Good a, Groovers, Welcome to another installment of the new Project Tiffany and Cook over there at typ Central High.
Happy Friday, Harps, good a, Peter Crone, how are you, mate?
I'm good.
I love now that I understand you're called hearts. Like we can we can get like a bit more intimate here.
Yeah. Well, I'm going to call you crony because Australians always chuck a y on the indmate or an o like I get called. My mum calls me crago, my old friends call me crago or Harps. Most of my friends these days called me harps, and my super old friends called me jumbo because I was a fat little fuck at school. I thought political correctness was invented right, and so even the teachers called me jumbo. Dude like that probably wouldn't happen now.
Well, you know, it depends what circle you're in.
If you were hanging around with a lot of ladies, maybe the misinterpretation could serve you.
Well you know what I'm saying.
That probably not, probably not, But I think the confidence.
Let down a big disappointment. I understand now.
I appreciate the use of monikers over there. I lived in Sydney for two years, and you know, being a Brett, I think we have a natural sympatico in the way that we get along, our sprits and Aussie.
So I feel like when you modify someone's name, it's just well for me anyway. If I if I modify someone's name or I adjusted a bit, it's it's a sign that I like you, or I connect with you, or I want you to be my friend or something like that. It's just there are very few, very few of my mates get called like their proper name, and if I if anyone ever calls me Craig, I feel like I've done something wrong. I feel I reprimanded.
I was going to say, yeah, absolutely, I feel I feel the same.
It's a term of endearment.
If you can mess around with someone's name, you obviously got some degree of like closeness to them. But yeah, I've always when I work with people, Let's say someone is called Robert, you know, but their mates called them Bobby or Rob.
But you know, as soon as.
They hear Robert, it sort of rings with that sound of like you know, okay, you're being reprimanded for something by your mum or your dad. Like anytime you use a full name, it usually gives people a little bit of a shock down their spine and reminds them of something from their childhood.
Yeah, and then if you just alter the tone and then delivery a little bit, well you out now I'm in panic stations. Great, there we go, boom, I sphink to just snapshot. There you go, nervous system. It's really good to chat to you. I must have been one of the five people in the world who didn't know of you. So I apologize because I've done a deep dive on you in the last twenty four hours and probably weren't aware of this. But you're quite smart.
That is the first time I've heard that.
So this is I thought I was bringing value to the show, but like little did I know.
It was going to be reciprocated.
So's been a positive affirmation for you because I know you struggle with self esteem and your issues. So I'm here for you and if you need a cyberspoon on the couch, I'm your guy.
I did not know this was going to be a therapy session, but I'm incredibly grateful.
That can be two ways. It's just how we roll. It's funny. I haven't had a job in inverted commas for thirty one years. Right, that was the last time. I figured out when I was young that I'm not I like to work, but I didn't necessarily want to have a boss. So I've worked for me for a very long time, do a range of shit. But what was your first job out of school? That's a great question. No one's actually asked me that my first job. I came a like, immediately out of university. I came to
the States. Well, let me back up in university.
I don't know discounts because I coached tennis for super entitled kids in an upper state New York camp who had no arms about letting me know that they were paying my salary. This is like a punk twelve year old whose dad's probably worth like six billion.
But you know, so that was somewhat of a job. But it was a summer gig.
But after I left, after I did my masters, my first job, I actually came to the States and I became involved in a production company and we made an absolutely terrible full length feature film.
So that was.
That was pro my first job, not even paid, So I don't even that qualifies but anyway.
Wow, it and it's been a calamity since then. Well, yeah, just out of interest. What was your undergrad degree and what was your masters in?
Undergrad was human biology and exercise physiology, and then my masters was in it.
Which has got absolutely nothing to do with human biology, so people like, wait, how did that happen?
The Information technology department had three categories. You could focus on business coding, or human factors like ergonomics and how do we ass human interact with computers? So I was in the latter, but it was a great It was the biggest scholarship and it had I think something like five thousand applicants for about fifty places, so everyone just wanted to get in because it was, you know, a revered course and it paid well for a student.
For sure. We haven't had a totally dissimilar path. I did exercise science as my undergrad and and believe it or not, at the ripe old age of two hundred and sixty, I'm doing a PhD in neuropsychology at the moment. But wow, yeah, no idea, what.
You're analyzing me right now? Oh?
I am, I am so, But you're doing pretty well being analyzed by me, We're all in trouble because I'm the dumbest one in the room. Where did the fascination with the totality of the human experience, not just on a physiological level, like maybe that's a natural for curious people, because I started with bodies and then ended up working with humans, right who live in the bodies, you know, And so I always say to people anatomy and physiology
is interesting, but humans are fucking fascinating. So was that just a progression for you or was there always an instinctive intuitive curiosity there.
I think the former, because I could never have guessed that I would be in the position I am today, you know, with the moniker of mine, architect helping the people I am around the world, from being a young seventeen eighteen year old punk kid just you know, trying to survive. I'd been orphaned when I was very young, so I was really just literally trying to survive. So
I think it's curiosity. And then I did whilst both coaching tennis, and then I did a bit of ski guiding in Europe, and I distinctly remember having two fellas who had same experience. They weren't advanced, but they weren't completing at beginners coming down. They had the same sort of physical attributes, meaning it wasn't like one was terribly out of shape and one was an athlete, but one was superrapid in the way that he approached the slope versus the other one was a lot more like, let's
just go for it. And right there I could see that I had nothing to do with equipment and it had everything to do with software. Right, So you've got the same resources, but the manner by which you view your environment dictates the way that.
