Tiffany and Cook. Good afternoon, Good afternoon. Welcome to the You Project. Welcome to the show that you work on all the time. How are you?
What a pleasure, What a pleasure to be here. I'm really good today because have you seen have you looked out the window?
I just went for a walk and I had to wear a baseball cap, which is first time I've broken out the baseball cap since last summer. I do look like a bit of an old fucking rickety baseballer. And it was beautiful. I even wore my black T shirt out had got disposed of the flannel and got a little bit of color on their arms. Beautiful.
It is medicine. It is just medicine for me.
Yeah, it's funny, how I mean, it's not funny, but it is true. What an impact. Just when we talk about how your environment affects you, situation, circumstance, nature, even the office that you work in, the people that you're around.
But walking out, i'd looked before. When I walked out, it was twenty one degrees and it was like, so it wasn't hot, but it was beautiful, wasn't cold, And I'm like, oh, this is just it's just that put me in a better biochemical state, just going and doing the walk I always do, but in a much kind of a different vibe to the last four months. It's very nice. I came home with a coffee and very happy me too.
I took the dog for an early walk. I went, I had to go get new tires on my car. I got to walk to a cafe, sit and do some work. What a day?
How much did you ties costure? I know that's not a very good podcast question, but fuck it, I'm just in. Can I guess? Can I guess?
Go on?
How many ties did you get?
Four?
And can we tell everybody what kind of car you got? Just so they know that of a toy to chr Right, So I'm going to go, so you got four all brand new fit.
Yep, yep, and a wheel alignment and.
A wheel alignment? Where did you get it done at?
Oh?
Do we not want to say? It doesn't matter to right, I'm going to guess nine hundred and fifty dollars.
No, you've you've failed?
What how much?
Twelve hundred and seventy nine?
Okay, Well they're not giving those bad boys away, are they?
Sure not?
That's three hundred and something. Did they do a deal for you? Because they're always doing a deal that's not really.
I've got some good Perrelli tires they were they were on specially that little deal. I get to go back in another three months for a free check AUP on the wheel alignment. Good lads, actually really really happy with them. They were really nice.
Well shout out to them. How good is it when you get like a pretty good product and you get really good customer.
Service, Especially when you're a chick and you're dealing with car stuff, Like when you've got to ring up and go I need new tires on my cap and I don't know anything about tires, and you've got to trust that this bloke on the other end of the phone is going to tell you actually what you need and give you a good price.
Do you ever feel like saying now, I don't know. Yeah, it's like saying I don't know anything about tires is true, but it also is it a bad idea to say that? Because you say that, but also say please don't rip me off. Please don't rip me off, because I don't want to have to come back. Also, I'm a lethal weapon. I don't want to have to come back and punch you in the face. You could say something like that, be a bit funny.
That's true, that's true, that is funny. I just liked they had a really trustworthy tone energy, you know you just yeah energy they did. I just felt I felt good. Thanks. Bob Jane should sponsor the podcast, by the.
Way, Yeah, bloody Bob Jane. By the way, where I'm not sponsored by them, but if you feel like it, just yell out, well, good, I'm glad you've got new ties. We need you safe on the road. We don't want you sliding off into anything. It's Monday. It's Monday, the twenty ninth of the ninth, two thousand and twenty five, and it's a new week, and it's my birthday yesterday, and I kept that low key, super low key and
just how I like it. It took all my birthday stuff off the interwebs a few years ago, so to my knowledge, it doesn't say my day to birth anywhere, and I kind of like that. I didn't see anyone until later in the day at all. Just went for a big, big walk along the beach, nearly ten k straight from my joint down to the beach, then down to way past Sandy and weave back around through suburbia like a fucking loser with my headphones on, just singing a happy birthday to me, you sad old count.
I was singing that, and now on to my message. That was rude. I waited all day for a response to that message. Didn't come through it.
Or didn't you? You send me something early and I didn't get it till lout, But I did respond to other stuff, didn't I didn't I respond.
To that sadly. It's not really dead. But I'm not going to do Melissa. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna call. I'm not going to call anyone and check. But if you're alive. I did keep an eye on socials to make sure you'd responded to things online, just in cass.
Melissa does think if she rings me and I don't call back within half an hour, it's like, all right, he's dead. He's absolutely dead. He's died.
Your phone wasn't on or you were on it, one of the two. And I was like that Craig's phone always rings. Yeah, something's wrong.
And also if I'm going anywhere, that's more than like five or ten kilometers on the motorbike. Yeah, she always she's like thinks she's not a fan of motorbikes. And for sure, if I haven't, if I haven't picked up by the second ring, I'm dead. Well.
There was the strip of good value for money though there stripper stripper.
Yeah, yeah, he was great. I wish he maybe had have shaved up a little bit and kept his fucking board shorts on, but look, he was good. He was a nice guy. We spooned on the couch for a while, we watched we watched a rom com and he left about lunchtime and kissed me on the cheek, tapped me on the bottom and yeah he was great. So thanks for that. Photos coming soon.
