#2011 Context, Perspective, Gratitude - Harps & Tiff

in our fine city by the bay. It is. We're stumbling into summer and it just clocked over daylight savings here in Victoria. Where else is it daylight savings? It's not in Queensland, I know that. Is it in w A? I don't know. We don't need to have this conversation. Probably everybody's like, fuck, really, we tuned in for daylight savings.

I don't know, I'm confused. But anyway, whatever, whatever, whatever time your body thinks it is. But I mean, here's the here's the you know, the luxury that you and I have is for a lot of what you do. Oh probably more than more me than you. But you don't have a job per se where you've got to get up every day at the same time and get on a bloody train or get in your car or

arrive at the office at a certain time. And I'm probably a little bit lucky compared to many listeners who don't have that flexibility.

They've actually got to get up an hour earlier. And because of that, like a lot of people have, Like the reason that there are so many increased car accidents and cardiac episodes and all of that is just correlates to less sleep, and when people are less well slept, then their bodies not recovered properly, and so there's more you know, cardio respiratory stress and nervous system stress and endocrine system stress, and so that equates to more deaths,

which is pretty It's quite the common sequence of daylight savings when you think about it. But anyway, that's what we do. We're not changing it. I don't know that government are tuning in thinking fuck ups and Tiff have just blown the lid off that we've got to We've got to have a Head of government meeting.

summer person. If you could only have summer all year or winter all year, what would you have? Oh?

with Spring. Everyone, let's send her a card. Fuck and hew for you.

We're talking about perspective and context. And I won't have the same conversation with you, even though the listeners didn't hear it. But you know today as we record at October six and Jane O'Brien, who's a friend of mine, who if you have not heard that episode, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Not because I'm brilliant, not because the actual recording audio quality is amazing, but just her story.

If you can listen to Jane's story and not be impacted emotionally and mentally, not be inspired, not have a shift in perspective, I was going to say, then there's something wrong with you. That's a bit harsh, but it's like, you know, like I love. One of the things about my job is I'm often talking to people who really

are dealing with like, genuinely, genuinely hard stuff. And I don't know anyone who's dealt with anything harder than her, who was literally a couple of hours away from death and in intensive care for eighty two days and had to literally say goodbye to her children because she was dying on a given day. And obviously that didn't happen. And that's me giving you two percent of the story.

But to listen to her talk and to listen to the way that she dealt with things and deals with things much harder than I've ever even had to think about for myself, it just fills me. Well, it fills me with a little bit of guilt for what a big fucking baby I have been at times, but I can't change that. But it just shines a light on for me. It shines a light on whatever the term is, lucky, blessed.

You know, I don't know how fortunate I am that I have the life I do in the city that I live in, with the people that I have around me. That in the context, you know, and I think about, oh, I'm us all back on my shoulder on this or that, and I just think how different life is life experiences when you look at your life situation, circumstance, environment, relationships, job, blah blah blah, all of the bits and pieces that make up your life when you look at it through

a different window or a different lens. I got. I think I've cried on a podcast two or three times in two thousand episodes. I cried on that with her, and she, you know what, I'm going to share something with you, like, I've never met anyone who's just just got so many challenges but is so concerned about other people and not in a you know, when you meet people, Tiff, and it's like there, I don't know that they're very positive in all of that. And I try and be that.

And it's not that it's not genuine, but it seems to. It's like with you and me, I think you and I can both be like super positive or a bit negative or and when we try and be the best versions of ourselves, right, but we're both flawed. And I'm not saying she's not flawed, but when she talks about stuff and when she is coming from a place of love and kindness and encouragement and support, there's no persona

in it all right. So the other day we had this chat, and later on she sent me this message, which probably won't want me sending, but anyway, she wrote, Harps, thanks again for the interview. If there's one thing I know to be true about you, it's not a matter of if you'll speak to us, sellout crowd in a big stadium or arena. It's just a matter of when Yes, you're a hard worker, but you also have a quality that can't be taught. You are one of the great

thought leaders of our time. I am blessed to be here to witness it. Have a great weekend, Jane. And I read that, I'm like, I don't know where that came from. Like that wasn't prompted by me, I didn't, you know, And it was just like she sat down and that's what she thinks, and that that's what she feels.