You actually proceed with something.
So that was when I really started around, you know, age nineteen or so twenty, going deeper into well what's actually driving the show? And it sort of has been the eternal rabbit hole that I continue to go down and until such time I can fly like Neo and the Matrix, which.
You know, I haven't quite mastered yet.
I hope that soon because fun I would like to talk about that. Once you master that, so hurry the fuck up.
You know, the powers of b would take me out immediately.
Yeah, well, once you do reveal your superpower of flight, you could be a handicapped to the system, so you'll be eliminated, you know.
That, absolutely, Yeah, i'd be censored for sure.
What Yeah, I kind of call that thing that you're talking about the like the duality of the human experience. There's the world we live in and then the world that lives in us. Right, And I've heard you because I've done a deep dive on you. You and I are so similar in our thinking, so it might be a little bit of an echo chamber, but that's good,
you know. Is there's situation, circumstance, environment, people, events, and then in the middle of that there's the processing of it all, you know, the interpret or the filter, the storyteller, the reality creator.
Yeah, yeah, you spot on spot on, Like I'm talking to my clearly younger.
Brother, clearly. You know.
It was funny. I was listening this morning when I was wedging the sleep out of my eyes. You were talking to some chap I won't say who, but he was good. But he said so he said something like, I won't I won't throw him under the bus. But he went, ah, so what you mean is blah blah blah, And he totally didn't get what you were saying. And I went, nah, he didn't mean that at all, And then I was thinking, I'm going to be interested to see how you respond because the construct you were talking about,
he didn't fully understand. He kind of did, but you didn't go a mate, that's not what I'm talking about at all. You went, yeah, yep, yep, you're really diplomatic. He said, I wouldn't use that term, but and then you kind of took him down a more gentle path. But it is, It can be complicated trying to understand the difference between my situation and my reality, my circumstance
and my reality. You know, where I am and what I have and who I am identity, you know, disconnection between the non me stuff and the me stuff.
Yeah, absolutely no, it's very slippery.
It's I would say, it's one of the most convincing illusions out there, that we're a victim of circumstance.
I feel the way I feel because.
Fill in the blame, someone said something, someone did something, My bank account is a certain way, the current circumstances of the world, whatever it is, people truly under the impression that gives rise to our own personal experience. Now that's not to say that external factors don't have some sort of impact on us, but we are nonetheless, we are the cause. We are the source sou rcee of our own experience. And once people really get that, it's
both empowering. For a lot of people, it's shocking, but it is empowering, and it really steps into the world of responsibility. To me, you're either one hundred percent responsible for your life or you're not. And if you're not, then you are at some level of victim. And that's just that's suffering and that's no fun way to live.
How do we, excuse me, how do we how do we stept out of the groundhog danus of our kind of sometimes unconscious existence, like we seem to do a lot of life on autopilot, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. How do we become more present and aware of us in the middle of it?
The word you just use there, I mean I always say the first step is awareness, right, one of my quotes I say, people can't be held accountable for that which they're oblivious to. And that's sort of got a dual prong tour, right, which is one level it breeds compassion, It gets rid of all the judgment that tends to be pretty ubiquitous around the world unfortunately, Like people are
just very quick to make others wrong. And if you were in their shoes, if you had their DNA, if you've gone through every day of their life, their childhood, their teachers, their heartbreaks, their failures, you would be having the same response to whatever the circumstance is that you're judging them for right. So that breeds a lot more compassion and acceptance, and so the same holds true for ourselves,
Like why do people have these self sabotaging tendencies? Why is it that the person attracts the same kind of mate that doesn't work out that they get, you know, their hostile or they cheat on them, or why is it that somebody can't get through this invisible ceiling of a pay income that they would like to get. And we've got to become aware of, Okay, what does that elicit?
What does that reveal within us?
That is a deep seated usually you know, I call it the subconscious constraint that we live in. It becomes this invisible prison and then we sort of skirt around that almost like we're tied to a big oak tree with a rubber band and you know, you've got your circumference, so you can function in but you can't you can't.
Get much further. So its awareness, and that's the beauty of life is reflection.
Relationship, an invariably romantic relationship where especially if you're in a marriage, you're kind of stuck and you kind of have to look at things a little bit more deeply than you might if you're just you know, messing around and dating a lot of people. So relationships reflection and then hopefully you know, work like mine and sounds like what you're doing to bring some inspiration and insights to people.
Because we also grow up in you know, we grow up in a program, don't we, Like wherever we were whoever we were around whatever, church, synagogue, not school, university, culture, you know, friends like, we grow up being programmed, taught, told, trained, and then you wake up one day metaphorically and you're twenty or thirty or forty, and you in some ways
the byproduct of all of that inbound stimuli. Yeah, and so even this, I say to people, did you choose your beliefs or did they just kind of grow there as a byproduct of you know, what you've been through. Now, do they serve you or sabotage. You tell me a little bit about beliefs and the influence that they can have on us, good or bad.
I mean, spot on.
You know, we are again sort of the byproduct of our environment and our conditioning. I often use the example, if I grew up in Madrid, I'd speak Spanish. You know, it's like, it's neither good nor bad. It was just what I was imbibed in as a kid. So what was the language in this case? Usually it's an emotional language. It's an energetic language that you adopted through the process of osmosis, just by virtue of the fact that your parents, your care providers, the school you went to had.
A particular vibration about it.