Don't sound of buy you anything.
What are we talking about. We're not talking about birthdays and fucking car tires and people like Come on, get to the self development, personal development, fucking live our best life. Come on, let's get to that. We don't need your personal bullshit, you too, Let's just.
Rummage around in that magnificent brain of yours. That's just getting smarter and more efficient and more inspiring every day.
I wish that were the case, but that I'll tell you what. It's my It's better than it was a couple of weeks ago when I was in a Cerea, I was backstroking in fucking pea soup. That was my mind when I thought I was going insane and I had an infection I didn't know about, and my IQ plummeted to seven and I had to help get people to help me do up my shoes. I'm like, fuck, what is going on?
SA?
Well, that's a bad that's a bad feeling when you feel like your brain's starting to not work.
You're still eighty percent smarter than me, So that's that's terrifying to.
Know again again. Intelligences, context, situation and task dependent. Some rooms, I'm smarter than you, some rooms you're smarter than me. Will leave it at that.
Hey, I wanted to ask you about the stuff you know and the stuff you teach. I was thinking about it, and I was thinking, do you, or have you, across your life learned things to teach them or taught them so you can learn them?
Oh? Wow, taught them? I mean I think sometimes I'll read something that I this is a good question or this is a good thing to think about for everyone. I think not just me, but so you learn things.
You know, It's like sometimes I'll learn or sometimes I'll know something inherently, Like I could tell you that it's important to understand how other people think, right, and you know that, like you inherently and intuitively know that if I tell you that, especially now that you've heard me so so often, But you don't go, oh, fuck, I never thought about that. It's something that we realize, well, if you can understand others, you can connect with others.
And then but then one day you learn, oh, there's a name for that, understanding how other people think. There's a name for that. That's actually a construct in psychology psychological literature, and it's called theory of mind, you know. And then you go oh, and then you dig into that, and then you read about how that works and what's that about, and what are all the variables that impact
your ability to understand how people think? You know, and there's like false consensus effect where you people just assume that other people think like them, and there's a name for that. And you know, there's another thing called psycho neuroimmunology that we spoke about the other day, which means that what's going on in your head, and your emotions
affects your immune systems. So there's all these things that we either kind of know or inherently know, and then we find out later on, oh, this is actually a scientific thing, but you knew it intuitively, right. And then sometimes when I learn, oh, that's actually called this like this thing that I inherently knew or thought I knew one it's real, and two there's been research on it, and three this is what it's called in scientifical or
psychological literature. So then I'll go I've learned a thing, I've learned a name, I've learned, and I've expanded my knowledge because I did a bit of research into that
initial thing. So there's there's that kind of learning which I share, and then there's I guess the best way is to explain experiential learning or experienceential knowledge is for me being like when I talk about, say obesity to people, or I talk about health, or I talk about being out of shape, or I talk about the relationship between overweight, being overweight, being obese, and the potential psychological, physiological, and
health variables around that state of overweight. Then I go by the way I've had weight issues for about a third of my life. And you know, I talk about all that stuff. So when I talk about childhood obesity, I'm talking experientially. When I talk about being a teenager
that was morebidly obese and all of that. I can share some of the stuff around the sociology and psychology and physiology and practicality of it, But more than anything, I'm just speaking as a kid, as a one time fat kid who dealt with all the practical and interpersonal challenges of that. So I'm not really speaking about research that I read about childhood obesity. So I think for me and and not just for me, but I think
like you also do this. I think the really good teachers or coaches are people who can combine acquired knowledge through research and study and reading and listening. You know, where now we've oh, I learned something. I learned about this thing and I know its name, and I know how. There's that kind of acquired knowledge, and then there's the you know knowledge that you gain it the cold face, you know, like the doing, the showing up and the doing and the work. It's like, how much do you
know about producing and uploading and figuring out podcasting? What will work, what won't, how close to be on the mic, how far away to be, you know, what kind of conversations, what kind of questions, blah blah blah. I would say that for you, ninety nine point nine percent of your significant knowledge about how to produce and create and sell and deliver a high quality podcast is all about what you've done. It's not about anything that you read on
how to create a podcast. It's not about you know, maybe you and I had a couple of conversations early days, but you've been involved in this for years. So there's that kind of I know a lot about podcasting because I've done a lot of fucking podcasting, and I've made a lot of mistakes, you know, So I think it's I do do stuff to you know, like even with my PhD, like I share a fair bit about of that.
But all that also, you know, even though I'm talking about metaperception, how others see us and our ability to understand that I was talking about that fifteen years ago. I've got notes from fifteen years ago that literally talk about the you experience like that I wrote in you know, twenty ten, two thousand and eight. I've got old notes where I'm talking about this idea that I didn't know you had a name because I just thought I called it the you experience. What's it like being around you?
