beautiful and kind, and you know, like you know when someone's really like fucked and somebody's like the amount of people there might be two or three, it might be twenty, but who often will come out of the woodwork and go anything you need, Like, what do you need? How can I help? And I try to be that for as many people as I can practically, and like I've
met people that I how do I say this? So people that I people approach me about people in their life that are struggling with stuff, right, big, big, big stuff. And I can't do it all the time, but whenever I can, I sit with those people and I go, look, I'm the I don't know, I don't have the answers, but like in that moment, I feel like when they go, oh, here's a guy who's quite busy, who's got a bit of a profile, who doesn't know me, and he's sitting there and he's all about me, and I go, I
am all about you. I don't give a fuck what else goes on for the next hour or so, nothing else matters to me. For the moment, all that matters to me for the moment, for this hour that we're together is you. I'm not going to look at my phone. I'm not going to crack a joke. I don't want you, you don't owe me anything. I'm not special. I'm just here because you need someone to be here. And maybe I've got some thoughts and ideas that might be of value or not, we'll see, but that anyone can do that.
You don't need to be a coach or a psychologist or you can go. Look, I'm I'm just going to sit with you and talk to you and look at you and fucking be with you. You know, imagine if we all just did that. Imagine, imagine, imagine I feel like I'm banged on too long?
All right?
What about me? Going? Oh, this one will be quicker? And then I talk for twenty minutes on the first fuck I can't learn Harper. Question two.
Question two. So, with all of this, and I think you may have touched on it with some previous answers, but when did being accountable really clicking for you? So that would be you know, living in alignment, walking me talk.
Okay, So the very very first time, the very first time was when I started tracking slash diarizing everything I did with my training. I'm not saying that was a moment of enlightenment or great wisdom, but where I realized that, so I started being accountable in terms of tracking my food and my exercise and what I ate and when I ate, and my sleep and coffee and tea and
supplements and all of that stuff. Where I started to create, you know, or try to create a protocol that worked for me, and tried to understand by doing all of these things and tracking all of these things and identifying all of these things and being accountable in that everything I did to my body, I wrote it down. I
didn't I didn't leave anything out. What that did was it gave me a very steep learning curve about, at the very least, how my body worked, How my body responded to training in the morning versus training in the night or the afternoon, How my body worked with you know, egg protein versus chicken or beef, How my body worked with two meals a day or three or four meals a day's same calories but divided up how you know everything.
What time of day was best for me to do cardio, What time of day was best for me even cognitively, like when does my brain work best? What supplements was I taking and what did I notice? Like I would back in the day when supplements, you know, like I used to take all these different amino as acids and nothing illegal, everything you could buy over the counter, and desicated liver and fucking but I would take thirty pills
a day. And I remember doing an experiment where I stopped everything except food, so no supplements for two weeks. I felt exactly the same. So I just ditched all my all of the stuff, which clearly was doing nothing.
Yeah, dexicated whatever, ye.
Desicated liver, which sounds fucking disgusting, and it is, I'm sure, but they were just no, no, no, it's not actually liver. It's like pills, pills, like dehydrated.
Yeah. I'm surprised that wasn't doing anything for you, honestly.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, well I've probably had enough iron in my diet without that. But yeah, So that was when, you know, But then as I started developing businesses and you know, I opened my first business at twenty six, I needed to be pretty responsible and accountable. So that was a steep learning. But I would say around my mid twenties, I started to be a little bit more methodical, accountable, practical, rather than just the freestyling fuck with that I was until that point in time.
Well done, twenties is pretty early, isn't it to be self aware and to lock in on that.
Well, you know, there were still moments, as we know, a question. Oh this was an interesting question. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this was I've was not ready for this question. Yep, go on.
Really okay, So describe your favorite kind of person.
I mean, based on what I've been speaking about, you know, no surprise, but people who just people who, like you said, lead with love, people who you know, like people who give without strategy or agenda or expectation, people who people who live with gratitude and a level of self awareness and humility. I know, that's you know whatever. But people who love watching others, genuinely love watching others succeed, you know.