So it becomes very insidious because unfortunately, those formative years, that piece of programming, those codes that we adopt, become so sort of we become so associated with aus though.
That's who we are.
And then you see people literally fighting for their beliefs, whether of course we see the whole world of dogma and religion. People will kill each other for that, which is completely nonsensical. That's pure ignorance, right, Like I'm fighting for something that invariably wasn't even a choice. It's just something that I adopted, right, But I'm willing to kill you because you believe in some other god or whatever.
But beyond that, then, of course we have I would say, the more detriment mental beliefs, which are much more to do with my own persona, my view of myself, my sense of inadequacy, my feeling of insecurity as it relates to other people, or the.
Environment perception of scarcity.
Because we've heard that money doesn't go on trees so many times from people, and so what happens is what I would assert, the essence of life is always there. But then we get these conditioned programs that, by virtue of what they are, they're limitations. So most beliefs tend to be just by design limited because you're believing something, right, so something has some sort of construct to it. So I would say, it's almost like, who do we become beyond our beliefs?
Right?
That's the realm of that I play in, which is pure possibility, right, And that's what a kid is.
But a kid doesn't really have beliefs.
Young children don't have beliefs because they haven't been conditioned in a way that makes them assign meaning to something or give this significance to whatever it is. They still live in the world of pure curiosity and imagination. And that's why, you know, I love some of this stuff from like Einstein where he said, you know it's I'm paraphrasing him terribly, but he was less interested in knowledge and more interested in imagination.
The knowing mind is stuck. You know.
If you know something, well, where's the opportunity for expansion. If you don't know something, then there's an opportunity for evolution and growth.
And there's what you know and what you think you know. And you know, it's interesting because I love what you said. Thank you. Also, with belief and faith and programming, you know, comes this pressure to conform and to stay in that group.
Yeah.
So the moment that you start to and I've been in a few of those groups when I was younger, and I was in a group that you are really discouraged from thinking for yourself. Really, not only you're not discourage Not only are you discouraged, you're criticized because if you question anything, it's weakness, right, whereas I would think it's curiosity and it's perhaps intellect and a few other things.
But you know, and it's funny how many people and I'm not necessarily just talking about political or religious, it could be. It could be a fitness group that's evangelical, or a nutritional group that's that's figured out the only way to do things. But the problem is that a lot of people want to belong so whether or not it's the CrossFit tribe or the vegan tribe, or the
carnival tribe, or the Christian tribe or the whatever. So they're so invested in being connected and belonging and that they don't want to think beyond what they've been programmed and taught and told. And I always say to people, and do an audit. You might do an audit on everything on you know, your thoughts and beliefs and ideology, and come back and go, no, this really represents who
I am, but you might not. But it's hard for some people to get They're sorry I'm talking so much, but their head around the idea that, well, one, I get my sense of self from this fucking thing. So if it's not right, then who am I?
Yeah?
You know, identity is tied in so much to all of this stuff for people.
Yeah, it's huge. I mean, we're social animals.
We want to have a you know, a primal instinct of a human being is a sense of belonging, and it gives us not only a feeling of value but also security. Have a false you know, both of those might be right. Usually it's a form of pretense. It's not real security, it's not real value, but it gives the aspiration for that. And so whenever we're in this community.
Regardless of what it is, it could be a gang, right Like a kid who.
Was grown up in a tough area of town in any city, and he had a single parent, maybe the one parent the dad was incarcerated or.
Who knows, but his sense of belonging or her sense of belonging was a local gang.
It was the only way that they got any kind of attention or someone listened to them.
It just led to these.
Sort of nefarious behaviors of breaking into cars and stealing shit, and that was their sense of tribe.
You know.
Conversely, perhaps we could argue as you know, sort of more preferred as you join a local yoga community and you learn about breath work and you become a vegan and you help the community, and you know, but it's still a sense of fundamentally a human being wanted.
To feel like I belonged to something.
So to give up any of that is to your point, it is a real challenge because it's like it's not giving up the community, it's giving up me.
As a part of that.
It's the fundamental dissolution of self, which is probably the most scary thing anyone can go to.
Ironically, that's my work.
Yeah, I'm once called the hit man for the ego, Like, I'm not trying to solve anyone's problems. I'm getting rid of the person they think they are that has a problem. That's an entirely different proposition. You know, there's a billion you know, literally that might be an exaggeration, but there's certainly millions of experts who will help people with their problems. My concern there is that you're actually perpetuating the idea that they think there are someone with a problem.
So someone's got anxiety.
Then you go and see a therapist and psychotherapist, you see a spiritual teacher, you talk to an astrologer, but all around the topic of I've got anxiety. Okay, well then you'll just get the latest on Vogue strategy. You know you should do more breath work, No, do meditation? Are you eating too much salad? Have you stopped coffee? But all that's doing is perpetuating the idea that there's a you there which is founded in some sense of insecurity.
Your mind is very active about.
Usually worst case scenarios in the future, and it's giving you an experience of fear right now. And until you actually negate that whole process, everything is going to be transit to them.
Yes, it's a problem. I don't know if you got that.
Did you get that tip? Because what was that bit? After listening carefully.
I think I've got a problem, Phaps, let me solve it.
Just unpacked for us, the dissolving of the self for a little bit, give us sixty seconds or as much as you want for that matter, on that. How do we begin to do that? Why do we need to do that? What does that mean?
We begin with inquiry?
Right, so, even during the course of this chat that I'm really enjoying and I'm glad we got to connect, maybe people will start to question already what we've said.