Because I think it matters? And then you know ten years later, I go, oh, there's this whole raft of research around this thing that you talk about, Craig. And so it's that convergence of that I think that makes I think not only for good teaching and coaching and conversation on a podcast, but also for you as a learner.
If you can kind of if you can kind of merge what you read with what you do, and what you're doing gets reinforced by what you're reading or vice versa, then that I think that knowledge and that learning sticks. It's like if I read something and then I never kind of have any real world experience around that theoretical idea or construct, it tends to fall out of my head.
So how closely connected when you think of all of the areas that you've taught in, whether that be in the gym or now theory of mine and all of the things in between, the things you've focused on, how closely connected to each of those things or what percentage of them have you been closely connected to in something that you had to learn or overcome yourself.
Yeah, that's that's a really good question. And I think when you ask that question, it makes me feel I'm kind of selfish in that I tend to just pay attention to shit that I'm really fascinated with and stuff that affects me. But also I think the good part, luckily for me, it's kind of relevant for most humans, you know, like what's it beening around me? It's relevant
for most people. Physical health is relevant for everyone, you know, managing your nutrition, managing your choices, try to trying to understand what's intentional living, Like how do I live on purpose rather than by accident? You know, these kind of philosophical, bigger questions. What is my purpose? What are my values? Why am I here? What does it matter? What will my life look like in one, two, five, ten years,
all of that stuff. Yes, so I think that. I think though that most people who say get into personal development or psychology, or even people who get into personal training, like I would say, and God bless them, because I'm one of the people I'm about to identify, I would say, a disproportionate number of people who become personal trainers have body issues or food issues or do you know what
I mean? Because I did, and that's why, you know, I became the fat kid who became the fit kid, who became the obsessed kid who then tried to wind back the obsession and become a bit more practical and logical. But that initial curiosity about the body and health and high performance was the initial kind of starting point was you know, my all of my issues around that. And then I guess trying to understand the mind, you know, for me very much, trying to understand my own mind.
And I think that's you know, this is almost like the greatest adventure in self awareness. Is you trying to understand you, literally the you project. I mean, this is
this is it? If you can't understand you, you know why you do stuff you do, and why you don't do stuff you don't do, and why you avoid things you shouldn't avoid, and why you say things that you regret five seconds later, and why you're fucking you know, sixty years old and still looking for attention and approval, or you know, why you're doing things which are essentially a form of self destruction and self sabotage when you know better now all of these things are just interesting
to me. And also by the way, you know, how awesome am I sometimes? And also by the way, wow, I did better than I ever like, I've done better in my life. And I don't think I'm the high watermark for success, and I never pumped my ties up, but I've done more great stuff in my life than I ever imagined I would do when I was the fourteen year old fucking facted in Latroe Valley ever, you know,
like I look back and there's nothing but gratitude. But what it does for me is I go, well, I can do two thousands of this, thousand episodes of this podcast, and I can write a bunch of books, and I can do it whatever, and I can travel around the world and speak and people actually fucking listen. And then you go, what else can I do? Like? What else can I do? You know? Because it's that you can't get confidence by not doing stuff. You can't build skill
and capacity and understanding by thinking about getting it. You literally have to go and try stuff and fall down, fail, fuck up, get back up, and then you look up one day and you're now five years into this journey where you know you're becoming a boxer. You get in the ring, you've got you go to your first class. You don't know how to throw a punch. You don't even know what a hook or an uppercut or a jab. You don't even know what these words are. And then
one day you wake up and you've won. You've had all these boxing matches and you've won titles, and now you talk to corporate. It's about this journey you had in boxing and the lessons out of that. But you couldn't do any of that had you not gone to the first class, got your ass handed to you, and you know, learn stuff like this is there's no avoiding
the journey. And I think it's the Yes, it's the intersection of knowing things and understanding the theory of this or that, Like understanding the theory of how to eat grape is not the same as eating grape.
Yeah, now, hell, I love it. How long this might have changed over the years, I'm guessing, so maybe you'll elaborate. I don't need to tell you to elaboraten to do I how well far ahead of your audience do you generally find yourself when you're choosing to step in and teach those things that you're learning or have learned.
Do you mean in real time? Yeah?
I guess like we yeah, like now yeap now or when you first So, I mean it would have been different when you were young Craig who decided to open the first personal training studio, because you've just learned a thing and there's not really a timeline on becoming an expert at that you just go, well, I'll make this
up and do it. But we you know, like I remember when fight Fit gave me that my first job in fitness and allowed me to train people there and said, oh, you're one of the one of the fighters is signed up and once you was their coach, and I shit myself and went, what I what I can't teach someone. I didn't realize how much knowledge I had and how far ahead I was.
Right.
Yeah, I think listeners because you know what, I think listeners will be interesting because we have imposter syndrome and we all have things to teach. But also there's you know, I know you've talked about learning from fucking like having a business coach that's failed in all of their businesses, Like how do you so how do people start their thing and create something and teach people when they're just one or two steps ahead, Like, what is that point?