And people who, as Stephen Covey says and many other authors over the years, but people who seek first to understand. So people who are really interested in it, understanding the person in front of them rather than pushing to be understood. Yeah, yeah, give me attention, listen to me, understand me, meet my needs, be what I need, fuck all that.
Yeah, you know, like.
People who you know, it's like one of my favorite, one of my top ten people in the world. And I know a lot of people. Is Johnny that I train in the gym, who you know and you've met and you've seen probably hundreds of times at the gym with me, you know, And here's a guy who's in his seventies. You know, he's got an full disclosure so you might want to put your fingers in years. But he's got a bag for poo and a bag for wei, and he's got a spinal cord injury, and he's got
a traumatic brain injury. And I fucking love him. And he's just the best person. And he's just grateful, and he's humble, and he's loving, and he's kind and he's a sweetheart. And I just there ain't many people that I think more highly of than him. And he's the person that most people would walk past not even notice.
Yeah. Look, I've seen him working out a number of times, and I feel like he radiates something that is like a warmth. He's he's always got an acknowledgment. Well for me, like I think I've given him a smile and a hello whenever I see him, and he always seems very approachable and very warm, and that is something that you can't fake that.
Yeah, yeah, And you know, sometimes I think, fuck, if anyone had a reason to be grumpy and pissed off and angry, it's not me, it's not me, it's that guy.
It's that guy. And he's not Yeah, yeah.
He's definitely not. All right. Question, Oh, we've got two more to go. We're on a roll.
Two more on a roll. So in line with everything that you give in service and how I guess available you are to people, how do you know when to stop? And I'm not talking about quitting. I'm just talking about how do you know when it's time to pull back and preserve something for yourself so that you do then have things to give to others?
Yeah? Right, So what I wrote what I wrote, and I'll expand on this because you you. I jotted down a few ideas off your question. I wrote, when your body, soul, innate, wisdom, and internal sat nav tell you for me? That's like I'm getting like my body is telling me or my subconscious or my you know that that internal sat nav that wisdom that whatever that is, like, it's just no, I just know it's intuitive, right, And I realized that, and I think this is true for everybody you know.
There there are times when it's actually good for me to be unproductive today. It's actually good for my overall productivity and happiness and health to have a fuck all day or even a fuck all week, depending on depending on you know, your situation and where you're at. And so I think that one of the things that we do habitually, many of us, is we we kind of block out all the inbound wisdom. You know. It's like you've heard me so many times. Your body is buy
a feedback system. Your body's always telling you something. And it might not be telling you you need to lose weight or get fitter. It might be telling you, hey, my nervous system's fucking fried. Could you fucking chill out and go for a swim or just meditate, or like, our body is always teaching us something or trying to teach us something, and it might not be even about
the body. It might be about the chaotic mind or the overloaded brain or so I know that there are times when I kind of choose to be intentionally unproductive because I know that's going to be good for my mental, emotional, and physical health. And also I know that when I turn up to do what I've going to what I've
got to do, I'll be better. Like sometimes, for example, if I've got an afternoon gig and I've got to talk for in the in the afternoon between one and five, which is not uncommon, or one thirty and five, like three or four hours, I will intentionally do fuck all
for the whole day before that. Sometimes, yeah, you know, and I go because I just want to be brand new when I go and stand in front of those people, because three hours, Like think about talking for three or four hours and being hopefully mentally focused at somewhere near one hundred percent for the whole time and interesting and engaging and building rapport and connection and being relevant and been a great storyteller and creating an experience that people
want to be in and you know all of that. Well, you can't turn up half fried and then do that. You can't go. I got up at four, I did a run, a swim, a workout. I've done nine podcasts and so you guys are going to get the dregs. You can't well I can't anyway, So I think strategic energy management is crucial.
I like that. Strategic energy management.
Yeah, because you're trying to manage your physical, mental, and emotional energy.
Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I'm going to use that.
It's only taken two podcasts and fucking nine and a half questions. All right, let's do our last.