Oh wow, yeah, why am I a member of my local church?
Or why do I go to this particular group, or is it true that I actually ascribed to this religion just because my parents did?
So Inquiry is.
The first thing, and I always ask people to put a question mark at the end of any of their problems, you know, and it starts to at least open up a conversation about is this actually a truth? So that's the sort of that I would say, that's how we get the ball rolling and why. To me, it's important, as I was saying earlier, For the most part, any kind of belief is by design a limitation which is in complete contrast and conflict with what I assert is
our nature, which is boundless. So you take the infinite, the eternal, the limitless, which I'm ascribing to our true soul nature, and then you look through a lens of a mind that's been created with these conditioned limitations.
That's the square Pegan round hole right there.
So if I'm boundless, but I'm looking through a lens of feeling limited, that equates to human suffering. And then you have the litany of ways that people try and resolve that through alcohol, smoking, weed, prescribed drugs, whatever their sort of topic, their escape du jour is. For them, but meanwhile they haven't actually discovered their true nature. That, to me, is the whole journey of being human.
You know.
It's not about becoming famous, getting some level of status and getting a lot of money, although that's the game most people are playing. To me, the real game of being human is discovering freedom, which is my main product, which is tapping into reminding yourself, remembering the essence of who you are versus the limited persona you've become associated with, thinking that's who you are. That's the game of spiritual evolution right there.
I love that. That's so interesting. In one of my I can't remember which one. I've written a few books,
but in one I don't know, I don't know. But anyway, I wrote a conversation, a shudo conversation about a guy because I had a version of this so many times in the older days when people would come into I owned a bunch of gyms, but they're all pt facilities, and people would come in and we'd do a catch up and I'd say, tell me about tell me about you, and they'd always tell me about their job, their bank balance,
or the car or their kids. They'd tell me about everything except them yeah, and I'd go, all right, well, none of that's you, that's all your stuff. That's cool, well done, but tell me about you. And then they tell me about their age. They tell me they used to smoke, but they don't go, well, you're not an age, and you're not a habit and you're not a bank balance. You're not even a body, and you're not a career,
not a title, and you're not a qualification. And it just opens so many doors to so many weird and fun conversations where I would just take the piss a little bit.
But yeah, so let's.
Think about this, like we never think, well that's a big statement. We rarely think about who we are beyond our thought or our thoughts about who we are, or our programming or our you know that all that kind of typical stuff that we think we are.
Yeah.
Yeah, most people are walking around sort of somewhat zombie state with very automatic reactions. It's just external trigger and internal response, you know. And it's you can walk into a restaurant, I say, and if I went up to the table and I was sort of somewhat derogatory or hostile to each of the tables, I say, hey, you're a fucking idiot. You look like an idiot. Depending on who I'm speaking to, they're just going to have their natural reaction.
You know.
If it's someone who's on a first date and maybe he's a quiet fella, he might be shy and he doesn't quite know what to do and he's embarrassed. Maybe it's an older couple and he can't quite hear me, so he's not so offended, or he calls the manager over.
Then if I go to the big, you.
Know, CrossFit dude who's got his tats, he might get up and try and punch me, you know, but no one has a choice. It's all reaction. Like to me, in that situation, it would still be part of someone's conditioning. Real freedom would be someone who could just listen but be unaffected. So that's where I can be with my environment and go oh wow, interested, like there's no actual immediate threat, Like I'm not trying to knife anyone. I'm just saying something. And this is where I think human
beings really struggle, especially men. Is the capacity to listen, just to and listen is a broad sense. It's not just what some one says is listen to your environment, like what's happening on where are you being triggered? That goes back to your question earlier of like how do we get beyond this identity? It's like, well, fundamentally, where do you get upset about shit? That's your opportunity to see that you are not recognizing your own magnificence.
You know. That is so true? Like especially, I don't like the term personal development or self help, but let's call it growth, let's call it. But all these ideas that we talk about on shows like this, and you talk to people about, and I talk to people about, like we're all champions at personal growth. When the sun shining and the birds are singing and the winds at our back and fucking life is good. But it's in
the middle of the shit. It's in the messages, the chaos, the mayhem, the uncertainty, the suffering, the pain that we get an opportunity to put these things into practice, Yep, to walk out and talk. You know.
Yeah, the quote I use as smooth sea's never made a good sailor.
Yeah, it's so true. It's where did your where did your personal philosophy develop from? Has been? Has it been through a lot of exposure to just a lot of people and a lot of interact How much of it has been learned as in sitting, reading, paying attention, listening, and how much of it has been experiential you learned by doing, by being in the middle of stuff.
Yeah, a great question, And of course it's going to be somewhat anecdotal or arbitrary, but I would say, I would I would asserted most of it is intuition and experience, Like for whatever reasons, like why could Tiger Woods do what he did or any of these athletes that you know, Roger Federer and ten and like, you know, there's a certain gift that I've been blessed with in the way that my mind can just like look at things and
break them apart and unpack them. And I think by virtue of what we were just discussing a shit ton of adversity. Honestly, there's been my greatest teacher. You know, Mum dies when I'm seven, that dies when I'm seventeen. I'm an only kid. Like, there was just sheer terror and survival at that point, which to me was akin to what the experience of the ego is, which is this perception of an isolated unit that's trying to survive, right,
But mine was visceral. So I think for me that was in a way that I couldn't fully fathom at the time, was the catalyst for me to really discover who I was beyond fear.
So that was very visceral for sure.