Yeah, well I think you know. I think you just start off by as a coach anyway, Like I try not to put myself on a pedestal. I don't think you'll ever hear in any of the two thousand episodes me say I'm an expert, or i'm you should do what I think you should do, or what I try to do is just I try to be real and raw and relatable but also know what I feel confident
and capable and valuable to others in. Even when I go and like and I've spoken of probably thousands of companies by now, But even when I go and work with a company and I'm in a corporate space and I'm working with an organization and we're at work and everyone's in suits and frocks and whatever everyone's were, and I'm in that, I still don't talk about business or commerce or the bottom line or systems, or I talk
about people because I'm not a business expert. And even though I've owned businesses and I've employed lots of people and I've done okay, I literally say Look, I'm not in here to talk to you about the bottom line or business or the infrastructure or this, so that I'm here to talk to you about how you're all going individually and not as cogs in the machine or not as employees, but rather just as humans who do good stuff and dumb stuff and make decisions and fail and
fuck up and get back up. And I think that's the authenticity or trying to be authentic anyway while still being you know, like, it's all well and good to get on and bang on about what I think and why I think, and what you think and where you've been, but also you and I still need to be of value to the listener. And yeah, we need to be real and relatable, but we also need to be able to say, look, here are a few things that worked for me. I'm not saying go do them. I'm saying
I had this problem. This is what I did. I had this challenge. This is how it worked out for me. You know, this is how I developed as a speaker and a podcast or an author and an academic and a not particularly hugely talented individual who decided to figure out what the fuck he could try and do if he didn't give up, right, So this is and I think it's in your journey and your lessons and your
revelations without you necessarily directing anyone. That's the goal. Like, I love it when I hear people that I know when I interviewed, I think you're on there with me. Mark Randolph, who created Netflix, and just talking to the guy that fucking built Netflix. And he didn't go, all right, well this is you know step one, I did this and step two. I just I'm like talking to a guy who built one of the biggest things in the world, who's a billionaire, and I'm just interested in how he thinks.
I'm interested in where did you start with that? Then? What'd you do? And how did you deal how did you navigate that problem and that issue and that challenge? Okay, and now you're sixty odd and you're worth all of this money. So what drives you now? What makes you happy now? What stresses you now? Are you still working a million hours a week? What does work look like?
Do you work at all? And just like I think it's in hearing other people's stories rather than other people's instructions to us that for me anyway, I like learning that way rather than someone going Craig, all right, I wanted to talk to you about grief. You know, I know this silly example. We spoke to Rachel the other day, Rachel Pope about grief. But you know, and you know,
here are the four steps. I'd just rather if I'm grieving, or I'm sad, or I'm upset, I would maybe want to talk to somebody who is going through similar themselves, just to see what they do. And you know, so I don't even know what you asked me, but I did go on a long verbal bloody ride.
Then good lad, good lad? When all right? So, I know there's areas that you've stepped into that you don't have experience, like working with addicts. What and maybe you want to call out other areas or not, or just answer the question, Yeah, for sure relevant? But what what when you when you did that? What did you How did you draw the perception of what you thought you needed to know? How did you like? How did you
land there? How did you become the guy that taught people to overcome addictions that you never even touched?
Yeah? Great question. Okay, so let me just clarify a little bit, just a slight correction. So I didn't teach them to overcome addictions. I essentially when they went in there to just talk to them about all the health, wellness, nutrition, lifestyle stuff. But I was working literally in an addiction recovery setting with addicts, and so, yes, you're correct, the learning curve for me was steep. And so did I know Did I have a pretty high level of knowledge
about what I was teaching? Yes? Did I have a high level of understanding of who I was talking to? No, I really didn't. And so that for me was the challenge. But it's like anything like I could say to you, Tiff, I want you, I've organized, I've organized for you to do pre season with hamp and Rovers Football Club, who are not that far from me. Right, I'm going to give you some tips and advice. I've worked with my ball sporting teams, Elite Club Da Da Da Da Da.
I'm going to give you some advice. But then you're going to write their pre season. You're not doing forty stuff, you're just doing conditioning, and you're working with forty blokes and they range from seventeen to thirty five, and that Dada, you would probably shit yourself and you can't just do everything boxing. No, You've actually got to figure out how to build strength, muscular endurance, aerobic endurance, how to help people rehab, how to build flexibility, IMpower, all of that stuff.
Right now, I know you could do that, but I know the first time that you did that, that would be hard, that would be a steep learning curve. But I know the fourth time that you did that, it'd be a piece of piss. Right. But you can't get to the fourth time without doing the first time. You can't come. You can't become that personal trainer or that exercise specialist that you are with that knowledge and that competence and that skill without doing it the first time.