I think she overestimates me by the way, thank you, Janie, but just for somebody to do that when they don't at all need to do that, Like I already think highly of her, but she's so concerned that in the middle of her still dealing with lots of stuff, she's she's trying to make me feel good, you know, like she's concerned about how I am. She's cheering me on. I'm like, oh my god, I need to do better.

You haven't earned this. No, that's not it at all. I think it's I think it's two things. It's it's having an awareness of how you feel and what you feel and acknowledging that and honoring that and not beating yourself up just going oh wow, right now I'm really anxious or I'm really sad, or I'm really but there's probably not a lot to be anxious or sad about. But nonetheless, my experience is real, so're validating that. But also part two is not to then immerse ourselves in

maybe self pity. I think that's a separate a level of awareness. And then part three maybe of that is to then to try to be curious about it and realize that you know, there are people in better positions than you, there are people in worse positions than you, and you've been here before, and it's going to pass. Like this is not a permanent state. Hi, everybody, we're back. Sorry about that, we had a little moment, we had

a little interruption here, but technicality we're back. So I think that, yeah, like having that self awareness around what I think and feel is real and I don't need to beat myself up about it. Like self awareness is not self loathing. But also at the same time consciously maybe consciously working towards dealing with things in a way where we don't respond so dramatically or it doesn't impact us so much. You know. It's like that, how do we get good at performing under pressure or dealing with

pressure or dealing with hard things? And it's by putting ourselves in that situation. So the thing that gave me a one out of ten, sorry, a nine out of ten stress response or anxiety response, once I kind of desensitize myself to that situation or that challenge or that task or that whatever it is, maybe it only produces a one or two anxiety or stress response. And that's not because the task has changed or the situation or

the challenge, but rather because I've changed me. I think it's I think so much of what we talk about here and whether or not we're dealing with stuff like Jane, you know, as when you listen to that episode, folks. It's like her her story is almost like the ultimate

story of self management, self regulation, self awareness. Where everything that she could optimize and everything that she could control, and there wasn't much, but everything that she could control she did, right down to her thinking, right down to her responses. Like there was a time where she couldn't she couldn't communicate, she couldn't do anything, she couldn't talk, she couldn't breathe. She was on you know, live sport,

a machine was breathing for her. She couldn't use her hands, fingers. She was paralyzed, essentially, And she was telling me that in the middle of that, every day she just found beauty. She found beauty and the people that would come over every in every two hours and turn her over in bed, and she found a way to communicate with her eyes for the people that were around her. And she came to love the people that basically served her and looked

after her. She came to love them and demonstrate love for these strangers that became intertwined with her literally with her ability to exist in human form. I'm like, oh my god, you know it's for me, It's I think I kind of need to hear these stories and have these interactions because it keeps me grounded because I can,

you know, I can lose perspectives sometimes. So for me, it's like it's that, you know, it's all about context, it's all about being able to realize and you know, there's this thing that's going on, but then there's also there's this story, and I'm telling myself about the thing and what's the real issue, and then what's my story about the issue, and those are quite often pretty different.

then there's the stuff, but then there's the practice. There's the practice of being around good people or taking the time to appreciate, like I'm having a big thing at the moment myself where I'm just like, you need to stop being so busy. People sold you for years about how much you do and how busy you are, and

you're like, yeah, no, no, not now. I'm like, God, you'd stop it stop And it's like you're not ready to realize until you're ready to realize, And yeah, so I guess I'm just thinking about the what like what did you draw from hers? But did you draw anything specifically where you went I'm going to implement this or I'm going to do something differently, or or I'm going to try and hold on this piece of change just for me.