There's been some teachings like no one that I met, they've all since passed, But like traditional Indian gurus, like the real spiritual cats who knew what they were talking about. I've read some of the you know, a lot of their books, and then of course I've done a handful
of different workshops and stuff and more contemporary teachers. I've enjoyed some of their stuff, But I would say, like an eighty twenty split, like where it's just for whatever reasons, life decided to put me on this journey of having to face a ton of shit and find the lily pad on the other side of it.
You know, how did mum and dad dying mum at seven and your dad at seventeen? What did that? What did that do? How did that that's by the way, I'm so sorry to hear that, but it is what it is. How How did that influence you shape, you change, you mold.
You thank you first of all, my mum when I was seven, I really don't think I knew how to process that like a seven year old boy, like I know, she had been sick because she had cancer to ask you answer your question of how so she had been sick for a while. She was bedridden for a good year plus, and they were trying to do all these alternative things. They would go to lurds, you know, with the side of the Virgin Mary. It was beyond the
world of chemo and stuff like that. But my dad's he went he worked on the boats, you know, the ferries that go between England and France and England and Belgium, and it was a huge disaster in eighty seven where one of them capsized in the Belgium harbor. And you know a lot of people have got the image emblazoned in their mind because it was pretty horrific where you got this huge ferry on its side, but half of the boat is still because the harbor isn't as deep obviously as the ocean.
So anyway, he was the chief.
Engineer on that boat, and there was a few hundred people that died during that disaster, so that one definitely had.
More of a mark for a couple of reasons.
One it was he and I, so obviously we'd become incredibly close. I was older, you know, I'd had a decade just with my dad and just by virtue of the fact that he went to work one day said I love you and I'll see you tomorrow and that never happened.
So with my mom, to.
Certain degree, there's this period that we were aware of the fact that things weren't looking good with my dad, healthy vitals as best we knew. He was only forty nine years old, goes to work and never comes back.
So in terms of how it impacted me or how that shaped me again, like I was saying, excuse me, like I was saying earlier, I don't fully know to what degree I could truly comprehend the impact it had other than what I was describing to you, which I can remember standing in my bedroom that I've grown up in as a kid by myself one day and having that visceral experience of I'm by myself, like as an experience, right, and it was the worst like feeling any human could have,
which goes back to our topic about belonging, right, Like, we don't want to be alone. It's the second law of thermodynamics. You know, you put any objects into isolation. This is what they do in incarceration.
Right.
What's the worst thing you can be is put in solitary confinement because then there's a natural atrophy.
Of that thing, there's no sense of belonging.
You look at couples who might have been mare for fifty years, one of them dies, the other one usually dies within a month, you know, because their sense of like companionship and camaraderie has gone. So this is what I help people to do, is get beyond the feeling of isolation.
So I would say what it did.
Do for me was breed a massive amount of compassion and patience with people, because I really get it beyond the oh I understand, which a therapist might tell you, like no.
I physically was there.
So I understand that you feel like no one loves you, You're not good enough, You're never going to make it. Like so I think in ways that again I couldn't fully articulate because I think much of it was just unconscious. My brad, you know, it bred for me a huge amount of love compassion, patience, and probably capacity to just deal with life and keep opening up to possibility.
Seventeen is such I mean at any age, of course, you know, but at seventeen, you're not a kid and you're not a man. You're kind of straddling that space. You what did you do? Did you move in with someone? Did you like just I'm just interested practically in that next twelve months, what did you do?
Well?
At that point, my dad had met someone who'd moved in with us, so they weren't married, but so you know, there was an adult call it a step mum or whatever. We weren't super close, but you know, there was somebody who provided and could get food.
And you know, then the community.
I lived on a very small road in a small village, so there was also a lot of support. I had mates who lived on the same street, so their parents sort of became pseudo parents. And then soon after I got you know, a job quote unquote. You know, this
was before university. I took a year out, a gap year, which I know is pretty common in the UK and Australia, and so I you know, I started a firm for myself and I lived in the house and Then as soon as I went to UNI when I was nineteen, so you know, a year or so after, I pretty much that was it. You know, I kind of left the nest. I would come home for the holidays, Christmas and summer, but even in the summer, that's when I
went to coach tennis in America. So I was from that point forward, I was pretty much on my own.
When did you when did you begin to question, you know, all this or explore all this existential stuff of who am I beyond my whatever am my looks or my tennis or my you know whatever, like all that kind of normal stuff where you started to go deep for yourself.
I'll just interrupt one second, interrupt myself. I remember being at a party when I was I think I was eight years old, a fat of the eight year old in a room with all these fifty year olds, and I remember looking around at all the fifty year olds and having this awareness that this is weird and all these people are pretending because I know a lot of these people and when they're not here doing this, they're
not like this right. And I went and I didn't, you know, I'm just I just had awareness that that guy and him and her and her. They're not like that, but they're in front of these other people like role playing this persona. I'm like, what the fuck is all this about? When did that kind of curiosity into human thinking and behaving and relationships and existence? When did that, you know, catch fire?
My first year at UNI, I actually just recently, about a year ago, found notes, written notes from when I was eighteen nineteen, sitting under a tree, the quintessential sort of image of these two clowns, very Buddha esque, me and my mate Guy, and we would talk about these big questions and the nature of consciousness.
So I really attribute a lot of.
My introduction, the foray into this conversation to my friend Guy back then and now with you know, without putting, without showing my age, it was good three decades ago.
Like he he would.