And so when you go the first time, like when I wrote my first book, I know this is not going to be the best book ever written. But I also know that everyone who's successfully published wrote a first book, and so this is just the journey. And so you don't go in thinking I'm going to be shit hot. You go in thinking I'm going to do my very best and hopefully I will learn quick and hopefully I will I will meet some needs in this environment for
what I meant to do. But I just think you know, you be you go in and you be humble you go I don't think I was arrogant when I was went into the addiction space, but I just was unprepared. Like I didn't think, oh, I'm going to kill it. I just yeah, And for those who haven't heard me talk about it, I just didn't really understand how people with those challenges. I didn't understand the lens through which they viewed a lot of things that we were talking about.
And then so the guy who is pretty competent at building connection and rapport wasn't building connection or rapport. And I'm like, fucking all my Craig tricks are not working, you know. And so you're using the right tool in the wrong setting or using the wrong tool, you know. And it's like, oh this my bullshit doesn't work here because they don't trust me. I don't speak like them. I don't I'm not like them. They think I'm a
fucking idiot. And then you're like, Okay, so before I share my wisdom, maybe I should try and understand them.
So what's your advice to people who how do we marry that scenario and land in a place and have both rapport and respect and trust without faking it till we make it and being inauthentic, Like how do you stick in all a space and go fuck? I don't know as much as I feel like I should, but I have to know a bit so that they feel comfort stable and trust the process, but also don't see right through me.
Yeah. So last year I did a gig for the Victorian Ladies cricket team. I've never worked with a cricket team, right, all of my knowledge of cricket is probably could be stored in your little finger. Like, I mean, I've watched cricket and all that, but I am in now and you're talking about one of the best cricket teams in Australia and all of a sudden and obviously there I
wasn't there to teach them how to play cricket. But yeah, it's like I go in and I say, well, fortunately for you, I'm not here to tell you anything about crickets, so thank God for that, right, And you just I think you go in there and you you kind of express potentially like I think without going in there and throwing yourself under the bus when you go in and you go, look, I definitely am not an addiction specialist, but I do know fear about fair bit about you know,
nutrition and training and exercise and health and human body or I don't know a lot about cricket. I kind of understand the basics, and you know, I can I understand kind of what I think the main physiological attributes are that we need. But you know, so that's my disclaimer, but I do know a fair bit about this stuff,
and that's why I'm here. But also I really want your input and feedback because you can teach me about cricket and as I teach you about how to optimize your genetic potential and your physiology to be the best cricketer. And also let's open the door on the mind stuff a little bit so that we can figure out how to self regulate under pressure, whatever it is. But you're not going in there going hey, I know you guys have got problems. I'm the answer. So fucking sit in
your bean bag and soak it all in. You know, I think people, you know, it's like imagine just walking in with a big fucking black T shirt and splashed across you know, the answers here. You're welcome. But that's I think It's like, for me, this makes me you know, and I've said this before, you know, I hate this. I hate it when people, basically, especially experts, and I use that term very loosely, they essentially present themselves as the answer to people's problems. I'm like, that is the
most arrogant bullshit. And by the way, most of those people who present themselves on many of them, they don't even have their own shit together, right. There have been times when I've been well, I don't think I try to present myself as answer, but I know myself. I'm like, I'm still struggling with I'm still figuring shit out. But I think that you know that having that self awareness in the moment, and you know that avoiding that I've
changed this many people's lives. So like, when people tell me how many lives they have changed, I go, Okay, did you get out of bed for them? Did you make the decision for them? Did you do the work for them? Were you courageous for them? Did you eat the food for them? Did you have the heart? You didn't fucking change their life. They changed their life, and maybe maybe you helped a little bit, But I haven't
changed anyone's life, and I've spoken to fucking problem. Well, definitely millions of people over the podcast you know, where twenty million listens over the last eight years or something ridiculous. And I know there's very few repeat customers there, but you know, we're talking lots of people across lots of platforms.
But every person that has intersected with me and then gone on to do not because of me, but subsequent to encountering me, and it may have had nothing to do with me, by the way, but they've gone on to do something amazing. I didn't do any of the work. I literally didn't do any of the work. They literally did all of it the work, and that is why, you know, I just think, you know, I wrote something the other day which sounds like a bit like spiritual psychobably,
but I say to people, I'm not the gift. I'm just the conduit to the gift. It's like, I'm not the answer, but I might have some answers for you. And I think if you realize truly as a teacher, as a coach, as a mentor whatever, if you realize you're not the gift and you are just it is a gift to be able to help people. I think that, and that you might be a conduit or you might open a door to help them. Then I think people
are going to and one, this is real. This is not some manufactured fucking image that you know, Oh look at me, I'm super humble, but this is how you are. People just trust you. The nicest thing that people can say to me, pretty much is when I meet them away from this show, they go, oh, you're exactly the same. I love that. They go, oh my god, you're exactly
the same. And I go, of course, you know, because I imagine doing two thousand hours of podcasting where you're pretending to be something you're not.
What's the difference and what are the similarities that you find working with elite athletes or executives and everyday people.