dying today. We're going to say goodbye. Like that's even a hard sentence to say. And I didn't even want to say it, but that's literally the truth of the situation. We're going into a hospital to say goodbye to our mother. You know. After that, I'm like, oh god, yeah, this is I need to rethink. I need to look at life through a different lens. And I'm still working on that now. I'm still I'm still unpacking that conversation with

her for myself. And you know, look, I mean, different things affect people in a different way, and the same thing affects different people differently, right. But I think one of the dangers of or one of the dangers one of the traps maybe I don't know if it's danger, but one of the traps of self help and personal development and behavioral psychology and podcast is it is easy to say stuff. It's easy. It's relatively easy to have

this conversation. But really, for me, Craig Harper, not the podcast and not the whatever the fuck I am, not the academic, not the coach, but just me, the human being. Like I think what really matters, like who I really am is what I do when I'm not on this show. It's like, what like when it's just me and me, or perhaps me and God or my higher power or whatever it is that we think we have access to me,

divine intelligence, whatever it is. I think that's really that's where I really get to know me better, because it's the you that nobody sees, that's the real you, you know. Now, I think I try very hard on this show to be as authentic as somebody can be in front of thousands of people listening. But I also know that I have an ego. I also know that I want people to like me. I also know that I want people to come back and listen to the show. I want

people to go away and say good things. So I would be kidding myself and lying to myself if I didn't acknowledge that there are times when I'm not being fully transparent where you know where of course, there's a persona to an extent, of course, there's the I want to be the version of me that I think people will connect with, you know, And and we can't be everything to everyone, and we can't just show up in every conversation and in every moment in time just our

rawst most base, falling apart self. But you know, for me, it's trying to think about all right, get away from that, get away from the attention and the love and the you know, the likes and all that stuff, Like what actually are you about? And what is this for? Like what are your motives? Like why do you do this thing? Why do you do these things? You say you want to help people? But is that really number one? Or

is that number four? There's number one. Your fucking ego is number one, you know it's and without beating myself up, it's for me. It's self awareness. I'm trying to understand me in real time, like I try to understand me right now in this conversation with you that people are going to listen to, because I think and again, these are just my thoughts everyone. This is not it's not based on research what I'm about to say. But I think, like we all want to be loved and approved of,

and we all want want connection. We all want people to think highly of us, and nobody wants people to think badly of us or them, and and you know, we all want to impress someone, and we all want to be safe, and we all want to be you know, and when you factor all that in, well, of course that's going to influence how you present yourself to others, you know, And that's not a bad thing, that's a human thing. But it's went I'm by myself. It's when you're by yourself and there is no judge, there is

no audience, there is no external observation or critique. Nobody's judging me, nobody's listening to me, nobody's seeing me, nobody's giving me anything. It's like, well, what am I doing now when no one's looking? Like? What am I really paying attention to? What really has my focus and my energy? Do I really want to love and serve people? Or am I just a good fucking communicator who knows how to say the right things? Because that's a trap, you know.

I told you this. I've shared this maybe once or twice. But when I was young and I had this pastor in a church I was at and he he came up. He was beyond wise. He was old, like super old. Compare. I was like twenty one or two. He was heading towards eighty and he came up and he said to me, it was in context. I don't know what I'd done, probably been a smart ass. And he said to me, he goes you have a gift, he goes your tongue. Basically,

he was saying communication. He goes, your tongue is a gift and you need to you need to figure out for the rest of your life if you want to build people up or tear them down, he goes, because you can do both. Because it's like, if anybody had a bit of a go at me verbally, I could just slice and dicee them. And my story was, yeah, but they started it right, do you know what I mean? Because I could because I was a smart ass and

my brain works quicker, my mouth works quicker. And he said to me, you need to figure out what you're going to do with that gift. And it was like he just and I loved him and respected him, and no one else in the world could have told me that except him. And I'm like, oh, just oh, yes, yes. And if I'm being honest, I don't always do it. I try to do it, but I don't always do it. But I think that's the you know, that's the journey, isn't it.