Only eat food that if it dropped on the ground it would grow at some point, Like, I mean, that's that's pretty advanced.
But back then, right that, I'm sure he did.
I mean we went for currently sometimes you know, he broke his philosophy, but the fact that that he was even introduced as a potential he wanted to have food that had parma and energy in it.
So that's when I started.
And that really was, as I said, sort of the portal into this whole world of wow, am I?
Who am I? Why are we here?
It was just beautiful. Like I listen. I had a great time at college. You know, I definitely had my first share of libations with the boys at the weekend, and but then I really spent a lot more time diving into the nature of life itself and quantum physics and you know, my life, my background had obviously lent itself to a lot of that because there wasn't I wasn't prey to what we were talking about earlier, the
conditions of my family. And in one way, if we want to look at this karmically, it might sound like okay. On the human level, yes, this was very difficult for Peter Crone, but I would have served for the spirit that is my nature. It was actually quite liberating that the calma of my parents that they chose to incarnate me but then step aside, right, And again I'm not saying for them that was a conscious choice, but it did actually what did it do?
For sure?
It was incredibly vulnerable because I didn't have the blanket of security from parents. But by the same token, it was incredibly opening because if my dad was alive, I just know the fact that I idolized him. You know, he was a loving man. But my mind, to your point, would have been much more interested in the pretense, just like you're an eight year old with all these fifty
year olds, knowing that they're full of shit. I would have been much more interested in having a career that I thought my dad would have wanted me to have, which is of course very stereotypical.
He would have never wanted that.
He loved me for me, but in a way that now you know, I can recognize. I never had to fall prey to those pressures of lineage or generation gaps where you're supposed to follow in the footsteps of somebody, and I kind of just had to make it up by myself. So so anyway, long, we did answer your question, but started when I was nineteen, and it really opened up this this geyser of inquiry about you know, who the hell are we, why are we here? And why are most people full of shit?
That's the guyser that opened up via guy.
Yes there it is. That's why it's called geyser. Most people don't know that that is.
The origin, that is the etymology of that word. And you're welcome world.
Yeah, some people say, some people say geezer, but that's more like East London, you know, that's like you.
Fucking geezer, don't you fucking or mean I'll kick you in the dick.
Yeah, that's different, that's different, but it's still you're having this wealth of information, but it's a derogatory form.
So fucking geezer, right, you fucking geeze, don't you guyser.
It's like it's the same, it's content coming at you, but it's much more philanthropic. It makes an impact, it makes it different. Yeah, so anyway, I'm glad we broke that down.
Now everyone's going there both fuck wits, that's what everyone's doing. But that's hilarious and we don't care what you think. You know what I do love though about guy. I'm always saying to people and myself, you know, hang out with people who don't think like you. Hang out with people who don't share your lifestyle or necessarily your beliefs or values or attitude or operating system. Not all the time, but sometimes and try to do it with a really
open mind and just be present. And I live across the road from I live on a street with one million cafes, and across the road from me is a dude, karl Ed his name is, who owns the cafe, who's awesome, and he's got another guy that works for him, Muhammed. And every time, so well, nearly every time I go over, because I don't know much about Islam, right. I grew up in a very Christian family and a Catholic family,
and a very I went. You know, I did the whole rounds, right, and I've done probably like you have, Buddhism one oh one and a fair bit of things. But I don't know much about Islam. And so every time I go there, I go, you've got to teach me something. Tell teach me one thing. Every time I come and get my coffee about Islam, right, And that's so I walk in, he makes my coffee and he goes, all right, this is what I want to tell you.
And I love it because I'm exposing myself to new ideas and thinking and philosophy and theology and ideology and lifestyle. But I just think there's real value for all of us broadly, not because we want to become them or become like them necessarily, or adopt or adapt necessarily, but rather just to stack a step out of the echo chamber that is our day to day you know.
Well, it breeds empathy, sympathy, compassion, understanding. Like I was saying earlier, if you had the DNA of a human being, you were brought up by their parents, you went to
their school, you had their trials and tribulations. You might be judging them at this point as a forty fifty sixty year old, but they have no choice, and you would be making the same choice with their conditioning, right, So it just breeds a lot more compassion, you know, like you understand why people think, feel and behave the
way they do because of their fundamental beliefs. And if you're not willing to dig into understanding what their fundamental beliefs are, then you're probably just going to be in juxtaposition and judging people, which agren creates all the hostility
we have the world. As you said, there's a lot of people I know who do shit that I just have no interest in, but at least I understand why they do it, you know, we don't have to adopt those behaviors, but boy, can I have a greater sense of empathy to realize why they struggle with what they struggle with, why they choose to do what they do, and it that that for me, is a much more compassionate way to deal with humans.
I think also Pete Pa c s mate Cock. Yeah, I think also that people confuse. I understand that with I condone that yes, absolutely, yeah, you know, and it's like I understand war, but I fucking hate it. I understand violence, but I abhor it. People. You know, you can't overcome what you don't understand by the way, you know, like you know, we seeking to understand things doesn't mean I want to become that or I want to adopt or adapt into that, you know, it's like I need to.
I'm really interested in how people think. Even if I think they're thinking is completely fucked and toxic, I'm still interested because I want to understand that, you know, especially with my research, I want to understand where this person is at and how they got there without judgment, just awareness.