Ah, well, obviously this is not the answer you're looking for. But obviously they're all human, which means obviously they've all got insecurity, self doubt, overthinking, self loathing periodically. But I think, you know, the common denominator across say, corporates and elite athletes and maybe not so much the general public, but will come. We'll circle back to that. As the kids say, is that you know most people, in not all people, but most people, depending on the level we're talking about
in corporate, are pretty ambitious. Most elite athletes are pretty ambitious. They want to do more, be more, create more, succeed. So I think there's that level of drive and motivation that you don't necessarily find in everyone. And then you know, kind of the general public, you know, I think they are motivated perhaps by different things, but also the general public are elite athletes do and the general public are
business owners and all of that. But I think the thing that you know, everybody wants to feel like they matter. Everybody wants to belong, everybody like nobody wants to be miserable.
Everybody wants to be successful. But I think the mistake that we make, whether it's in the corporate space, the elite sport sporting space, or the elite sports space, or general public, is I think we put way too much emphasis on including me, by the way, including me, We put way too muchmphasis on external results, what people are going to see, and we have way too much belief in if I create this outcome, or I get that thing, or I do that thing, that's just going to create
this incredible internal state of bliss, of harmony, of joy, of contentment, of and it tends not to it tends
to be fleeting. You know. It's like you think of all the boys that won the all the men that won the AFL Grand Final two days ago, you think that none of those in the next year are going to get depressed or anxious or have a shit day or like that's the sporting pinnacle for the biggest sport in Australia and they won, And do you think they're not going to have as many struggles in the next three, six, twelve months as anyone?
I would say potentially even more more. Imagine now what the baseline feels like. The baseline would feel like the depths of despair. Imagine just coming back from cloud nine, to just come back to baseline.
Yeah, there's actually a there's a term for that which escapes me. But yeah, it's that where we get to the top of the mountain and whatever we thought we were going to experience at the top, we either don't experience it or it's fleeting. And then so we had this idea, and the idea was that when I get to the top of the metaphoric mountain, whatever that means for you that that is going to create some cataclysmic,
beautiful internal shift and then I am fuck. All the ship that holds me back will diss of the anxiety and the self doubt and the overthinking and the rumor nation that'll all disappear because my self esteem will be amazing and people will know that I'm great now because I did this thing and I own this and I have that, and yeah, it's it just ain't true, and that's why you know. It's Yeah, it's why you know.
Nobody looks across the room and identify somebody who's driving a piece of shit and living in a one bedroom apartment and says, oh, wow, have you They're a success story because they're happy and they're content and they're calm and they live in a state of perpetual equanimity. Right, No one does that because we don't. We talk about that, but we don't really value it. In our culture, we really value things, which is why we look at people and go, oh, wow, she's doing great or he's doing great.
What we mean is their career is awesome, or their sporting prowess is amazing, or they're getting whatever. You know that it's more about what they're doing and getting and having than what's happening on that you know in that real world, which is like what's going on inside you. How many times have you looked like from outside you're killing it and you're Sadi Max ads to for a day or a week and you don't even know why, and you like, even when you logically go, fuck, I've
got people who care about me. I've got enough stuff, I own a few things, I make a pretty good wage. And then it doesn't necessarily equate to this positive inner experience.
How influenced do you feel by the people that surround you? And have you do you order that? Has there been times you've noticed it? And have you made decisions to distance yourself from relationships or environments due to how it influences you?
Oh? Wow, wow, So I really care about people, and I think my perspective on life and like purpose and all of that is probably not better or not worse, but not typical in that there are not many people my age who don't have a wife, or who've never had a wife or a partner, who don't have a child or a grandchild or and who you know, So my life in the sense of what is more normal for you know, sixty year old blokes in suburbia. I'm probably towards the other end of the scale, but I am.
I am slow to trust, as you know. That's not in reference to you, but you know that like I don't. Now that doesn't mean I distrust everyone. I don't. I have just and there's no what's the word, there's.
No selfdia that you don't that you question your ability to trust to make the right trust call. Because that's what I feel with me is it's not that I don't trust the person, it's that I don't trust my judgment.
Yeah, that's probably a better way I put it. Yeah, now I like that. Yeah, I've just trusted people before that I shouldn't have trusted. And like I said, there's nobody self pity and that just is what it is. But then there's also been people that I really didn't necessarily think much of or didn't think about that turned out to be incredible humans, you know. So it's it goes both ways. But I try to be I try to be strategic and also intuitive, which they seem diametrically opposed.