I've had an awareness around that. I do spend a lot of time alone, probably more than people would think. I'll probably spend twenty hours a day alone because I live by myself, and you know, I'm not in a relationships. So go to bed alone, get up alone. You know, don't have brothers, don't have sisters, don't have you know, my parents live two hours away, and so there's a lot of alone time. But it's very easy to still

be not fully present even though you're alone. And so I often feel compelled to just fucking pick up my phone, just turn that on, just to because there's a low level angs in just leaning into whatever it is where I'm just still and i'm you know, and I'm trying to turn off the creative part of my brain because I'm always thinking about someone something I can write on the whiteboard, a workshop I can do, like a topic we can explore in the podcast or whatever it is.

But to get out of all of that, to get out of the busyness of the mind, and to get out of the fear of the mind, and to get out of the habitual repetition of the mind, you know, and then to walk through all of those bits of the mind and get to that door at the end of the mind where you open that door and then you walk through and none of that is there, Like for me, trying to get into that space more often

is currently where I'm at. Yeah, And also and I don't even know what this means, but I've spoken about it a bit recently. But for me, just trying to figure out what a spiritual life for me, not for anyone else, not what I think people should do, not you know, there's no recommendations in this for anyone. It's just for me trying to figure out what is you know, what is the Is there a spiritual component to my life? Do I want there to be? What does that mean?

Away from all the pseudo religious pseudo spiritual fluff and bullshit. What does that mean? Because I think for me, like the challenge is not to understand my mind. For me, it's more to get out of my mind. It's too like to get out of the cognition, the creativity, the thinking, the problem solving that it's to get out of all of that and to not think for a while, you know, to not ruminate, to not plan, to not strategize, to not try to be something. You know?

around fifteen minutes. Yeah, But I because I walk so much every day, I walk about ten k's which is, you know, the best part of an hour and a half towards two hours, and I'm listening to less and less stuff. There's a lot of Yeah, trying to quieten the mind for everyone is a battle, but for me it's and it's not quiet. And my mind's not busy because of fear or chaos or anxiety. It's just busy

because I'm always just thinking about shit. It's more creative, it's more curiosity, but there's still I still there's I still think there's there's value in getting out of that, because life's not all about building this or solving that or fixing that or creating that. I think that's an important part. But I also think it's great to be unproductive. It's great to be still. It's great to achieve nothing. You know, it's great to just sit in gratitude. You know.

never not planning. And it puts my body and mind in a state of rush all the time, rush and urgency and like that translates to lack and stress and you know, just no presence. And it took me most of this conversation before I remembered the dandongs and went, oh, I did do it. I was like, I don't, I've never done I don't do it, but I did do it for a little while, right, Yeah, I find it. You know, getting out of our life and finding a space that allows that is really hard.

and a little bit of distance. Yeah, because it's you know, you wake up in a minute and you're forty five, or you wake up and you're fifty, or you wake up and you're you know, you're me, you're sixty two. And I don't know what other sixty two year olds feel like, but nothing, nothing about me. And I'm not saying this is this is not a brag, but I don't feel on any level sixty two. I don't physiologically or emotionally or cognitively. I don't. But nonetheless that's where

I am. But I think this brings us back to that the often discussing about living intentionally, where you know, it's a bit of that life iron stuff, because you know, do you want balance here? I want balance? Do you want to be financially successful?

what is that for me? And if I'm going to create this version of a life where I've got productive time and unproductive time times where you know, I'm redlining it and my foot's on the accelerator and I'm just going hard, and then times where I'm either literally or metaphorically in the hammock, times where I'm crying, times where I'm laughing, times where you know it's things are going great, and times where things aren't going great, and times where