Yeah, and that's what I would call acceptance with the capital A. You know, it's then that really is an iteration of love, right, Like I tell people I love everyone, it doesn't mean I want to hang out with them. Yeah, you know, there's my acceptance of something or someone, and then there's my personal preference that is part of that. I'm not going to invite someone who does Heroin over to my house for Christmas, but I can have love and compassion for for that. That's where they are, and
I am in acceptance of that. First of all, the audacity of a human being to think that they.
Know how everybody else should act.
Like when you really get that when they're complaining about a parent, a spouse, a loved one or whoever, there's this undercurrent of audacity that is implying that we mighty old me know how the world should be. It's like I didn't get the memo that Harps was in charge of the universe, you know. It's like, of course, if you are, then then please give me my marching orders. I'm sorry if I've been out of line, you know,
but it just it's very humbling, you know. And I think the greatest, the most intelligent people on this planet, who at least have some semblance of spirituality or connected to their heart also have a huge amount of humility, which is that we're really tiny compared to not only the planet, but the planet is a spec relative to our solar system. Our solar system is a spec relative
to the universe. So if you're sitting on this ball of mud thinking that you know how your freaking neighbors should be taking care of the hedge, I mean, good luck to you. You're gonna, you know, end up with some liver crhosis based on how much you're going to be drinking from your frustrations.
Well, that's just the ausy way.
Anyway we're gonna sure is we're going to call this episode You're insignificant. Well, okay, we're going to wind up, but I want to ask you a couple of things before we go. The idea of being people's balk or people struggle with this idea of of objectivity. One of the things I ask audience is when we actually have
audience and we're not in lockdown. Back in nineteen seventy five, the last time I did a live gig, I ask a room full of people, put up your hand if you think your open mind are objective, And everyone puts up their hand, and I go, well, none of you are right, and they all crack the shits and I go, but neither am I. So it's okay, we're the same.
But this trying to help people to understand the subjectivity of being human and the human experience, and understanding that we all process everything through our own window of understanding and values and beliefs and biases and fears and ideas and ideologies. How do we I mean this is a
question without notice. I don't even know if you have a thought on it, But how do we become less looking through our window and more open to be able to understand others and genuinely less attached to being right? Like so many fucking Australians want to be right. I'm like chee. It's like an addiction because not being right means I'm wrong, and being wrong means fuck, I feel vulnerable. I don't want to feel vulnerable. So despite the evidence, you're all wrong and I'm right.
Yeah, it's the number one priority of the ego.
It's the way that it justifies any sense of self worth, which is pretty pathetic, but nonetheless it's human.
So for that reason we have love and compassion.
Right, But I think you know that's one of the first introductions to perhaps becoming somewhat evolved is to realize, like how petty that particular behavior adaptation is to insecurity is like, well, if I can make my wife wrong, if I can make my kids wrong, if I can make my boss wrong, then at least I get some sort of sense of self value. And if that's really the only way then I'm going to get self value,
then my life isn't going to amount to much. So I think that just to notice the behavior first of all, is can be quite revelatory for people, and they go, holy shit, you know that's pretty childish, honestly, Yeah, But to your point of how do we get beyond that that actually start to step into open or being open, I think the funny thing is it's almost like you don't have to worry about it because you're fucked either way, right, Like, I'll give you a story. I can remember Klein came
to me. He wasn't married, but he had a child with a woman, and his family very very traditional Catholic, you know, big he had I think four or five siblings, and they were getting together for Thanksgiving.
Now they knew this woman was around.
It wasn't like it was a secret that they had a kid, but there was some sort of energy of contention about the fact that he wasn't married and they'd had a kid, you know, relative to the beliefs of Catholicism. So he came to me knowing that his relationship was on the skits, like she was very difficult to deal with, you know, he knew that it was coming to an end. So his question was, I don't know whether to go with her to Thanksgiving because then it will give the
impression that everything's fine when it's not. But if I don't go with her, then they're going to wonder what's going on. Right, So this is how the brain works, right, it's zeros and ones, zeros and ones binary, And this is why we realize that anyone who comes from the computer world is full of shit. In case everyone gets that reference, it's zeros and ones doesn't work, you know, this is this is not a mechanical world. We're on a quantuant level. So I said to him, listen, it
doesn't matter. He's like, well, what do you mean it doesn't This is big, This is big. I said no, because you're looking in the wrong place.
Right.
Did you watch her Raiders of the Lost Arc? Do you remember that with Harrison full who didn't bro one of the greatest movies. Right, And there's a scene where they're the French archaeologist who's his nemesis, who's got all the machines and like that's representing corporate Americas digging for the art and he and his like girlfriend and that's about.
It, and he's got that chubby guy who's helping him.
They suddenly realize looking at the map of where the arc is, they're not actually digging in the right place. And his words, they're digging in the wrong place. And you get this euphoric feeling like, oh my god, they're digging in the wrong place.
So this is what people do. They dig in the wrong place.
With some resolution to something without getting into the deeper levels of why they have the problem in the first place.
Right. So I went to my guy and I said, listen, it doesn't matter. He's like, what do you mean?
I said, until you realize that the deeper issue is that you don't feel loved and accepted by your own family to be honest enough with whatever you're dealing with.
You're not perfect you're not supposed to have got it all right, that's where your issue is.
And he's like, you're so right, he said, you know, I felt completely estranged from my family for many years. I'm like, yeah, because you've got self judgment. You never got married, and you're in this dialogue that keeps you separate.
They love you. Maybe that's not what they wanted for you, but that's the issue. Take it or don't take it.
You still have to face the fundamental, deep principle that you.
Don't feel loved. So to go back to your question, how do we find this openness? Don't worry.