I think they can be synergistic. I think strategy and
intuition can go hand in hand. But I try and be strategic and intuitive about where and how I invest my emotional energy in people, and so I try to, you know, like I can only do so much where I'm just giving, giving giving to someone, where I'm sitting with someone who's got, you know, some really big challenges, and I'm there and I can go, all right, well, I can give you this time here, I can see you between this time and this time, because then I
know thirty minutes after that, I've got a podcast that I know straight after that, I've got three hours of UNI. Then I know straight after that I've got to go see my parents. So then you know, you can't be everything to everyone. And I think your mental and emotional energy, like mine, like every individual listener, it is a it is not an infinite resource like it is finite. And you know you're great, You're great, You're great, And now I hit the wall. I'm fucked. I'm fucked. I don't
have any more energy. I need food, I need bed, I need a reset, and then tomorrow and I'm up and I'm fucking amazing. But I think we all need to figure out, you know, like let's call that the petrol for our car. Where the car, it's the petrol. It's like, how much petrol do you need each day? And what's the best way to drive that through the day so that you can you can get the best ROI return on investment based on who and how you
want to be. So I would rather do not that I do coaching sessions per se much these days, but I'd rather do three amazing ones than ten shit ones. Even if it was, you know, a thousand dollars ahead. You go, well, I'd mother rather make three grand than ten grand. It's not by the way, everyone, I'm just just so it's like you want to go, how like what's my performance threshold? How much of this can I do really well? It's like I would not try and do seven podcasts today. Could I do them? Yes? Would
they all be? Well? I'm not guaranteeing this one's any good? But you know what I mean, Like, the chances of you doing one or two podcasts in a day, if you're prepped and ready, and you're a mental and emotionally in a good place, the chance of you doing one or two good ones, so to speak, is high. If you've got skill and all of that. But the chances of you doing seven good ones, no chance, but zero zero,
And so you go, well, let's not do that. You know, the chances of me going, all right, I'm going to read this academic paper that's one hundred pages long. I'm just going to sit here and read page one to page hundred and well that's done, because by page seven I'm fucking thinking about skateboards and I don't even skateboard. You know, it's like you need to go, you need to go, all right, well, here's a thing I have to do. I have to read this paper. Some people
probably could sit and read the hundred pages. I'm not that person. So then you go, well, what's the best way for me to do this? Well, probably a good plan is read five pages at a time, you know, read it, highlight it, circle stuff, underline stuff, and then you know, it might take me four days, you know, I might do twenty five pages a day. But I'm reading it, I'm understanding it, I'm relating it to my own research, I'm using it, you know. And that's you know,
just for an example. But yeah, I think that we we can be quite inefficient and unwise with our own energy, mental, emotional, physical energy, and then we wake up and we're like, a fuck, I've been wasting time and wasting my potential and wasting my energy. How do I be more strategic and intelligent about using that in a way which produces the outcomes I actually want? And also I'll shut up after this. But also when it comes to us, we
like to think we're real, practical, logical, reasonal reasonable. We're fucking not. We're more practical and reasonable and logical about helping other people. You know, when you coach someone and they rock up and they're like, here are the things I need to deal with and talk about and I need help on, it's pretty easy for you as a coach to sit back because it's not you. They're not your issues, it's not your life. So you sit back as a coach and then you go, what about this?
What about that? It's all very and I'm the same. But when it comes to me, well, I'm emotional about my body. I'm emotional. When someone says you're a dick head, I'm you know, I don't think I'm overwhelmed by or controlled by But for me to think that I'm the exception to the rule that nothing affects me, that I'm just this eye rise above all the emotional stuff that derails everybody else. Well, that's arrogance, of course. So you've got to go. Yeah, It's like, I've seen you emotional.
I've seen you irrational and emotional. I've been irrational and emotional. And then I've seen you when you're just fucking in the zone and you're just throwing three pointers basketball metaphor everyone, and you're just throwing three point after three point after, and your brain's on point and your energy is on point, and your productivity is on point, and you're like, you're fucking smashing it, you know. But that's nobody's doing that
every day, all day. So I think this comes back into this, you know, like I said the start of the show, the you project, the managing you, the self awareness, all of this.
Did you when you were younger and you were looking for mentors or insight or a path or a way to go or influence, did you notice that? Did you notice you might have put yourself into an environment and then decided, actually, this is not what I want this. I don't like the version of me that will come out of this if I follow this path.
No, not really, I mean young young, young, like in my teens, I didn't really have so much. I mean I think you look for as a young teenager, you look up to. I looked up to anyway, older teenagers that I thought had their shit together or you know. So there's that, and they're a role model without even knowing they're a role model, you know. And you always look up when you're a young boy. Not everyone does, I guess. But you know, my dad was doing quite well.