I'm all about my brain, and times where I'm all about my physical health, and times when I'm all about making dough, and then times where I'm all about just getting away from it, Like how do I build this existence that kind of reflects who and how I want to be and rather than just talking about things that we never actually do. Like this is my ongoing frustration with personal development and self help and behavioral psychology and

podcasts and books. And it's not like I don't think the content the podcast or the book or the workshop is the problem, but rather the challenge is to get us humans who love listening to personal development while simultaneously not operationalizing it. It's like, we love to listen to self help, we love to get motivated, we love to get inspired, we love to learn new things about the

human condition. But that's not the same as putting an into practice and creating results consistently over time, and then one or two or five years down the track. Now you've literally reinvented yourself. Now you're physically, mentally, emotionally, practically, financially in a vastly improved place. Because you heard something, you explored it, you made a decision, you applied to something, you adapted and adjusted and improvised and overcame and you

solved problems. And now here you are. You know, this is like because it's ongoing, like we don't get there, we don't go and now I'm here. Now I've got the job, Now I've got the money, Now I've got the person. Because we're just we're always you know. It doesn't mean we can't be more or less grateful or more or less content, but where you know, this is a journey until we're not here anymore.

I'm going to do it tomorrow. But think of all the people that you and I know. You know Joel Sardi who's in a wheelchair, who has a spinal cord injury, who's a quadriplegic with some upper body function. Joel can't get up today and go deah, fuck quadriplegia. I'm not doing that today. I can't be bothered. I've got shit on. I'm sad, I'm anxious, I'm depressed. It's inconvenient, it doesn't suit me right. But we can do that. Most of us can go. I'm not doing whatever it is. I'm

not going to change my diet today. I'm not going to make the decision today. I'm not going to do the work today. But for somebody like Joel, it takes him three hours every day to get ready just to start the day because Joel can't walk into the shower and have a shower. Joel can't Joel needs help with everything, so does John, you know. So it's like we when we're put in a certain situation where we don't have a choice, where we just do what's required and we

just find a way. But when your life is pretty you know, like I'll use me as an example, So I'm not offending anyone, but I don't need to make any massive changes because you know, it doesn't matter, Like it doesn't matter today, it probably doesn't matter tomorrow. And if I'm I'm happy charming Craig on the podcast, but a prick off the podcast, but nobody ever knows, well, fuck, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, do you know what

I'm saying? Like my point is, we all have this potential to change today because if someone has a heart attack today and they don't die, they're dealing with the heart attack today and they're dealing with the concerts of consequences of the heart attack today, They're not dealing with it next Thursday, right, and today they have the capacity to deal with it, and they just do and they make the psychological, emotional, and behavioral and medical adjustments that

they need to because they can't defer it because it's here. But the problem with optional change, right, like losing weight, like changing my job, like getting a black belt in karate, like whatever it is, like enrolling in a course, like is we don't have to do it today, Like there's no urgency I can. I can put that shit off for as long as I want. And so then we do and we're like, yeah, it doesn't it's not convenient.

I've got this. I've got that. My low backers saw the kids are on holidays, my mom's this, my dad did that. But bah bah, And now it's twenty twenty eight and we're still telling ourselves bullshit stories to rationalize not using our potential.

but I can drive up and see them. There's so many people that can't drive and see their parents. I'm lucky, and I'm sixty two and I've still got both my parents. And as people often say to me, you're so blessed, you're so lucky. I agree, and I have nothing but gratitude, you know, And are they do? I wish they'd were they're fucking hearing aids. You know, yes, can Mum turn a tiny little grain of sand into Mount Everest? Oh? Yes she can? Can she? You know all that? But

is she gorgeous? And do I love both of them? I love both of them. And you know, one day I wish that they were here to bother me, you know what I mean? One day i'ld wish that I could put up with Mum, you know, being anxious or overthinking the fuck out of something, or Dad looking down his nose at me, going, you know, telling me off because I need a fucking shave or whatever he you know, last week I went up there's not a word of a lie, went up for his birthday and it was cold,

and I walked in the house wearing a beanie. It's my birthday. The first thing he says to me, not as good A happy birthday? Nothing, He goes, what's that stupid hat on your head?