Life will give you shit to handle, to see where you're not open. So it goes back to wherever you get triggered, wherever you get upset, wherever you suffer. Now, of course the issue, a lot of people deny it. They don't look at it, They drink, they smoke, they avoid it.
Right.
Well, you know, to me, fears are the greatest thing that we can be given because it shows us where we're not actually understanding our own magnificence. So fears are the catalyst for our own awakening. So stop avoiding fears and jump straight into them.
You're quite good at this. I've got a name for you. I think you should I've got to label a moniker. I think you should take it for a test drive've maybe use it. You're welcome. I think you should call yourself the mind architect.
Wow, did you just come up with that? Yeah? Like that me.
I can see why. I can see why that jumbo eight year old in that room could really like analos do this analysis of these adults around him. You've got some sort of like gem of genius in you that I just don't even know how to articulate.
I try not to wheel it out much. It's a gift and it's intimidating for others. So I keep that shit low key because I want you to keep feeling special. So You're welcome.
You are, you are your eggs Son borderline sort of Samaritan saint like like Tiff, you know, the fact that she puts up with you.
I'm like at the intersection of the Delli Lama, Jesus, Aristotle, Epictitis, and Marcus Aurelius, just a bit of everything.
And Debbie from Debbie does Dallas's.
Just you know, just a bit of fun and fucking and Humphrey Bear who you don't know.
Who that is, but a no, I remember him the best, actually the best. I was actually once accused of being a love child after share just because it was funny by the Financial Times in the UK. The journalist said, meeting Peter Crohne is like meeting Buddha, Einstein and Austin Powers at the same time.
Yeah, baby, yeah.
Yeah, Well do you feel randy, baby? I love that that is. You should definitely put that on a T shirt and wear that shit around.
I thought it was kind of perfect because, like, you know, Buddha's all the spiritual shit. Einstein, let's get into the actual practical part of being human and physics, and then Einstein's like.
Yeah, let's shag and let's not take things too seriously. Baby, It's all about love. Yeah, you know.
So anyway, I think that all of that stuff can coexist, right. I think we can be deep thinkers, and we can be loving and kind and compassionate and clever and funny and inappropriate. You know. I feel some people feel compelled to be a certain way. I'm spiritual, are you like? Even the fact that you say I'm spiritual maybe makes me think you're not but or whatever, you know, just this whole thing of being able to be yourself whatever that means. Mate, I love talking to you. You are really,
really an interesting person. And I didn't know, but now I know, and I've checked you out. You're amazing, and you're doing great work, and you're an I mean, I know you know all this shit, but I love the way that you communicate what can be complicated things in a very digestible way. Tell people where they can catch up with you, follow you, you know, connect with you well personally.
Thank you. It means a lot. It's been a pleasure.
Obviously we'd never had the chance to chat before, but I feel we could chat for a few hours and meet your friend over at the coffee shop and talk about Islam and whatever. But they can find me at Peter Crone Officials, Instagram and then just my website Petercrone dot com. I think Peter Crone and mine architect on Facebook. I'm not a big Facebook person, you know. If people prefer that method of connection, that's where they can find me.
You're fantastic. If you stay on the call for one minute after we sign off, that'd be great, Tiff, Thank you.
Thanks halfs. Thanks Peter, it was excellent, Tiff.
I mean, I saw you make a couple of notes or maybe you're just writing love notes to a boyfriend or something.
I don't know, but did you capture something of profound interest there?
I actually do you know? What I found interesting is when I reached out to you, I had this not a hesitation, but I thought, you're so similar in what you talk about to Craig. But what I loved especially with this and we had, you know, a lot of a lot of different people on but you guys have these similar concepts, but you're you articulate them so differently.
And I really loved this conversation a lot. But he did fail to ask one really important question that I need to right now, and that is who has signed the boxing glove behind you?
Ah, the powers of observation? He is still early. Craig's got to like, he's got to wipe his glassle So so I'll give you a I'll give you a guest.
Oh Ali.
Done? Oh wow? Well what you mean?
Ali?
G right?
Like answer? Yeah? What's his name?
Cohen, Sasha Basha Cohen, whatever his name is, Sasha Baron Cohen. I think Aaron he's funny. Well, TIFs a boxer, so she loves.
Oh all right, Well, if ever I come down there, which would be a joy to connect at some point, As I said, it'd be fun to have a coffee. Then I'll make sure I don't do anything to piss off TIF.
Yeah, that's why we work remotely because she punches me in the face when I shit her, which is pretty often. She's quite aggressive. She smiles and stuff because you're here. But it's a fucking show.
Yeah again.
Oh yeah, one thing, Champion before we go. You've got a program coming up. Tell us a little bit about that and how people might get involved.
I do, thank you. It's it's been fun.
I've done these workshops, certainly through this whole COVID period where people have struggled with stuff, and so we've got one coming up middle of June. I'll confirm the date. But it's on anxiety.
You know.
I realized that I speak to a lot of these things, relationship health, but something that really plagues everybody is that arena of worry, concern, apprehension, fear and anxiety. So it's only a couple of hours, but it's usually very profound. I'm actually going to unpack the precursors to why anyone worries about anything as part of our subconscious so incredibly powerful.
So great, I might even come. Obviously it's online. I actually might come. Can I get a discount or anything?
Is there? Yeah, I'll send you the family mates.
Great, all right, mate, perfect mate, stay on the call. Thank you so much for spending some time with us on the You project.
Yeah, and welcome, Thanks me.
Thanks everyone,