He was quite successful. I always used to Dad was not a great communicator, but he would like he taught me things. And I spoke about this the other day, or maybe about it. Dad taught me things through what he did, you know, the way that he would the way that he would navigate things. So I looked up. You know, it's like I told this. I can't remember
because I do so much stuff. But I spoke the other day in some forum about when I was fourteen, i'd already spent a couple of years working in my parents' hardware store after school and on weekends and during school holidays. They had quite a big hardware store in La Trivalian. One summer I went to work there, and and Dad said, if you basically I need he needed another employee for the summer, and he said, I will you can be that employee if you work like a man and produce
like a man or an adult. Right if you you know, if you can do the work of an adult, I will pay you an adult age. And I was fourteen years old, and this is so nineteen to seventy seven. I got paid one hundred and forty dollars a week, which back then was mind blowing, like mind blowing, and he didn't have to do that. But what I learned was, oh cool, if I make a big effort, there's actually a reward. But if I hadn't of he wouldn't have given it to me. But he realized that I was
like when I was fourteen. I was also quite mature for my age. Because I was an only child. I spent a lot of time around adults, and I always grew up in and around businesses, so I kind of got it right. But yeah, and so that kind of role modeling where I'm more interested in what people are doing than necessarily telling me, you know. And then there was other the more cheesy ones. And people will now
roll their eyes. But for me, like even someone like I started reading self help books when nobody read, well, no seventeen year old was reading. I read a book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, which was not the greatest book, but it was the start of a book. It was like part of the start of my journey. There was another book called very famous. A lot of young people never heard of it. It's called How to Win Friends and Influence People, which is a cheesy title.
I'm going to say that, yeah.
Written by Dale Carnegie in nineteen thirty six. I listened to Tony Robbins, I wore his tapes out. I listened to old school Deepak chow bra I listen. I just listened to people that I love the way they thought. I fell in love with people's minds, right. I fell in love with people who would basically suggest that, oh, maybe I don't have to be this fat, insecure, inadequate
underachiever growing up in rural Victoria. Maybe. And by the way, nobody said that to me like that was my that was I said that to me, right, So it's not
like Craig was this victim of no. I wasn't. My life was actually fine, but my opinion of me was so fucking underwhelming that when I would hear these people who came from not great beginnings to do these things that you know, it's just listening to Tony Robbins that the amount of times I heard him talk about, you know, how he lived in this four hundred square foot which is twenty by twenty one bedroom apartment in Santa Monica, and all these stories that I heard of him and
all the fuck ups and all that, And I'm like, well, if he can be shitting and then some come something, I can be shitting and become something also. So that's why I think storytelling is so powerful. That's why I think. You know, it's like, why do people listen to so many podcasts, Why don't they just listen to Why don't they just go read the data in the research because it's fucking boring and you can't remember it, and you can't apply it, you can't understand it a lot of it.
But what you can do is you can listen to people that you resonate with who have got stories and thoughts and ways of expressing information or strategies or whatever that resonates with you, which is why, you know, God love him. I don't know why, but it's why some people have listened to every episode. It's why people consistently say, you know, we love the show. And then there are other people for whom it won't resonate, of course, but
good chat, cook, good chat. We started slow, We started slow, We reached.
A we didn't like the conversation on tires.
You know, I didn't mind that. I didn't mind that. It's funny when you do this right. We should probably hang up, but we're going to keep talking. Everyone just from it, you know, Like I said to you, like one of the challenges of an everyday show is, you know, trying not to be too repetitive. And I absolutely recognize even Joe Rogan that I listened to literally some of Joe's stories I've heard him tell twenty times. I could tell this story because I know it, because it's But
what happens is he'll get a guest in. The guest doesn't know the story, so he tells the story again to the guest. But then those of us who have heard a million whatevers. But yeah, you try to be of course, you're going to keep exploring the human experience. To human condition and all of those things, But you think,
what do we do today? How do we talk about this in a way which is not overly repetitive, and especially when it's you and me, or especially when it's yesterday, I did a I did just a solo, and the amount of times I've done it just me where I think I might spend four hours thinking about what door can I open that I haven't opened, or at least you know, I don't want to bore me. I don't want to bore our listeners. And what can I give that's like a bit different or it's valuable or.
You know.
What was I can't even remember what I spoke about today in today's episode, but yeah, it was just quite different. I'm like, oh, I like this, and there I often start where now especially I go, look, I don't know the answers. I'm about to have a conversation about shit that I'm not totally sure about, but I'm interested and I'm curious, and I go, so, this is what I'm talking about. This is what I think. I don't know
what you think, but this is what I think. And I think that that kind of approach for many people that more conversational think out loud. I think that works for people, yeah, rather than the daily tutorial, you know.
Yes, yeah, I love it. I actually listen. I hadn't listened to Joe Rogan for a long time and I listened recently, and that was what I loved about it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that idea of I feel and with Rogan, he does, love him or hate him, doesn't matter. And he has guests that I'm like, I'm out. Sometimes he says stuff I'm like, nah, disagree sometimes like that's funny. But I just I like the idea of just listening to a real conversation. And if you don't think that those conversations are real, you haven't listened to him, because you know there are. It is just you cannot
script or rehearse that because they're so fucking long. Yeah, I mean three, three and a half four. There was one I listened to one. It was five hours. It's a five hour podcast and he's done over two thousand of them, you know, And it's sometimes it's rambling sometimes and for me, I'm just walking sometimes and I've just got these blokes chatting in the background, or this bloke and some lady chatting in the background. So anyway, love
you everyone. Thanks for hanging around, Tiff, it's been terrific. We'll say goodbye a fair but thank you
Thanks Harbs, thanks everyone,