Ye okay, this is yeah, this one. I'm very curious. I think I might know your answer, but I'm probably wrong. So you can only do one exercise for the rest of your life? What is it? Right?
Now? This is a hard question because I really needed more information. But okay, so I'm going to tell my tell you my rationale. So the question is, you can only do one exercise for the rest of your life? What is it?
Right? Yeah?
Now, well that if we're talking about well one, we need cardiovascular fitness, and we need flexibility, and we need strength and bone density and some muscle, and we need balance and coordination and right, but if I can only do one thing, how the fuck do I cover all those bases? Right? So you probably thought I'm going to say strength training. I'm not.
No, I didn't thint it.
What do you what do you think my answer is going to be.
I think your answer might be walking.
No, okay, my answer is And again everyone, this is just if you ask me in a month, I might give you a different answer. Right, So this is not set in stone. But I've given two answers. The first one is kind of all the same ballpark surfing, paddling, kayaking, or swimming. Now, let the exercise scientist explain the rationale. Please think about surfing, for example, what are you doing?
You're balancing? What are you doing? You're using your arms and legs, so coordination, timing, spatial awareness, where's the wave? Where am I balance? Coordination? You're using muscular endurance because you've got addle, paddle, swim, fall off swim for your board. You're using strength because you've got to kick, and strength upper body you've got to pull yourself through the water, which so you're you're training your muscular system, your cardiovascular system,
your nervous system. You're getting fitness, cardio, fitness and strength and muscular endurance. It is a total body workout. Obviously not everybody can do that, but I'm just talking about as a standalone thing. Also, very similar explanations for paddling stand up paddling, which is great fitness, and you know there's a lot of stand up paddle borders around where I live, kayaking or canoeing, whatever, swimming, same thing, So
you're never going to be well, that's not true. I was going to say, you're never going to be a big muscular thing. But there are some kayakers who are fucking jacked. So if I could only do one thing, it would be one of those. But a close second would be circuit based strength training. So that's where it's a combination of we're doing strength training like a full body workout, but we're moving from exercise to exercise, so there's a muscular endurance and a strength component as well
as a real cardiovascular component. So I might do ten exercises, I do a circuit, I do exercise one to ten, then I'm back to exercise one. I go through three times, give or take it to thirty or forty minute workout, and I've trained my core, my lower back, my legs, my shoulders, my upper back, my my chest, and I've done a full body workout and my heart rate's been elevated for thirty to forty minutes. So I'm glad I
don't actually have to do any of that. But in this hypothetical scenario that you created, what do you think about what I said surfing?
I mean absolutely I didn't even think of that. Like walking just sounds absolutely lame as a suggestion. After that, Yeah, I mean, look at Chris Hamsworth, he surfs, he's got a decent rig Yeah.
Well, look at Kelly Slater, he's still in the top ten in the world and he's intact. And I mean, obviously there are some assumptions you can serf or you have access to water and all of that. But if you just look at me as an ex scientist, look at surfers. Show me a good surfer who's got a shit body. Oh wait, you know, the girls look amazing. The guys look amazing. They're fit, they're strong, they're functional, they've got incredible total body strength, core strength, balance, power, speed,
Like I said, timing, aerobic endurance. Yeah, and again that's completely impractical. I acknowledge that everyone for most of us, But based on Kelly's hypothetical, that is my answer. Hey, thank you, we're gonna we're gonna say goodbye. Is there anything you want to wrap up with us with or are you Are we good to go and reset and do number three?
Absolutely, I'm just trying to figure out where to get surfing lessons now.
Yeah, exactly. I'm not kidding it is it is actually amazing. Hey, everyone, I hope you enjoyed that. We'll be back. I don't know whether or not we're gonna by the way, Kel, i'll tell you and everyone out loud, I don't know if we're going to play these back to back over the days or we're going to separate them. But nonetheless, I hope there's some thoughts and ideas in there that are of value, if not a little bit of information, inspiration, education, motivation,
something in that space. Thanks for listening, See you next time.
Thanks Kel, Thanks Greg,